PS2

Game Description: In Odin Sphere, players enact the story of their world's end. A great kingdom named Valentine was brought apart by natural disaster and internal strife. As war broke out, the once-great nation became a wasteland. As a demon lord named Odin schemes to conquer it, a far-off sorceror plans to use ancient magic that will bring an apocalypse. As the nations struggle for control, the world steadily slips unknowingly toward its demise, ancient prophecies are ready to be fulfilled—unless a young princess named Gwendolyn can stop the bloody feud between nations and fight for unity.

The artwork is simply gorgeous, and this is one of the best looking pieces of 2D gaming goodness that I have seen on the PlayStation 2. But looks aren't everything.

When I go through a pile of used games, I usually have a pretty good idea of what I'm looking for. I keep tabs on titles that look like solid "maybes"—games that may have a few good points, but are sketchy enough to discourage me from risking $50 buying them new. It's pretty rare that I'll end up bringing something home that I hadn't already targeted as such, but Surreal Software's The Suffering was exactly one such game.

Ending the Basement this month is The Adventures of Darwin—a colorful, uncluttered title with the power to cleanse this jaded critic's palate and remind him that sometimes a game is just a game, and that's OK.

It may not bring a lot of new ideas to the table, but there's something to be said for a few hours of ridiculously outrageous action with tongue planted firmly in cheek.

It's too early to pick the RPG of the year for 2007, but if I had to vote today Persona 3 would be my choice...hands down. It's a wild and unique gaming experience that melds disparate subgenres into a whole that transcends the sum of the parts. It's not without a few flaws, but the good so definitively outweighs the negatives that it's hard to imagine anyone who's a hardcore RPG fan passing this game up.

According to ESRB, this game contains: Blood, Language, Partial Nudity, Violence

For all its popular appeal, Tomb Raider was a geekily strict platform game, but one unmatched (arguably to this day) in making your conquests over the land feel real. When you climbed to a great peak using just your hands and the rock around you, you really felt the achievement, the human achievement. Mario offered carefree, balletic fantasy; Lara, with her bone-breaking falls and audible strains of upper-body anguish, kept it very real.

According to ESRB, this game contains: Violence, Mild Suggestive Themes

Game Description: Tomb Raider: Anniversary retraces Lara Croft's original genre-defining adventure, as she pursues the legendary Scion artifact. New graphics, technology and physics bring Lara's adventure up-to-date and offers gamers a completely new game play experience. Re-imagined, Anniversary delivers a dynamic fluidly and fast Lara Croft, massive environments of stunning visuals, intense combat and game pacing, and an enhanced and clarified original story. Enter into strange, undiscovered lands and solve their deepest, darkest mysteries, open doors to new realms, uncover great rewards and unearth secrets to Lara's past.