Publisher: Sega
Genre: Action Role-Playing
Developer: Secret Level
Release Date: Q4 2008

Golden Axe: Beast Rider is an odd beast because it both does and does not feel like a Golden Axe game. Initially, it's difficult to spot the elements that are related to Golden Axe but noticeably easier to spot the omissions. A single playable character and no multiplayer component could make some Golden Axe faithful scream in rage, but while some of the series' iconic gameplay has changed, much of the world setting has remained the same. Familiar monsters, both friendly and hostile, populate the

Genre: Action/Horror
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Valve
Release Date: November 4, 2008

I came back from an EA event last year raving about Left 4 Dead. Using the Source engine, it creates the kind of zombie apocalypse that a lot of gamers, including myself, have been looking for. You're set down in the middle of a massive horde of fast-moving, angry zombies and left on your own.

You and three of your friends, using limited resources, must shoot your way through an undead-choked environment to (increasingly dubious) safety. You can carry one large gun, up to two pistols,

Genre: Platformer
Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Grin
Release Date: Q3 2008

Bionic Commando: Rearmed is an enhanced remake of the Capcom classic from 1988. Former employees who worked on the original game are serving as consultants for this remake, so the level design remains largely faithful to the source material, from the numbered world map to the level layouts.

You play as Nathan "Rad" Spencer, and you must go behind enemy lines to rescue commando "Super Joe," who had been tasked with stopping the "The Albatross," an evil plan to take over the world. You move through the levels,

Genre: Shoot-'Em-Up
Publisher: Bizarre Creations
Developer: Bizarre Creations
Release Date: August 6, 2008

Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 offers six gameplay modes: Deadline, Evolved, King, Pacifism, Waves and Sequence.

In King mode, you can only shoot when your ship is located inside of dynamically generated circles. The circles disappear, so you'll have venture around and locate another circle from which to renew your attack. An achievement in the prior title, Pacifism, is now a full gameplay mode. You must avoid shooting, so you kill enemies by leading them through gates, which will close after you pass through them.

Genre: Action/Adventure
Publisher: SCEA
Developer: Sucker Punch
Release Date: Q2 2009

You can't really go wrong with some "Three Amigos" references from press folks right before the demo of a game. In that '80s movie, Martin Short grossly misinterprets the meaning of the word "infamous," explaining to others that it means "more than famous" instead of its true, malicious definition.

Time will tell if Sucker Punch's forthcoming project inFAMOUS ends up being more than famous, but judging from the early sample that Brian Fleming and Nate Fox showed off, it's certainly got a chance.

This is quite a departure

Genre: Role-Playing
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Bioware
Release Date: Q4 2008

When Mario first stepped into the RPG genre, it by all rights should have been a terrible idea. Taking a character like Mario, who is known for his jumping and platforming skills, and placing him in a turn-based combat system? Why? Nintendo proved us wrong by giving the creation of the game over to Square-Enix (then just Squaresoft), who provided us with Mario RPG, not only one of the most enjoyable RPGs on the Super Nintendo, but a flat-out fantastic Mario game. History has a way

Genre: Action/Adventure
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Release Date: Q4 2008

As a kid, one of my favorite games was the PC classic, Prince of Persia. It was a crushingly hard and deeply unforgiving game that nonetheless manages to be addicting enough that I memorized every pixel of it. A variety of sequels have ranged from fun to terrible, but few could ever match the enjoyment of the original Prince of Persia. When they announced Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, I wasn't expecting much and found myself blown away by some of the finest action-puzzle gameplay

Genre: Rhythm/Music
Publisher: MTV Games
Developer: Harmonix
Release Date: September 2008

Rock Band launched at the end of 2007 to great hype and anticipation, quickly becoming the holiday gift for those who could afford the hefty price tag ($169.99). Garnering an average of 93% at Metacritic and moving over three million units, it would seem that MTV Games' gamble has paid off. Coming this September is the inevitable sequel, Rock Band 2, and the devs have taken fan feedback into account to figure out how to optimize the hardware and software experience.

First thing's first — the

Genre: 2-D Platformer
Publisher: Number None
Developer: Number None
Release Date: Q3 2008

At just about every turn, Braid thumbs its nose at your expectations.

