Magna Carta: Tears of Blood takes place in the world of Efferia, where two races, the humans and the Yason, are locked in a bitter struggle for control of the land. The humans and the Yason are pretty much the same. The Yason are a bit more in tune with nature, and they have strange-looking ears, but functionally there isn't much of a difference between the two races. You control a hotheaded transvestite named Calintz, who is the captain of a group of mercenaries known as the Tears of Blood. The game picks up the story just as the humans launch a massive attack on the Yason in an attempt to end the war once and for all. The Tears of Blood join the effort, but the attack is foiled by the mysterious Queen Amilia of the Yason. As the Tears of Blood retreat, Calintz meets a strange amnesic girl named Reith, who has mystical healing powers beyond anything anyone has seen.

The two strike up an awkward and unrequited romance that carries the story through the adventure of trying to figure out who Reith is, where her powers came from, and how she can help bring peace to the world of Efferia. The story is full of mysticism and unexplained coincidences, but there are also plenty of political undertones as well. The cast of characters is bizarre, but interesting and well developed. It starts out a bit slow, but there's plenty of story here to hold your interest throughout the game. The story doesn't pull any punches, either, taking on heavier subjects like death and betrayal, while throwing in plenty of interesting plot twists to keep you guessing.

The biggest problem with the story is that the progression is so linear that it feels restrictive. There's no opportunity to stray off the path, because if you do a character will stop you and tell you to go another way. There are a few side quests you can pick up on, but for the most part you'll just be walking a narrow path from point A to point B. It feels like you're just going through the motions as the game dictates, rather than embarking on an epic quest of your own volition.

Most of the quests are pretty basic. There are quite a few missions where you have to travel to one town to gather information, only to get there and find out that the information you really need is in yet another town. As you travel from place to place you'll run into a variety of monsters that you can fight to earn experience and level up your characters. You can see the monsters on the map, and if you touch one you'll be pulled into a battle. The monsters are all laid out in specific areas, though, so the battles aren't actually random. This makes it a bit more difficult to power level your characters, although you really don't need to do that anyway. As long as you clear each area you visit, you'll level up at a pace that basically guarantees that you won't have any trouble with any of the enemies in the game.

The battle system in Magna Carta uses a mechanic similar to the judgment wheel in Shadow Hearts: Covenant. You can bring a party of three characters into battle, but you only ever control a single character. To attack, you simply have to run up to an enemy and the trinity circle will appear. This is basically just a little diagram with three button icons. By hitting the right button at the correct time, you'll get a "good" or a "great" success. If you do that with all three buttons, you'll be able to successfully attack. If you miss any of the three button presses, you'll fail the attack and lose your turn. If you get "great" on all three button presses, you'll get a boost to your trinity drive gauge. The trinity drive gauge is like an overdrive gauge that you can activate to boost your attack. By scoring all "great" hits, you can also perceive new moves. Each character can learn multiple fighting styles, and each fighting style has four different moves, which are activated with different combinations of buttons on the trinity circle. Only the X and circle buttons are used, though, so the combos never get too complex. In fact, you can get the timing down pretty easily, and after the first few minutes of the game you won't really have to worry about missing any attacks.

Initiative in battle is based on a leadership gauge, which is displayed in the top-right corner of the screen. The gauge constantly fills up as long as you're standing still, and once it reaches a certain point, you can attack. This action point varies depending on how many enemies you're fighting, and depending on how much other characters in your party trust you. If you're controlling a character that doesn't trust you at all, you'll need a lot of leadership in order for that character to act. The leadership mechanic is important to keep your eye on, because it can mean the difference between victory and defeat. If you play it right, you can often get two or three attacks for every one the enemy gets. That sword cuts both ways, though, so it's important to gain the trust of your allies. You can do that by giving them gifts or talking to them in a sort of minigame that essentially plays like a Japanese dating sim.

Every attack requires a specific type of chi. There are eight different types of elemental chi, and you can use talismans to replenish or alter chi as you see fit. Every battlefield you fight in has specific elemental properties that you have to pay attention to, because if the area you're in doesn't have the right kind of chi, you won't be able to attack. You can master multiple fighting styles with different chi associations, so if one type of chi runs out you can switch styles and keep fighting. It's also good to have a lot of variety within your party, so if one character is crippled by a lack of chi, you can switch to another character and finish the battle. The biggest problem with the chi system is that the icons used to represent the various elements aren't very intuitive. It takes awhile to memorize what each letter stands for, and it seems like it would be much easier to have a picture or a color to denote the various types of chi, rather than a plain boldface letter.

The battles are interesting overall, but as with most of these kinds of role-playing games, the battles can get repetitive after awhile. It's also strange to bring three characters into battle only to have two of those characters stand there doing absolutely nothing. The battle system is easy to exploit, as well. For example, you can just have a tank character stand in front of the two other characters, and since the enemies always attack the closest character, they'll just go after your tank while you use one of your other characters to deal damage. By doing this, you'll pretty much never have to worry about losing a battle.

Whether you're in battle or just walking around town, you'll be treated to plenty of nice sights in Magna Carta. Actually, at first glance you could easily mistake this game for a Final Fantasy title. The world of Efferia has the same sort of exotic fantasy theme that you've seen in countless other role-playing games, but it looks nice even if it isn't entirely original. The lush vegetation and primitive structures all share the same cohesive look, although there's a bit of a disconnect between different areas, since the transitions take place on a map rather than in the actual living, breathing world. The characters are all extremely detailed and their battle animations look great. Some of the characters are a bit garish to really be believable, and some are just plain strange. If you like your men to look like women and your women to look like porn stars, then you'll love the cast of characters here. The biggest problem with the visuals is that they're often obscured due to some awkward, fixed camera angles. There are times in battle where you can't even see your own characters. What's even worse is when you're running around between battles and you can't see the enemies in your path.

Magna Carta unfortunately doesn't sound as good as it looks. The voice-overs are absolutely terrible. The voices are all delivered without any inflection whatsoever, which makes the characters seem wooden and lifeless. Chalintz sounds like Matthew Broderick, which doesn't exactly give him a forceful presence on the battlefield. The music is all quite well done, with plenty of orchestral themes and a choral chant thrown in for good measure. The main title song is horrendous, though. It sounds like a B-side from one of Celine Dion's backup singer's failed attempts at a solo career. The battle noises and other sound effects are entirely unremarkable and you won't ever pay attention to them.

Magna Carta: Tears of Blood is a decent game for people who are craving a simple but satisfying role-playing experience. You can spend 40 or more hours getting through it, but once you finish it there isn't much reason to ever come back. The story is the strongest part of the game, and it would be interesting to see the world of Efferia fleshed out just to give it a little more depth. If Dragon Quest VIII is a bit too straightforward for you, and if you're looking for something to hold you over until Final Fantasy XII, you'd do well to check out Magna Carta.

Gamespot Score: 7.1

Gitaroo-Man follows the story of a young elementary student named U-1, a lonely loser with no self-confidence and no friends, save for his jelly-bean-headed talking dog, Puma. U-1 comes to learn that he is the heir to the title of the legendary Gitaroo-Man, an intergalactic superhero who uses the power of his gitaroo to defend the universe against evil. An evil alien race known as the Gravillians has been going around, collecting gitaroos in a bid to take over the universe, and it would seem that U-1 and Puma are the keepers of the only gitaroo the Gravillians haven't acquired. So U-1 travels around the universe, fighting a bizarre cast of Gravillian warriors in order to reclaim these magical instruments for the planet Gitaroo. Along the way, he'll learn about believing in himself, falling in love, and the true nature of music. The story is sometimes cheesy and always strange, but it's delivered with the utmost sincerity, and it concludes with an incredibly satisfying climax.

The gameplay in Gitaroo-Man alternates between two different mechanics. At certain points, using the left analog stick--which controls a cone in the center of the screen--you'll follow a line around the screen while pressing and holding the circle button at certain moments to pull off riffs. At others, button commands will move toward a cursor at the center of the screen, at which point you'll have to press the designated face button on your controller. The whole experience is incredibly fun and challenging, as the action gets pretty fast and furious early on in the game. The level of difficulty in Gitaroo-Man has been decreased for US audiences, toning it down from impossible to simply hard. The normal difficulty will no doubt challenge well-seasoned Parappa players, though the easy difficulty is recommended for those just discovering the genre, lest you find yourself quickly frustrated with the game.

Each level is broken down into three different stages: charge, battle, and final. During the charge stage, you can fill up your health meter by successfully executing the onscreen commands. The battle stage gives you the chance to diminish your opponent's health meter with your musical stylings, though your health meter will also drop if you flub any of the commands during this stage. Once your opponent's health meter drops to a certain point, you'll enter the final stage, which usually involves a big guitar solo that you use to finish it off. Gitaroo-Man features multiplayer support for up to four players, giving each player the chance to "play" a different portion of the music as one of the game's many colorful characters. A few of the single-player songs are unavailable in the multiplayer mode, which is unfortunate, as these are some of the better songs on the soundtrack.

The visual style of Gitaroo-Man is the most immediately striking element of the game, and it rivals the style of the Parappa series in terms of originality. The game is rendered in crisp and colorful 3D, but the characters' facial features are animated with 2D textures, lending the game a kind of cartoonish quality without resorting to the overused cel-shading technique. While it looks nothing like any anime you've ever seen, the whole affair has a decidedly Japanese pop-culture feel to it. This aesthetic is reinforced by the game's environments, which are simple but vivid and create the kind of atmosphere where it would seem appropriate for a television to jump up and start dancing around. The game is teeming with nice visual touches, such as the posters on U-1's bedroom walls the animal-suited backup band that mysteriously follows him throughout the game.

Produced by the Japanese music group COIL, the soundtrack in Gitaroo-Man is second to none. Each song deftly encapsulates a different musical style, representing high-tempo J-pop, drum and bass, dub, acoustic ballads, arena rock, and many others. All the music is solid, and once you've played through the game, you'll undoubtedly want to go back to just to hear certain songs. The voice acting, while perhaps not as impressive as the soundtrack, is generally good and doesn't undermine the experience.

Gitaroo-Man is arguably the most original and inventive rhythm game since the advent of Dance Dance Revolution or the original Parappa the Rapper, and it's easily one of the best rhythm games for the PlayStation 2. This is a must-own title for rhythm-game junkies, but the whole package is so compelling that it will also appeal to anyone who isn't a fan of the genre.

Gamespot Score: 8.7

Racing in Burnout is a high-speed, crash-filled affair. Your main controls are gas, brake, and boost. Boost is integral to your racing, as the opponent-racer artificial intelligence keeps it tight pretty much at all times. You earn boost by basically driving like a maniac, steering into oncoming traffic, nearly missing random cars, and, of course, knocking your opponents around like you own the place, ultimately hoping to take them out entirely. Burnout is all about the act of breaking cars in the most spectacular ways possible, especially those of your opponents. And Legends gets this aspect down pat with extremely satisfying crashes across the board. You won't see quite the level of crash detail on the PSP that you would in the console games (most notably, particle effects and explosions have been toned down), but even still, the wrecks are pretty fantastic. Cars deform, sparks fly, and given the right circumstances, broken husks of vehicles will fly through the air in incredibly satisfying ways.

Not to mention that the game gives you ways to control your wreck so you can ultimately cause even greater carnage. Once your car is wrecked, you have the ability to slow time by holding down a button. Once that's done, you can use the game's aftertouch mechanic to literally steer your charred husk of a car into any other traffic you see fit, sometimes even taking out opposing cars in the process. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the game's crash mode, where the whole point is simply to cause the most havoc possible by steering your car into a carefully crafted traffic scenario. Here you're graded by the monetary value of the damage you inflict on the available cars, and along the way, you can pick up cash bonuses. And if you cause enough wrecks, you can pick up a crashbreaker. Crashbreakers blow your car to smithereens, as well as any surrounding traffic, and they also give you the chance to steer your car around to cause even more damage--so you can pick up even more bonuses.

Any Burnout fan is likely to already be quite familiar with the crash mode, and he or she will be intimately familiar with pretty much all the other modes, too. Apart from normal races, you'll also engage in: road rage races, where the whole point is to gain as many takedowns of opponents as possible in a set amount of time; burning laps, which are just basic time-trial races; faceoffs, in which you go against a single opponent to try to win his car; and pursuit mode, which was absent in Burnout 3 but will fondly be remembered by long-time Burnout fans. In this Chase HQ-like mode, you play as a cop car, and the whole goal is to chase down a target opponent and wreck his car silly until he's finally taken down. Though none of these modes are new in any way for the franchise, the familiarity of the gameplay actually works to Legends' benefit, as any fan should be able to pick it up and jump right into the action. And even those who have never played a Burnout game ought not to have much trouble, given the relative simplicity and overall addictiveness of the racing.

