IGN

You might be tempted to forgive Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad's shortcomings by pointing to the budget, $40 price tag. You'd have to be a very forgiving person to do that. Onechanbara is a digital disaster in nearly every way. It's ugly, sounds awful, handles poorly and has a premise that is as shallow as they come. There are simply too many other better options out there to waste time with this mess.

The gameplay changes are great and the multiplayer is excellent. If the story and new characters were better, this would be the perfect $20 download. But as it stands, it's still the best available by a long shot.

Rockstar may, however, be a victim of its own ambition, as players hold up the content of The Lost and Damned to direct comparison with its forebear. Nevertheless, it's a tale worth playing through and a welcome opportunity to once more step foot in the still magisterial Liberty City - and as an expansion it sets a new precedent for what's possible with downloadable content at a price that makes it unmissable.

Everything about X-Blades is mediocre. It works for what it is, and there's some charm to the action and the characters, but the gameplay design is lacking in ingenuity; a notion that is perpetuated the longer you play. Some will be able to find more enjoyment with X-Blades than I, but most will likely wind up walking away before the adventure is over.

Regardless, Street Fighter IV is no less than the new standard for beat-&-em-ups. It's a triumphant return for the series after an eight year hiatus and is a seamless blend of the old and new, at once accessible to lapsed pugilists while being nuanced enough for the dedicated core to wallow in its depths. What';s more, Street Fighter IV takes an aging template and makes it fresh once more, offering a revival in every sense of the word. The waiting is over Street Fighter IV is home, and it's one very special game.

Yes, there are games from your SEGA days that you won't find on this "ultimate" collection, and yes, the lack of online multiplayer is sucky, but neither of those things should keep SEGA fans away from this game. Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection is a slick package, a lot of unlockables, and 49 games; it can all be yours for $30. That's a steal, and I can't recommend picking this one up enough.

In that respect, it's similar to Electroplankton, or those Flash bubble-popping games. For people who don't get it, it'll just be another pretty but pointless bit of multimedia, and the arty aspirations won't be enough to mask the lack of substance. But if you succumb to its charms and let it meander its way into the deeper recesses of your consciousness, you'll find Flower to be full of some of the finest gaming moments known, and your life will be all the richer for playing it.

With F.E.A.R. 2, Monolith has crafted a solid follow-up to F.E.A.R. It's a good shooter, bordering on great at times, but it's not as groundbreaking as its predecessor. Still, it's definitely faithful to the idea of F.E.A.R., which is mainly trying to get under your skin using a combination of tried-and-true horror elements, not the least of which is a creepy little girl.

thatgamecompany's Co-founder, Jenova Chen, told me that Flower is experimenting with territory outside the traditional "fun pie," an abstract pie chart Chen constructed that maps out the emotions and motives of modern game genres. If you're interested in something very unique and very powerful, Flower is a must-play. It will especially resonate with people that possess a deep connection with nature and spirituality, as it's the type of game that reaches out to us and whispers about the beauty of life -- without saying anything at all.

F.E.A.R. 2 raises its game in final few hours with a few stand-out set-pieces including a cargo train assault, an eerie descent into ground zero and an ending so spectacularly obtuse it's likely to elicit more than its fair share of Wuh?'s. Overall though, rather than any sense of surprise or genre-shifting admiration, it's the minute-by-minute assault of trigger-fumbling tension and horror, married with the games superb underlining shooter mechanics that drive you toward the game's baffling conclusion.