I know it’s no Forza or Gran Turismo, but it’s definitely not a Burnout title either. It’s more PGR4 than Motorstorm, but it’s still its own distinct title in middling ground. Unfortunately, this time it’s not middle enough.

There was a brief period before and after Need for Speed: Most Wanted in which the franchise had racing games with no police involved. If your most iconic title is called Hot Pursuit 2, here’s a hot tip: don’t drop the cops. Thankfully, the chases are back into the formula, and they’re done fantastically to nobody’s surprise. But the one thing fans of the series gained from the enforcers’ reprieve was a very determined focus on the actual driving and racing aspects (these somehow came to light as important parts of a racing game in which you drive cars). Undercover is a pleasing amalgamation of all previous entries into the Need for Speed family. The police have returned in full force, but at the same time, you are benefiting from the police-free titles like ProStreet and Underground, as well as Carbon, which had police, but sucked anyway. The point is, car customization is fantastic, controls are pretty straightforward (it’s hard to fuck up a good thing when it works across the board, but somebody always manages it), and the new driving engine is designed to let you pull off cool maneuvers, but it still handles your individual cars very well and as realistically as I imagine it ever should.

There’s really not much to complain about here. The plot, while ending on a kind of wait, what note is actually pretty good. A lot of people hear the basic synopsis and say something snarky and mildly retarded about the similarity to The Fast and the Furious. Good one. Yeah, you play as an FBI agent trying to uncover some racers who decided to step up their game and commit more serious crimes, which explains why you have to be in just as much danger from the police as any other racer (you are undercover, after all). The gameplay actually requires this plot and vice versa: in order to have someone to race with, you have to prove your worth. In order to prove your worth, you must “dog” some “bacon” and prove you’re not a cop yourself. To engage police in chases and escape, there must be an open game world in which to drive. In other words, while there isn’t anything to do outside of the events that progress the plot (in the form of a leveling system accompanying each race’s payout), the open road has merit just in its necessity to police chases, which are relevant to the storyline.

As I said, though, the benefits of the police-free games are here, but there is nothing beside the reintegration of pursuing squad cars to offset these perks from the “simulator” side. This game needs more “arcade.” It has a handful of cars that can only be described as “totally badass,” and each of them takes physical damage, but this has no actual effect on the performance of the vehicle, thank the gods. That is indeed “arcade.” However, in some instances, you can completely total the car, smashing it so hard that the game just says “wow, you fucked up hard, start over.” Where is my Burnout-style exploding shattering shrapnel storm of wreckage and former bits of vehicle? If you’re going to go all out and tell me my car is so screwed it can’t even drive, I think we deserve a little more than just seeing the car in the same state as it was after bumping into one million things very lightly, rather than one thing at one million miles an hour. When I smash a cruiser out of commission, I want to see it sawed in half like that poor son of a bitch in The Matrix Reloaded that got nailed by those ghost twins’ huge truck. What I don’t want is to see just another cruiser slam into park with minor cosmetic issues.

Critics and designers and fans have all touted and hailed Undercover as a return to form, but I only see baby steps from there. I see a necessary piece of the franchise being returned to its rightful place and done very well, but at the same time, it’s hard to call that progression. Yes, the game brings together the worlds of its prequels and does everything either well or very well, but it lacks that joie de vivre found in its most beloved predecessors. I thoroughly enjoyed the game from start to finish, and I had several “oh damn yes” moments, whether it was by myself or racing online with and against my friends, but occasionally pumping my fist in the air or telling an AI driver to go fuck himself as I blur past him isn’t quite worth an A+ around here. When the Need for Speed games embrace their full potential, I’ll be waiting with open arms, but for now, this is just good; an upgrade for anyone who already enjoyed the series’ previous entries.

Fans of the character and fans of comics in general, so long as they have a console to commit to the process, should absolutely be playing this game. It is the best superhero game that has ever been published and played. I am indeed a fan of the character, but I’ve barely read any of the comics. I watched the animated shows when I was young, I saw the movies, and as I said, I played Spider-Man 2 more times than I rightly should have. That being said, I know next to nothing when compared with actual fans of the Spider-Man comics. My knowledge for any given comic is random and serviceable; I know that the man Mary Jane almost married in the second movie becomes Man-Wolf in the comics, and I know that Jon Favreau’s character in the recent Iron Man movie marries Gwyneth Paltrow’s character in the comics.

