Xbox

Game Description: You are the vampire Kain, the most evil figure ever to appear in a video game. Cloaked in stealth, you will move through crowds unseen, travel stories above the peasant herds on which you feed—leaping from rooftop to rooftop—and use mind control to overcome vampire-proof inventions. The combat choreography in Blood Omen 2 unfolds with dancelike precision as Kain engages armies of demons and humans alike.

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

According to ESRB, this game contains Blood, Violence

I disagree with Mike on his assessment of UFC Tapout's fighting engine. True, the standing game is not full of dazzling combos, but this is the point, to make a skill out of prediction. Its almost an art to watch for openings in your opponents attacks, and suddenly grab a limb out of the air to slam their body into the ground.

I remember a number of years ago, when the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) was still in its infancy, the violent and controversial tournament made its way to my hometown. The night of the show, a local, highly experienced and well respected martial arts instructor was asked for his opinion of the tournament. He replied that it is not real martial arts not because the fighters lack technique, but because the martial arts are not really about fighting.

Game Description: Like Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto III, State of Emergency offers the player virtually unlimited scope for mayhem, and huge, sprawling urban environments to explore through missions or nonlinear action. But this time the level of chaos has been upped considerably, as the game offers the potential for hundreds of rioters to be onscreen at once, each with his or her own AI, set of motivations, and loyalties. The environments are intricately interactive; almost any object (including body parts) can be picked up and used as a weapon.

Game Description: In Pirates: The Legend of Black Kat, you'll take to the high seas as fearless pirate Katarina de Leon. You'll master a dozen pirate ships, from a simple gunboat to a massive man-of-war. There are 12 vessels in all, drawn from history and legend. You will discover and explore increasingly dangerous and fantastic island worlds, and develop swordplay skills to defeat evil pirate bands and loot their treasures. The game includes witch doctors, mermaids, mythical beasts, skull apes, and other beings to befriend or battle. The hand-to-hand battle system allows you to swordfight with two-handed combo moves, while ship-to-ship combat lets you to go head-to-head against the computer or another player.

According to the ESRB, this game contains: Suggestive Themes, Violence

Looking at recent releases, there must have been some kind of competition among game developers to release B-class adventure games starring female characters. Two discs with cheesy titles hit shelves within a month of each other, and they're very similar in a lot of ways. While Drakan: The Ancients' Gate was first to stores, Pirates: The Legend Of Black Kat was right on its heels.

It pains me dearly to score a Tecmo game so low, but in all good conscience I just cant let them slide. Theyve always been known for extremely fun, solid and original games despite (generally) not having cutting edge graphics. Breaking with that tradition in Fatal Frames case, the graphics arent that bad but they seem to have gone astray when it came to the gameplay department. Very, very disappointing.