All these races are tied together into one main single-player mode called world tour. You start the game with only one car class unlocked (the compacts), as well as just a couple of map locations available. As you race through assorted events, you'll eventually unlock more races, and then GP events, which (once beaten) will unlock more car classes. Crash events are kept separate from races, but you'll still need to play them to unlock certain cars. Between all the races and crash events, there are 175 to play through in total, and getting gold medals in all events is no quick exercise. It can be somewhat taxing trying to bust through the world tour mode in long stretches, as many of the race types and tracks repeat fairly regularly. But played in shorter, regular bursts, Burnout Legends can be a highly addictive single-player game. Plus, you've also got the multiplayer to jump into when the single-player becomes too much to deal with.

The multiplayer races are for up to six players via ad hoc wireless play (no online, unfortunately), and you can engage in races, road rage races, pursuit races, party crashes, and double impact mode, which is basically a two-player single-crash event. Game hosts can create single games or tournaments with up to five rounds. The multiplayer action is definitely best played with more than a couple of players, as the game is at its best with lots of cars competing with and frequently taking down one another. But certain modes, like pursuit or double impact, work just fine if you've only got a single friend around.

Legends also looks and sounds amazing. Part of what makes Burnout...well, Burnout, is its incredible sense of speed. And Legends doesn't disappoint on that front. The first few cars go fast, but not fast, so you might initially think that the PSP game got the short shrift. That notion will quickly traipse its way out of your head once you start unlocking the faster cars, as some of the higher-end vehicles go some kind of ridiculous fast. Sometimes this presents a problem, as due to the PSP's smaller screen, it can occasionally be hard to see oncoming traffic coming up on the horizon until it's too late. Thankfully, over time you'll start to get accustomed to the brief but noticeable signals the game gives when traffic is coming, like the glare of headlights or taillights, and that problem will essentially correct itself.

It also bears mentioning that Legends maintains a brilliant frame rate pretty much all throughout, with noticeable drops only coming during extreme crashes with lots of smoke effects. There's one really annoying frame hitch that seems to occur when the soundtrack is switching songs, as the game will lock up for about a half-second. Fortunately, this momentary hitch never caused us to wreck or do anything stupid, but we certainly could have done without it.

Soundwise, the audio effects in Burnout Legends are top-notch. Cars whiz by with big whooshes of air, engines rev to peak pitches, and every wreck sounds absolutely brutal. The soundtrack is made up of the typical EA Trax fare, with plenty of hipster-type indie punk and rock bands like Finch, Goldfinger, OK Go, Junkie XL, The Dead 60s, and Yellowcard. There are 21 tracks in all, and though some are repeats from other recent EA games, pretty much every track fits with the vibe of the game at least reasonably well. Perhaps the best part of Burnout Legends' audio is actually an omission--namely, the obnoxious radio DJ, whose chatter was merely a detriment to Burnout 3's in-game experience.

All in all, Burnout Legends is pretty much exactly what you would want from a handheld Burnout game. The marriage of all the best aspects of the first three Burnouts into a single package makes for a deep, lasting game that also manages to be a consistently challenging and exciting endeavor pretty much the entire way through. While the PSP isn't exactly suffering from a dearth of quality racers, make no mistake about it: Burnout Legends is the best racer the PSP has to offer, and any PSP owner should definitely check it out.

Gamespot Score: 9.0

Regardless of what the subtitle might suggest, Need for Speed Most Wanted 5-1-0 isn't some kind of street-racing adventure set in the city where they shot The Mack. This is, at its core, a basic street racer with all the usual toppings, like a variety of unlockable cars, both performance and visual tune-ups, and rival street racers to duke it out with on the streets of...well, wherever it is that this game takes place. Most of this takes place in the career mode. This career isn't an awful lot like the one you might have experienced on consoles, mind you. There's no storyline to speak of, but there is a blacklist consisting of the top 15 drivers, and you have to beat each and every one to move up in the rankings. Unlike on consoles, there's no open-ended city to drive around in, though that's not necessarily a detriment here, since that could have made playing on the go a far more unwieldy thing. Instead, you'll simply play a series of event races before taking on the boss racer in a one-on-one duel.

It's a pretty simple progression that throws a decent amount of race variety at you in the process. You'll do everything from straight circuit races, to Burnout-style elimination races, to full-blown racing tournaments. As you pass each race, you'll earn both cash and respect, which you'll need to earn cars and take on the boss racer, respectively. The lack of any storyline does make things a little duller than you might hope for, as there's really no interaction with the boss racers. These boss racers are just anonymous faces that you can put to the car you're racing against, and that's about it. Still, the career mode is quite lengthy, and won't leave you hurting for things to do.

The actual racing itself is mostly quite good, if a bit uneventful at times. You'll find yourself racing against up to three opponents across a decent number of tracks. All the tracks have shortcuts you can find, though it isn't terribly often that the computer-controlled racers are able to find these shortcuts. The cars all have a good feel to them, with just the right amount of weight balance to create mostly realistic slide outs and drifts, and the game's sense of speed is generally quite good. It might take a while to really feel like you're going fast though, as it takes at least a few hours of play before you can start unlocking the seriously fast cars, and even the upgrades you purchase for the slower cars don't make them that much faster. There is also a new "speedbreaker" mechanic that lets you slow down time for a bit to make tight turns, and it makes avoiding potential traffic obstacles a little easier. But the actual number of times you'll really need to use this can be counted on one hand, so it doesn't really affect the game in any meaningful way.

One interesting addition made to both the console and PSP game is the addition of police chases. Your "heat level" is measured throughout every race, and by doing the sorts of heinous things that street racers do with their cars (speeding, wrecking, bumping other cars), your heat level will increase, and the cops will steadily begin to try to run you off the road to bust you. Cops will just start appearing on the track, and as you bob and weave, trying to shake them off, your heat level will just keep going up. Roadblocks will start popping up, as will tougher cop cars, though you'll never really find yourself dealing with more than a few cops at once.

For the most part, cops are merely a nuisance in this game, and rarely a big problem. The cop artificial intelligence isn't terribly good, so it's not too hard to get them to run into one of their own roadblocks or something equally lamebrained. What's also deeply perplexing about the whole cop mechanic is when you are challenged to outrun them. There was a clear and present reason for doing that in the console games, but here it's a worthless endeavor. As you play through and defeat races, you'll be earning thousands of respect points. The bonuses offered for outrunning the cops are minimal, at best, and completely inconsequential to you reaching your overall respect goal. So really, the whole mechanic is pointless.

Apart from the career mode, there are quick play, multiplayer, and car-customization features at your disposal. The car-customization stuff is pretty decent, and the performance upgrades do have a big impact on how your car drives. Unfortunately, cash is usually in short supply, so it can be tough to justify purchasing the array of visual upgrades for cars, since they really don't affect anything beyond aesthetics. The multiplayer is both ad hoc and infrastructure-based. The ad hoc is predictably easy to play, but the infrastructure has some problems. For one, it requires an account with the EA Nation online service, and anyone who has played an EA online game this year has probably told you about how arduous a process that can be at times. Once you actually get into a game, you'll likely run into some lag issues as well. We saw lots of cars jumping around the track in disjointed fashion, even those with seemingly excellent ping times. On the rare instance we played a race where things weren't jumpy as all get-out, the multiplayer experience was quite fun. Just be aware that you're more likely to run into laggy, off-kilter games than smooth ones.

Need for Speed Most Wanted 5-1-0's graphics are easily its best feature. This is a smooth-running racer no matter how much is happening onscreen, and all the details, from the cars to the tracks, look about as good as most any racer on the platform. The cars are definitely the best part, mind you. Though there aren't a ton of licensed vehicles in the game, all the ones that are in there look just like the real-life cars, and the visual upgrades do look quite nice, even if it is tough to justify purchasing them. The tracks are beautifully lit with a sort of late-afternoon, early evening haze that gives the scenery an almost serene look at times. There are some ugly details, of course. Ground textures are pretty nasty-looking and it pays not to look at things like roadblocks or ancillary traffic up close, as they're just not nearly as clean-looking as everything else is. But aside from those blemishes, you'll likely be impressed with what 5-1-0 does visually.

The audio is less impressive, though not bad by any means. The soundtrack consists of more licensed artists than you can shake a stick at, including such notables as Bullet For My Valentine, Disturbed, DJ Spooky featuring Dave Lombardo, Mastodon, The Perceptionists, Prodigy, The Roots and BT, and Styles of Beyond. It's an eclectic mix of music that seems more akin to one of your music-snob friend's esoteric mix tapes than a licensed game soundtrack, but it totally works in spite of itself. The sound effects, if anything, come across as overly tempered. You don't get that visceral thrill from hearing the loud roars of tuner engines or big crashes into the scenery or other traffic, simply because none of it really sounds impactful, even with the volume on the PSP turned all the way up. The effects themselves are certainly OK, but they all could have used a little more oomph.

Need for Speed Most Wanted 5-1-0 has its appealing aspects. The ad hoc and infrastructure multiplayer modes are always welcome features, the career mode is quite deep and lengthy, and car fanatics will enjoy tuning up and customizing their rides. But even with all that said, 5-1-0 really doesn't do anything better than other racers on the PSP, and in some cases, it does certain things worse. Above all else, though, 5-1-0 just isn't as thrilling or exciting as a street racer should be on any platform. It's a decent racer with some enjoyable components, but it's not a must-have for any PSP-owning racing fan.

Gamespot Score: 6.9

FBI Agent Ethan Thomas is a sullen man who's part of the Serial Crimes Unit, so it's little wonder he isn't more cheerful. The game begins with Agent Thomas on a routine assignment: Someone's been brutally murdered in a bad part of town, and he's there with the police to figure out what happened and to clean up any remaining mess. Without spoiling anything, let's just say that things don't quite go according to plan. Thomas winds up implicated in some serious crimes, but not before he has a run-in with some sort of a madman who spares his life--just barely. But why? Bent on finding the truth, his assailant, and his missing pistol, Thomas goes off on his own, with nothing but a cell phone, a Taser-style stun gun, and his forensic tools to aid him. The only other person he can depend on, save himself, seems to be a colleague of his who's willing to stay in touch by phone, helping Thomas to analyze evidence so he can slowly connect the dots that lead to some disturbing discoveries. The dark, engrossing story of Condemned starts out strong and has its moments along the way, but unfortunately, it doesn't take center stage during what's mostly just a straight-up action game with an intriguing premise. As Thomas begins to question his own sanity when faced with unbelievable evidence, the narrative purposely takes some incoherent turns, causing you to wonder if there's any hope of a satisfying resolution.

It's too bad the story hadn't been more developed. As it stands, answers to some of the most important questions raised by the game (for example, what the hell is wrong with everybody?) are relegated to loading screens in between chapters rather than to contextual exposition. So instead, what Condemned boils down to is cautiously exploring dark, dilapidated buildings--they're condemned, get it?--while confronting and ruthlessly beating down violent thugs bent on smashing your face in. Except it's not quite as great as that makes it sound, because the dark, dilapidated buildings and, somehow, even the ruthless beatings start to get old some time before the nine or 10 hours it takes to finish the game. And optionally collecting bird carcasses and metal pieces hidden throughout each level (don't ask) doesn't add much intrigue. You'll keep waiting for Condemned to throw you a major curveball, since it feels like that sort of game. And it sure comes close, but it never quite goes beyond a threat, merely teasing you with potential while inundating you with repetition.

Condemned is kind of like a first-person shooter, except instead of shooting, there's mostly just a lot of pure, bloody brawling. For some strange reason, there's no real bare-handed combat, but improvised weapons are everywhere. You've got everything from metal pipes, to nail-covered two-by-fours, to fire axes, to sledgehammers, to signposts. Each weapon is rated differently for speed, range, power, and defense, though the differences can be pretty subtle. So it'll often come down to a subjective choice: How does that metal conduit strike you? How about that nice concrete-crusted rebar over there? Take your pick, and hang on to it, because you can only carry one weapon at a time.

You'll get the impression that the vast majority of effort that went into this game was invested in the interaction between you and your deranged enemies. There's some striking artificial intelligence at work, combined with some amazingly, frighteningly lifelike animations that will make you wince as if in pain or in anticipation of it. Your foes cannot be reasoned with, as they're lunatics with a thirst for blood who'll rush out at you from the shadows, flailing anything they can get their hands on while trying to kill you. They'll scream obscenities and smash things in freakish anger. They'll lie in ambush, and they'll gladly hurt one another--as well as you--just as long as somebody gets hurt. And they won't just stand there and take it as you lash out at them with weapons of your own. As they recoil in pain from your attacks, they'll lurch forward for their next strikes, as if guided by momentum and adrenaline. The best thing to be said about Condemned is that it captures hand-to-hand combat with intense, lifelike brutality like no other game before it. No other first-person-perspective game even comes close, with the notable exception of last year's The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay.

