BUMPER CAR RACING

BioShock X360

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. The comprehensive menu of unstoppable attacks, nimble combos, and special moves are designed to appeal to even the most jaded of fighting game fans. The world that Kain moves through is a lushly detailed gothic environment that is not only gorgeous to the eye, but also alive with the soon-to-be-dead. The AI behavioral response makes peasants and enemies variously flee, take up arms, or remain unaware as Kain moves through crowds or charges, sword raised, into open areas.

In 007: Agent Under Fire, the player must defeat the evil criminal mastermind Malprave, head of a rising terrorist organization that is bent on ruling the world with an army of clones. Helping players along the way in Agent Under Fireis the gorgeous Zoe Nightshade and a cast of familiar characters. Each of the more than 10 exotic locations around the world contains a generous offering of challenging, well-balanced missions and objectives.

Agent Under Firelets players accomplish mission objectives by blasting through with high-tech weaponry, or by relying on state-of-the-art gadgets and nerve-tingling stealth. The driving levels will feature an array of 007-inspired exotic cars and automotive combat from the Bond movies. Other key features include the all-new story line that builds on the Bond legacy with villains and allies, both new and familiar; three well-balanced gameplay experiences for the single player (action, stealth, and driving); a full arsenal of Q-lab weapons, gadgets, and autos; and fluid action inspired by the 007 films.

There are also enormous, detailed 3-D environments to be experienced through the eyes of Bond. Agent Under Firewill utilize next-generation console technology to help bring life to the full environmental physics and environments, including a massive deep-sea oil rig set atop a secret underwater base. The game includes single-player and multiplayer modes (with support for up to four players).

Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day is a fun, rewarding form of entertainment everyone can enjoy. Inspired by cutting-edge neuroscience, it's a full set of reading and mathematic exercises that stimulate the brain. At the start, you'll take a series of tests and get a score that determines how old your brain is. This is your "Brain Age" — by performing daily exercises just minutes a day over weeks and months, the better you'll get and the lower your Brain Age will get.

Larger in scope than its predecessor and better in almost every way, Breath of Fire IIis a perfect port of the original SNES game, and will leave role-playing fans begging for more.

The game starts out, dreamlike, in a small border village 500 years after the events of the first game. You play a small boy named Ryu (ring a bell?) who is looking for his lost sister. After finding his sister and reuniting her with pops, Ryu wanders around a bit and returns home—and that's when things really start to get interesting. To go further than that would risk spoiling the story, but we can say that the plot is really topnotch this time around and has three alternate endings.

Graphically, the game is a huge jump from the original. The towns are larger, the character sprites are more detailed, and the field map is gorgeous. You see weather effects such as rain and drifting clouds, wandering animals and jumping fish, and plants blowing in the breeze. If you have any experience with the best 16-bit RPGs for the SNES, like Final Fantasy VIor Chrono Trigger, you get the idea.

The characters are completely new in the series, and have brand-new skills. The only exception is Ryu (who isn't the original Ryu, but basically has the same skills). Like the original Breath of Fire, certain areas of the game are only accessible by using the skills of your party members. For example, one of your members can turn into a frog, and can ferry you across rivers and streams.

Among the changes to Breath of Fire IIis that fishing and hunting have bigger roles; they're now minigames that require technique and reward with items that can advance the story. An animated monster image shows up on the field menu to give you an idea how often you'll encounter the baddies—nice for avoiding all those random battles. There's also the new Guts stat, which will sometimes allow a character to fight even when he should be knocked out. The two coolest additions are town creation (where you get to build and populate your own town), and the new fusion system, which allows your characters to "fuse" with shamans that you encounter, thus joining and augmenting their powers. In a nutshell, this game improves upon the best parts of the original. —Bryan Karsh

Pros:

• Character fusion

• Fishing and hunting minigames

• Town creation

• Save anywhere

• Trade items via link cable

• Improved graphics, sound, and music

Cons:

• Ryu doesn't actually make contact when he attacks

As a mischievous schoolboy, you'll stand up to bullies, get picked on by teachers, play pranks, win or lose the girl, and ultimately learn to navigate the obstacles of the worst school around, Bullworth Academy - a corrupt and crumbling prep school with an uptight facade. The story follows Jimmy Hopkins, a teenager who's been expelled from every school he's ever attended. Left to fend for himself after his mother abandons him at Bullworth to go on her fifth honeymoon, Jimmy has a whole year at Bullworth ahead of him, working his way up the social ladder of this demented institution of supposed learning, standing up for what he thinks is right and taking on the liars, cheats and snobs who are the most popular members of the student body and faculty. If Jimmy can survive the school year and outsmart his rivals, he could rule the school. Ready yourself for a hilarious return to campus living with Bully.

Call of Duty 2 redefines the cinematic intensity and chaos of battle as seen through the eyes of ordinary soldiers fighting together in epic WWII conflicts. The sequel to 2003's Call of Duty, it has stunningly realistic graphics, seamless gameplay and the most intense WWII shooter action yet. Play through missions in the order you see fit. Will you decide to play first as a sniper or as a tank commander? It's your call Multiplayer Mayhem - Go online for intense Axis vs. Allies team-based multiplayer action

Children Of Mana takes us back to ages past, when an island called Illusia floated at the center of the world. At the heart of the island towered an ancient, enormous tree that stretched up to the very heavens. When a time of darkness comes, chaos and sorrow engulfed the world until at last its salvation appeared - in the form of a boy, a girl, and a holy sword.