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If there's one thing that 2KGames wants you to know about NHL 2K9, it's that the game is going to be accessible. Are you a casual hockey fan who wants to get into the game, skate, and score? 2K9 has you covered. A hardcore hockey fan who can't master the arcane, knuckle-busting control schemes of years gone by? 2K9 will take care of you. Want to manage a team through an entire season and win the Stanley Cup? Want to play online with all of your buddies in a variety of game modes? Want to analyze hockey games and create highlight clips of your exploits? All of these things have a home in NHL 2K9. 2KGames thinks it's a safe bet to say that if you're a hockey fan, no matter what you love about hockey will have a foothold in this year's edition.

Any game will have the problem of walking the steady line of balance by maintaining hype to rational levels and beating out skepticism by delivering the goods when the time comes. Guitar Hero hasn't received as much ire for each subsequent release as other franchises, as rhythm-based games usually just have to focus on good soundtracks — or to many rabid fans, just new songs — and less about introducing new gameplay mechanics. You might think Aerosmith would have it easy riding on the coattails of the Guitar Hero name alone, but like any robust fan base, the game has a mountain of subtle obstacles it has to overcome to deliver and stifle any number of cries the fans may have about a peculiar sidestep for the Guitar Hero series.

It's always a bit odd being invited to play the multi-player component of a title when I haven't played (or in this case seen) the single player. My skills – or lack thereof – with FPS titles are nearly legendary here at the site. I'm abysmal with arcade shooters; passable if they require skill and I'm playing defensively or the hated sniper. Throw me into a situation with anything but the "usual" and I need a little time to adjust. That's what single-player is for! But, I didn't get to play single-player...

Admittedly, my wrestling knowledge begins and ends with those wonderful Slim Jim commercials. My television is dominated by Netflix movies and bad cable. However, Midway is making strides to ensure gaming enjoyment for both TNA aficionados and clueless chumps like me in TNA iMPACT!.

The Spiderwick Chronicles is a game based on the movie of the same name. The movie is based on a set of books of the same name. I haven't read the books, so I'm not sure how close any of this is to the source material, but the game is extremely close to the movie (at least so far).

Usually I like to play video games and look forward to trying a new one. In the case of Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm, I had no interest. However, playing the game, I can see how it might appeal to a small audience.

Though the threat of having my name added to some secret government watch list is a possibility, I’m going to say this anyway: I love terrorizing New York City. In The Incredible Hulk, bad moods are easily satiated by spending a few moments tearing around New York as a mutant beast. Quenching your thirst for enriching gameplay is another story.

Alpha Protocol (AP) is an espionage based action/RPG that looks to flexibility of storyline as its main hook. The real goal of AP is to create a world/scenario that will result in very different outcomes based on how the player behaves in the storyline; not JUST in the ending, but all through the experience.

To me, Stormrise seems to be a game that was designed entirely around its interface, and some of the results are quite interesting when you consider what typefies the RTS genre - even those that have made it to console games. The concept is basically, "design a control scheme that allows a player to manage an RTS style battlefield from the frontlines of the battle, and lets them to do it using a console's standard controller." The game that evolved from this baseline looks and controls uniquely enough that Creative Assembly and Sega also plan on moving it to the PC after the initial console releases, so the meat of the game seems to be deeper than JUST the control system!

There are Lord of the Rings fans – like those of us who re-read the trilogy, The Silmarillion and The Hobbit about once a year; and then there are Lord of the Rings fans – like my son, who at 11 has read all 5 books twice, a few of the unfinished tales, memorized the films, owns more paraphernalia than can be stored in two homes and must own ev-er-y single video game that hits the market. If you are of the latter category, Lord of the Rings: Conquest is going to make you rather happy.

The E3 presentation of Bayonetta may have been one of the most surreal experiences I've had in and about video games. It is, assuredly, the only time ANY of my notebooks has ever included the phrase "hair dragon ate ogre," and really, that was just a highlight - not the pinnacle of the odd. Through it all, though, Bayonetta looked really COOL, which is apparently what Platinum Games is going for. At the very beginning of the presentation, they stated that "Bayonetta will be the best 'style-action' game on the market. There are others, and we will be better than them. You will want to play Bayonetta." Wow - that's brassy! In terms of guarantees, it really seemed more "Joe Namath" than any of the shallow guarantees we get these days - so how did they follow up this proclamation? Well, let's see...

Perhaps the biggest surprise for me was the fact that when I got to Bethesda on Thursday, for my last appointment of E3, I got to play around a half-hour of Fallout 3. There were a few restrictions on what we could or could not write about, but I jumped right into it to the point of forgetting to write anything down.

One of the best looking games I saw at E3 wasn't because of a photorealistic style, but rather what might be called the next evolution in cel shading. Ubisoft called it an "illustrative" style, and it was a distinguishing style for the newest Prince of Persia video game.

