Genre: Real-Time Strategy
Publisher: Vivendi
Developer: Most Wanted Entertainment
Release Date: September 2006

You may be able to overcome countless terrorists, foreign insurgents, and enemy armies, all before breakfast, but in Joint Task Force, your greatest enemy might be CNN.

JTF is a story-driven, tactical RTS from Most Wanted Entertainment. You play the part of a fictional, multinational peace enforcement unit, with missions set in such recent real-world hotspots as Afghanistan, Bosnia, Colombia, Iraq, and Somalia. Your unit may not be real (Most Wanted's aiming for gameplay over realism here; to quote them, "Real is not fun"), but

Cuban Missile Crisis, PC: Cuban Missile Crisis is a Real-Time Strategy game combined with a turn-based global tactical mode, thrusting gamers into a world ravaged by the military-political confrontation between USA and USSR in 1962. After the crisis broke out, two superpowers unleashed their nuclear arsenal on the world, leveling Cuba and turning it, along with the majority of the world’s metropolitan expanses into scorched radioactive deserts. The ones that managed to survive the disaster realized that the most precious resources are clean earth and water. The remaining world citizens find themselves in a war fighting for their very survival.

Genre: Simulation
Publisher: Vivendi Universal Games
Developer: Tilted Mill
Release Date: Q3 2006

Caesar IV is the latest in the distinguished Caesar line of city-building sims that rose to great fame as part of the late, lamented Sierra Entertainment. Even though it's been a good eight years since the last iteration came out to positive reviews and much love from simulation fans, Vivendi Universal has allowed developer Tilted Mill to bring back the franchise for one more outing on the PC. What's special about this title is that the development team includes many staffers who've worked on

XIII Century: Sword & Honor, PC: XIII Century: Sword & Honor is a 3D RTS that combines Risk-style global strategy gameplay with real-time tactical action. It immerses players into a world of noble knights and ruthless nomads of the Middle Ages. As a leader of one of the European nations in the XIII Century, gamers are tasked to test their steel against the neighboring countries and carve their names into history. Among the playable factions are the French, the English, the Germans, the Russians, the Spaniards and others. Gamers have to defend the crown against invading nations during the game’s

Genre: Action/Adventure
Publisher: Vivendi
Developer: Krome Studios
Release Date: October 2006

Spyro's newest venture is entitled A New Beginning, and for good reason. With this new game, the reset button's been hit on Spyro; all past adventures have been forgotten in favor of giving one of the hardest-working mascots in video games a fresh start.

In this case, it means shifting the onscreen action's focus from cutesy platforming to surprisingly intense action. Krome Studios, the dev house that gave the world Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, has set out to make Spyro's newest adventure feel like "playing through a

Genre: Sports
Publisher: Vivendi
Developer: JC Entertainment
Release Date: Q1 2007

It is within the bounds of possibility that you could sell a million copies of anything in Korea, as long as it was a massive multiplayer online game. Ideally, it should be an MMO you can play with one hand, freeing up the other hand to smoke a cigarette.

Freestyle Street Basketball is, at once, a demonstration of this principle and an idea I'm surprised we haven't seen before now. This is a game where you can create and kit out a cel-shaded cartoon avatar, and then

Jackie Chan Adventures is based on the hit kid's action cartoon of the same name, which features Jackie as an ancient artifact expert and special agent for the government's secret "Section 13". Jade, his 11-year-old tomboy niece quickly becomes his apprentice and partner as they scour the globe looking for sacred talismans and protecting the planet from ancient Chinese demons.

Jackie Chan Adventures for PlayStation®2 follows the story of the cartoon series very closely, as Jackie's Uncle sends him to recover 12 ancient talismans. Each talisman unlocks new powers for Jackie, allowing him to access new areas within the game world.

Jackie

Rookie Detroit cop Lazarus Jones is thrust into the role of Ghosthunter after a routine patrol at a derelict high school goes awry. Lazarus and partner Anna Steele stumble upon the supernatural research center of Professor Peter Richmond where they unintentionally liberate a legion of poltergeists. A deadly spirit abducts Anna, while another ghost fuses with Lazarus, giving him the ability to see into the realm of the dead. Armed with second sight and a cache of weapons and gadgets, the idealistic cop is forced to take on the entire spirit realm in hopes of finding his valued partner -

Genre: Party/Puzzle
Publisher: Vivendi
Developer: Dimps
Release Date: October 2006

Well … Crash is back.

Crash Boom Bang! is sort of weird, in that it's the first game in the long-running Crash series being made by a Japanese developer. For Crash's DS debut, the reins have been given to Dimps, the house behind Dragon Ball Z: Budokai.

As a result, Crash Boom Bang! has taken a turn for the anime. (Look, Mom, I'm using nouns as adjectives!) The game is more colorful than its American predecessors were and definitely more cute; Crash has gone from looking insane to looking

Genre: Real-Time Strategy
Publisher: Vivendi
Developer: Massive
Release Date: Spring 2007

It may look like another World War II RTS when you see the screenshots, but it isn't. World in Conflict is actually a World War III RTS, set in an alternate universe where the Cold War did not end in 1989.

Instead, it heated up rapidly, culminating in Russia invading the United States via Alaska, forestalling the collapse of their economy by shooting the hell out of people. As a result, the settings of World of Conflict aren't the usual Eastern European/Middle Eastern hellholes; you'll be fighting