Already revered in the arcades for its personable characters, explosive graphics, and lightning-fast gameplay, Tekken 5 delivers the same intense fighting action home to the PlayStation 2. Boasting an improved fighting engine, speedier combos, and a return to the old-school Tekken stage design, Tekken 5 boasts more than 30 diverse combatants with dozens of special moves for each of them. New to the series is a customizable arcade mode that enables players to personalize all their favorite characters with special accessories like hats, glasses, and costumes, while a unique action/adventure mini-game known as “Devil Within” expands upon Jin Kazama’s personal storyline.

With the oversaturated and ailing rhythm game genre in a state of decline, it seems ill-timed to launch a new guitar-focused music franchise. But Ubisoft has pulled one out of left field with Rocksmith–a guitar game that successfully bridges the gap between musical gaming and actual rocking. It’s advanced enough to give seasoned guitar players a more realistic challenge than Rock Band or Guitar Hero, yet accessible enough to teach inexperienced guitarists the ropes of rock and roll.

Pure entertainment: that’s Vanquish in a nutshell. This speedy and thrilling third-person cover-based shooter is all madness, overwhelming you with gigantic robots, flurries of gunfire, and explosions so powerful and colorful that you might think you feel the heat. There are a lot of things to love about Vanquish, but its most impressive feat is that while it uses mechanics you’ve seen in other shooters, it feels nothing like them. The focus on speed, the relentless pace, and the fantastic boss fights give Vanquish a feel and style of its own, while its good looks and buttery-smooth frame rate ensure you’re always swept into the action. When you walk away from the campaign, buzzing with the rush of adrenaline, it won’t be the excruciating dialogue or the forced voice acting you remember most, but the joy you felt when zipping around the battlefield, gunning down metallic transforming scorpions and evading the barrage of bullets vomited by a dozen hardy turrets.

Another Transformers movie means another Transformers game. For many longtime fans, Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, and the other robots in disguise are special characters, and hope endures that someday, a Transformers game will come along that does them justice. Unfortunately, Dark of the Moon is not that game. The action in this third-person shooter isn’t bad, but it also isn’t anything remarkable. There aren’t any surprises or standout moments during its brief campaign, and the shallow multiplayer isn’t likely to keep you coming back for very long.