The problem with Condemned is that it can be safely described in generalities, since there aren't enough specific moments that stick out. The nerve-racking, unpredictable behavior of your enemies will have you on your toes, holding your breath for several hours. But eventually, the bad guys just seem to run out of new tricks. Similarly, you have few tricks of your own: The left trigger makes you block, while the right trigger makes you attack. There's no combo system, so Agent Thomas is mostly limited to just some slow, powerful strikes. Meanwhile, enemies' attacks can be very damaging (as well they should be, judging by how painful they look), so you'll find it's foolish to just slug it out with them. Instead, you'll find yourself stepping in for the strike when your opponent leaves himself open, and you'll find yourself stepping back or blocking when he attacks. At least blocking is an active process, meaning you need to time your blocks to deflect the enemy's attack--but watch out, since he'll sometimes throw fake swings at you. That's pretty much what the action boils down to. Sometimes enemies will be staggered to their knees, near death, at which point you may execute some sort of finishing move just by pressing one of four directions on the D pad. These moves look great (especially the head-butt and the knock-out punch), but they're only for show, reinforcing that Condemned's spectacular appearance is rather superficial.

You've got that stun gun, and you can also kick those fools if you like. The stun gun feels pretty overpowered, though it's necessary later on in the game when you're dealing with more than just one or two enemies at a time. It's easy to aim, and it immobilizes the unfortunate target, giving you a free shot as well as a chance to rip his weapon from his grip. After each use, the stun gun automatically recharges its battery for your next shot. And, yes, there are some conventional firearms in Condemned, but the gunplay isn't particularly satisfying, and it's quite scarce. The weapon models for guns don't look nearly as realistic or detailed as the game's much broader assortment of makeshift melee weapons. Any guns you find will never have more than a few rounds of ammunition in them, so you'll need to make these shots count and then throw the weapon away in favor of something a little more solid. Your enemies have no fear of guns (or seemingly anything), and since all the action takes place in very close quarters, the long-range advantage you'd expect from a pistol or rifle is made nearly irrelevant.

Since it's going for chills and creepy atmosphere, Condemned doesn't just stoop to throwing enemies at you around every corner. That's the good news. But the bad news is that this means you'll often walk through long stretches of terribly dark, dreary corridors without much of anything happening. The level design in Condemned is pretty disappointing overall, since it's chock-full of grimy, depressing locales that definitely get the "grimy, depressing" part down pat, but fail to come up with much of interest for you to do or look at. Sometimes you need to find a fire axe or a sledgehammer to bash through a locked door (inexplicably, only the fire axe breaks down wooden doors, as the sledge is only for padlocks). But these types of cases are just too common.

It all starts to blend together after a while, no thanks to the repetition of textures and lack of any distinguishing reference points in most areas, and no thanks to the thick darkness that permeates most of the game. Unless you chicken out and crank up the brightness on your television above where you'd normally have it, you'll find that many sequences of Condemned are nearly pitch black, save for your weak little flashlight's reassuring glow. All that said, it probably won't be long before you find yourself wishing you had some kind of a map to help guide you through each area, since you don't. It's fairly easy to get lost, disoriented, and then frustrated as you stumble around looking for the one door you're supposed to open or the one little corner concealing the next hallway.

Occasionally you get to stop to gather some forensic evidence, which helps break up the action a little, though there's really not much to this process. Your "instincts," which come in the form of an onscreen prompt, will indicate to you when you're supposed to ready one of your handy gadgets instead of that club you've been cracking skulls with. For the most part, you can't use your forensic tools unless a mission-critical objective is nearby. Once you've got your equipment on the ready (you automatically bring out the right item for the job), it's just a matter of slowly walking around until you find what you're looking for. Certainly it's a cool effect, seeing trails of violence materialize under a black light and so forth. These bits also tie in to the plot, so they're more than welcomed, but there's just not much challenge involved since the game does almost all the work. You end up feeling about as actively involved in the investigation as you would be just sitting there soaking up an episode of CSI. Luckily, some of the later evidence-gathering sequences are more interesting since they take place in more-dangerous areas, so you might have to quickly swap that digital camera for a two-by-four if you run into bad company.

The quality of the presentation in Condemned goes a long way toward keeping you riveted, even when the action starts to grow stale. We can't overstate just how good a lot of the hand-to-hand combat looks. There's some meticulous attention to detail that might make you squirm--such as when you rake your crowbar across an enemy's jaw and then watch him spit blood (and what looks like teeth) as he whirls about violently, face red from more than just anger. And while the game doesn't go into too much detail about exactly what's wrong with all the people you're fighting, it doesn't really need to, because just one good look at them is enough to tell you they're far gone. Better yet, the further you go, seemingly the more inhuman and misshapen your foes will become--as though their deteriorating condition represents Agent Thomas' own psyche. To make things more believable, the game does a good job of presenting some of its noninteractive cutscenes from a first-person perspective in the context of the game itself. Ever been thrown down an escalator? You'll get a feel for what that might be like in Condemned.

The graphics do have a few minor problems, mostly centering around the relatively bland environments. Granted, it's not like filthy rundown buildings are inherently interesting to look at, but the main issue with the environments in Condemned is that there's too little contrast in them. In the very first setting, you'll see the breaking dawn piercing through shuttered windows into dust-filled rooms. It's a beautiful effect, but the game almost never does anything of the kind again, instead pushing you through one lifeless corridor after another. The last sequences of the game look distinctive, and another part that's set in an old, rundown department store stands out, but it's too bad the settings of Condemned aren't as inspired as their fearsome inhabitants. Also, despite how vicious the combat looks, the act of getting killed in this game (which will happen often, since it's pretty tough on normal difficulty) is a little underwhelming. The action just freezes the instant the deathblow connects, all too mercifully preventing you from witnessing Agent Thomas' collapse--and whatever might happen next. For that matter, considering how much care clearly went into the animation, it's sort of unfortunate to see Condemned making liberal use of rag-doll physics. Killed enemies all collapse in what look like the same lifeless heaps found in just about every action game these days, thanks to the ubiquitous rag-doll effect. But this is just nit-picking over what's a graphically amazing game.

As with most any Xbox 360 game, for best results you should view Condemned at the highest possible resolution on a nice big high-definition display. Even when you do, you'll find that the game's frame rate holds quite steady, smoothly rendering some highly detailed scenes. But even when you don't, you'll find that Condemned still looks really impressive running on a standard television (the game is presented in a letterbox even if you don't have a widescreen TV, though). Older video game systems just can't pull off these kinds of good looks.

In addition to an HDTV, you'll want a surround-sound system to get the most out of Condemned's excellent atmospheric audio. There's very little music in the game, apart from some subtle ambient tracks that play here and there, and the sparse voice acting is of good quality. So it's really the sound effects that deserve most of the credit, since they're essential to fulfilling the gut-wrenching intentions of the graphics. Suffice it to say you'll hear every thud, crunch, and spatter in alarming detail. Even relatively mild acts, like breaking the glass on a first-aid kit, might well cause you to flinch from how piercingly loud and clear they are. Some aggravating repetition in the audio drags things down a bit, specifically in how the shrieks from enemies struck by your stun gun always sound exactly the same, ruining some of the suspension of disbelief. But overall, Condemned is by far one of the better-sounding games this year.

Condemned's success in delivering the best-looking first-person melee combat of any game to date is truly admirable, along with its unusual premise. It's just that the longer you play, the more you'll wish that there were more substance to the experience. Fortunately, the game's main area of focus is executed on incomparably well, and it's thrilling for a good while if not all the way to the bitter end. If you do manage to fight your way through to the conclusion, there's not much reason to keep coming back, unless you want to brave certain arbitrary challenges (such as never using guns) to unlock some modest extras--like concept art galleries and such. But when it comes to showcasing just how shockingly up close and personal the act of fighting for your life can get in a game, Condemned has become one to beat...preferably over and over with a lead pipe.

Gamespot Score: 8.0

DOA4 doesn't reinvent the wheel. It's nearly identical to Dead or Alive Ultimate in terms of its feature set, and the gameplay itself also arguably hasn't changed much, depending on how you look at it. On first impression, this is good old Dead or Alive, all right. The fighting is really easy to get into like always, and if you're a veteran of the series, you can still rely on many of the same moves and strategies that have served you well in past. Yet the more you play, the more you'll pick up on the combined impact of all the numerous new and changed moves for returning fighters, unique layouts of the different arenas, and tweaks to the fighting engine. Essentially, this game has a smoother, more tactical, even faster, and simply better feel than its predecessors. More importantly, the gameplay is some of the most highly refined and dynamic that you'll find in any fighting game these days. And because of the substantial selection of playable characters and good assortment of interactive arenas, there's a lot of variety where it's needed.

At the heart of every match type in Dead or Alive 4 is a contest between two fighters trying to knock each other out using various punches, kicks, throws, and reversals. There are tag-team matches where you may control a pair of fighters by quickly switching between them during the bout, but even these boil down to a one-on-one fight. As you'd probably hope from an intense martial arts competition, aggressive tactics are the order of the day--overly defensive or hesitant players tend to get slaughtered. But those who punch and kick with reckless abandon are also easy targets, since reversals and well-timed counterblows can be used to crush careless opponents. A healthy roster of nearly two dozen unique fighters is available (a handful of them are hidden at first), and though their moves and fighting styles are all different, the same basic controls apply to everyone. These controls are deceptively simple, but by using simple directional motions on the D pad together with three action buttons--one for punching, one for kicking, and one for guarding and reversals--it's possible to perform many dozens of different moves as all the various characters.

In practice, the typical DOA4 match has a good flow and rhythm to it, as well as a blazingly fast, silky-smooth look. There's a heavy emphasis on swift, painful-looking strikes and combos. All fighters are readily capable of stunning their opponents or knocking them clean off their feet, the perfect setup for a devastating string of follow-up attacks. As the showdown unfolds, occasional reversals and throws make for spectacular, often decisive twists. At the default settings, a typical best-of-three-rounds match can be over in less than a couple of minutes, but there tends to be an awful lot of action crammed into that short space of time.

The expanded roster of fighters is definitely one of the main attractions. All the old favorites are back, like ninja gals Kasumi and Ayane, Ninja Gaiden's more-famous-than-ever Ryu Hayabusa, shapely pro wrestler Tina, and Bruce Lee clone Jann Lee. And they've got plenty of new tricks up their sleeves. Dead or Alive 3's Brad Wong, a master of drunken fist kung fu (and a lush), and Christie, a scantily clad assassin, return after a hiatus and pack some of the more interesting-looking moves of the bunch. The new fighters include Kokoro, a demure karate expert specializing in open palm attacks much like those of Virtua Fighter's Akira; Eliot, a teenage boy who looks like a girl but whose praying mantis-style martial arts are unmistakably effective; and La Mariposa, a masked luchadora packing powerful kicks and stylish grappling moves. It would have been nice if DOA4's roster included a couple more fighters who...well, actually looked like fighters, rather than the outlandishly dressed, dollfaced young ladies that dominate the lineup. Nevertheless, chances are you'll find at least a few characters who appeal to you, even if the game's anime-inspired character design and its fantastically proportioned female cast won't win over everybody.

In stark contrast to all the other fighters is Spartan-458, a not-so-hidden character who's basically Halo's Master Chief but with a woman's voice and no guns, and who debatably deserves her own paragraph just because she's got something to do with Halo. She's a neat bonus for Halo fans, who've never seen the Master Chief's signature armor looking quite this rugged or realistic. She's even got her own nicely detailed arena to fight in, modeled after the opening level of Halo 2 and complete with plenty of vehicles you can't drive but can knock unsuspecting victims into. Too bad this statuesque lady is relatively underdeveloped as a fighter, since she just doesn't have as many moves to work with as most characters. One of her grabs, which involves shoving a sticky plasma grenade into the foe's gut, looks amazing. But most of her other attacks are lifted from the game's bigger characters, and she doesn't move or take hits differently than the other fighters despite all that armor. Still, the more fighters, the merrier, as long as there's a balanced lineup in the end. DOA4 seems to accomplish that balance surprisingly well. Though the quicker characters are easier to learn, everybody seems highly viable in the right hands. To put it another way, when playing online through the course of several hundred matches against random live opponents, we were pleased to routinely encounter just about every fighter in the roster, rather than the same several characters over and over. See? We didn't give the whole paragraph to Spartan-458.

