Fallout 3 (Xbox, PS3, PC- Fall 2008)

Fallout 3's post-apocalyptic U.S. brims with detail and depth, from the hundreds of unique characters you'll meet to your helpful, and wicked cool, PIP-Boy device. It's a game of choices, where one decision (to blow up a city, perhaps) affects the entire game, forcing your to make adjustments and deal with the reverberations of change. A gorgeous world awaits you, a place teeming with giant ants and ugly mutants that you'll happily blow to bits, courtesy of the game's Vault-tec Assisted Targeting System, a wonderful mix of real time and turn-based combat that lets you dismember your foes into bloody chunks. Beyond the fighting, however, lies an adventure that'll consumer you for hours, drawing you into its world with memorable little touches, such as music playing on the radio and your pet canine. Like all Bethesda's action role-playing games, Fallout 3 is what you make of it, and we strongly encourage you to give yourself to its hypnotic, and irradiated, charm.

Final Score: 9 (out of 10)

Madden NFL 09 (Xbox 360, PS3- 8/12/08)

Sonic Unleashed (Xbox 360, PS3- Fall 2008)

Good news, Sonic fans. Sonic Unleashed is a good fusion of bright, 3-D graphics and signature Sonic speed. Sega's decision to make the game more linear than the atrocious Sonic the Hedgehog means less room for glitches, while the unique day/night mechanics give it a nice amount of depth. It's not deep by any means, but we dig blazing through seaside communities and other locales, bursting through objects and destroying enemies. That said, Sonic Unleashed isn't without its share of issues, most notably an unstable frame rate that causes the game to slow down, but it's still enjoyable and a fresh start for a series that was dangling over a trash compactor.

Final Score: 7 (out of 10)

Street Fighter IV (Xbox 360, PS3, PC- Winter 2008)

Soul Calibur, Dead or Alive and Tekken cannot compare to Street Fighter IV, which delivers globs of hard-hitting joy to the masses. Capcom's wonderful brawler sports superb 3-D visuals but retains the series' 2-D action. Ken, Ryu, Chun-Li and Blanka round out an impressive roster that harks back to Street Fighter II, which will please both hardcore fanatics as well as casual players looking to get back into the action. Single player is fun, but online play, despite some annoying lag, expands the game's reach, as thousands of wannabe World Warriors compete for leaderboard supremacy. Colorful graphics pop off the screen, while the franchise's characters never looked better, with detailed musculature and real-time facial expressions. Don't even bother with other games. Street Fighter IV is the definitive beat-em-up, one that gamers will play for quite some time.

Final Score: 9 (out of 10)

Call of Duty: World at War (Xbox 360, PS3, PC- Fall 2008)

Call of Duty buys a ticket into the Pacific theater with World at War, an intense first-person shooter that explores the Japanese/Allied and Soviet/European conflicts of World War II. A much darker story brings new light to the hardships of warfare, while the sweetest addition to the combat, the flamethrower, lets you torch your foes and delight in their fiery demise. Firefights are intense and brutal, with bullets zipping past your head and explosions rocking the screen. Vehicles add depth, but are just as unnecessary as they are in Call of Duty 3. Swimming is a good idea, but wasn't handled appropriately and isn't as easy to grasp as on foot controls. Multiplayer abounds with options, but isn't as feature packed and expansive as in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Overall, World at War is a solid addition to the franchise, but it still leaves us waiting for next year's Call of Duty 5.

Final Score: 8 (out of 10)

Spore (PC, Mac- 9/7/08)

Will Wright's ambitious project, Spore, finally crawled from the primordial soup and slithered onto shelves, ending a years long wait that was thankfully worth it. Creating your own beasts with the user-friendly Creature Creator is a highlight in the game, and interacting with other species and eventually evolving to join tribes and build advanced civilizations will enthrall you for hours. It's when you master space travel, however, that things get happily ridiculous, as you explore thousands of planets, hunting for secret items, negotiating with other races and colonizing barren worlds. Forget about work, your family and other video games. Spore is all you need, an excellent achievement and a must-play for anyone with a god complex.

Final Score: 10 (out of 10)

LEGO Batman (All platforms- 9/1/08)

DC Comics' Caped Crusader goes LEGO in the cute and addictive LEGO Batman. The Dark Knight, Robin and a host of characters embark upon a humorous adventure in which you decapitate baddies with your Batarang and build vehicles from scattered LEGO bricks. Playing as Batman and his sidekick rock, but we also dig the game's villain mode, which lets you experience things from The Joker, Penguin, Catwoman and other dastardly fiends' perspectives. In addition, the game looks great, with impressive reflections and detail on the LEGO models. However, the somewhat confusing level design, awkward controls and tired LEGO building gameplay make LEGO Batman more of a curiosity than a must buy.

Final Score: 6 (out of 10)

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Xbox 360, PS3- 9/16/08)

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is a cool third person action game that lets us live out our biggest fantasy, playing Darth Vader's apprentice. The Dark Lord of the Sith sends you on numerous errands throughout the galaxy, and you'll spend much of your time cutting down Jedi and zapping enemies with Force lightning and using other over-the-top powers. It's great fun, especially when you Force push large objects and cut into baddies with your lightsaber. However, the overall lack of polish as well as the absence of a multiplayer mode (Wii version only) keeps us from calling it ... master.

Final Score: 7 (out of 10)

Gears of War 2 (Xbox 360- November 2008)

Testosterone junkies will tear through Gears of War 2 with adrenaline charged fury, using enemies as meat shields and getting into chainsaw duels where rapid button mashing is keep to slicing enemies into cold cuts. Series protagonist Marcus Fenix and his buddies continue their war against the Locust Horde. New characters and enemies spice up the story, but it's mostly useless fodder, a simplistic yarn overshadowed by the game's real star, its unbridled action. Even better, multiplayer trounces the original's, with five-on-five matches spread across a variety of modes, our favorite being Meatflag, where two teams work to kill a computer controlled enemy and drag its carcass back to the starting point. Vicious, attractive and downright fun, these Gears aren't in need of oil.

Final Score: 9 (out of 10)

Link:http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/galleries/2008-video-game-reviews--from-the-future/?icid=aimDBDL2_link1-a

Kind of a bummer from Star Wars. I was actually looking forward to that game and it looked AAA. What do you guys think?

Pretty ok article, but I wouldnt put any money on it.

Fallout 10? no way.

I'll be very disappointed if Spore doesn't get enough 10's, and it will be with reviewers, and not with the game.