We've been saying it for years: The moment they stop messing around with rushed, under-funded movie tie-ins and make a real Batman game, we'll have a huge hit on our hands. With Arkham Asylum, Rocksteady has proved us right-this game finally does ...

Fights against these 'roid-raging thugs are exciting, but the game goes back to this well a few times too often

Not many games let you turn your arm into a long steel blade and cut people in half-top half going this-a-way, bottom half going that-a-way. Even fewer let you turn your hands into giant claws to cut off your victims' legs, too. And as far as we know, ...

Alex's Blade Arm is one of the most effective--and gruesome--weapons in Mercer's repertoire. No word, though, on whether or not you can take it on the plane

It's been nearly four years since the Xbox 360 helped consoles get their graphical groove back, which - of course - kicked off the current console generation. Time flies, doesn't it? The Xbox 360, then -- if we're going by Tech Standard Time (TST) -- ...

Why? Because we've finally reached a temporary cease-fire in the war over who can render the most realistic videogame graphics. And so, in order to differentiate their games from the bump-mapped masses, many developers are getting creative

By now, when people think of The Sims franchise, they think of a virtual dollhouse in which you guide little idiot people through the mundane details of their lives rather than living your own. That reputation is both well-deserved and unjust. Now ...

You can create a Sim jerk using traits like Evil and Mean Spirited. Dan also enjoys gardening

Despite what you see in the screenshots in this review, H.A.W.X. is as much a flight simulator as Burnout Paradise is a driving sim. Ubisoft's latest liberty with the Tom Clancy franchise is more akin to Descent or Wing Commander than it is to ...

As David Crenshaw, former leader of the Air Force's elite H.A.W.X. squadron, you've now turned to the private sector to pay the bills and catch the thrills. In the first half of the game, Artemis Global Security hires you to guard oil refineries and ...

Don't tell Newton: Ramming your hot rod full-speed into a concrete block, idling minivan, or in-game ad billboard in Burnout Paradise doesn't really slow you down. The game is a steady, fuel-injected dose of momentum from spark plug to finish line. ...

Some cars earn a boost from stunts, others from banging against other vehicles and objects in the environment, and still another type gains it by just maintaining a high speed

Empire: Total War and Stormrise are two radically different games with a common core. Developed by Creative Assembly, they give us a rare opportunity to see the stark contrast between what PC and console strategy games can and cannot do. Empire is a ...

There is indeed innovation on display in Stormrise. I haven't seen a game which forced such a reorientation of my approach to strategy gaming since Homeworld. It offers a large battlefield that has tactically significant verticality-with levels in the ...

Fans of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War might feel burned by the barely recognizable sequel to their old favorite, but going in without expecting it to be yet another typical real-time strategy game is extremely rewarding. That's because DoW II is ...

In the single-player campaign, the focus is on using your Space Marines' special abilities to maximum lethal effect

Here's the thing about Mirror's Edge: It's 85 percent awesome, and we're as surprised as anyone that the part that's awesome is the first-person parkour. The running, jumping, and climbing bits are utterly engaging and even transcendent. There's ...

Running, jumping, and climbing across rooftops is glorious! Awesome art direction

We'd like the game much more without the sucky melee combat

And then you go inside. Moving into an office building or a sewer cuts down on the number of potential paths, but even that's not so bad. The game really falls apart when you stop running from the cops-as an early loading screen tip advises you-and ...

It's been a while since we've seen a proper FEAR game. After Monolith's 2005 original, there were a couple of very mediocre expansions made by a different studio. When Monolith got the franchise back, we expected great things from its second outing; ...

Alma is genuinely creepy ; wall-crawling enemies frighten

There's nothing new to keep the shooting action interesting ; multiplayer is very forgettable

What is unique to the FEAR franchise is its main antagonist, Alma, the understandably upset ghost of a little girl exploited by an evil corporation that used her DNA to create psychically controlled clone soldiers. Alma's paranormal tantrum manifests ...