Incredibly enough, the arenas in DOA4 stand out nearly as much as the characters. The series pioneered the concept of interactive multilevel environments back in 1999's Dead or Alive 2, and has kept building meaningfully on this exciting concept ever since. In DOA4, not only can you kick your opponent through glass windows, down flights of stairs, and off of rooftops as you could in past Dead or Alive games, but now you can launch your foe head over heels across railings, or better yet, straight into traffic. One of the best-looking stages resembles the Vegas strip at night after a rainfall, and it's all the better because cars will come swerving down the road that you're fighting on every now and then, sometimes plowing into the combatants and blasting them up high into the air. Another inventive stage can best be described as Jurassic Park, since it's jam-packed with various dinosaurs, some of which aren't so friendly. There's a great level set in a marketplace, where you can smash the opponent into or through all kinds of different kiosks and fruit stands, and another really pretty stage up high in some Japanese temple. Some tightly-enclosed stages are also available, including ones where getting shoved into the walls causes extra damage, making bouts fly by faster than usual. At times, the extra damage caused by environmental effects can seem excessive, but the variety is great to have overall. DOA4's arenas sure beat the traditionally flat, lifeless backdrops that typify most fighting games.

A good way to get your bearings with the game is to dive right into the story mode, where you pick a fighter and quickly clobber your way through eight rounds against different computer-controlled foes. The "story" part of story mode unfortunately is a misnomer, since the story for each character typically amounts to a couple of brief, meaningless exchanges with other fighters followed by a tough last battle and an ending cutscene of some sort--basically the same format Dead or Alive has used for years. For what it's worth, some of the endings are pretty amusing, and successive plays through the story mode is not only how you access most of the hidden characters, it's also the quickest way to unlock all the different costumes for each fighter (some have just a few, others have closer to 10). All told, story mode is fun and offers some good incentives, but it's a missed opportunity to further flesh out these characters' personalities and interrelationships. Not that you'd probably expect much of anything like that from a fighting game.

Most of the other modes are pretty standard, too, but they're executed very well. Survival mode is one of the best, because the game keeps throwing fighters at you so quickly. The moment you defeat one, the next jumps right into the arena and presses the attack, so you're constantly fighting against a never-ending wave of random foes. The game offers some unlockable achievements based on how many fighters you're able to beat in a row, so you might well find yourself coming back to survival mode the most often among the single-player modes. Time attack mode is also worth playing for similar reasons, and team battle mode is there if you want to try playing with and against different combinations of characters. There's also a versus mode for quickly setting up custom matches against a friend or the computer, and a sparring mode for practicing as all the various fighters.

Sparring mode does a good job of teaching you everyone's moves, though it could have done more to introduce you to some of the complexities of DOA4's gameplay. While anyone can pull off plenty of fancy-looking strings of attacks by mashing the punch and kick buttons, with experience you pick up on a lot of nuances, like the right times to use the four types of reversals, how to recover from critical hits and getting knocked down, the damage potential of the two types of counterblows, various arena-specific tactics, and much more. Dead or Alive may not have always enjoyed the good reputation of longer-running 3D fighting series like Virtua Fighter and Tekken, but today it's at least as sophisticated.

You'll notice when playing against the computer in DOA4 that the enemy artificial intelligence puts up a very good fight, even at the default difficulty setting. It'll perform some slick combos on you when you leave yourself open, and it'll use throws and reversals effectively but not robotically. It'll exploit your poor tactics if you rely on the same moves over and over, too. If anything, the default difficulty will probably seem a little on the hard side for most players, and for whatever reason, there aren't any easier settings to fall back on. But since you can retry a match whenever you lose (except in survival mode), victory is really only a matter of time. Besides, you might just learn a good trick or two from playing against the computer, especially at the tougher two difficulty settings.

Online is where the real action is. As in Dead or Alive Ultimate, DOA4 offers a variety of different online play variants, all centered around the concept of a virtual arcade. In the ancient days, when lots of people played fighting games in actual video arcades, there were fewer arcade machines than people, so you needed to wait your turn. All the anxious waiting around, as well as the thought of spending more quarters than you wanted to, gave you more incentive to win when your turn came up, which helped inspire fierce competition. DOA4 evokes this same feeling with its virtual arcade concept by letting up to 16 players compete in a single lobby. That's way too many people to wait around for in most cases, but if you set up or find a match with a limit of around three to five players, it's a great balance where players can catch a breather in between fights but never have to twiddle their thumbs for long. The default "winner stays" gameplay variant is best suited for the virtual arcade format, but some of the other variants are also worth checking out, like kumite, where the host of the session keeps taking on successive challengers, win or lose.

We rarely experienced significant lag when playing online, even against overseas opponents, though the game did occasionally lock up or hang up for long periods of time in between fights, especially when we tried to access the Xbox guide. We confirmed that other players had also run into this, but the problem cropped up maybe once in 50 matches, so it didn't really hurt our experience. It's still a little discouraging, and hopefully it'll be patched. As in Dead or Alive Ultimate, there tends to be noticeable lag when you're watching a match rather than participating in it, but as soon as your turn is up, you can expect comparably responsive gameplay to what you get playing offline. Even when there is some lag during a match, it still doesn't seem to prevent your moves from registering or anything too drastic. It's well worth shrugging off these types of issues to get to play this game online.

Before you can host an online match in DOA4, you need to get yourself a lobby. Your first one's free, but to get others, you'll need to spend currency you earn from beating other players. The game offers a bunch of different-themed lobbies as well as numerous quirky avatars that'll represent you when you're in a lobby. Some of this material is actually pretty funny, provided you think ghosts and chickens dancing around in a space station with a big-screen TV showing DOA4 matches is funny. But regardless of what sort of good intentions went into this concept, it's not particularly well implemented. Specifically, you can hang out in the lobby only if you're content to be a spectator rather than a participant in online combat--you leave the lobby environment as soon as you elect to join a match, not just when it's your turn to fight. So unless you're really into watching other people play fighting games as opposed to playing them yourself, DOA4's lobby system won't do much for you, even though you'll probably get a few laughs out of it. On the other hand, the unlockable achievements in DOA4 are generally well thought out, enticing you to explore and keep coming back to key aspects of the game. A few achievements relate to achieving win streaks and high rankings online, making them attainable only by very skilled players, so you'll know not to mess with people who've earned these. Overall, this is one of the better sets of achievements so far in an Xbox 360 game.

DOA4 is also one of the best-looking Xbox 360 games yet. Vividly detailed characters and environments, smooth and believable animations (including many new ones), and crisp textures all add up to a stunning visual presentation. A few specific rough edges do stick out, so let's get those out of the way. The flowing long hair some characters have can sometimes flow in weird ways, in thick ribbons rather than strands. Some unsightly clipping issues also crop up with some characters' alternate outfits and during some grappling moves. But such flaws are as easily forgivable as they're unfortunate, since the game looks so impressive overall.

Granted, DOA4 does look a lot like previous Dead or Alive games. Although DOA4 looks its best in high definition, where every little visual detail seems to clearly stand out, the character graphics look a lot like those of Dead or Alive Ultimate even in HD. Everyone's got a complexion as smooth as the game's frame rate, which makes the characters look less like real people and more like dolls or action figures (you know, depending on gender). Still, these are some great-looking characters, and some of the subtle details, like how Jann Lee's veins pop out when he's flexing or how La Mariposa's glittery outfit literally sparkles, show tremendous attention to detail. Too bad the characters don't have as many outfits as they did in Dead or Alive Ultimate, and that some of the alternate outfits are just color swaps; but all the variety in character appearances is remarkable anyway. The environments probably look even better than the characters, too. You wouldn't know just from looking at them that most of these arenas are from a fighting game. In fact, they're so filled with life that you'll almost wish you could just walk around and explore them rather than be limited to smashing your opponents into and through parts of them. Also, even though there's so much going on visually, loading times are nearly nonexistent in DOA4, and briefly come up mostly just when there's a change of scenery rather than a change of characters.

Great audio highlights the presentation, though it too is very similar to previous games in the series. All of the fighters, with the exception of Spartan-458, speak Japanese with English subtitles. It seems as though they should have spoken in their native languages since they hail from all around the world, but the Japanese voice actors fit their parts well. The game's enthusiastic female announcer also does a good job, but in a nice touch, you can replace her with just about any of the game's fighters after you unlock their "system voice" in the sparring mode. More importantly, the effects for punches, kicks, snaps, and slams are all spot-on in DOA4, sounding plenty painful especially when some sort of wall or railing is involved in the exchange. The game also makes surprisingly good use of surround sound, which doesn't have much impact on gameplay but makes a lot of the arenas seem that much more real, what with believable ambient effects happening all around. To top it all off, there's a fittingly upbeat soundtrack to go with the action, featuring memorable themes for some of the characters. And yes, for better or worse, Dead or Alive fans may look forward to more use of Aerosmith in the game's introductory cutscene.

It's simple: If you like fighting games, DOA4 is for you. Between its great selection of powerful fighters, its terrific action, and its addictive online mode, there's an awful lot to sink your teeth into, learn, and master in this latest and greatest installment in the series. That the whole thing looks so good certainly doesn't hurt, either. Any subsequent fighting games for the Xbox 360 now have a very tough contender to beat.

Gamespot Score: 8.8

As in the first PC game, Call of Duty 2's campaign will put you in the shoes of a few different soldiers fighting for different Allied factions. You start off as a private in the Russian army, visciously fighting off the invading Germans in Moscow and Stalingrad. The British campaign is unlocked after beating the first Russian mission. For most of these missions you'll be fighting in the sand-swept deserts of North Africa, alongside the Desert Rats, against Field Marshal Rommel's troops. The final mission in the British campaign sends you to the bombed-out houses and hedgerows of Caen, France. After you're done with that, you'll play as an American corporal in Europe. Yes, you will be doing a D-Day landing, but not on Omaha Beach or Utah Beach, which you've probably played several times before. Instead, you'll be scaling the sheer cliffs of Pointe du Hoc as artillery with the Army Rangers. If you already thought rock climbing was an "extreme" sport, try doing it with artillery and machine-gun fire raining down on you.

Each of the game's 10 missions is broken up into a few different stages. If you play the game on regular difficulty, you could blow through it in about 10 hours. Ratcheting up the difficulty a notch makes the game much harder and more tactical (this is probably the experience the designers intended). Since you'll be creeping and peeking more carefully through all the encounters, you'll lengthen the campaign significantly, and you'll enjoy it more.

Breaking up the campaign into several different narrative vignettes arguably weakens the impact of the plot as a whole, although that was never the strength of Call of Duty in the first place. What this does is let the designers put you in a lot of different, interesting situations. One memorable moment in the Russian campaign has you crawling through a raised pipeline to sneak behind German lines and into a fortified factory building. As you make your way through the pipeline, you'll spot and snipe small pockets of German infantry through holes in the pipe. When they fire back up at you, you'll notice bullets tearing through the rusted pipe, ripping open holes for shafts of light to poke through. It's a thrilling effect.

You'll also get quite a rush from both participating in and defending against all-out infantry charges across open city squares in Stalingrad. But just as the novelty of these wears off, you're shunted over to the British campaign in North Africa, where you'll do things like participate in night raids of small Tunisian towns, climb up to the top of spires to call in artillery on enemy tanks, and even drive a tank yourself. The American campaign has its own memorable moments, like scaling the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc, or sniping at German mortar crews from the top of a grain silo. The game paces itself so that you're always on your toes, and you'll find yourself switching back and forth almost constantly from an offensive position to making a defensive stand against counterattacks on the objective you've just captured. Yes, at the end of the day you're still just shooting a lot of Nazis, but the constantly varying contexts of how and why you're doing it keep the game compelling from start to finish.

You won't be participating in these forays alone; far from it. In every setting you'll be surrounded by what seems like dozens of soldiers, both friends and foes, who move and act in a realistic fashion. Lots of your artificially intelligent mates will die by your side, along with the dozens of enemy soldiers you kill, but more will come in from the rear echelons to take their place. The designers often do a good job of reminding you that the war isn't just the infantry skirmish in which you're fighting. From time to time you'll see planes engaged in dogfights flying overhead, or when you complete an objective of capturing a German harbor, you'll call in a naval strike and see enemy merchant ships being sunk at the docks.

In each confrontation, you'll find yourself setting up at logical stopping points to exchange fire with German resistance. You can snipe dozens of enemies out of the windows and from the trenches in front of a house, for example, but reinforcements replace them. It never feels as though the game is cheaply spawning in more fodder for you; it just does a great job of making you feel like there are a realistic number of soldiers holed up in a building. You need to get a feel for the flow of each pitched battle, and this can be done by advancing your line when the enemy ranks look thin enough, and then breaking into the house or bunker. Your allies will follow you in and help you clear out the objective. Of course, if you're too meek at attacking and pressing your advantage, the enemy AI is wily and aggressive enough to take charge. They're not afraid to pour fire on your position and toss tons of grenades at you. Thankfully, a handy grenade danger indicator lets you know when and where you have to scurry away from an impending blast. When you do die, the game reloads very quickly, and you're even treated to a quote about war from various historical figures. One that sticks out in our minds is an ironic one from Solomon Short: "The only winner in the War of 1812 was Tchaikovsky."