To hear one describe it, you'd think that it's all been done before, but the approach in this 2-D platformer title is fresh and new. The player journeys through a series of five worlds in Braid, collecting puzzle pieces along the way. The platforming sequences pay homage to everyone's inspiration, Super Mario Bros. — right down to a creature coming out of the castle at the end and proclaiming, "I'm sorry, but the

Genre: RPG
Publisher: Bethesda
Developer: Bethesda
Release Date: Fall 2008

For those unfamiliar with the awesome Fallout world setting, imagine that the future we had pictured in the '50s had actually come true. Household robots and ray beams exist, and there is still that bizarre '50s sense of misogyny and racism that is somehow both hilarious and offensive at the same time. Unfortunately, one of the other big '50s predictions — the entire world would blow the crap out of each other in a nuclear war — also came true. Most of the world is a

Genre: Shoot-'Em-Up
Publisher: Namco Bandai Games
Developer: Namco Bandai Games
Release Date: TBA 2008

Galaga Legions was developed by the same team that made Pac-Man Championship Edition, and much like the dot-chomping fellow, this new Xbox Live Arcade iteration is a successful update to the original Galaga formula. Although the premise is still the same - you pilot a spaceship and are tasked with shooting down waves of insect-like aliens - Galaga Legions incorporates a number of additions that help modernize the title.

First of all, you can move your ship in all directions with the left thumbstick,

Genre: Action/RPG
Publisher: Konami
Developer: Konami
Release Date: Fall 2008

I've loved Castlevania since the moment I took Simon Belmont on his awkwardly difficult adventure through the castle to punch Dracula in the face, and while not every title in the franchise has been good, the 2-D titles remain some of the best offerings on their respective systems. The announcement of a new Castlevania for the DS brought joy and happiness to my heart. While I was a bit disappointed with the last DS title, Portrait of Ruin, it was still a great game, albeit a tad

Genre: Action/Role-Playing
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sega
Release Date: November 2008

With the announcement that Final Fantasy XIII will be coming to the Xbox 360 in addition to the PS3, things are looking kind of grim for Sony in one of the areas where they used to be the undefeated champ: role-playing games. With titles like Infinite Undiscovery, Star Ocean 4 and now Final Fantasy XIII coming to Microsoft's system, in addition to support from niche companies like Atlus, Sony's lost a lot of its normally unbreakable hold over the RPG gamer market. Yet for all of that,

Genre: Action/Role-Playing
Publisher: Eidos Interactive
Developer: Backbone
Release Date: Q4 2008

Who doesn't love mad scientists? From their crazy hair to their bizarre fixations on anything from raising the dead to launching someone into space to watch terrible movies, they're the crazy nutbags that everyone loves. That's why it's so surprising that so few games actually put you into the role of a mad scientist. It seems like the perfect thing for video games: tons of innovation and the lack of morals or common sense to question if said innovation might, say, doom mankind. Thankfully, Eidos is

Genre: Survival Horror
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Electronic Arts
Release Date: October 20, 2008

Survival horror's a genre in transition. It began as a sort of half-assed, 3-D subcategory of adventure games, and while the involved technology changed, many of the tropes didn't. From 1996 to 2006, you were still using tank-style controls to steer some luckless chump through a terrible situation.

Resident Evil 4, while not really horror by any stretch of the imagination, reinvented the genre while also giving action games a good swift kick in the ass. Dead Space is the first post-RE4 survival

Genre: Role-Playing Game
Publisher: Majesco
Developer: Mistwalker
Release Date: October 2008

Last year at GDC, Hironobu Sakaguchi was at Microsoft's hotel talking up Lost Odyssey. He was seriously jet-lagged and, in response to another reporter's question, mentioned that Mistwalker Games' next project was going to be a DS game. He was promptly hushed by a PR agent.

Away: Shuffle Dungeon is apparently that project, with character design by Sakaguchi and music composed by Final Fantasy legend Nobuo Uematsu. Unsurprisingly, it's an RPG; specifically, it's an action-RPG starring a brash young hero named Sword. (The name is meant to

Genre: Fighting
Publisher: Konami
Developer: Eighting
Release Date: Fall 2008

Three-dimensional Castlevania games have always been a bit lackluster than their 2-D counterparts. While Symphonia of the Night or Dawn of Sorrow are considered among the best games on their respective systems, Lament of Innocence and Castlevania: 64 are generally held to be mediocre at best and borderline unplayable at worst. There's just something about the trip into 3-D that makes Castlevania lose its magic. Perhaps this strange curse is what made Konami decide to make the first Wii Castlevania title into something completely different. Castlevania: Judgment

Genre: Real-Time Strategy
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft Shanghai
Release Date: October 15, 2008

Tom Clancy is perhaps one of the best contemporary writers at giving us a glimpse into the distant future. While not everything he predicts is accurate, Clancy's novels and games have an edge of realism that makes them distressingly plausible. From the Rainbow Six and Splinter Cell titles to his wide variety of books, he's become the go-to guy for futuristic looks at warfare. Combining rather interesting political insight with an unparalleled knowledge of upcoming military technology, Clancy's productions are great for those

Genre: Action/Adventure
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: DICE
Release Date: TBA 2008

The first thing you should know about Mirror's Edge is that if a first-person shooter has ever made you motion-sick, or if you have a crippling fear of heights, this game will hit you like a hammer between the eyes. It is not for you.