Anyone with a cursory knowledge of the characters or plots of the source material will enjoy Web of Shadows the same way they enjoyed Iron Man when it hit theaters this summer. In-jokes about the comics themselves and mentions of other characters pile on in this game, and it’s good to see that someone has a sense of humor about it, rather than tying together as many keen references as they could muster. At one point, Spider-Man needs to enlist some sort of professional scientist / genius to solve a growing problem in New York, and tries calling Reed Richards, aka Mister Fantastic of the Fantastic Four. After being put through an automated answering service, he is told by the robotic voice in the phone that Richards is helping out in another galaxy. Tony Stark is the next viable option, but in the midst of making the call, Spider-Man admits to himself that if Iron Man could be defending New York City, he would be (unlike the movie version, the Iron Man of comic lore is a New Yorker). It’s refreshing to have the Marvel universe tied together so neatly (because really, the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, X-Men, Daredevil, Iron Man, and many other Marvel comic lines take place in New York - it just makes sense), with an especial focus on Spider-Man and that series’ main characters, but without forcing itself to include anyone irrelevant to the action at hand.

That being said, the interactions between Spider-Man and other Marvel characters not of his franchise are what make the situation seem so desperate. If Wolverine of the X-Men and Spider-Man need to team up with Wilson Fisk (you may know him as the big bald bad guy that beat up Ben Affleck in Daredevil) and defend Tony Stark’s skyscraper with S.H.I.E.L.D agents, then yeah, things are getting a little rough. In previous titles, Spider-Man would have to solve Spider-Man’s problems, and nothing else would even exist. It feels good to play as Spider-Man, but it feels even better to be playing firstly a “Marvel universe” game and then worrying about whose particular role you’re filling.

In this case, the wall-crawler’s expertise is required. The only real villain of the entire game is Venom, who is quite easily the most iconic counterpart to Spider-Man’s heroism. Just because Venom is Spider-Man’s villain, though, doesn’t mean that this is why poor Peter Parker feels responsible for controlling his chaos. In an early cut scene of the game, after a beautifully choreographed and cinematic opening sequence, it is revealed that Eddie Brock’s alien symbiote is going looking for bigger and better things. Spider-Man’s manipulation of his black suit relies on the symbiote as much as it relies on Eddie Brock to become Venom, and so when the liquid black creature begins spreading like an infection around the island, Parker feels that he is the one to blame for underestimating the danger involved after blinding himself to it with his own abuse of the power.

The city itself seems alive and more realistic than ever before. It’s not completely destructible, but watching things crumble and explode is never a detraction in a fight between brawling super characters. Before Venom’s symbiotes spread too far, the regular pedestrians of New York greet Spider-Man as he should be greeted. He is cheered on, waved at, and called out to. This breathing city undergoes severe changes throughout the game, though, depending on Spider-Man’s actions and the development of the symbiote invasion. Donning the black suit with a click of the left thumbstick in front of previously supportive New Yorkers earns you fearful, condemning reactions. Spider-Man goes from public icon to public enemy throughout the course of the branching plotline, and the world around you acts in kind.

As it gets further on, though, the graphical and artistic beauty of the visual design is dogged down by some strangled sections of slowdown due to too much action. The enemies tearing up Manhattan become so overwhelming, and the constant counter-strikes from S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives only add to the strain put on the process of displaying everything at its usually pleasant and smooth framerate. As much as it sucked, it only happened three or four times by the time I finished the game. The only other issue I had with the game was the camera (twice) trying to show me an angle I no longer needed. I crawled up a wall, and when I flipped onto the roof, it was trying to point in directions that didn’t show me anything I needed to see. Switching from wall-crawling to web-slinging to roof-running jerks the camera around, but it rarely ruined anything.

Glitches and chugging framerates are popular topics for bad game reviewers, though. Honestly, I couldn’t bring myself to give one shit about the writer that gives this game a bad score and chalks it up to those two reasons and some personal complaints about voice actors that didn’t sound like the songs of sweet cherubim. Yes, it could have used some polish here and there, and the dialogue seems a little rushed and out of sync on occasion, but I’m not going to grade this game any lower because of such insignificant details that are far outweighed by the majority of this fantastic game.