One aspect of gameplay that has changed since the first Call of Duty is that you no longer have a health bar. As you get shot, you'll see the screen growing redder and redder along the borders, and your character will start to grunt and pant. If you continue to take damage in a short span of time, you die. So as you get shot that first or second time, you need to get yourself back to cover to hide for a couple of seconds to recover. Once your vision clears, you're good to go again. Some people may be put off by this Halo-like gameplay conceit, but it actually works very well here, and it really is no more contrived than hunting down and hoarding health packs. In the context of Call of Duty 2, we'd go so far as to say that it's an improvement over the traditional health system, as you never find yourself at a tough spot without enough health or medikits. Ammo's never an issue either, as there's never a shortage of dead bodies to loot for guns, bullets, and grenades. The focus stays squarely on the fight.

Speaking of grenades, the other major new gameplay conceit is the use of smoke grenades. You can pop these in front of machine-gun nests or to obscure the view of enemy snipers, making infantry charges a more viable option. The smoke effect looks outstanding and comes in handy in both the single- and multiplayer aspects to neutralize the effectiveness of fixed machine-gun nests and snipers. There's also nothing quite as exciting as running through a dense smoke cloud and finding yourself face-to-face with the enemy (the view from the opposite side is pretty cool as well).

The interface in Call of Duty 2 on the Xbox 360 is also well-thought-out and designed. You can change your stance from kneeling to standing, or you can go prone to increase your accuracy. You can carry two weapons at a time, and switching between them is just a matter of tapping the Y button. The left and right buttons give you quick access to your smoke grenades and frag grenades, respectively, while the right trigger fires your weapon. The left trigger toggles your aim down the iron sight of your gun (or through the scope, in the case of a sniper rifle) for a slightly zoomed-in view, and for better accuracy. Hold it down to aim, and release it to switch back to a normal view. You can't move as fast while aiming, but the visual transition between moving and aiming is quick and smooth, making it almost second nature for you to want to use the aiming feature. Unfortunately, you can't peek around corners as you can in the PC version of the game.

Multiplayer Call of Duty 2 picks up right where the original left off, offering standard deathmatch, team deathmatch, and capture-the-flag modes, along with the search-and-destroy mode from the original game, where one team has to plant a bomb and destroy one of two objectives while the other team defends. A mode called "headquarters" is also available, and it's probably the most enjoyable mode of the five available in COD2. In this mode, two different areas on a map are designated as capture points for either of the two teams. To score points, a team must control and set up a headquarters on one of the two areas. Once that's set up, points begin increasing for the controlling team. The other team must attempt to overrun the position to try to stop the points from ticking up. During the time a headquarters is set up, the defending team members can't respawn (if they're killed) until their headquarters is overrun or the HQ expires. Once one of those two things happens, capture points are changed to different locations, and the teams begin anew to try to set up a base. The nature of capturing and defending--and a constantly shifting HQ location--makes this mode fun, because teams must adapt to different roles quickly and on the fly. As far as weapon balance goes, there's a predictable relationship between bolt-action rifles, semiautomatic rifles, assault rifles, and submachine guns. The smoke grenades can also change battlefield dynamics greatly, as snipers can sometimes find their favorite killing fields obscured. The shotguns are also extremely powerful in close-quarters situations, and they're fun to use.

Call of Duty 2 on the Xbox 360 also adds a four-player split-screen multiplayer mode for playing with friends on a single TV. The hardware never breaks a sweat, maintaining a crisp 60 frames per second even with action going on in so many windows. The problem is that the maps in the game are too large to really lend themselves to just four players. You can play any of the game modes, but playing two-on-two CTF or HQ is kind of silly. What's unfortunate about the online multiplayer action is that it's limited to just eight players on Xbox Live. The maps are definitely more viable with eight players than with just four, but you'll still find, in a lot of cases, that there's a little too much room to roam around. The action can still be fun, and the network code is very smooth, but those who've played the PC version know that the maps and game modes really play out better with more than just eight players. If you have the inclination to move a bunch of Xbox 360s and TVs together, system link brings the number of supported players up to 16.

The presentation in Call of Duty 2 is also topflight. Each mission is introduced with video footage from the Military Channel, as well as documentary-style narration that helps set the historical setting for what you're about to do. The game's graphics are also excellent, whether you play on an HDTV or a regular TV. If you play the game at HD resolutions, you'll find that there's no discernible difference between the Xbox 360 game and the PC one. The levels are just as well appointed, the textures are razor-sharp, and there's a great amount of detail in the character models. The effects from smoke grenades and explosions also look wonderful.

Most importantly, though, Call of Duty 2 on the Xbox 360 runs buttery smooth--even smoother than the PC version did for us in a lot of cases. Areas and situations that would cause most PCs to hitch up run perfectly fine on the Xbox 360 version. If you play on a non-HDTV, you do lose some of the sharpness and detail. But the game still looks better than just about any shooter we've played on a regular Xbox, and the frame rate seems even higher than when you play at HD resolutions, making up somewhat for the decline in texture detail. Sound is where Call of Duty 2 excels like no other FPS. From the stirring score that kicks up during key moments, to the top-notch gun and explosion effects, the game sounds fantastic. And if you have a Dolby 5.1 setup, you'll appreciate this aspect of the game even more. The speech is also pretty good, particularly the yelling that your squadmates and enemies do during battle, which plays right in to your excitement and tension as you fight.

Aside from the small-scale online matches, Call of Duty 2 is just about everything you'd hope for and expect from a next-generation first-person shooter. Its varied campaign, excellent sound and gameplay design, and generally good AI make it a worthy successor to the original game on the PC. At the same time, though, it's still a World War II shooter. So if you've decided you've grown weary of them, Call of Duty 2 doesn't do that much new to bring you back in to the fold. What Call of Duty 2 does do well is nail down just about all aspects that define an ideal first-person shooter. If you liked the original and have been thirsting for more, Call of Duty 2 will definitely deliver. And if you haven't experienced a Call of Duty game before, then get ready for an incredible experience in Call of Duty 2 for the Xbox 360.

Gamespot Score: 8.8

You'll begin with a simple setup: An evil wizard named Dhoulmagus has seized a legendary scepter, cursing the castle from which it was taken and turning the king into a toadlike creature and the princess into a horse. You (a palace guard and hero of this tale) were the only other inhabitant of the castle to survive the tragic events, and you set off with King Trode, the equine Medea, and a portly companion named Yangus to track down the foul magician. That's all the preamble you need to start off on your adventure, and soon you're out meeting the locals and following clues to trace Dhoulmagus' sinister trail.

In addition to the stalwart, powerful Yangus, you'll eventually meet up with Jessica, a self-confident young woman with a fondness for magic and skimpy clothing, and Angelo, a holy Templar knight who's more occupied with drinking, gambling, and the indolent pleasures of life rather than with the noble precepts of his Order. It's this group of four characters that sets out to face the world and its many monsters. Unlike some other role-playing games, Dragon Quest doesn't have dozens of characters of all types to recruit to your cause. But that sort of focus serves the game's simple, straightforward style of storytelling, familiarizing you with your friends as you're introduced to a host of other personable characters on your way to bring Dhoulmagus to justice. In battle, too, each character has a clearly defined set of strengths that you'll learn to bring to bear against your challenging opponents.

Battles are turn-based and randomly occur as you explore the wilderness, though the spacing between encounters feels pretty generous and isn't invasively jarring to your progress. You'll select moves for each member of your team and then turn them loose against monsters as a group. In addition to basic melee, your party will learn a number of spells, from offensive magic that can be used on single enemies or groups, to spells that boost party defense and attack, to healing magic. These spells are largely learned automatically, with enough overlap that you aren't ever forced to rely on just one character for, say, healing. A command called psyche-up lets you boost a character's "tension," which increases your amount of stored attack power until you unleash it all in a single, focused attack for major damage, which is quite handy against tough bosses.

Abilities also come into play, which are learned through spending skill points gained with each level. Each character has four weapon-based skills to spend points on (axes, swords, spears, and so forth), as well as a fifth category that varies from character to character. Boosting the weapon categories lets you do extra damage with that type of weapon, and you can use special attacks that are only available with a certain level of skill. The final category is unique to each person. For example, Jessica's special ability tree is "sex appeal." Putting points into this trait not only teaches her new magic spells, but also generates passive powers, like being able to randomly charm enemies simply by appearing in battle in front of them. There's nothing quite like facing a daunting group of foes, only to have two of them completely forget to attack for a turn because they're too busy admiring Jessica's...attributes.

There are lots of amusing little touches like this in battles, from cat creatures randomly grooming themselves instead of fighting, to little squid kids that get called away by mom midbattle, to imps that valiantly try to cast spells on your party (only to fall over in defeat because they don't have enough MP to cast the spell in the first place), to spirits that are content to stare blankly into space and hardly ever attack at all. These random factors not only serve to make some encounters unbearably cute, but they also can end up totally saving your bacon, because monster strength in Dragon Quest tends to ramp up quite fast. When you can have six or eight enemies facing you at a time--some of which can heal other monsters, some of which will incessantly call their friends into battle, some of which can spring powerfully devastating attacks, and some of which have the nerve to resurrect dead allies--even the most routine jaunt across the countryside can easily become as perilous as a boss fight. You'll rarely be autopiloting through random battles, particularly as you move into new areas and encounter stronger foes. There is also a day-night cycle, so if you venture outside in the evening, you can expect to run into packs of really nasty baddies.

If you're used to just brushing aside the small fries on your way to find a boss to conquer, the first few party wipes will wake you up pretty quickly. Fortunately, a wipe doesn't mean game over, as you'll appear at the church where you last saved. Unfortunately, you'll be without half your gold--the price you pay for negligence. This might seem harsh, but you're also given lots of tools to use to quickly withdraw from bad situations, too. Early on you learn a spell to exit whatever dungeon you might be in, as well as a spell that lets you warp instantly to any save spot you've visited, as well as select dungeons. You won't have to slog all over the world map just to try to level up. The difficulty of battles, especially initially in the game, can be pretty daunting. But they're also interesting because of this, so you won't be mindlessly smashing the X button and falling asleep on your way to the next town. Besides, it just gives you plenty of time to admire the great-looking enemies that are all around you.

The visual style is a unique one, and much of that's due to series artist Akira Toriyama's crazy designs (he's also the artist behind Dragon Ball Z), which are, for the first time, getting fully realized in a 3D world. The characters are all vibrant, fluidly detailed, and animated and striking to watch in motion, as are the many sorts of monsters you'll meet. For Dragon Quest fans, fear not...all your old favorite monsters are here, from skeletons, bat-winged drakies, and shambling mummies, right down to the humble, smiling slimes (and their tough metal counterparts). All monsters carry their traditional poses, but they are now fully animated and brought marvelously to life with a variety of motions and dangerous skills they can levee against you. The world you'll wander is wide and sweeping, with all manner of mountains, grassy plains, deeply blue streams and lakes, expansive deserts and oceans, and clouded cursed castles and tiny hamlets, all of which are great fun to explore. The look of the game is quite cohesive and beautiful, a mark of the skilled work of the developers at Level 5, who were responsible for the Dark Cloud games.

The music that accompanies your journey is easily as rich as the visuals, with a spread of orchestral sound that runs the gamut from cheery town tunes and peppy world-roaming music, to dungeon music that evokes the sound of water dripping from stone walls and danger lurking around every corner. Along with all the new music is a host of classic tunes and sound effects, which series fans will be delighted to hear reprised in their updated forms. Plus, there is a good amount of surprisingly competent voice acting. The Japanese original contained no voice-over work, but it was added for the English version during story sequences. By and large, all the speech is well suited to the characters and it's delivered well throughout the game. There's the odd spot of over-the-top delivery, but considering the truly crazy characters with whom you'll be consorting, it's hard to get upset at King Trode for the occasional shrill squeak when he's basically a wronged royal in the form of a midget troll.

The adventure is a lengthy one, easily topping 50 hours or so for a normal play-through, and more if you want to get into all of the side activities. There's a whole alchemy side game that involves combining various items to get new accessories, items, weapons, and armor; a quest to scour the world for mini-medals for a bizarre princess; a bunch of optional creatures to battle; skill points to max out; and more. Once you finish the game, there's even an additional ending you can get by loading up your save file again (no saved game+ business). Dragon Quest VIII definitely offers a lot of content for the curious.

Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King represents a style of RPG that's largely not represented in an age of grandiose cinematic cutscenes, convoluted storylines, and huge character hosts. It's a simple yet engaging and lighthearted tale of four friends fighting against a great evil, with a focus on challenging battles, whimsical abilities, and fun. It's a classic formula that doesn't take very many risks, but instead simply delivers a great, well-made adventure. Whether or not you were a fan of the series previously, it would be worth your while to give this charming RPG a shot.

