IGN

Red Dead Redemption is a must-play game. Rockstar has taken the Western to new heights and created one of the deepest, most fun, and most gorgeous games around. You can expect the occasional bug or visual hiccup, but you can also expect a fantastic game that offers the Western experience we've all been waiting for. Red Dead Redemption is a complete game in every sense -- both the single player and multiplayer modes are excellent -- and still manages to offer an attention to detail you rarely see from a game of this scope.

Nier is ugly and it can get really repetitive, forcing players to backtrack multiple times across familiar locations. But for every frustration I encountered in Nier, there were surprising gameplay twists, unsettling aesthetics and intriguing characters to meet. The ideas that Nier was built on are extremely solid -- the execution just falls short.

Skate 3 is by no means a disappointing addition to the series, but those who sunk their cash into last year's Skate 2 really don't have much of a reason to take the plunge here. Thankfully the gameplay is still the most impressive virtual representation of skateboarding around and the new audio treatment will delight fans of the series.

Lost Planet 2 is at its best when you're a giant robot fighting other giant robots in other words, when it's simple. At its core it's a potentially great action game and it's very good-looking, but it explains itself so incredibly poorly and has such an awkward structure and poor checkpointing that a lot of the fun is ruined by interminable frustration not to mention the fact that it's basically unplayable as a single-player game.

Iron Man 2 has some good ideas; the custom loadouts, the different armors, and Cheadle and Jackson providing voices; but they don't pan out. In the end, this is an uninspired brawl from one mission to the next. You don't need to worry about much, the game isn't that hard, and it'll be over before you know it.

Record of Agarest War is a traditional strategy RPG that has a few nice perks but stumbles enough to keep it from greatness. It's being marketed as an erotic SRPG, but in reality it's actually very tame. A little cleavage is all you're going to see here. I would rather it have gone more over-the-top with its sexuality, as that would have made it a more unique experience. But if you're a fan of the genre, Agarest War will provide a very long adventure that spans generations.

For all its flaws though, it's Alan Wake's eventual shift into meticulously-paced set-pieces and relentless sensory assault that linger once the credits roll. It's certainly a long way from flawed genius but it's an experience that's hard to shake when it's all over. And it's rare you get to say that about a game these days.

It's a shame that something as seemingly inconsequential as the load times is the main problem with a game as good as ModNation Racers, but I guess that speaks to the overall quality of everything else. The driving is fun, the creating is deep but easy, and the community is going to thrive. Sure, you might have to wait a bit longer than you'd like to get to the racing, but it's honestly not that bad and this game is worth it.

ModNation Racers isn't just a competent kart racer, it's a very good one with an innovative strategic twist. Its player creation features aren't doomed to be ignored; they're enticing, accessible and well-presented enough to really feel integral to the game, rather than an accomplished but ultimately pointless time-sink for dedicated players only. It's the best kart-racing game we've played in a very long while, and one of the first that shows its own personality rather than piggybacking off popular characters or aping the kings of the genre and the excellent customisation features help to make a good thing even better.

In spite of some mediocre voice acting, a bit of wooden animation and a strangely out of character climax, Sherlock Holmes Versus Jack the Ripper is a fascinating re-imagining of the Whitechapel murders. Fans of Arthur Conan Doyle's famous consulting detective will have a blast rooting out all the Holmes references and in-jokes while adventure fans will be pulled along by the compelling story and varied range of gameplay.