Don King Presents Prizefighter
Guard your grill: Delivering a knockout flurry of features-like stunning live-action, documentary-style film clips, ultra-customizable bruisers, and deeply strategic play that lets you rock domes with hooks, jabs, and uppercuts-the latest boxing sim scores an automatic TKO. Nonetheless, we could do without the title's repetitive, button-mashing mini-games (thankfully optional), lethargic pacing and less-than-awe-inspiring audiovisual presentation, which instantly rule it out for impatient types. Heavy on scientific action-plus singularly snazzy sound bytes-only technical fighters need apply.
www.2ksports.com / Xbox 360, PS3
Alone In The DarkSo much for evil's reawakening. The scariest part about this follow up to the '92 original, which invented survival horror, is how poorly its script-chronicling Central Park's bizarre origins-fails to evoke atmospheric horror. Ignore the unintentional shocks-clich enemies and laughable voice-acting-though, and you'll find its grab bag of innovations shockingly intriguing. Among the highlights: stunning set pieces, episodic storytelling, makeshift weapon creation, gripping action sequences, and realistic wounding/inventory management. A solid action-adventure? Yes. Particularly spine-tingling? No.
www.atari.com / PC, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii
Soul Calibur IV
Wham, bam, boom... From dazzling displays of martial arts to brutal, body-juggling combos, the world's foremost ancient-weapons-based brawler allows you to lovingly cane friends and family in gripping, one-on-one high-definition duels. Choose a character-try the lithe ninja or grumpy shogun-then employ fist, foot, sword, or halberd to cave in immaculately rendered heads atop crumbling ruins or towering mountains resplendent in jaw-dropping 3-D. Added bonus: fun, if inexplicable, cameos by Yoda and Darth Vader that send the title's geek quotient soaring...
www.namco.com / PS3, Xbox 360
Guitar Hero: On Tour
Rock and roll all night and party every day-even at 20,000 feet-with the first portable edition of America's favorite party-starter, which boasts its own custom fret peripheral and pick stylus. From No Doubt to Nirvana, you'll grind it out to dozens of shred-ready tunes, with wireless head-to-head showdowns especially engaging. A few strange extras like the need to autograph fans' t-shirts or blow into the microphone to quench pyrotechnic-induced fires aside, this one gets two devil horns up.
www.activision.com / Nintendo DS
Metal Gear Solid 4
20 years deep in the stealth-action game, which he single-handedly founded, secret agent Solid Snake (older, less spry and more suicidal) is still going deep behind enemy lines. Packing gadgets from bionic gun sights to auto-camouflaging suits, remote-controlled drones, and bullet-deflecting steel drums, help him ice rival Liquid Ocelot's army of nanotechnology-fueled foot soldiers and robotic walkers. Arresting high-definition visuals and cinematic storytelling make it both instant home theater showpiece, and the super-spy's greatest clandestine caper yet.
www.konami.com / PS3