The four of us that made up the GamersInfo.net crew, as it were, at E3 all went to see Rock Band 2 on Thursday morning. The Harmonix guys were all recovering from having seen The Who the night before, you know, the event that we weren't invited to and we had to wait for them to re-record a bit for G4 before we could go in since we're just print. But hey. We finally got in.

The very last game I saw at E3 - though not the last one I'm writing up, in case you're worried about that - was Rise of the Argonauts which is being published by Codemasters. As the final music blared, one of Codemasters' guys walked me through the background, discussion modes, and combat of Rise of the Argonauts.

Sega had their newest Sonic adventure displaying at E3, and as an old-school Sonic fan I had to grab a look. What I discovered was a nice-looking title with some surprise mechanics from the old games, as well as an interesting new game type. Sonic: Unleashed is divided into “day” and “night” games, so I'll provide a look and some thoughts about each of these segments.

Konami had a trio of Dance Dance Revolution games on display at E3 this year, with a slightly different model representing the various console platforms. Here's what each has to offer!

I went to the Ubisoft demo room to look at Far Cry 2 and I had one big concern about the game. When I'd first heard about the game in some gaming magazine it was mentioned that you would be battling malaria. "Malaria?" I thought, "Dealing with disease isn't fun." What I found, however, was that Far Cry 2 is fun, and the malaria bit is actually something that adds to the feel of the game.

One of the games taking a lower profile at E3 was the new Tom Clancy branded air combat game, HAWX. The fact that it's not coming out until next year might be part of that, but the build that I got a chance to play at Ubisoft's floor booth was a lot more fun than I'd expected it to be (especially with that unfortunate name).

One of the things that amused me at E3 was watching people who were unfamiliar with the Brothers in Arms series pick up the controller for Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway and try to play it like most other first person shooters. Usually they were fairly quickly dispatched by the relentless German fire and they would wander away from the game, annoyed. That would be because they don't realize how realistic the third incarnation of the Brothers in Arms series can be.

Golden Axe was one of those classic quarter munching video games. With animals to ride, gnomes who dropped bottles, and enemies who turned to stone when killed, I spent many an hour and dollar doing my best to beat the game. Now Sega is restarting the property by introducing Golden Axe: Beast Rider.

So. Your name is Will. You fly a cargo plane. You crash said cargo plane in the Bermuda Triangle and now you're stuck in a mysterious parallel dimension called The Void. Intrigued yet? What if I told you the same guys who brought you Crimson Skies for the Xbox are helping to bring you Dark Void from Capcom to the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3?

To a certain degree, all sports are influenced by swings in momentum. Some, more than others, are also affected by atmosphere, and EA believes that these factors should be examined in NCAA Football '09. This game includes new mechanics that give prominence to momentum, atmosphere, and experience - emphasizing intangibles that have gone largely unnoticed to this point. These changes manifest on both sides of the ball, and while the concept is largely the same, the specific causes, effects, and recovery processes differ to a significant degree.

X-Blades will, unquestionably, be a game driven by its story and heroine - a curvaceous anime beauty named Ayumi. Ayumi is an artifact hunter, but her motivation is more materialistic than archeological, as she tends to sell what she find to the highest bidder. In the course of her normal history-hocking, Ayumi stumbles upon a grand plot that sets her up to save the world, despite her standard M.O. of profit over all.

Brave: A Warrior's Tale is a charmingly atmospheric platformer. By that, I don't mean it takes place in the clouds, I mean that everything about the game is based on Native American themes and mythos.

There are all types of racing games. Many are considered rather "arcade-ish" which basically means that the physics and style of driving are changed to help make the game easier to control on a video game console. That's not acceptable if you're a professional rally car driver who wants to train without the expense of a car. Thus, RACE Pro was developed, a very accurate simulation of the rally car experience.

Battlestations: Pacific is the sequel to the popular Battlestations: Midway game. It is a combination strategy and action game - you not only have the ability to command your fleet of ships and planes but at any time you can jump over and take control of various craft.

Crysis Warhead is a sequel of sorts to the original PC-killer Crysis - but not necessarily directly. It's more of a side story to the original, following "Psycho" as he traverses the other side of the island from the original.

Command & Conquer Red Alert 3 is, as you might've guessed, the third installment in the alternate history real time strategy series of Command & Conquer games. In this alternate history, Hitler was assassinated before World War 2, and in this third game the Soviet and American forces go to war against the Empire of the Rising Sun, also known as Japan.

I have children: boys, ages 9 and 11. As they've grown there have been few constants in our lives other than video games (I am their mom), bathroom humor, The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Harry has been an integral part of my children's development; the stories, films and games are a huge influence on their sense of wonder. I am in debt to J.K. Rowling for this. We have never not played the games over the years — the good and the bad, the console titles for the older children and the PC titles for the younger. The latest offering from the franchise, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, learned many lessons from last year's less than stellar installment, and is already quite a lot of fun!