The sequel to Red Dead Revolver, a story of vengeance in the Wild West, has been a long-awaited title from Grand Theft Auto developer Rockstar Games, with almost five years since its announcement. It was feared to be neglected with the developer's focus on 2008's critically acclaimed Grand Theft Auto 4 and its Liberty City expansions. Fear not though: This western tale (finally released this month) is a great experience that's heightened with finely tuned controls and a new innovation in multiplayer gaming.

Just because it's called Final Fantasy XIII doesn't mean you need to play the other 12 to appreciate the experience. Every numbered game in the Final Fantasy franchise (in other words, excluding spin-offs such as Tactics or Crystal Chronicles) is a unique experience that stands alone, with a detailed world containing lots of history and interesting characters with distinctive traits; the series is also not wed to any one style of gameplay. This new game makes some drastic changes from its predecessors, but it stays true to the series by telling an epic story in a majestic world deserving the name Final Fantasy.

Bioshock was a blockbuster success with its intense atmosphere and thrilling story about an undersea utopian society gone awry, with all the loose ends wrapped up neatly in what was (at the time) a stand-alone game. Not surprisingly, popularity and money gave the game what I like to call a case of the sequels. Bioshock 2 adds multiplayer and builds the mythos of Rapture, but the slow story and degraded graphics make it inferior to the original.

With the Wii game lineup containing so many titles geared to children and family play, 2008's exclusive No More Heroes made a statement that "mature"-rated games can succeed on the motion-based system. Its intense action combined with a crazy yet compelling story and parodies of the gaming industry convinced me the Wii wasn't just for casual players and tapped into the "mature" market, which only consisted of Resident Evil titles at the time. The new sequel, subtitled Desperate Struggle, continues the story with new methods of madness to boot.

Several years after protagonist Travis Touchdown becomes the top-ranked assassin in the fictional city of Santa Destroy and walks away from the profession, his former promoters are trying to drag him back into the fold. He has no interest in climbing the rankings again, but the murder of his best friend motivates him to enter and name his reward: his best friend's killer served to him on a platter.