For everyone else, Mirror's Edge is about fluidity. It's inspired by the French sport of parkour, treating an urban area like an obstacle course, with controls that fade into invisibility about five minutes after you figure them out. Once you stop stumbling

Genre: Action
Publisher: SEGA
Developer: PlatinumGames
Release Date: September 2009

Let's be frank here: There's still not a whole lot we know about Bayonetta. We know it's being developed by PlatinumGames — formerly Clover Studio, the hardcore heroes of the last console generation. We know it's being put together by Hideki Kamiya, the creator of Viewtiful Joe and Devil May Cry.

And thanks to E3, we now know that if the heroine of Bayonetta and Devil May Cry's Dante were to ever get into a fight, Dante would lose twice before he hit the ground. This is Kamiya

Genre: Shooter
Publisher: Codemasters
Developer: Blue Omega
Release Date: Q4 2008

It's not really difficult to trace the development of shooter games to certain landmark titles. Once Half-Life got big, you started to see the inspiration of its story line and level design trickle into other games on the market. Once Halo hit, the idea of a regenerating health bar instead of the Doom-style medpaks took over, and Gears of War popularized cover movement and squad tactics that had normally been the dominion of super-realistic titles like Rainbow Six. Damnation is pretty clearly a post-Gears of War

Genre: Shooter
Publisher: SCEA
Developer: Sony Bend
Release Date: Q2 2009

First off, this is another shooter on the PSP that uses the four face buttons in lieu of a second analog stick. If this is a problem for you, then you may as well stop reading now. I don't want to see you on GameFAQs in six months complaining about it; you were warned, straight up, up front, black and white.

Resistance: Retribution is set between Resistance: Fall of Man, the PS3 launch title that dealt with an alien invasion of the UK, and the forthcoming Resistance

Genre: Sports
Publisher: EA Sports
Developer: EA Canada
Release Date: September 5, 2008

Facebreaker is "Treasure Video Games Presents Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots."

I'm going to be using this analogy a lot when I write articles for this game. This is, then, officially the first recorded instance.

If boxing titles are few and far between, then cartoony arcade boxing titles are even more so. The last one we had was Midway's Ready 2 Rumble Boxing Round 2 back on the Dreamcast and PS2. Go back further, and we're going into Mike Tyson's Punch Out!! territory. Yep, back

Genre: Fighting
Publisher: Midway
Developer: Midway
Release Date: November 10, 2008

There are few things as odd in the video game world as the concept of crossovers. Oh, placing two great tastes that take great together seems obvious enough, but in some cases, the combination doesn't consist of great tastes that you'd dare to stick together. Take the bizarre announcements in just the past year. You've got Capcom crossing over Tatsunoko, which will feature the oddity of Ryu and Chun-Li battling characters from Gatchaman and Gold Lightan. Then you've got Cross Edge for the PS3, which will

Genre: Fighting
Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Capcom
Release Date: TBA

Anyone who went to Capcom's booth at this year's E3 was in for a number of pleasant surprises. Mega Man 9 shut up naysayers with its quality design (I should know, I was one of them), the Bionic Commando franchise was about to come back in a big way, and Resident Evil 5 was basically Resident Evil 4 For Super Players With Co-Op Added. Well, two out of three isn't bad.

There was, however, one message that got through louder than any of the others: Street Fighter IV is

Genre: Role-Playing
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: BioWare
Release Date: Q1 2009

I first remember hearing about Dragon Age back around the time when Jade Empire came out. It was what Bioware was pointedly not discussing at E3 2006; it was first an MMORPG, then it was not, and then it was again. Every project they were involved with was, for a time, either thought to be Dragon Age or initially viewed with irritation because it obviously wasn't.

It's odd to live in a world where the game actually exists. It feels like a dream or a trap or

Genre: Action/Adventure
Publisher: EA Games
Developer: EA Bright Light
Release Date: July 2009

By now, if you're a Harry Potter fan, you've probably heard the unexpected news about the next movie. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth in the seven-movie series, was due to come out sometime later this year, but for reasons as of yet unknown, was pushed back a staggering six months until July of next year. This leaves the inevitable Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince game tie-in with an interesting quandary. It can release as scheduled in November, giving die-hard

Genre: Action/Adventure
Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Developer: Traveller's Tales
Release Date: September 23, 2008

It's been a pretty awesome last few years for Batman.

