GameCube

According to ESRB, this game contains: Violence

Game Description: Rampage: Total Destruction offers a fresh take on an arcade classic complete with everyone's favorite monsters. Control George, Lizzie, and Ralph as they go around the world, destoying major cities through direct destruction or through their fighting. Virtually everything in the environment can be damaged, broken, and utterly destroyed with plenty of hilarious results. Aided by power-ups, the Rampage: Total Destruction monsters will acquire upgrades throughout the course of a single campaign—leading to even more destruction.

According to ESRB, this game contains: Cartoon Violence, Crude Humor

Game Description: LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy is a comical take on the Star Wars Trilogy, the movies that revolutionized pop culture forever. LEGO Star Wars II follows the Rebel Alliance's battle to dismantle the Galactic Empire and rebuild a galaxy in pieces. From Darth Vader's pursuit of Princess Leia aboard her Blockade Runner to a showdown on the reconstructed Death Star, the game includes the family-friendly LEGO action, puzzles and humor that earned the original LEGO Star Wars such popularity and acclaim. Drop-in/drop-out feature enables friends to join easily and engage in multi-player action.

In late 2004, Microsoft spent so much money marketing the upcoming release of Halo 2 that national press outlets started doing reports about it as if it were actually news. Unsurprisingly, these were generally awkward and horribly researched, as mainstream coverage about niche subjects tends to be.

According to the ESRB, this game contains: Violence, Blood and Gore, Partial Nudity

N-Space's Geist was a game that intrigued me at first glance; it was nothing concrete, just something about it gave the impression of being at the cusp of greatness. I first noticed it at E3 two or three years ago, and added it to my list as one to keep an eye on. I'm not sure if I could put my finger on any one element that struck me as being special, but the ability to haunt a bowl of dog food struck me as the kind of original thinking that could be nurtured to fruition.

The cel-shaded look and trance-like audio form a strikingly edgy and elegant whole. Jason's description perfectly captures the bold minimalism that permeates the game, from the chapter start screens that require the player to guide a laser sight over a black silhouette of the level's antagonist and blast it into a spatter of red dots, to the "game over" screens that consist of stark renderings of the characters' agonized faces that would look right at home in a contemporary art gallery.

Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy sat in my "to-play" pile for months, probably more than a year if I wanted to be accurate about it. I'm a big fan of third-person adventure games, and after reading Mike's opinion, I thought it was a safe purchase on the cheap. The problem was that I never felt like playing it. The box art is very mediocre and not the sort of eye-catcher that jumps out from the shelf, and with an onslaught of other titles that I had been anticipating or that needed reviews, it never got its turn at bat.