GameSport Score: 9.0

Liberty City Stories brings you back to Rockstar's fictional take on New York City, first seen this way in 2001's revolutionary GTA III. This time around, the year is 1998, and you play the role of a returning wise guy named Toni Cipriani, who works for Salvatore Leone. Upon your return to town, you get right back to work, because the Leone crime family is about to start getting it from all sides. As you ascend to become Salvatore's right-hand man, you'll start and finish gang wars with other mafia types, a few triads, the yakuza...pretty much all of the usual suspects are present.

If you're familiar with the various mafia presences over the course of the past three GTA games, you'll recognize a few of the names and faces here. But the story stands alone and doesn't require you to remember the various cast members. That's a good thing, because the mafia characters in the other GTA games have been largely forgettable. The game's storyline really isn't up to par with the console installments in the series, because very little actually happens. Even potential plot points, like when Toni finally becomes a made man, are squandered by a bad cutscene that doesn't actually show the ceremony. The game's mission path doesn't deviate into crazy territory, and most of the characters are fairly lifeless. There are no enigmatic weirdos like Truth, the crazy hippie from San Andreas, or Steve Scott, the porno director from Vice City, to break up the heavier-handed mafia tasks. This dulls the game's personality, preventing its characters and events from becoming as memorable as we've come to expect from GTA games and their excellent storylines.

If you stick to the missions and don't mess around too much, you can finish the game's story mode in 10 to 12 hours. But the deceptive game-progress counter will only report around 40-percent completion if you stick close to the missions and don't do much else. The game has some rampage side missions and the standard pizza delivery, vigilante, taxi service, and ambulance missions, too. You can seek out ringing pay phones to get into street races. You can report to car lots to sell cars or motorcycles by test-driving vehicles for prospective consumers. And, of course, there are 100 hidden packages to find. If you get into all this optional stuff, there's a lot more city to see, and plenty of different cars to see it in.

Over the years, the missions in Grand Theft Auto have gotten more complex, but the overall difficulty has lightened up. The missions in Liberty City Stories, however, are extremely simple for the most part. Most of your given tasks are one-dimensional, such as stealing a specific car and driving it back to a location without wrecking it, or taking out a series of gang members and blowing up their prized tank. A few missions get a little deeper, but at some point, the missions just start to all run together because they aren't very interesting. The combat-heavy missions tend to be a little tougher than the driving tasks, because the game's control scheme occasionally gets in the way. The lock-on targeting in GTA games has always been a little squirrelly, but when you add a less-than-optimal target-changing control to that mix (left and right on the D pad, by default), you end up with some frustrating moments. In missions where you're given a large number of targets to take down, you're better off doing it from a distance with a sniper rifle, if possible.

The weapons in Liberty City Stories are what you'd expect from a Grand Theft Auto game. You'll start out finding basic pistols, submachine guns, and shotguns, but over time, your enemies will start to drop higher-powered weaponry. You can only carry one weapon of each type at a time, but ammo for one weapon in a class will work for another, so running over weapons is handy for collecting bullets, even if you don't decide to switch out for a lower-powered weapon. The system works roughly the same way that it worked in GTA: Vice City. In fact, the whole game feels like it's the world of Grand Theft Auto III, with some (but not all) of the Vice City enhancements thrown in. The game has motorcycles, for example. You'll also be able to change your clothes, but this works on an entire-outfit level, not on a piece-by-piece level like in San Andreas. You'll occasionally fight alongside other Leone-friendly gangsters, but they're completely controlled by rudimentary artificial intelligence. You can't issue commands to them like you could in San Andreas. Considering how dopey the AI can be in some spots--we witnessed more than one occasion where our allies decided that the best way to get closer to their target was to run in place up against a wall--a simple "get over here" command would have been handy.

A big, big part of the Grand Theft Auto series has always been that sense of freedom...freedom to cause wanton destruction, that is. It's not a mission, and it's not something that helps your cause, but just loading up on weapons, walking into the street, and attempting to blow up and shoot as many things as possible is among the best, most thrilling aspects of the series. As is trying to escape from the scene of said crime in one of the game's various vehicles. Liberty City Stories allows you to do this much better than any of the other handheld games have, but it still does it on a slightly reduced scale. Police response definitely isn't as fierce as it is in other GTA games. You'll still see helicopters, but the game seems to know exactly when another police car onscreen would send the frame rate screeching down to single-digit territory; so it's possible to take care of all the lawmen in your immediate vicinity and not have more immediately pull up to join the fight. Also, there are a handful of other technical issues that tend to get in the way from time to time. Occasionally, getting into or out of a car causes the game to seize up for a second or so while it loads (or unloads) the radio-station audio. If you're in the middle of a rampage and attempt to dive out of one car and into another while surrounded by angry cops, that's one halt for getting out of the car, which flows into an action sequence with a somewhat choppy frame rate, followed by a total halt when you get into another car to make your escape. It certainly makes sense, given that the technical capabilities of the PSP are definitely below that of the PlayStation 2, but Liberty City Stories comes so close to matching the PS2 experience in so many different ways that these things do tend to stick out at you. That said, it's still fun to drive around the city and cause trouble, thanks in part to the game's variety of cars, each with their own different handling characteristics.

One thing that sets Liberty City Stories apart from the recent console games is its inclusion of multiplayer support for up to six players. The game has a handful of basic modes, including takes on deathmatch, capture the flag, and king of the hill. You've got team games as well as free-for-all modes, and you'll unlock more characters and locations as you proceed through the single-player game. While you can play the game with two players, the big environments make playing with two players pretty boring. But in a larger group, the game's definitely got some multiplayer charm. Just don't expect it to steal the show.

Liberty City Stories looks great for the PSP, and it's doing some very ambitious stuff from a technicaly standpoint. However, some parts of it do look noticeably unsightly. While the frame rate is definitely less than stable, the game still manages to convey a good sense of speed when you're driving fast. The game's characters look about as good as you could hope for, and animate pretty well in the game's many cutscenes. There's a lot of pop-up--pretty much par for the course throughout the GTA series--though here, the horizon is just a bit closer, causing cars to magically materialize just ahead of you on the road. This can make fast driving a little tough at times. Even though it has its bouts with low frame rates, it's easy to be impressed by the way the game handles such large environments. Also, the load times throughout the game are very manageable and never get out of control, which makes the game's large areas even more impressive.

The audio end of Liberty City Stories is structured identically to how it's done in the "big" games, but again, on a slightly smaller scale. The cutscenes are given full speech, and for the most part, the characters are well-portrayed and voiced, even if you don't recognize most of the names in the credits. Whenever you're in a car, you can listen to a handful of different radio stations; as you'd expect, it's here where the game gets its jokes in. From commercials telling you that the Internet is clearly a tool of the devil that ruins lives (which is true) to ads for generic mascot-driven kart-racing games, there's a lot of funny stuff here. However, the radio stations loop more frequently than you'd probably like, presumably due to storage limitations.

The music in the past two Grand Theft Auto games has been incredibly important in setting the game's tone. The '80s music in Vice City and the rap stations in San Andreas were key to both the tone and the pace of those two games. The PSP game's soundtrack doesn't really serve as the same type of pop-culture touchstone. The rap station, hosted by DJ Clue, depicts a pretty accurate take on late-'90s East Coast mix-tape and rap radio. A bunch of the music on the other stations, however, was custom-written for the game, with a focus on sounding sort of like various forms of pop music. While 1998 might be a little too recent to get nostalgic about, there's still a bunch of really awful boy-band pop music from 1997 and 1998 that would have made for perfect "driving around and running over cops" music, so it's disappointing that some higher-profile stuff didn't get licensed. The game has a custom soundtrack feature, as well, but it doesn't directly work with any of the audio already on your PSP memory stick. Instead you have to download a custom CD ripping application that Rockstar has developed and inject the audio into your saved game. Additionally, it's been built to only work with commercial CDs, so your sizable MP3 collection is apparently useless. Considering that the PSP already has MP3 file playback, it seems strange that you have to jump through so many hoops to get custom music.

It's worth mentioning that this game makes absolutely no concessions when it comes to making it a little friendlier as a portable game. You still save at safehouses, still have to drive your way to each mission, and still have to start the entire mission over again if you fail. When you're busted or wasted on a mission, the game spawns a taxi that will take you back to the mission start point, if you desire. But that would put you at the beginning of the mission with no weapons, no armor, nothing. That's not much of a help, so you're left reloading your game every time something goes wrong and going out of your way to save as often as possible.

If you're the type of person that plays your PSP games sitting down, at home, in large chunks, this doesn't make any real difference. But if you're an on-the-go sort of person who tries to squeeze in a few minutes of GTA here and there, the time it takes to get into a mission and start making progress might be a bit too much. Some in-mission checkpoints or other options would have probably solved this problem. At least the PSP has sleep mode--you won't have to load the entire game up just to play for a few minutes. Also, it's worth mentioning that while the game seems to be spinning the disc almost constantly, there doesn't seem to be a noticeably heavy drain on the system's battery life. You'll get roughly the same amount of battery life out of GTA than you would out of most other PSP games.

It's really pretty amazing that GTA: Liberty City Stories manages to cram in so much of the GTA experience that you're used to seeing on consoles. While the game is definitely a fine technical achievement and one of the best PSP games to date, the dull storyline and basic mission design do bring the whole thing down a bit. Maybe it's not entirely reasonable to expect for this game to live up to its console counterparts in every respect, but it retails for just as much as they did, and attempts to do many of the same exact things, so it really is a whole new GTA (just in a familiar setting). Yet for all it squeezes out of the PSP, it doesn't quite squeeze everything that makes the GTA series so special. But if what you're after is a game that looks and plays like a Grand Theft Auto game for your PSP, you'll definitely be satisfied.

Gamespot Score: 8.4

Some games remain in the player's mind for their complexity or great features, some others come to attend a temporary demand before falling into limbo of forgetfulness, but then, what are the ingredients for a great computer game to make them unforgettable and yet a rewarding experience?

Experts and successful PC games programmers agree, affirming that every player is motivated when he/she feels to be in focus in the game. Players want to have fun living the role of the chosen character so he or she needs to feel that it is the player who can control the outcome of the games.

A large number of the most memorable and great computer games include a selectable skill level to achieve the different challenges a player might want to take. Depending on the complexity of the games, some players may go for easier, but most of them believe the harder the game the most rewarding the experience when they win a competitive game or complete an adventure-like game.

Developers should also consider the present technology before programming a game. PC games are only limited by the player's computer system and resources, so those users with a powerful computer will find a game worthless if the story is great but the graphics are poor and the actions do not correspond to the actual technology, while others will find it frustrating in not being able to play a game above their system specs, but with the look and feel of those belonging to the early day of computerized games.

Simplicity is the clue to satisfy both, the high tech player and the ordinary PC user. A great computer game is not one with all heavy graphics running intensive system resources through hundreds of pages but one with a quality look and great performance on an average computer with the possibilities to improve the gaming experience in equipment with a higher capacity.

Additionally, the game has to be simple from the playable perspective. A game which features are complicated or hard to understand may discourage the player no matter how good it may look. It is interesting to note how many old PC games based on text adventures without fancy graphics still remain popular. So then, the development of a story is also important to fulfill what a player expects from games.

Natalie Aranda loves PC games. Computer games bring both learning and fun experience. A large number of the most memorable and great computer games include a selectable skill level to achieve the different challenges a player might want to take.

To really get the full effect you need a top of the line computer system, including a decent sound card and upper end video card. If you have that, what you get is an awesome gaming experience. The excellent sound design brings together the deafening explosions, sounds of gunfire, ricochet echoes as bullets whiz by, and the shouts of your commander as he screams orders directing you and your squad. It really merits 5.1 surround sound and some decent speakers to do it justice.

With support for up to 32 players in online play, including nine new maps and the excellent HQ mode, Call of Duty 2 should be on your playlist for a good while to come. As for vehicles in online play unlike the (original Call of Duty), there are none and that is really to bad as there was nothing like jumping into a tank and taking out a whole squad of enemy troops.

All in all, Call of Duty 2 is one of the best pc games I have played to date, I only can hope to an expansion pack or a Call of Duty 3 to follow this great game.

Andy Klynstra is the webmaster for Oil-Net.Com.

PS3Week.Com has followed up on Josh's story with a great interview regarding his comments and the repercussions of speaking your mind while two monster companies are competing for millions of dollars.

Robinson says, "Did I knowingly break NDA? I absolutely did not. I would never do that and I would never want to hurt Sony Online. Did I dance in the grey area by even opening my mouth? Yes I did and I was fired for it. So I guess the new rule for me is, don’t ever say anything at all about anything. Ever...ever."

