Best Sleeper Hit: WordJong (Nintendo DS) — It may not sell like Mario, but this mishmash of Scrabble and mah-jongg hooks you like handheld crack. Already a word-of-mouth hit, despite being released only this month, WordJong is perfect for quiet afternoons, loud commutes, or romantic walks on the beach. Best…

Nothing says “holiday spirit” quite like stabbing a terrorist or hammering a goombah, as the hottest games this season invite us to do. But no matter how cutting-edge the stars of 2007 may be, they are also unmistakably familiar. This week, we stack the holiday hits of today against the…

For a game that’s considered Microsoft’s premier 360 title this holiday season, it’s amazing how sloppy Mass Effect is. Graphical glitches distract from otherwise fascinating character designs and alien vistas, constant stops and stutters lengthen load times, and the inventory system must be the worst in history. And just as…

The unsettling tone is established early in Call of Duty 4, when the president of a Middle Eastern nation is publicly executed on the world stage, and you, the player, experience the deposed leader’s final minutes through his own eyes, witnessing — through the rear window of a car —…

Castlevania, the vampire-hunting series that stretches over 20 years and as many games, has two kinds of fans. There are the traditionalists, who’ve followed the games since they were straight-up action titles with thumb-busting combat and infamously steep difficulty curves. Most agree that the best of the old-school Castlevanias is…

It must’ve been a scorching summer day when the game developer stared at his thermometer and realized: “Sweet sassy molassey, this would make a helluva game!” How else to explain the existence of the quirky puzzle series Mercury Meltdown? Debuting on the PSP, the original Mercury Meltdown turned Marble Madness…

Whether it’s $600 PlayStation 3s, $50 a year for the option to play your Xbox 360 online, or the five bucks Nintendo shamelessly charges for 20-year-old NES games on the Wii’s Virtual Console, devoted gamers have gotten used to assuming the position when it comes to the costs attached to…

What’s left to say about Halo 3? How about this: All the pomp and circumstance surrounding its launch sure have been distracting. Commercials that look like clips from a Hollywood movie, extravagant collectors’ sets that sell for $130, limited-edition Xbox 360s with a green-and-gold Halo-inspired color scheme, and a midnight…

In terms of the yawning chasm between what was promised and what has been delivered, Lair earns the distinction of being the biggest letdown ever for PlayStation 3. Worse, it’s also one of those games where massive prerelease hype merely ended up underscoring its flaws, transmogrifying a game that would’ve…

Typically, first-person shooters are a lot like virtual shooting galleries: Great fun, yes, but not exactly thought-provoking. So it’s nice when an FPS comes along that’s trying to be something more — and even better when it actually succeeds. Sometimes you know it in the first few minutes. Take Half-Life:…

The next-gen consoles are sexy as hell, but it’s not all bad being the reigning “last-gen” champ either. With more than 100 million PlayStation 2 consoles sold, software companies can afford to be a little adventurous — after all, even if their game appeals to only 1 percent of that…

Before Sony, Sega, and Nintendo ruled the video gaming world, Atari was self-immolating like a financial Hindenburg, burying the millions of unsold games in a desert landfill. But before that, their legendary console, the Atari 2600, spawned a generation of passionate gamers. And a few still carry a torch for…

Ask a random person five years ago what sudoku is, and you’d be lucky if they mumbled something about Japanese ritual suicide. But go down any supermarket’s magazine aisle today, and you’ll find whole racks stuffed with cheapie newsprint books full of the addictive puzzles. People can’t get enough. They…

Despite seeming like just another pop fad from the Land of the Rising Sun, Yu-Gi-Oh! has shown amazing staying power, with as loyal (and rabid) a following as ever. Unless it eventually comes to light that the game’s collectible cards are laced with OxyContin, the maintaining of a notoriously fickle…

The concept behind All-Pro Football 2K8 is simply wonderful: Imagine a fantasy football league where you draft from a pool not of this season’s top players, but of the greatest NFL players of all time: Joe Montana, John Elway, Dick Butkus, Jerry Rice, Marcus Allen, Mike Ditka, and more than…

Having worked on more than 50 graphic novels for Marvel, DC, and other big-league imprints and penning everything from screenplays to a weekly Web column for the punk-pinup SuicideGirls, Warren Ellis might be the busiest writer in pop entertainment you’ve never heard of — though that could change. Fresh from…

If you felt Grindhouse was too polished (and lacking in T&A) to be mistaken for true ´70s exploitation cinema, Jonathan Yudis’ 2003 Pervert! doesn’t make the same “mistake”; it’s as shamelessly bad as can be, with naked, pendulous breasts nudging their way into almost every frame – context be damned…

The last hour of The Darkness is exactly what the game should have been from its opening moments: a magnificent, bloodthirsty mix of firepower and hellish wrath. Playing the role of Jackie Estacado — a hit man who inherited demonic powers via a family curse — you will spend the…

When Resident Evil 4 was originally released for the Nintendo GameCube in 2005, the game reinvented a lot of what had grown tiresome about the series. Most obvious were the setting and enemies you faced: Instead of the various building-overrun-by-zombies scenarios that played out in past versions, Resident Evil 4…

Once upon a time, the world breathed magic. Some believed this magic should belong only to the powerful, while others felt it was for everyone. So all the world’s beings went to war. The first battle took place in Brazil, where a lone elf with a sniper rifle notched an…

I was driving home from work the other day when it occurred to me that, despite being college-educated and reasonably intelligent, I have no idea how my car works. I know the gas goes in, because I do that part. But after that it gets fuzzy. When the mechanic’s telling…

Bold proclamation time: There wouldn’t even be an Xbox 360 without Halo. Microsoft lost billions on the original Xbox even with its mega-successful sci-fi games, so it’s hard to imagine the red ink that would have spilled without them; even suggesting a second go at the console business would’ve had…