To play Conflict: Denied Ops, which comes from Eidos, you’ll need to play with a friend, or get used to switching back and forth between the two protagonists, a pair of CIA ops. While playing on your own as Graves, the sniper, you can direct Lang, the heavy, to specific locations to take out the enemy with his assault rifle. Or you can play as Lang and do the frontline work yourself, while the computer’s artificial intelligence takes over as Graves snipes from a distance.

Time Crisis 4

Creating a video game based on a movie or a TV show is a tricky thing—telling a story in this interactive medium just isn’t the same. Too often, fans who are excited by the prospect of taking on the role of their heroines and heroes are simply disappointed. The task is even more daunting when the original in question is Lost, a show built on secrets in which plot points are painstakingly resolved over time.

Turok is the first title from Vancouver’s Propaganda Games. A rambunctious re-creation of a character that first appeared more than 50 years ago, the new game is a science-fiction-themed first-person shooter for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.

Talk about value—this box is five games in one. Not short, useless games either, but topnotch titles that are varied and fun. The Orange Box comes from Valve and is available for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360, and in it you’ll get Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode One—both of which were previously available—as well as Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2, and Portal.

The latest adventure for the Italian plumber with a soft spot for Princess Peach takes place in outer space. As you’d expect from the developers at Nintendo, the galaxies and planets you visit are wild and wacky. Using both the Wii Remote and Nunchuk, you’ll guide Mario from planet to planet in a search for star bits, power stars, and grand stars. You need the energy from these stars to chase after Bowser, who has—once again—kidnapped your beloved princess.

Warhawk: You’ll want to spend most of your time flying the skies, where you’ll have the most fun, and you’ll realize that the Sony Computer Entertainment developers came up with a great scheme for flying the birds, which can hover and move up and down...

We’re still a number of weeks away from the frenzy of the holiday gift-giving season, and already we’ve had a number of stellar games rise to the top, begging for your attention. Today: BioShock, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, NHL 08, and Heavenly Sword

In this game, for the Xbox 360 from AQ Interactive and Microsoft Game Studios, it's always raining. This is because you are a special-forces operative who hunts vampires, and the extraordinary sensory perception of the howling creatures is dampened by the rain.

I honestly didn't think I'd like this game, from Sony Computer Entertainment for the PSP, but after spending some time with it, I came to appreciate it. Based loosely on the story of Joan of Arc–very loosely, given that demons feature in it–this is a turn-based role-playing game in which you control a group of French fighters defending their homeland against the English.

It's too bad about Lair, because on paper it's a great game: you fly around on the backs of dragons, wreaking havoc on your enemy. You get the sense that there's a great back story to this game, but you'll never learn it because you'll never get past the first frustrating hour. The problem is that Sony Computer Entertainment's Factor 5 developers wanted to use the PS3's Sixaxis gyroscopic motion sensor to control the flight of the dragon, and it just doesn't work.

I like to fly spaceships and take down enemy fighters as much as the next guy. For a while, Arc of Deception gave me exactly that. The space shooter–from Square Enix and Microsoft Game Studios in an exclusive for the Xbox 360–is based on anumber of earlier video games called Silpheed, and you play as Katana, a fighter jockey in zero G. The visuals in Arc of Deception are outstanding and the controls reasonably simple, but hours in, things will start to feel a bit repetitive.

In The Darkness, left, adapted from the comics of the same name, you play as Jackie Estacado, plucked from an orphanage to become a hit man for a mobster family. As Estacado, you wreak vengeance on evil and help the needy of your city. When you start the game on your PS3 or Xbox 360, you're trying to survive a contract placed on your life. Soon, though, you are possessed by the Darkness, a creature that bestows strange powers but also controls you.

The only way to get this game from Sony Computer Entertainment is by downloading it to your PS3 from the PlayStation Store. It's got a Keystone Kops, cartoonlike feel to it, as you scurry around in your vehicle while trying to capture escaped convicts and return them to jail. There are four maps to play in, and you'll be manoeuvring against up to three opponents. Crashing into your competition causes them to lose the jailbird so that you can capture him.

In D3 Publisher's Mad Tracks, described as a "party racing game", you race in competing mini cars on tracks that have been dropped into real-world environments. Available for the X360 through Xbox Live, the game takes you on a Hot Wheels–like track through a kitchen, avoiding glassware and other obstacles while dodging weapon attacks by fellow racers. You can also compete in racing or mini games like foosball, in which you use your car to knock the ball into your opponent's net.