Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Electronic Arts
Genre: Family/Party
ESRB rating: Everyone
Release date: Available now

In our text-crazed world, family game nights have become a faded relic of the past. Sure, a walk through your local Toys R’ Us will yield ample evidence that the board games we grew up with as kids are still enjoying shelf life. But they’re usually busted out for special occasions, and even then, Rock Band and Dance Central often command the living-room stage. So game developers look to the ever-popular digital playground to breathe new life into those golden oldies, presenting us with compelling new reasons to gather around the tube and get our game on. It’s this strategy which EA employs in Monopoly Streets.

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Publisher: Activision
Developer: Eurocom
Genre: First Person Shooter
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

The cult of Goldeneye is a strange one. For all intents, the original N64 version never should have succeeded. It was a licensed game, released a year too late because of development issues on a misunderstood platform that was using cartridges when the industry had moved on to disc-based media. In those tween years of video gaming, shooters were the bastion of the PC world, which looked down upon every sophomoric attempt made for the lower-class home console crowd. But Nintendo held a wild card in Rare, a British-based third-party developer that shared the Big N’s commitment to exhaustive quality control and expert game design. Both houses were dedicated to releasing products only when they had been fine-tuned towards one unwavering goal – providing a fun gameplay experience. And like Mario Kart before it, Rare’s Goldeneye 007 pushed sales of extra controllers like few other games, with a compelling four-player split-screen multiplayer mode that offered the next best alternative to a home-based LAN party. More than a decade later, Activision hopes to celebrate this nostalgia by bringing James Bond back to the company that first gave him that coveted license for virtual kills.

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Publisher: Activision
Developer: Beenox
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7, 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo/Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4000+ or better CPU, GeForce 7900 GT/Radeon X1900 or better graphics card, 2 GB RAM, 9 GB hard-drive space
Genre: Action/Third-person shooter
ESRB Rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

Anyone who has played Transformers: The Game or Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, both of which are based on the Michael Bay movies, knows that, while the games were an entertaining diversion, they didn’t quite deliver on their promises. Most people would agree that they were far from the worst games ever to be based on a movie, but they were also far from the best. Enter Transformers: War for Cybertron, which takes place on the titular homeworld of the Transformers, prior to their arrival on Earth, during the civil war between the Autobots and the Decepticons.

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Publisher: EA Sports
Developer: Immersion Games
Genre: Wrestling/Fighting
ESRB Rating: Teen
Release Date: Available now

If there’s a sport that seems to be growing in popularity at a lightning fast pace, it’s mixed martial arts. For those of you who are perhaps unaware, mixed martial arts (MMA) is a full contact sport which allows for various fighting styles and techniques, including strikes with hands and feet, both while standing and on the ground. Winners are decided by fighters either knocking out their opponent, having their opponent submit, a technical knockout as determined by the referee or by the total amount of points earned by the end of the match. Trying to capitalize on its recent fame, EA Sports has released their take on the activity with its video game titled simply MMA.

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Publisher: Ignition Entertainment
Developer: Zombie Studios
Genre: FPS
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available Now

By the title alone, you’d think that Blacklight: Tango Down was a Spanish-language dancing game. This could not be further from the truth, and in confidence, I’m relieved by that fact. No, the only “tangos” you engage in this competitive multiplayer shooter are sighting you from a dark corner and using any of a number of weapon combinations and skill-enhancing weapon tags to make your death as personal as they can while playing from halfway across the globe.

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Publisher: Lunar Workshop
Developer: Lunar Workshop
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/7; ATI or NVidia graphics card (2006 or newer)
Genre: Strategy
ESRB rating: Not Rated
Release date: Available now
Review by: Remy Ransom

Ever been quick to judge a game? Yeah, me too. Ever immediately dismissed a game because it wasn’t graphically impressive? Yeah, same here, we sure do have a lot in common. How bout this one? Ever sat up at night wondering what would happen if Tron and Warcraft had an illegitimate child that was abandoned at an orphanage and raised by 1337 speakers? Oh, you haven’t? Well, this is awkward. I feel that Jorge Rodriguez current [insert any company title here] of indie developer Lunar Workshop may have as well, when Digitanks was in its early phases. What is Digitanks exactly? It’s a 3D turn-based artillery strategy game. Smokers beware, that may be far too much to say in one breath. Somewhere in a gamers mind, there’s that area that screams out mightily, “I seriously need to destroy something!” And with Digitanks you, too, can shell out your aggressions.

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Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sega
Genre: Racing
Rating: Everyone
Release Date: Available now

In that past age when Nintendo ruled the console roost, Sega arguably held sway over the arcade. While Nintendo busted its mojo to create real magic through their Mario series, Sega was demonstrating that they could also work real wizardry through their arcade circuitry, churning out bright, colorful entertainments that screamed loud and clear from across a crowded bowling alley, compelling players to drop one more quarter. And while arcades never morphed into the bizarre futurescapes teased by Tron, Sega’s legacy lived long as gamers waxed nostalgic for that impressive series of addictive amusements that dominated the tail end of the 1990s. Their Dreamcast might have proven the last gasp for these games, but now that current console owners have virtual storefronts at their finger tips, Sega has a new pipeline to bring that arcade experience back home. It’s time to take Crazy Taxi for a spin again.

