'FaceBreaker' (360, PS3, $60, Teen) — "FaceBreaker" is a loose, button-mashing boxing game that has much in common with the great "Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!"
You can create your own boxer — affixing your own likeness onto your boxer's face if you like — and sock your way through a cast of zany, stereotypical characters on the way to championship belts.
Special moves abound. You can hurl your opponents across the ring and knock them silly with "breaker" moves that send them flying and crashing to the canvas. Despite the free-form nature of the fights, the difficulty level ramps up quickly, forcing you to nail down effective techniques and combo strategies, otherwise you'll be down for the count quickly. As often as not, opponents will take you down in cheap, frustrating ways that make you want to pull the game out of the disc drive and snap it in two.
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Expect to ice your thumbs after a couple hours tangling with others online.
'Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09' (360, PS3, Wii, PS2, PSP, $40-$60, Everyone) — There's little debate that the "Tiger Woods" golf line produces the most realistic and engaging golf sim out there, but it seems the series has maxed out its capabilities.
Other than a couple of marginal tweaks — new courses and a coach who helps you with your game — the Xbox 360 version plays just like the 2008 model. One major change is your success on the course determines your golfer's skill level for the next round.
The upgrades could have been accomplished with a downloadable patch, so unless you're an absolute golf freak there's no real reason to buy the game every year on the 360, PS3 or PS2.
The Wii version, which includes loads of new minigames, simulates a golf swing with motion controls to better effect than last year's game and is a wholesale upgrade over last year's game.
'The Last Guy' (PS3, $10, Everyone 10+) — Japanese charm runs rampant through this downloadable run-and-rescue action game. You play as a hero who, in the aftermath of a zombie plague, sprints through cityscapes to rescue people as monsters romp around trying to slaughter them.
You participate from a high-overhead view that makes your character and the people he rescues look like ants. Some obstacles, such as boulders blocking the street, require that you round up hundreds of people.
There's a countdown clock and statistics in the corner of the screen that track how many people you've rescued that's as helpful — and panic-inducing — as a score box on a sports broadcast.
— Phil Villarreal