The sense I had of the entirety of my experience with this game was overwhelmingly amazing. Real morality issues are not just explored by the characters in the original and compelling plot, but left up to player choice. None of the choices feel artificial, either, leading into alternative endings in a fluid manner without breaking stride or failing to affect one another. To say these things about a game that focuses on excellently implemented combat between Spider-Man and hordes of zombified New Yorkers melded with a symbiotic alien life form is incredible in every sense of the word.

Everything about Web of Shadows was done very well. The fighting feels more like what Spider-Man would do than ever before. The animations are stylish and reminiscent of the art of its comic origins. Little things, like webs needing buildings to cling to (as in Spider-Man 2), are great, and not drowning when falling into the river is even better. Even quick time events, an optional target-locking system, and an initial tutorial sequence are handled well, appearing without ever getting in the way of the game. There is a leveling system based on experience gained during said combat, unlocking new moves that really only affect combat itself, rather than asking the player to spend points upgrading things like swing speed. Side missions have Spider-Man repeating sequences found in regular missions. For instance, if you enjoyed escorting that armored car as it rescued civilians, there’s probably an opportunity to do it again without quitting and loading an earlier save. As opposed to hearing “My ballooooon!” over and over, this system is much more player-friendly.

All of this and more combines into one great game that anyone could spend a weekend with. Here we have a video game collaborating elements of comics and graphic novels with elements of good action movies and throwing between it all some really fun and challenging gameplay, and that in itself is deserving of so much praise. Anyone who enjoys good games should be checking this out. As well, any fans of Marvel comics or Spider-Man in particular are bound to love it.

Also like Portal, it’s host to all aspects of puzzle video game: cognitive leaps (like The Legend of Zelda), managing time and resources (like Lemmings), and even, to my surprise, real-time action. Reactions, even. It’ll keep you on your toes and always excited to see what the next stage will bring. The best video games are the ones that are about the unknown, and the ones that play with your expectations.

What I found most impressive about World of Goo, though, was its story. In the first few worlds, the plot is kind of scattershot, but once world four begins “everything changes” (according to the game - not a spoiler). It’s reminiscent of Rez in that way, and it’s even thematically similar, somewhat. But it’s way more coherent, but still far from obvious, and with much more to read into. It is video game storytelling done right: while you play, through the gameplay, and with minimal cut scene and text. There’s no shitty writing or voice acting to get past, and it actually has depth. It has things to say. It’s like if Braid was actually something instead of just trying to be something. And most games aren’t even trying. It’s even funny, but I think we’ve all had enough of the “tighten up the graphics on level three” geek in-jokes at this point.

So if you’re like me, and you love video games but are too often frustrated by them, World of Goo should be near the top of your list of games from this year to check out. It’s not a game that’s enjoyable despite its terrible, terrible flaws, it is actually great. It’s one to feel good about.

Rock Band 2 forces its players to enjoy the experience the designers intended, and it comes off better for it. With the first game, I had a few characters (enough for each instrument to be played in Career) and breezed through the setlist. In this game, you make a band, and then make a character, and that band, no matter its makeup, goes through World Tour mode in order to unlock all of the songs. You must play in different cities and venues and complete various challenges to unlock different cities with different songs, etc etc.

Rock Band 2 is a solid game, and from what I hear, the peripherals are all improved as well. I know the drums are better, but I’ve yet to even see, let alone play with, the new guitar. Harmonix definitely had its end-users in mind when creating every aspect of Rock Band 2. They know their game is a fun band-like experience now in World Tour mode, but even Quickplay has its improvements. Players creating their own setlists and turning on ‘no fail’ mode is pretty much guaranteeing the game’s success at a party.

I’m glad to say that this game is even better than the first. Rock Band was fun, but it definitely had its fair share of requested fixes and additions, and Harmonix has listened to their fans and done what was asked of them, which is a great thing to say of any development team. With the sequel, we are not just paying for a chunk of songs at a time, but all of the little details that make exporting the first game in order to be played via the Rock Band 2 disc totally worthwhile.