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Publisher: Stickmen Studios
Developer: Stickmen Studios
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/7; AMD/Pentium 2.0 GHz; 256MB RAM; 64MB GeForce 4 Ti or ATI equivalent; DirectX: 9.0c; 300MB hard drive space; Soundblaster compatible
Genre: Puzzle
ESRB rating: Everyone
Release date: Available now

Back in the days of yore, before I ever considered becoming a game reviewer, I was content to play games without having to dissect them for science. I used to wonder if there were any unpleasant aspects to being a gaming journalist. At that time I couldn’t come up with an answer, because as a teenager it was impossible to find any flaw with the get-games-for-free-and-play-them scenario. Now, as both a grown man and a game reviewer, I can answer that question, although I wish I still couldn’t. The worst part is recognizing the developers’ hard work and dedication, and yet…decidedly not liking the game.

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Publisher: Atari
Developer: Vitamin G Studios
System requirements: Windows XP SP2/Vista/Win 7, Intel Core2Duo E4300 or AMD Athlon X2 3800+ or faster CPU, 1 GB RAM, ATI Radeon X1650/NVIDIA GeForce 7600 or better graphics card, DirectX 9.0c, 1 GB hard-drive space, DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound card
Genre: Casual
ESRB rating: Everyone
Release date: Available now

My life is dominated by stressors. My line of work is stressful. Money problems are stressful. However, developer Vitamin G Studios’ The Undergarden is not stressful. In fact, it has the exact opposite affect on my chi. At first, when I heard about the “casual Zen” genre, I had mental images of bamboo stalks waving in gentle breezes while cherub-esque figures giggled and played games of chase. Then, before playing The Undergarden, I watched a few videos of the gameplay and realized that Vitamin G might be onto something unique and refreshing.

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Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Harmonix
Genre: Music
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

The music-game genre has come a long way since that first Guitar Hero was released for the Playstation 2 in 2005. But every step of the way, musical purists have always complained that a player’s time would be better spent learning a real instrument instead of its plastic counterpart. Developer Harmonix has answered this complaint with Rock Band 3, which boasts the ability to teach you how to play, provided you have the desire (and the cash) to add yet another set of instruments to your collection.

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Publisher: Raptisoft
Developer: Raptisoft
Compatibility: iOS 3.0 or later
Genre: RPG/Action
iTunes Rating: 9+
Release date: Available now

Solomon’s Keep is my favorite iOS game so far. It’s one of those items that I want to tell all of my iDevice-owning friends to buy. Heck, I even bought a copy on iTunes as a gift for a friend. Keep was developed by Raptisoft, a company of which I had been unaware, but judging by this game and the offerings on their website, they’ve got a good thing going. Keep takes elements from dungeon-crawlers, rogue-alikes and RPGs and wraps them up into a package that’s perfect for mobile gaming. If you’ve played and enjoyed hack’n’slash RPGs such as the Diablo series, then you must play this game. And if the items I just mentioned are unfamiliar, you’re in for an eye-opening treat.

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Publisher: Legacy Interactive
Developer: Legacy Interactive
System requirements: Windows XP (SP2)/Vista/7; 1.5 GHz CPU; 512 MB RAM; GeForce3 Graphics Card with 64 MB VRAM
Genre: Puzzle Adventure
Release date: Available now

Robin Hood is a story that nearly everyone over the age of 5 can tell you without a second thought. There are a myriad of versions, re-tellings, re-imaginings, spinoffs and based-ons that approach the tale from more different angles than can be counted, so it’s not surprising that Legacy Interactive took a slightly unusual approach in making Robin Hood a puzzle adventure game.

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Publisher: DreamBox Games
Developer: DreamBox Games
Genre: Action-Adventure
ESRB Rating: Everyone
Release Date: Available now

As a child of the 80’s, the particular brand of action-adventuring pioneered by the Metroid and Zelda series is melded to my marrow. The way to my heart is paved through a tricky expanse of puzzling caverns that can only be surmounted by locating mystic artifacts which in turn unlock new pathways. At least, that’s what I tell my wife. It’s a game design that’s timeless in its ability to juice our inquisitive nature – with each new power up offering a chance to finally get our hands on that precious missile expansion or treasure chest that once dangled just out of reach. And it’s that nostalgia that drives many indie darlings, including last year’s Super Metroid homage, Shadow Conspiracy, and one that developer DreamBox Games employs in their new WiiWare release, Robox.

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Publisher: Tripwire Interactive
Developer: Teotl Studios
System requirements: Windows XP SP2/Vista/Win 7, 2 GHz or faster CPU (dual core recommended), 1 GB RAM, graphics card with Shader Model 3 support, DirectX 9-compatible sound card, DirectX 9, 1.5 GB hard-drive space
Genre: First-person action-puzzle
ESRB rating: Mature
Release date: Available now

Sometimes small developers can provide the only avenue to deviate from dominant gaming fads, even in their very first release. First-person shooters have fallen into a rut of late on the personal computer, what with an emphasis on ultra-realistic simulation of real-life human-to-human combat. In that context, Teotl Studios—a small Swedish game developer—has released an innovative twist on the genre. Reminiscent of two Valve games—Half-Life 2 and Portal—this new release with the unusual name The Ball attempts to provide us with a decidedly different set of fun challenges.

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Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft Romania
Genre: Flight Sim
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

I should start off by saying it is impossible for me to play a flight game without spouting Top Gun quotes. Even while I was playing through Landit Bandit, a game about a pedal-powered helicopter, I found myself trying to fly like Maverick. But I will do my best to keep the quotes to a minimum for this review. Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. 2, by Ubisoft, is a flight combat game that features quick and deadly dogfighing. How was the game, you ask? Well, I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.

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