Empire Total War

Like diving into a murky lake from the rocky cliffs looming above, plunging into Empire: Total War is an intimidating prospect but an exhilarating experience. As with previous games in this strategy franchise, there's an overwhelming amount of content to unearth, though now the clock has been spun forward hundreds of years. Technological advances have made bows and arrows weapons obsolete, the British colonies strive for independence, and major empires approach their inevitable collapse. These historical waters are deep, but also a bit turbulent. Empire is the biggest and broadest Total War yet, and like an aging historical parchment, it's brilliantly ambitious in scope but somewhat tattered at the edges. Nevertheless, the game's historical breadth, turn-based tugs-of-war, and enjoyable real-time battles (both on land and at sea) will transfix series fans and newcomers a like.

The grand campaign is the meat of Empire: Total War, and it's there where you're likely to spend the most amount of time. The game stretches across the 18th century and lets you choose from a number of world powers, from Great Britain and Russia to fallen domains such as the Maratha Confederacy and the Ottoman Empire. Once you choose an empire, you can select from a few different campaign types that determine victory conditions and campaign length. Whichever you decide, be prepared: Even a short, 50-year campaign can take a good amount of time to complete, given that each turn requires strategic thinking on multiple fronts. Battles usually determine how regions are won and lost, but diplomatic relations, economic strangleholds, assassinations,

Monopoly 2008

An Updated Classic Returns: MONOPOLY Purists Rejoice! It's the World's Most Popular Board Game brought to life! Acquire wealth by buying and developing the Monopoly properties you know and love. It's all about money - and making more of it than your opponents. Features Include: -Cleverly Animated Tokens, Bright 3D Graphics, New Music -Enhanced Faster Moving Gameplay -Multiplayer Mode with up to 4 Friends OR Play against up to 3 Computer Opponents with an advanced A.I. -3 Opponent Difficulty Levels: First Time Buyer, Entrepreneur and Tycoon -Limitless Replayability -Fun and Addictive Action for Everyone!

Call of Duty 5 - World at War

Call of Duty - World at War is a lot like its predecessor, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. In most respects, this is a good thing. The guns are tightly tuned, the tone is gritty and mature, and the action is exciting and fast-paced. It boasts the same addictive multiplayer system as Modern Warfare, and even expands the multiplayer possibilities by allowing four players to play through the campaign cooperatively. Like every game in the series before Modern Warfare, this Call of Duty takes place during World War II. World at War does an admirable job of spicing things up, but between the well-worn source material and déjà vu game mechanics, there is a pervasive familiarity to the game. Still, though World at War lacks the freshness that made Modern Warfare such a hit, it nevertheless provides a hearty, filling meal--one that shooter fans are sure to savor.

The most salient difference between World at War and Modern Warfare is the WWII setting. In the campaign, you split time between two soldiers in two offensive theaters: the Russian push out of their homeland and into the heart of Germany, and the American struggle to wrest Pacific islands from the Japanese. Though you'll alternate

Dynasty Warriors 6 Reloaded

Dynasty Warriors 6 is the first game in Koei's long-running hack-and-slash series to be built specifically for current-generation consoles, and as such it benefits in one major area: It looks pretty. Other than that, this is Dynasty Warriors as it has been since its inception: a huge, sprawling, button-mashing affair set in ancient China, complete with the series' requisite cheesy cutscenes, dozens of playable characters, bad dialogue, and mostly incomprehensible storyline. Of course, there are new gameplay additions in Dynasty Warriors 6, but they're tweaks rather than overhauls and will be more exciting to long-term fans than casual players of the series.

If you are a newcomer, then suffice it to say that the Dynasty Warriors franchise has represented some of the best button-grinding fun to be had on consoles, although the series has been widely criticized for being just that: unashamed, action-focused, and strategy-light games that become almost hypnotic in their repetitiveness. The gameplay in Dynasty Warriors generally consists of your chosen character taking on hundreds of opposing soldiers single-handedly, which is usually accomplished by pressing one or two buttons ad nauseam. Like previous entries in the series, Dynasty Warriors 6 is set in the Three Kingdoms

Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare

It took awhile, but Infinity Ward finally got the message that World War II is played out. With modern times and international affairs becoming more and more, shall we say, interesting in recent years, the 1940s just don't carry as much weight as they used to. Perhaps that's why Call of Duty 4 has a new subtitle, Modern Warfare. By bringing things into a fictionalized story that still seems fairly plausible, the developer has made a much heavier game. But COD 4 is more than just an updated setting. It's also an amazing multiplayer first-person shooter and a great but brief single-player campaign with the visual chops to make it a standout shooter in an era filled with seemingly dozens of standout shooters.

The only real catch is that the single-player is almost shockingly short. If you've been keeping up with this style of game, you'll probably shoot your way to the credits in under five hours. While you can raise the difficulty to give yourself more of a challenge, the main thing this does is make the enemies frustratingly deadly, which sort of detracts from the fun.

While it may have a lack of single-player quantity, it makes up for most of it with its quality. The game tells its story from multiple perspectives, and you'll play as a new British SAS operative as well as a US Marine. The campaign takes you from a rainy night out at sea on a boat that's in the process of sinking to a missile