Xbox 360

Once again the time has come to drive like you have never driven before! Criterion Games has been wowing us with the Burnout franchise for years and the time has come to bring it to the new generation of gaming consoles with Burnout Paradise. Criterion has constantly tweaked each iteration of the franchise but none as much as this installment. Some say change is bad but in this case it is a very good thing.

2007 was a great year for the shooter. Halo 3, BioShock, The Orange Box, and Call of Duty 4 gave shooter fans everything they could ask for. Well, almost everything... Sure they gave us aliens, mutants, and terrorists aplenty--but the latest entry in the fabled Turok series brings something else to the table: dinosaurs. Not that we haven't seen this before; afterall, it is what makes a Turok game a Turok game. This time around though the developers have utilized the power of current gen hardware to bring these monstrosities to life like never before. The results make Turok a fun and suspenseful addition to the shooter family.

When Infinity Ward was enlisted by Activision to slay the mighty EA and their Medal of Honor Series with the original Call of Duty, I don't recall anyone in the industry thinking it could be done. Who could top the already established First Person Shooter in the crowded WWII sub-genre? It wasn't until the release of Call of Duty 2 that most began to see how great a developer Infinity Ward was and witnessed Call of Duty 2 not only be a great game but the best title available on the Xbox 360 in the first several months of its life.

In recent years, it would seem quite odd for a company to risk its biggest quarter, in terms of sales, on a brand new franchise. Although it probably wasn't their original plan to feature Assassin's Creed as their premiere software release for the 2007 holiday season, delays to other titles caused Ubisoft to put all of their marketing muscle into Assassin's Creed. The road to release hasn't been without its bumps though.

As one of the most eagerly anticipated titles of the year, Rock Band is a title that doesn't leave much room for disappointment. From the creators of the incredibly successful and popular Guitar Hero series, Rock Band is meant as an evolution of the Rhythm genre. On the surface, Rock Band appears to achieve this goal but only by overwhelming the individual with its hefty price tag and a retail box much larger than what their console arrived in. It isn't until a player joins up with three others until they can truly understand what an achievement this game is for the industry and the genre.

Unless you have been living under a rock, you should have heard of a little game called Guitar Hero. First released on the PlayStation 2 with no expectations of becoming anything other than a niche title, Guitar Hero became an overnight success and established the musical rhythm genre as a profitable business endeavor for Harmonix and Red Octane. After successfully launching Guitar Hero 2 on multiple platforms and an 80's edition, Red Octane and Neversoft have teamed up with Activision to bring the third official chapter in this beloved franchise while Harmonix went off to EA to bring Rock Band to the consoles. With the changes in the development team, does Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock have what it takes to bring this series to the next level?

Move Over Star Wars, There's A New SciFi King... The original Xbox console was a great system. It introduced the console world to hard drives, clean system architecture, a world class online system and of course Halo. There were plenty of great games available on the system, but one notable genre was almost completely unaccounted for: RPG’s. With a lackluster entry here and a horrid one there, the Xbox had almost nothing to offer the story-loving role playing fans. At least, that’s how it was for a few years until heavy-hitting PC RPG developer Bioware stepped up to the plate and brought Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic to Microsoft’s big black box. The game was an instant classic and is a prime example of why Bioware is one of the industry’s best talents.

Originally released on the PlayStation Portable and Nintendo DS, Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords has finally made its way to the Xbox Live Arcade. Retailing at a price of 1200 Microsoft Points ($15.00), does this re-release offer enough to make it worthy of a digital purchase?

For those of you not familiar with Puzzle Quest, the game is a RPG version of Bejeweled.

Sega is one of those few companies that has a multitude of franchises sitting in a vault just waiting to be pulled out and rediscovered. Sega Rally is just one of the multitude of franchises that hasn't graced a console since the 1999 release of Sega Rally 2. Years later, Sega Rally has finally returned to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in Sega Rally Revo. But has the game been worth the wait?

As Microsoft entered the videogame market, one game catapulted them from a mediocre start to create a franchise so popular and powerful that it would become an icon for the First Person Shooter genre and online gaming as Mario is to platformers. Unless you have been living under a rock, you know that the franchise I am referring to is Halo. With huge sales figures for both Halo and Halo 2 on the original Xbox, Microsoft and Bungie have finally concluded the original trilogy storyline of Halo with Halo 3. For the doubters out there, Halo 3 ends the trilogy with a bang.