H3 ODST Firefight

This is the way Bungie saves Multiplayer. Anticipated Worth: $200
based on 360 video and online previews

My next year of gaming

Clearly Bungie has heard the feedback from enough gamers like me to realize that H3 Multiplayer has been hijacked by cheating betrayal punks and is totally un-fun for anyone with even a modicum of honor and good sportsmanship. Firefight is a new (to Halo) gaming mode that combines the best of Campaign Co-Op with the best of Multiplayer, without all the Ridalin-fueled 15-year old racist homophobic teabagging assholes.

See this well-written preview for more.

Wet

Guns 'n Swords 'n Rock 'n Roll. Worth: $15
based on 360 demo

Kill, lanky Tarantino babe, Kill!

If you had Quentin Tarantino run Tomb Raider, BloodRayne, and Stranglehold through a blender you'd wind up with Wet. QT's influence does the same thing for mindless killing games that Tim Gunn's influence does for fashion: makes it fun, accessible, and stylish.

The camera does a fantastic job of following the main character, Rubi, as she soars, slides, and sails around the screen dealing out a non-stop barrage of dual-wielded death. If anyone in the crowd of goons survives long enough for her to get close, she can instantly switch to her sword for turbo-charged butchery.

And then Rubi gets _really_ pissed off.

When this happens the game switches to a very hip, Frank Miller-esque red-white-and-black graphic style, with all the same gut-blasting moves as before, just super-posterized. It's a bold and refreshing art direction decision that works really well.

The third game mode could be called "Highway To Hell." Rubi rides on top of cars, shoots bad guys, and leaps from car to car just in time to avoid a bridge, a pile-up, or an all-purpose explosion. So with all this amazing alliteration, why isn't this game Worth more? Because it's all frosting and no cake.

Wet offers an experience so constantly off-the-hook that I'm absolutely sure I'll get sick of it after a couple of hours, just like I did with Stranglehold. A good game has good pace. The only pace Wet has is Full Kill Ahead.

Bully: Scholarship Edition

Longer than school in real life. Worth: $16
based on 360 retail

Relive your school days as a short scofflaw.

This game shares so much with it's big brother that it could have been called "Grand Theft High School." While Bully has got fun things to do, decent controls, camera, etc., the story is so long it feels like I could have gotten a real-life degree in the time it's taking me to plow my way through this scholastic epic. I've been playing it for a month and I'm still only 40% of the way through. More on this criminal-in-the-making when I finally finish.