Like its titular and unseen antagonist, Alone in the Dark is the virtual father of lies. There are good ideas here; fresh, new ideas that in a better game would have been noted for their potential and stolen later. For example, inventory space is at a premium; there is no magic backpack to hold every item in the game all at once. Storage is limited to what can fit in the players jacket, but this is where it loses all credibility: the jacket can hold four wine bottles, a gun, a flashlight, several boxes of ammo, a lighter, bandages, batteries and a quest item that cannot be dropped. It was a good idea, but implemented in a way that was frankly silly - the portable hole backpack was replaced by a clown car coat.

Even Alone in the Dark’s best idea serves only to focus the player on the game’s other glaring problems. I understand that not everyone has several hours a night to spend on a game. I admit that not everyone is either patient or stubborn enough to force through a game just to see how it ends, and Alone in the Dark tries to remedy this. Most chapters and sections can simply be skipped via the DVD like pause menu. A few of the last sections are not available right away, but can be unlocked relatively quickly. It sounds like a good idea - a concession to the casual gamer - but in reality it is nothing more then a stopgap solution to the game being at best unevenly paced and at worst just unplayable in places. If every level was worth playing, or at the very least relevant to the story in some way, there would be no reason to skip it. Giving me the option to jump to the end of a $60 game because I don’t have the time to play it (or because I can’t get past something) does not replace making the whole $60 game worth playing. I find it insulting that instead of fixing problems, the game simply gives me the option to skip them. If I skipped every problem, I would have been done in a half an hour.

Apart from these new and wasted ideas, there is very little good to talk about. Of course the game controls poorly, it’s survival horror on the level of Resident Evil and Silent Hill, games that controlled just as poorly two hardware generations ago and have since made a successful effort to improve themselves. At least they had the common sense not to force the player into a car for extended periods of time. Alone in the Dark features scripted chase sequences that border on Stuntman difficulty without including any sort of checkpoints. Each is an exercise of trial and error, except sometimes the error is not even the player’s fault. Example: the first chase ends in a building that has no apparent exits. The first time I got there, I followed along with what I thought made sense and crashed my taxi through a widow, only to clip through the building and fall into nothing. After twenty minutes of trying new things I realized that my first idea was right, but that the rest of the level hadn’t loaded before I plummeted to my death. I had to break the window, then hit the breaks and wait for the game to catch up. This was not good sign.

I am at a loss as to what happened with Alone in the Dark. It takes new ideas and breaks them, manages to get even the most established clichés wrong, and is buggy and unfinished to boot. There is nothing to salvage here. Even the end, a face to face confrontation with Satan himself, is boring. How do you make an encounter with the prince of darkness boring and uneventful? Alone in the Dark should not have been released; not even more development time, the supposed panacea for bad games, would have saved it. It would have been a better idea to take what good ideas it had and give them to more talented people while scrapping the rest. All this game did was make an Uwe Boll movie look good by comparison, and I didn’t think that was even a possibility.

It would seem that Activision actually listened to at least one major complaint about Guitar Hero 3: the boss battles were out of place and far too difficult. There is still one boss battle here, this time with Joe ‘Fucking’ Perry (no, they don’t call him that, but it would have been awesome if they did), and it is nowhere near as sadistic as Lou was. It shows up quite late in the game, in the middle of the last set, and then it’s done. It still doesn’t quite fit, but at least it isn’t very hard to get past. It took me months to get past Lou on Hard, and when it happened, it was quite by chance, and I have never felt the need to do it again. At least I have a fighting chance to beat Joe Perry on Expert without growing extra fingers.

The note charts also feel less ridiculous this time, though that may have something to do with the limited set list, which thankfully avoids any of the super cheesy Cryin’ / Amazin’ / Crazy / Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing sound-alike power ballads. Without gushing (and yes, I do like Aerosmith, but screw you), Joe Perry has a very distinctive style. The songs featuring him on guitar in either Rock Band or Guitar Hero 3 always felt a little different, but at least consistent with each other. There is an odd, off-beat, bluesy rhythm to his solos, and once I figured that out, they became much easier. I have yet to go back and try anything on expert, and I will probably hurt myself doing so, but again, it feels like I have a decent shot, which is more than I can say for the last two groups of songs in Guitar Hero 3. I’m looking at you, Raining Blood. I hate you.

