Genre: Rhythm
Publisher: Disney Interactive Studios
Developer: A2M
Release Date: August 2007

The wildly successful “High School Musical” made-for-TV movie seems to lend itself well to rhythm gaming, and not just because its title contains the word “music.” More notably, its original soundtrack has shifted more than four million units, making it the best selling album of 2006. With that kind of built-in market, not to mention the hugely anticipated August release of the Disney Channel sequel on the horizon, it would be foolish not to expand the license into the world of video gaming.

After seeing

"Atari's 2007 E3 roster showcases some of the most exciting titles from our diverse fall line-up - from the fan-favorite Dragon Ball Z series to the graphically stunning The Witcher," said David Pierce, Chief Executive Officer, Atari, Inc. "We're excited to participate in the new E3 Media & Business Summit and look forward to having media and business partners spend time with the Atari Team and our titles."

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 combines the lightning fast fighting and action from 2005's Budokai Tenkaichi 1 and 2006's sequel Budokai Tenkaichi 2. Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 delivers an extreme

Genre: Rhythm/Adventure
Publisher: Disney Interactive Studios
Developer: Avalanche Software (Wii), Gorilla Games (DS)
Release Date: October 30, 2007

So much of the press coverage of children's games is either overly snarky or noticeably brief, and the reasons for this are numerous. Some of it can be chalked up to a generational gap or a lack of knowledge or interest in the license, but I suspect that much of it comes from the sad fact that most licensed games developed for young audiences are surprisingly uninventive (check our High School Musical preview), often with disastrous results.

To my

Genre: Action/Puzzle
Publisher: Namco Bandai
Developer: Namco Bandai
Release Date: Fall 2007

No seismic shift occurred between the original Katamari Damacy and We Love Katamari for the PlayStation 2, and the PSP iteration, Me & My Katamari, did little to disrupt the balance of simplistic gameplay and quirky storytelling established back in 2004. Beautiful Katamari for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 looks to continue this trend of complacency, expanding the role of the multiplayer game while generally maintaining the same style and feel of its predecessors.

As in previous Katamari entries, the name of the game is

Genre: Flight Sim
Publisher: 505 Games
Developer: Gaijin Entertainment
Release: Q3 2009

When I arrived at 505 Games' meeting room today, they were ready with a couch, bottles of water in an ice bucket, and just one game: the Xbox 360 build of its upcoming flight combat simulation, IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey, coming to every major system except the Wii.

World War II is an exceptionally common ground for video games, and with so many fronts, there's bound to be one that hasn't been explored — like the one right above the heads of almost all of the

Genre: Action/Adventure
Publisher: EA
Developer: Double Fine
Release Date: "Rocktober" 13, 2009

Psychonauts is the very definition of a cult hit. It was released for the Xbox to solid reviews and poor sales, but word of mouth turned it into a real hit. All you have to do is mention it to people who've played it, and their faces will light up as they recall one of their favorite moments. The brilliant minds behind Psychonauts may not have released any new games since then, but they most certainly haven't been idle. Instead, they've been working on what

Genre: Fighting
Publisher: Namco Bandai
Developer: Namco Bandai
Release Date: TBA 2007

With Soul Calibur IV blazing a trail to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 next year, Namco Bandai wanted to bring the franchise to the Wii, as well, but according to Product Manager Wayne Shiu, a simple port wouldn't cut it — they wanted to take full advantage of the unique control scheme of the Wii to offer a new play experience to fans of the long-running series.

Which brings us to Soul Calibur Legends, the first entry in the franchise to focus solely on a

Genre: Action/RPG
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Bioware
Release Date: 2010

Mass Effect 2 opens up after the events of the first Mass Effect, with Commander Shepard in a pretty bad situation. A new enemy has appeared in the galaxy and is presenting a threat to humankind on par with the Reaper that Shepard defeated in the first game. Things have gotten so bad that Shepard was thought to have died in combat. Fortunately, he was rescued and recruited by a shadowy underground group who is looking for his help on a suicide mission. Shepard is the only human capable

Genre: Fighting
Publisher: SNK Playmore
Developer: SNK Playmore
Release: July 2009

The King of Fighters is a long, long running series. This fighting game series has been running at the speed of Madden for a major length of time, until it stopped annual releases in 2003 and went to subseries like Neowave and Maximum Impact. Now we're back to the original series, with the Roman numerals translating to 12, with a nice set of HD updates that bring the series into the current generation.

The standards of The King of Fighters are in effect: Take many SNK