While it’s relieving to discover that The Saboteur is a fun and fitting send-off for Pandemic (after the trainwreck of Mercenaries 2), it’s also frustrating—because it could have been something truly memorable. The volume of things to explore, drive, scale, and blow-the-fuck-up (and the beautiful WWII Paris setting) are a joy to experience. However, the nagging meters, zones, gauges and other inorganic artifices never allow you to feel like you’re in the world, or completely buy into the story.

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About our scale… the number of words in our review reflects the score of the game. In practical terms, you could assume that games reviewed in 49 words or fewer should be avoided, games reviewed in 50-75 words would make a decent rental, and games reviewed in 76 words or more would make a solid purchase.

On paper, Borderlands has everything I could ever want in a game. You say “Diablo-style, loot-grabbing dungeon crawler done as quasi-cel-shaded, co-op FPS,” and I say “SOLD.” Who could have guessed that the loot would be so uninteresting, the environments so relentlessly bland, and the enemies so brain-dead (especially the bosses)? It’s really a shame that while the concept is a solid A, the execution is a total Zzzzzzzzzzzz.

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About our scale… the number of words in our review reflects the score of the game. In practical terms, you could assume that games reviewed in 49 words or fewer should be avoided, games reviewed in 50-75 words would make a decent rental, and games reviewed in 76 words or more would make a solid purchase.

There are many things I expect from a modern Ratchet game: pinpoint controls, inventive weaponry, visuals worthy of an animated feature, and a zany, Looney-Toons-style sense of humor. A Crack in Time fully delivers on those bullet points, then goes on to surprise with an outer-space-roaming open-world structure, time-manipulating puzzles that could be described as “one-player co-op,” and a story that builds to one of the most exhilarating crescendos of any game this year—including Uncharted 2. This is the adventure I always imagined I’d get to play, way back when I was a kid pushing NES buttons.

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About our scale… the number of words in our review reflects the score of the game. In practical terms, you could assume that games reviewed in 49 words or fewer should be avoided, games reviewed in 50-75 words would make a decent rental, and games reviewed in 76 words or more would make a solid purchase.

Looking for the arcade football successor to NFL Blitz? You can keep looking. With Madden Arcade, EA has attempted to create chocolate-chip cookies using the ingredients for a turkey dinner. As a result, it never really has the flavor of an arcade game. Instead it looks and plays like what it is: a stripped-down version of Madden 10.

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About our scale… the number of words in our review reflects the score of the game. In practical terms, you could assume that games reviewed in 49 words or fewer should be avoided, games reviewed in 50-75 words would make a decent rental, and games reviewed in 76 words or more would make a solid purchase.

GTA IV and its expansions have received mountains of hype and praise for advancing the series in terms of story and character, but it’s this little dynamo that has re-energized the series where it counts for me—the gameplay. The DS version released earlier this year was a strong reminder that GTA was once more about the moment-to-moment pleasure of playing and less about exposition, stripper mini-games, and digital phalluses. The PSP version takes what was already one of the best games of the year, and makes it one of the best handheld games ever.

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About our scale… the number of words in our review reflects the score of the game. In practical terms, you could assume that games reviewed in 49 words or fewer should be avoided, games reviewed in 50-75 words would make a decent rental, and games reviewed in 76 words or more would make a solid purchase.

How bad is it? Just wretched enough to set back race relations in this country four decades.

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About our scale… the number of words in our review reflects the score of the game. In practical terms, you could assume that games reviewed in 49 words or fewer should be avoided, games reviewed in 50-75 words would make a decent rental, and games reviewed in 76 words or more would make a solid purchase.

Forget the “…for a Wii game” caveats—Extraction is an exciting, aurally and visually impressive game that captures the atmosphere and, importantly, the feel of the Dead Space universe in an experience that is most assuredly for adults (one unique and shocking scene in particular). And, while there’s no skirting the fact that it’s quite short, the story is so taut and well-crafted (better even than Dead Space’s, honestly) that missing out on it would be a huge mistake.

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About our scale… the number of words in our review reflects the score of the game. In practical terms, you could assume that games reviewed in 49 words or fewer should be avoided, games reviewed in 50-75 words would make a decent rental, and games reviewed in 76 words or more would make a solid purchase.

When Backbreaker Football was introduced, it was pitched as a Madden-killing physics powerhouse of console football. At long last, the game has been released… on the iPhone. For 99¢. I’ll admit it—I downloaded the game expecting to giggle at what a hot mess it was. Turns out NaturalMotion molded Backbreaker into a clever arcade football challenge (you simply steer your player down the field, dodging tacklers with accelerometer and touch controls) that’s perfectly suited for the iPhone.

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About our scale… the number of words in our review reflects the score of the game. In practical terms, you could assume that games reviewed in 49 words or fewer should be avoided, games reviewed in 50-75 words would make a decent rental, and games reviewed in 76 words or more would make a solid purchase.