If they made the game easier, so be it. I have no problem with that. There is a fine line between challenge and frustration that Guitar Hero 3 jumped across and ran far away from; Guitar Hero: Aerosmith took a few welcome steps back from that. My only real complaints have nothing to do with the music itself, but with what a missed opportunity this is to really showcase a band and its history. For a group that has been around as long as Aerosmith, there just isn’t a whole lot of them here. There are short interviews between tiers that look like they were recorded with a cell phone, and that’s it. No music videos, no stills, no record covers, nothing. They even used the same character models for the band members for every venue, despite tracing the entire history of the band. I know the band spent most of their early years in a drug-induced haze, but they still shouldn’t look that wrinkly in the 1970’s. There is definitely potential here, but if this is to be the first in a series of artist-themed Guitar Hero games, they need to spend more time on the extras to make it worth the $60 ticket price.

The only parts of it that are video game-like are the “balance games,” which happen to be the weakest part of the package. Stuff like marble rolling, skiing, and heading soccer balls do more to show off what the Balance Board can do than actually entertain you as games. It can feel much like the first time you played something with the Wii Remote; it’s touchier than you’re expecting and can take some getting used to, but the vast majority of the time it is perfectly precise and forgiving when it needs to be.

The Balance Board is what gives Wii Fit one advantage (compared to its many disadvantages) over going to a gym. During yoga and strength training exercises, it keeps track of your center of balance, so you can track how your steadiness and accuracy improve over time, and it makes sure you are doing the postures and exercises correctly. There’s also some crazy AI in there that can tell exactly what you’re doing wrong. If your hips are pushed too far back during the sun salutation, it will know. Unless you’re working one-on-one with an instructor, it’s impossible to get that kind of feedback, and even then it won’t be as scientific.

Like Wii Fit’s yoga and strength training, the aerobic exercises also work. Step, hula-hooping and shadowboxing all offer different levels that will challenge people that are either entirely out of shape or super-fit, and work great with the Balance Board. Running, on the other hand, which has you get off the board, put a remote in your pocket and run in place, is incredibly stupid. Unless there are bad weather conditions, you should just go outside and actually run.

While we’re on minor problems with the game, tracking my weight and estimated BMI in chart form is fantastic, but why give me a “Wii Fit age” also? You are given the option to skip that test every day, thankfully.

Wii Fit succeeds both as a piece of fitness software and as a greeting to an exciting new piece of hardware. It’s more new Miyamoto, and is a fine introduction (or supplement) to working out.

At its heart, Boom Blox is simply a collection physics-based puzzle games, where the player is tasked with knocking down certain blox while keeping others standing. Tossing a variety of balls or bombs is genuinely fun on its own, if for no other reason than to see massive towers of stacked blox come crumbling down, but what really gives the game legs is its delicate use of the Wii Remote. Projectiles can be thrown at one of three speeds, depending on the movement of the player’s arm, and each speed affects the towers differently, much like one would expect in a real life scenario. This gives a surprising depth to the gameplay, with throws of different speeds required for certain objectives. The player can also grab blox, which adds a layer of Jenga-like puzzles to explore.

None of this would be fun were the physics not up to the task of handling all of the falling objects. Thankfully, by using the Havok engine, the developers have cut down the awkward physics to almost none. There will still be some moments of “why didn’t that fall?!”, but for the most part you feel fully in control of the action.

The game mixes in blox with special features (such as vanishing or exploding) along with a plethora of different challenges in its adventure mode. The challenges are either hit-or-miss, and, due to the required dexterity with the Wii Remote, it’s generally the timed ones that involve throwing projectiles which are of the miss variety. Rather annoyingly, Boom Blox takes a linear path, requiring the player to beat one puzzle before advancing to the next. This makes frustrating puzzles doubly so, as it is easy at times to get stuck.

Those problems are easily washed over, though, by the intensely fun multiplayer. While essentially just variations of single player modes, the multiplayer is surprisingly addictive. It may not sound it, but grabbing, throwing, and shooting rectangular prisms is capable of generating more screams of delight than any other game this year. Another neat feature that will further extend the game’s life is its editor. While I didn’t have the patience to create entire levels on my own, it’s cool to know that there is a robust mode for those that enjoy that sort of thing. Even cooler, the rest of us can mooch off of those people’s hard work by simply downloading their levels and playing them ourselves — definitely one of the better uses of the Wii’s online functionality.

