Left 4 Dead is more exciting on paper than it is in practice, but the actual game is undiminished for it. It promises an endlessly replayable cooperative multiplayer experience with roguelike procedurally generated content and delivers a brief, intense, FPS game that stays intense even as you become familiar with it. Perhaps not exactly as advertised, but good stuff nonetheless.

The third Metroid Prime game falls off the ledge into cheesy drama where the second teetered on the edge. Fortunately, the mass of the game delivers the same mix of guided exploration and challenging combat that was so endearing about the first game.

Like Smash Brothers Brawl is a tribute to Nintendo icons young and old, Call of Duty 4 is a love letter to the FPS genre. We’ve come a long way since the days of Marathon: Durandal; health bars have given way to temporary damage, waypoints are status quo, and it’s hard to imagine a modern FPS that fails to lead you from objective to objective. Call of Duty takes modern FPS design and, without really adding anything new to the formula, delivers a lean and polished game experience.

Marathon 2: Durandal is (understandably) an evolutionary throwback to a simpler time in FPS design where everything looked blandly similar and the only thing to hold player attention was merciless difficulty. Both design and graphics have moved on since then and the only people who will likely enjoy the game are the truly hardcore and series fans looking to revive gaming memories.