His comments are a bit tongue-and-cheek, but to be honest, I don’t blame Sony for showing him the door. Bad mouthing your company to a group of friends is one thing, but expressing your discontent online with the intention of being noticed is a completely different. What was he expecting?

However, don’t feel sorry for Mr. Robinson. Josh has a book deal in the works, and several job offers as well.

For more news, check out our Xbox 360 site or our Nintendo Revolution site.

Price is definitely a big issue. I mean, when’s the last time you didn’t even bat an eye when are buying something 500 bucks or more? The bottom line: Computer gaming is more expensive. Why? Because computers aren’t made just for games. They are calculators, word processors, Internet navigators, music players, movie watchers, and photo editors. They are much more than a gaming machine. Consoles, on the other hand, generally aren’t. It’s only recently that consoles have gone online starting with the Dreamcast and I haven’t seen anyone printing off spreadsheets or book reports from one yet. Consoles are purely for gaming and run between 100-500 bucks. PCs on the other hand are much more than a gaming machine and run between 1,500-3,000 dollars and need to be upgraded every now and again to play the newest and greatest games.

Tech savvy can possibly be an issue. Computers are a little more unstable than consoles. I mean, when’s the last time you saw a Playstation lock up or get a blue screen of death? Never, right? The same thing comes in here. Some computer games might be a little stubborn to set up the way your computer likes it or your computer might not meet the system requirements. Consoles, on the other hand, don’t have that problem. The people designing the games have to fit the requirements of the console so that you don’t have a problem. If you have a basic knowledge of computers, you’ll be fine. If you don’t, then a console might be better for you.

So as I’ve explained, if you want more than a gaming system for school and work or you just like gaming genres like RTS and MMORG games, I would go with a PC. If you love platformers, Action/Adventure, or Sports games or your wallet is a tad on the empty side, I’d go with a console. It won’t be able to surf the Internet or help you with anything else, but it’ll play some great games.

If you want a console by the end of this article, then you have 3 options at the moment. You could buy a Gamecube if you like innovation, buy a Xbox if you like the best graphics and FPS games, or buy a PS2 if you want a huge library of games or love fighting games, Action/Adventure games, platformers, and RPG games. You also have another option. You could wait until the Xbox 360 comes out this month and get that or wait until the Nintendo Revolution and PS3 come out next year.

If you want advise on gaming computers and computer gaming, then http://www.gaming-computers-authority.com is a great resource for all your questions and even has a tutorial on building your own computer.

Jared Strop - Have been a gamer for a very long time. Currently hard at work at GameStop and a devoted webmaster.

WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW 2006 is very much a Yuke's PlayStation 2 wrestling game. That is to say, if you played any of the developer's earlier games, this one isn't going to throw you for a loop. What it will do is show you a number of key refinements to the gameplay that help it emulate real-life wrestling (we use the term loosely, of course) better than any game before. For one thing, SmackDown! vs. RAW 2006 introduces a measure of ring psychology to the proceedings. Don't worry; you don't have to plan your spots or your finishes or anything. What's been introduced here is a pair of systems that track your wrestler's stamina, as well as his or her momentum, in the match. Stamina drains a number of ways, though mostly through pulling off and being on the butt end of big moves. Momentum is built by playing a more interesting match, one that will get the crowd thoroughly behind your wrestler.

The combination of these two systems leads to more logical and slightly more methodical matches. You can't get away with just pulling off lengthy strings of weak moves to survive, but you also can't just toss power move after power move at your opponent without draining your stamina. Therefore, you have to be smart, switching up between weaker and stronger moves, taking occasional breaks to regain stamina (which is done simply by holding down the select button) and playing to the crowd as much as you can. Both factors are visible throughout a match. When your wrestler's stamina is drained, he or she will double over in exhaustion. Likewise, if your momentum's low and the crowd isn't behind you, you might find yourself getting booed; you'll even hear chants of "Booo-ring!" from the audience. Your ability to pull off a finishing move is also directly tied in to the momentum meter. Building it up to its peak will let you pull one off or even store one for later--though finishers delivered at any momentum level other than the peak one won't do as much damage.

SmackDown! vs. RAW 2006 also manages to differentiate the unique styles (or lack thereof, in some cases) of the many WWE superstars. Whereas in the past, grappling attacks were relegated to the same four categories for every single wrestler, now each wrestler is assigned four of seven available categories. From within the game's move editor, you can assign them power, speed, technical, luchadore, brawler, martial arts, and old school categories. The one constant for all wrestlers is submission grapples, which is always assigned no matter what. But the remaining three categories can be divvied up however you like. There's also a fifth grapple category that determines what kind of wrestler you are, a heel or a face (in lay terms, a bad guy or a good guy). The moves are appropriately different, with the heel moves involving a lot of cheating and cheap shots, and the heroic moves staying well within the rules. Apart from the categorical changes though, this is very much the same type of grapple system the series has used over the last couple of games--so while things like trying to figure out who has what types of moves might take a bit of getting used to, fundamentally it should be familiar to you.

Believe it or not, the list of crazy additions to the gameplay engine does not end there. There are lots of little ancillary additions too, similar to some of the stuff Yuke's added last year, such as the prematch minigame. A couple of wrinkles have been tossed into the specials system. For instance, you can now steal an opponent's taunt by pressing the special button and hitting a taunt at the same time. Doing so completely drains your opponent's momentum. There's also an ability to play possum by countering a ground attack in combination with pressing the special attack button. This rolls your opponent up into a particularly sneaky pin.

SmackDown! vs. RAW even includes a deeper array of match types to keep you busy, on top of everything else. All the usual suspects are front and center once again, including cage matches, hell-in-a-cell matches, table matches, TLC matches, elimination chamber matches, first blood matches, and all the rest. New to the roster are fulfill-your-fantasy and buried alive matches. Fulfill your fantasy is the effective replacement to the always-lame yet always-included bra-and-panties matches, featuring exclusively the WWE divas. This one is equally silly, letting you choose outfits for the ladies to wear and asking you to pull off these goofy fantasy moves (most of which involve pillow fights, spanking, and other forms of titillation).

The buried alive match is an interesting addition; the whole strategy of the match is to drag your opponent out of the ring, down the aisle, and to a mound of dirt near the stage area, where a coffin is set up. Any wrestling fan worth his salt will know where this goes from here, and the mechanics of getting your opponent into that coffin and the lid shut aren't half bad (though somewhat frustrating at times). Ultimately, the buried alive match is a worthwhile addition, though the fulfill your fantasy match probably could have been bypassed altogether. But more interesting than these are the improvements to existing matches, like the cage match, for example, which now features an exit door and a much better method for emulating the struggle of climbing out of that cage. Ladder matches are better too, with multiple ladders available and a new brawling system that lets you duke it out with your opponent while both of you are on the ladder. Great stuff.

While all these fantastic additions might make SmackDown! vs. RAW 2006's gameplay sound like the most mind-blowing thing ever, it's ultimately what hasn't changed about the game that keeps it from perfection. For starters, the hit detection is still spotty. It's a far cry from the days when strikes would inexplicably miss and aerial moves would hit from bizarre distances, but it's still not quite right. You'll sometimes whiff on ground strikes while a guy is in transition between his getting-up animation and actually standing up, and it's not overly hard to miss a running strike if you don't have your opponent lined up just perfect. Aerial moves sometimes register oddly, too, missing at random times and, occasionally, hitting when it looks like you've missed. Again, the frequency of these hiccups is far less than it's been in the past, but when it happens, it definitely comes off as a problem.

The artificial intelligence of your opponents also has its flaws. There are four difficulty levels in the game, and the balance between them all is generally imperfect, with the easiest turning opposing wrestlers into brain-dead idiots who stand around for half a match without a clue of what to do, and the hardest turning the game into a festival of reversals that leaves you on the losing side far more often than not. The middle two levels are the most enjoyable, with the second-highest difficulty likely to be your eventual sweet spot once you master the game's mechanics. Still, on this level you'll run into a lot of reversals of your attacks. The fortunate thing is that it's easier this year for you to reverse attacks yourself, because the window for hitting a reversal button has been extended. It's not a guarantee, mind you, but you always feel like you at least have a decent shot of reversing attacks as much as your opponents do.

Of course, it wouldn't be much of a wrestling game if SmackDown! vs. RAW 2006 didn't offer up plenty of things to do other than just wrestling. As in past years, you'll likely spend much of your initial time with the game playing through the season mode. The season mode is a lot like last year's game, with a more structured storyline that doesn't involve many branching paths or choices, but features the voice talent of the WWE superstars. The good news is that unlike last year's game, the voice talent isn't completely horrible. The recording quality of the dialogue sounds right, and the vast majority of the wrestlers pull off their lines just as well as they would on TV. Sure, there are a few dead reads among the bunch, but this year they're in the vast minority. The writing is also really solid, with angles that play out as you'd expect a TV storyline to.

What's also cool about the season mode is that there are multiple unique storylines to play through. There's one for RAW superstars, one for SmackDown! superstars, and a third storyline that we only managed to get once, while playing as John Cena. So unlike in past years, there's good reason to go back and play through the season mode multiple times, other than just to earn more cash for unlockables. Another great thing is that every single wrestler in the game is voice acted, including the one you play as. You can use any wrestler from a specific show (save for a couple of omissions, like Eugene) as well as your created wrestlers (you can choose from five different voices in the create-a-wrestler mode), and the dialogue will change to match the wrestler you're playing with. Text menus be damned--this is the way to go. Sure, it would be nice if there were more branching paths that the story could take, but if it's between that and fully voice-acted storylines that are actually pretty good, then we'll take the latter.

After you're done with the season mode, there's an all-new mode to play around with called the GM mode. Because general managers have played an increasingly key role in the way the WWE presents its storylines, it's not altogether surprising that a mode in which you yourself play that role would find its way into a wrestling game. The GM mode is basically the equivalent of a franchise mode in a sports game. You begin by drafting from the roster of available WWE superstars (or just sticking with whatever your chosen show's current roster is), and signing them each to contracts of varying length. You're working with a budget, so you can't just sign all the top guys to expensive long-term deals; so you'll find yourself trying to space out your deals as much as possible, and sometimes working with more rookies than perhaps you'd like.

The whole crux of the mode is that you're competing with the other WWE brand. You're judged by how many fans your show has, and whichever brand has the most fans at the end of the yearlong period in which the mode takes place is the winner. You earn fans by putting on good shows. Good shows have good matches. Good matches are measured by star ratings, awarded by the fans themselves. The fans like big names, and matches featuring wrestlers with higher popularity levels naturally get higher ratings. It also helps when the wrestlers involved in a match have an ongoing feud. You can check to see who has a feud going via a menu in the mode, and basically, to keep a feud going, you have to involve your wrestler in a match every week, or at least in a promo. Promos can be inserted for advertising purposes, resting popular wrestlers, building hype for pay-per-views and main events, and even raiding the opposing show.

All of this sounds great, but it's not all put together quite as well as it could have been. Again, this is a purely menu-based mode, so it can be tough to really get a handle on how well your shows are going. You certainly have the option to play through any of the matches you have on a card, but it's tough to gauge whether doing so actually has any bearing on the rating at the end. You also don't ever get to watch any promos happen, so they're purely transparent. Another problem is that it's exceedingly tough to build up rookie wrestlers to an acceptable popularity level. There's no farm system or B-grade show like Velocity to send them down to for seasoning purposes. So you'll have at least a few one-star matches on every card, simply because you have wrestlers that just can't get over with the crowd. Popularity seems to come from wins, but putting rookies in against popular wrestlers for the purposes of getting them some wins just takes too long, and ultimately this drops the popularity of your already-popular wrestlers.

But even with all that said, the GM mode is a fun distraction, and it seems like it could be the groundwork for far more spectacular things in the future. The concept of being able to manage shows from the GM level and book your own cards is great. If that can be built upon, giving players more control over feuds and angles, making promos visible, and so on and so forth, that could be something really special. We'll just have to wait and see where Yuke's goes with this in the future.

Perhaps the biggest and simultaneously most disappointing part of last year's game was the debut of online play. Last year's online mode was barren, slightly laggy, and altogether dull. In this year's game, the online is a different animal. Up to four players can wrestle at once in a host of different match types, including practically every type of gimmick match, and even title matches. The titles you'll be vying for are the ones you create, and you can even make wagers with money you've won offline. On top of the match variety, there's also a feature that lets you trade created wrestlers between players. It's just a separate lobby section you can jump into, and it's pretty easy to do. Wins, losses, title defenses, and the like are tracked via the online scoreboards, too. Disappointingly, there's no real friends list to speak of, and the online community has already found obnoxious things to do to one another--things that the system probably could have prevented with a little more forethought. The game does track the number of disconnections an opponent might have, so you can at least try to avoid irritating players that way. Also, the online performance can vary wildly depending on connection speed. We had matches that were badly bogged down with lag, where actions were well behind button presses, and others that were practically lag-free. Just be aware that your mileage may vary.