The mythos and universe of the Caped Crusader have undergone a resurgence of sorts in the game community, thanks in part to the outstanding movies that have helped reinforce the spirit of the character. It hasn't been a terrible past few years for Lego, either, whose brand has been reinvigorated by Traveller's Tales' past efforts with the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises.

Now we have Lego Batman, which looks poised to be

Genre: First-Person Shooter
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Gearbox Software
Release Date: September 23, 2008

With the glut of WWII-themed games littering the store shelves, it's getting harder and harder for people to figure out what sets each franchise apart. One can only bomb so many bunkers, kill so many Nazis (wait, actually that never gets old) and make the "difference" in the war so many times.

However, the Brother in Arms series has at least attempted to break from the pack by emphasizing actual storytelling, complete with unique characters, plotlines, cinematic shots and relatively meaningful conversations. While other

Genre: Rhythm
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Gearbox Software
Release Date: September 23, 2008

If you haven't invested in a charge station for your Wiimotes yet, you may as well now. One of the things we learned at E3 is that low-battery-power Wiimotes throw off Samba de Amigo's position recognition big time. We almost thought it was faulty coding. Fortunately, that's not the case, and I'm pleased to report that whatever setup you use, this game works as advertised, so feel free to have a ball once it hits. Accolades to Gearbox, then, for making it so.

I get

Genre: Puzzle/Role-Playing
Publisher: D3
Developer: Infinite Interactive
Release Date: Q4 2008

Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords was one of those games that slipped under the radar. Released for the DS and PSP, not a lot of people paid attention to it until they actually got a chance to play it. Once they did, they found that Puzzle Quest was one of the most unbelievably addicting games to come out in the past few years, mixing a well-designed and enjoyable puzzle element with the fun of building up an RPG character. Even nagging problems like a fairly

Genre: Action
Publisher: Xseed Games
Developer: Bandai Namco Games
Release Date: TBA 2008

Game Center CX, at least in Japan, is nothing short of a phenomenon. It takes one highly charismatic comedian (Shinya Arino), has him test his mettle against the world's toughest video games, and chronicles his struggle through the usage of epic narration and music. During the off-hours, Arino messes around with other video game titles in a humorous manner, examines old consoles, and goes on field trips to Japanese arcades. Simply put, the show is a video game geek's dream, and a while back,

Genre: Rhythm/Dancing
Publisher: Natsume
Developer: Cave
Release Date: September 30, 2008

Natsume's Harvest Moon titles are fun for many reasons, and one major amusing aspect is the awesome farming simulations. As any experienced Harvest Moon fan knows, though, creating a successful farm is only a small part of the equation. Much of your time in Harvest Moon will be spent making friends or charming a beau in order to earn the best possible ending, and many of the recent titles have been more focused on that than the actual farming. As far as these things go,

Genre: Action/Puzzle
Publisher: THQ
Developer: Vigil Games
Release Date: 2009

Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda franchise is among the most highly praised in the video game industry. Even the worst titles (barring the non-Nintendo produced CD-I exclusives) are among some of the top-rated games, and Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time is still the best-rated title of all time. For some reason, there aren't many attempts to copy The Legend of Zelda's success. The games that follow the Zelda mold are few and far between, and the only really notable one in the last few years

Genre: Action
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sonic Team
Release Date: Q4 2008

It's tough being a fan of Sonic the Hedgehog, particularly an older one. You've had to see a series you love slide into craziness. Broken cameras, unoptimized code, unnecessary characters, loss of vision and principle, angst and motorcycles … the list of missteps goes on and on.

At the same time, you get to see the series flourish with a brand and style of gaming that no other company on earth has been able to mimic yet. When a Sonic game gets things right, it really gets

Genre: Action/Adventure
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft
Release Date: Q4 2008

Prince of Persia's revival on the console market was nothing short of fantastic. Some might argue that Ubisoft's gem of a game reinvented the 3-D action platformer, and they wouldn't be entirely wrong in that regard. It's difficult to think of many titles that haven't borrowed at least some of Prince of Persia's ideas, and the Sands of Time trilogy was among some of the best titles in the last generation. Yet what a lot of people forgot is that Prince of Persia's reboot also included a

Genre: Racing
Publisher: Disney Interactive Studios
Developer: Black Rock Studio
Release Date: September 16, 2008

In the beginning, when arcades were king, there was one type of racing game, where you held the accelerator button and tried to get to the finish line as quickly as possible. Usually, when the brake came into play, it was already too late.

Then came Gran Turismo, and racing games became split into two official camps. One contained the loose mechanics and steering of arcade games, and the other sought to simulate the experience of driving a real car. This went