While it may not be Game of the Year quality, Boom Blox can still give us a fun time. The single player will keep you busy for a while, and the multiplayer and level editor will extend the game’s replayability immensely. If you have a Wii and are looking for an experience that feels more new than some of the console’s recent outings, this game offers some great blox to fill that void.

It’s porn for Nintendo fans, and that’s nowhere more apparent than in the Subspace Emissary, the game’s fleshed-out adventure mode. Unfortunately, it’s pretty much a crap-shoot. In it, you fight enemies that have hit points, and do sometimes-challenging platforming. Super Smash Bros. mechanics aren’t meant for gameplay like this; there’s a reason simple multiplayer stages are the best ones and most people play stock and time matches. It also feels way too long at eight hours, especially since two hours near the end is “The Great Maze,” which has you playing through sections of all the levels you have played through already, including fighting bosses you already have. I can’t remember ever swearing as much at a video game as I did when I hit this section. It was an artificial way to lengthen the game, and is absolutely no fun at all. The cut scenes are fantastic though, even if the story sucks, and are where the fan service really comes into play. Hell, one time I saw Captain Falcon punch a R.O.B. covered in Pikmin.

It hardly matters though, because the multiplayer is where the real meat of the game is. It feels less like a jump from Super Smash Bros. Melee as Melee did from Super Smash Bros., but it does feels like a refinement. Still, though, veterans of the series will have no problem getting adjusted after only a couple matches. There are more characters, but it doesn’t feel like they’re forcing them in yet, as all of the new ones work. Same deal with items, but the stage selection has been improved - there are more levels this time around more people will want to play on regularly, and even the ratio of good to bad stages is better than ever.

There are enough new mechanics as well; Lucario’s attacks doing more damage as the amount of damage dealt to him increases, Pokemon Trainer’s ability to switch between a slow, quick, and a middling character, Diddy Kong’s banana peels, etc. These are nothing short of poetic. Characters tripping sometimes when they start to dash is an interesting idea - random human error is something I think more games should incorporate into their gameplay, but maybe it’s not right for Super Smash Bros., as it’s going to be too unpredictable for many players to not get annoyed at.

It has a huge, Halo 3-level amount of content, so much that I haven’t even mentioned a lot of it in this review, nor explored it fully in my dozens of hours with the game so far. There are trophies, the coin launcher mini game, stickers, the Classic and All-Star single-player modes, the home run competition, and event stages just to name a few. There’s even online play (which doesn’t work properly for most people at the time of the writing of this review), a level editor, and demos of Virtual Console games.

The overall product, though, I can’t call anything less than “great.” It’s one of very few games I know I will be playing for years to come. Likely until the next Super Smash Bros. game, like me and so many others did with the last two in the series.

There’s a right way and a wrong way to make these titles. Nintendo’s casual titles assume that their players don’t have a grasp on video game customs most of us take for granted - stuff like how menus work and saving/loading - but do not assume that they are blathering idiots. My mom enjoys Flash Focus, not just because she’s convinced it is helping her eyesight and because she can easily navigate its menus, but because it’s challenging. Endless Ocean isn’t just easy, it’s literally impossible to fail at unless you consider not having fun failing. I have no problem with games dropping conventions like enemies or dying (Electroplankton was one of my favorite games of 2006), but Endless Ocean fails here because it has a structure similar to most open world games, in that you can just mess around and explore, plus there are missions you can complete at your leisure, but you simply cannot win or lose.

It lacks any sort of thrill, and there’s nothing compelling about it. That is, unless you’re part of what I can only assume is a fairly small percentage of the population that is very interested in underwater life. Endless Ocean is packed to the gills (sorry) with fish and mollusks and whales, and if you want to look at them and read some factual and sometimes interesting pieces of trivia about them, it’s the game for you! If you bought No More Heroes last month, it probably isn’t. And even for those people who want to learn about sea creatures, Endless Ocean is probably on the wrong console. Motion and pointer controls add nothing to the game, and most of the audience that has bought the Wii for Wii Sports, Play, and Fit wont enjoy it. All you do in it is swim around and look at fish, so it would be better off on the more powerful systems, where the visual and audio components of the game could be more convincing, and thus immersive.