There's also the usual array of creation modes to play with. The create-a-wrestler is pretty much as good as it's ever been, as is the create-a-belt mode from last year. The one major addition to the pack is the create-an-entrance mode, letting you specifically design the crazy pyrotechnics and camera angles that come with a superstar's entrance. It's the same concept that the Day of Reckoning franchise has used on the GameCube over the last couple of years, though it's not as good. There's no easy way to see exactly where each labeled camera angle is set up, nor what each pyro type looks like, so you'll have to go through each and every one, viewing the complete entrance preview each time, which can be time consuming. This is one case in which Yuke's probably would have been better served just making a carbon copy of what they'd already created, rather than trying to toss something new in.

Graphically, SmackDown! vs. RAW 2006 features easily the most refined and attractive-looking character models ever put into a wrestling game. The detail in each and every character is phenomenal. Facial animations look realistic, skins and costumes are supremely detailed, and the various cutscenes presented throughout the game, be they during the season mode or simply a quick cut of a particularly devastating move during a match, are wonderful. Amazingly enough, the frame rate holds up extremely well, even during matches with the maximum number of wrestlers in the ring, and the only time you might notice a bit of slowdown is during some entrance sequences with particularly elaborate pyrotechnics. Even the created wrestlers look just about on par with the models that Yuke's itself designed, making their inclusion in a match all the more seamless. Were it not for the collision issues, this would be graphical perfection for a wrestling game on the PS2.

The audio is also much improved from last year. Apart from the mostly great voice acting, commentary is better this year. Both the teams of Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler and Michael Cole and Tazz are on hand for their respective shows, and while the lines of commentary are mostly innocuous and don't get into much depth within the matches themselves, the lines are somewhat less repetitive than they've been in previous years. The season mode also makes good use of the commentators during cutscenes to set the stage for the storyline. More licensed music is on hand for soundtrack purposes, though it's a weird list of artists, ranging from the Dillinger Escape Plan to Bumpy Knuckles. There's even a remix of Megadeth's "Symphony of Destruction" for some reason. Sadly, none of John Cena's album is used for the soundtrack for some reason.

Not every single thing that WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW 2006 tries to do completely works, but the sheer amount of crazy new stuff in this game more than makes it worth the while of any wrestling fan. The gameplay is the best it's ever been, the presentation is top-notch, and the plethora of available modes is more than enough to keep any WWE enthusiast busy for hours and hours. Maybe Yuke's will surprise everyone and put together another SmackDown! vs. RAW game for the PlayStation 2 next year; but if this does turn out to be the last one for the system, then it will have gone out with a bang.

GameSpot Score: 8.7

Soul Calibur III introduces three completely new characters to a returning cast featuring all the familiar faces from past installments, providing a total of nearly 30 different characters. It's a large roster even from the outset, when about half the characters are locked away. Every type of weapon fighting style you can think of is represented, including various traditional Eastern and Western forms, along with some decidedly unconventional techniques. If you've played a Soul Calibur game before, you'll find that the basics of gameplay are the same as ever. There are four different action buttons: horizontal and vertical slashes, kick, and guard. By combining these with fairly simple directional movements, it's possible to perform literally dozens of different moves as each character. Certain types of moves are performed similarly from one character to the next, so it's easy to switch from playing as one fighter to another, even though the high-level strategies for each character are unique. Mixing up high-hitting and low-hitting attacks while maneuvering around each area and strategically defending against or deflecting the opponent's attacks is what the action is all about.

Of course, if you've ever played a Soul Calibur game, none of this exactly comes as a shock. But then again, the gameplay in Soul Calibur represents some of the most well-designed, finely tuned action that fighting games have to offer, so there hasn't been clear-cut room for improvement. As such, the subtle differences this time around seem mostly aimed at hardcore players who got a little too comfortable with certain aspects of Soul Calibur or its sequel. This has rightfully always been an offense-oriented series, where aggressive players who deftly switch up their attacks and constantly remain on high alert tend to dominate passive players who sit back and poke at their opponents. Now this is even more the case, as it's possible to perform extremely damaging combos when opponents are pinned against walls or when opponents fail to actively pick themselves up off the ground after getting knocked down. That's not to say it's pointless to even try to block anymore--far from it, as Soul Calibur's "guard impact" system is there to let dexterous players anticipate and deflect their opponent's attacks, creating an opening for retaliation. Many of the arenas in the game are also lined with low walls that can either be smashed or simply cleared if an unfortunate combatant is smacked high enough. Rounds will still often end with one fighter or the other getting knocked out of the ring, but these outcomes are avoidable enough to where they enrich the gameplay rather than cause undue frustration.

Characters in Soul Calibur III can also vary up the timing of many of their attacks or even cause their attacks to stop short for some fake-out tactics. Powerful unblockable moves and guard-crushing attacks top off everyone's arsenal, letting you quickly punish opponents who hesitate even slightly. Despite all the different-looking characters in the roster, access to this standard suite of fighting techniques mitigates the differences between fighters, including the potential for imbalances. Fortunately, there's a noticeable amount of new or different moves per character in Soul Calibur III, so if you've played a lot of the previous games, it'll be fun to explore how the fighters have changed in this sequel. Moves and tactics that worked well before still tend to be intact and are effective in Soul Calibur III. However, having access to new options certainly helps freshen up the experience a little. Soul Calibur III seems to emphasize multiple fighting stances per character, which not only tend to look cool, but also give the fighters a lot more room for different moves without unnecessarily complicating the controls. Furthermore, pairs of characters who used to be near-cookie-cutter copies of each other in the past, like Siegfried and Nightmare or Astaroth and Rock, feel more like unique fighters this time around.

If Soul Calibur III suffers from a sense of dйjа vu all over again, it's because the game recycles so many of the same animations as its predecessors. The fighters are all gorgeously redrawn, boasting a couple of distinctly different outfits and lifelike features, right on down to their facial expressions. However, you'll see them perform the same moves, take the same dives, and show off with the same win poses they've been sporting for years. Some of the unchanged animations remain shared across all fighters in the game, diminishing the sense that this is a truly new entry and that its roster consists of completely distinct characters. What's more, the various attacks in the game just don't seem to pack the same punch they used to. Despite all the menacing-looking weapons on display--many of which look truly deadly--no attacks ever so much as draw blood. This brand of bloodless, mild violence has always been apparent in Soul Calibur, but it's become increasingly odd as the series' graphics have superficially grown more and more believable. While new animations and harder-looking hits wouldn't have automatically made for a better game, it seems reasonable to expect the look, if not the feel, of Soul Calibur to evolve at a faster rate than this.

The new fighters who've joined the cast fit in well with the diversity already on display. Zasalamel is a muscular Egyptian-looking warrior who carries a scythe, and whose slower moves and rather long reach make him a good alternative for fans of Soul Calibur's bigger fighters. Tira is a lithe new female fighter with a wicked look in her eye and a weird leafy outfit that recalls the Batman villainess Poison Ivy. Weirder still is her weapon, essentially a razor-sharp hula hoop that she twirls around like a buzz saw, combining respectable reach with an unpredictably chaotic style. Finally, there's Setsuka, who looks like a Japanese geisha, complete with a lovely parasol...only the parasol does more than block out rain and sun, since it conceals a vicious blade. Setsuka's quick-draw cuts and slashes make her thematically similar to Japanese fighters like Mitsurugi and Taki, and she falls somewhere in between them in terms of her speed and power. Each of these characters has a full complement of moves, but each also doesn't necessarily seem as well developed as the returning cast, which isn't surprising considering the other fighters have effectively been in the works for years. Still, the new members of the cast are more than welcome in Soul Calibur III.

As you may have heard, Soul Calibur III is the first game in the series to be released exclusively for a PlayStation platform. There isn't an arcade version this time around, so in somewhat of a telling move, there's no arcade mode in the game...unless you count the "quick play" mode that's ironically buried several layers deep in the menu system. Quick play lets you take on a series of opponents in multiround matches, no strings attached, as you would in a typical single-player fighting game. The main single-player mode, though, is called Tales of Souls, and it's your obligatory story mode. You pick a character and end up taking on multiple opponents in single-round matches until you beat the final boss. Some text-based story stuff is there between matches, and some halfhearted attempts are thrown in to let you influence the story by choosing your next destination or by interacting with a few of the cutscenes. But the stories for many of the characters are virtually identical, the cutscenes can't be skipped, and the loading times between brief one-round bouts are more than a few seconds long, which all combine to prevent Tales of Souls from being particularly engrossing. Still, you'll need to spend time in this mode to unlock the game's hidden characters.

The other big new single-player mode doesn't fare much better. Chronicles of the Sword combines Soul Calibur III's fighting action with the trappings of a basic real-time strategy game. Since there's certainly a lot of strategy involved in playing a typical game of Soul Calibur III, Chronicles of the Sword may seem quite promising at first glance. But it's simply not well executed, partly because the text-based storyline isn't compelling and the generic characters found throughout this mode aren't interesting, but mostly because there's about as much waiting around as there is action in this mode. Lengthy loading times between matches and other dull moments prevent Chronicles of the Sword from being anywhere near as much fun as simply playing standard Soul Calibur III matches against a friend.

Chronicles of the Sword also ties in with another touted feature in Soul Calibur III, which is that you can create your own unique character. However, you're limited to choosing from a specific set of templates that strictly determines the moves and weapons you'll have access to, so you're mostly just limited to changing your character's name and appearance. And despite the volume of unlockable clothing pieces and accessories that can be used to customize your character, the created fighters in Soul Calibur III all have a generic look about them that's nowhere near as impressive as the main cast. And since there's unfortunately no online play in this game, all you can really do with your customized fighter is show him or her off to a nearby friend.

Soul Calibur III throws still more modes at you with the soul arena, which lets you take on some gimmicky but often fairly fun matches, and the practice mode, which lets you test out all the characters' moves but also lets you get some advice on high-level aspects of play. There's even a full glossary of terms in case you want to learn how to talk like a fighting game snob. Then, if you really want to pretend like you're a pro, you can try the world competition mode, which lets you enter fake tournaments or leagues against computer players (as well as other human players). These put you through standard tournament brackets, and as you win successive matches, the stakes naturally get higher. Unfortunately, you can't save your progress in a league or tournament, so you need to be prepared to play through dozens of matches in a row (or you can just pause the game and come back later). You also can't change your character once you've entered into a league or tournament. So this mode isn't great when playing against the artificial intelligence, but it's nice to have a built-in tournament option for up to eight players. This is where we could harp on the lack of online play again.

It bears repeating that the underlying gameplay of Soul Calibur III still shines through, especially when you're playing a similarly skilled friend--but even when you're playing solo. You've got a wide range of difficulty settings to choose from when competing against the AI, and at the default setting it presents a competent challenge for the average player, diligently trying to avoid letting you knock it out of the arena while mixing up its moves against you (at higher difficulty settings, the AI doesn't get smarter so much as its reflexes become more inhuman). It's just too bad that more of the game's different variations on the basic fighting theme aren't successful. At least there's a whole bunch of stuff to unlock along the way. All the time you spend playing Soul Calibur III, especially spent winning, earns you gold, which you can use to unlock a bunch of alternate weapons, illustrations, and more.

As mentioned, Soul Calibur III sure looks pretty, and for the most part it runs at a silky-smooth 60 frames per second, like every 3D fighting game ought to. Weapons gleam and shine realistically, and the fighting arenas look great, too. Bits and pieces of them fly about as the action of a typical match unfolds, helping make the fights look a little more dynamic. If you've got a widescreen progressive-scan display, so much the better, as the game takes full advantage of it. The audio in Soul Calibur III is great, too, and thankfully you can opt to choose between English and Japanese voice-over this time around. Most of the English voice-over is solid, though, and the sounds of weapons cutting and clashing are as well suited and familiar as ever. Most of the music has the same synth-orchestral sound to it as that of past Soul Calibur games, and while the compositions aren't particularly memorable, they fit the theme well. A few new Middle Eastern-influenced tunes stand out as being distinctively different from all the rest. All the while, Soul Calibur's melodramatic narrator chimes in to introduce and close out each battle. Probably our favorite aspect of the audio is simply how, when the title screen comes up, you get to hear pretty much every character say "Soul Calibur III" at one time or another.

Fans looking for more Soul Calibur will find just that in Soul Calibur III, a game that mostly just updates the look and some of the subtler aspects of play for this great series. Once you fool around with all the new modes of play, chances are you'll find yourself going back to the same old versus matches you've playing for years. And if you haven't been playing them for years, it's hard to imagine what about Soul Calibur III might convince you to take the plunge. Nevertheless, this is still one of the fastest-paced, most technical fighting games around, even if it doesn't necessarily rock the boat.

GameSpot Score: 8.2