Law & Order: Legacies is one of the latest episodic series to be produced by Telltale Games. The game centers around several cases investigated by characters easily recognizable by fans of the show, despite the lack of contribution by the original actors’ voices. In their efforts to catch the bad guys, players are given the opportunity to question suspects, search crime scenes and even participate in classic courtroom drama.

The game relies heavily on evidence, testimony, observations and logical conclusions. Perhaps on paper those seem to be the sorts of things that Telltale has excelled at in previous titles, but in playing Legacies at no point do you ever get the sense that you are playing a traditional Telltale game. It is more than a bit disappointing then, to see that Telltale’s expertise in humorous puzzle adventures is never fully brought to bear. If you are a fan of Wallace and Gromit, Sam and Max, or Monkey Island – great original titles that really put Telltale on the map – you’ll be disappointed to know that Legacies is ultimately not worthy to bear the Telltale name.

Please wait for closing arguments: I promise to persuade you not to shout, “Objection!” after the jump.

The hardcore platformer is going through a bit of a revival of late thanks to titles like N+ and Super Meat Boy. In fact these two games seem to have a heavy influence on Dustforce, although developer Hitbox Team has infused plenty of their own great ideas throughout as well. The premise of Dustforce is simple: you play as a janitor who must go through various areas cleaning up leaves, garbage, ooze or dust. Did I also mention that you're basically a kind of ninja janitor? Yeah that's pretty important.

Using some awesome abilities you will fly through levels trying to sweep up the area. Your goal is to both go as fast as possible and be as efficient as possible. In fact the entire game is based around perfecting levels in order to move onto harder levels. It can be brutally difficult but when you're cruising through a level and getting everything perfect it's a fantastic feeling.

Clean your room, rake the lawn and then hit the jump.

Let's face it: you've never heard of Zack Zero before. This small downloadable title is the first game from Crocodile Entertainment and is guaranteed to fly under many people's radar. Let me be the first to tell you that to overlook this game certainly wouldn't be a tragedy but you would be missing a fun little title that goes back to a more classic style of gaming.

Zack Zero feels like a blast from the past of video games. It's a side-scrolling platformer-action hybrid that focuses on using different powers to both defeat enemies, solve puzzles and navigate the environment. It's not going to be a world changer but if you're a fan of the way games used to be then Zack Zero could be right up you alley.

Help Zack Zero defeat his evil nemesis Zulrog by hitting the jump.

With a toy brand that mixes racing and collectibles, of course it makes sense that DaGeDar would branch out into the videogame world. It would have been almost criminal if they hadn't. DaGeDar includes one-hundred different dags to unlock and over thirty courses to race through. Taking all this into consideration, you might think that DaGeDar has potential to be a fun, silly racer that both kids and adults could enjoy. What could go wrong?

Well, a couple things really hinder DaGeDar from being a worthy contender for your hard earned handheld gaming income. There is one reason in particular that will not go unnoticed by anyone who plays DaGeDar and it deserves to be mentioned right from the start.

Choose your dag, get set and continue after the break to find out what that is.

Lord of the Rings: War in the North meets us at a very strange time in our gaming lives. Eight years after the Peter Jackson films rekindled interest and at least a full year before the projected release of the next LOTR movie, it’s hard to avoid the initial feeling that LOTR: War in the North just sort of missed the school bus. Granted, LOTR games were made long before and will be made long after Peter Jackson’s association with the license, so the real question is whether or not this latest game, independent of the movies, has anything to offer.

The short answer is that it really doesn’t. What purports to be a co-op centered action RPG really just turns out to be a button mashing slug fest played entirely alone. Certainly the game would have benefitted by not being released so close to the RPG powerhouse known as Skyrim, but even in that event, while there may have been more people playing the game initially, it’s hard to believe that the game’s community wouldn’t be every bit as dead as it is today.

Despite an overall level of polish in the game’s appearance, honestly even die-hard LOTR fans will be hard pressed to squeeze real enjoyment from this title: the combat itself is excessively dull when you consider that it is the core of the entire game and any other features you would expect to find standard in an RPG all seem to have their own unique version of “fail,” constituting an inescapable series of annoying kinks that just remove you from the experience.

Left click half a dozen times, wait for the button prompt to appear, then hit the jump.

It has been a long nine months since the Nintendo 3DS was released here in North America. During that time there has been a significant price cut to the fledgling system, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata received a fifty percent pay cut and an anemic amount of titles were released that one could point to as a system-seller.

Two of those titles were remakes of Nintendo classics from over a decade ago (Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D and Star Fox 64 3D) and one was a glorified mini-game (Resident Evil Mercenaries 3D). While all of them were pretty to look at, none really legitimized the system's main selling-point: glasses-free 3D.

This week we got our hands on Super Mario 3D Land. While most real-life plumbers must have a rough job, Mario's seems particularly difficult at the moment. Not only must he prove that 3D can be a revolutionary game play addition, he must also give consumers a reason to believe that a Nintendo 3DS would be worth purchasing this Holiday at all. All this while saving the day and delivering another quality game that Mario fans have come to expect.

Did he succeed?

Grab your tanooki suit (maybe some mushrooms too if you're feeling adventurous), head down a warp pipe and find out on the other side.

Way back in the day platforming games used to be the game of choice for both gamers and developers. Kings like Mario and Sonic were the inspiration for many. When crappy movie tie-ins and licensed games released, they were dismissed as poor Mario rip-offs. In this day and era of high definition and 3D graphics platformers have been replaced by action games and first person shooters, with platforming seemingly relegated to downloadable titles and the occasional Mario or Sonic title.

For those that miss the old days of pure platforming fun, Rayman Origins is here to make everything better. The spunky hero himself has a long history, dating back over 15 years to the original PlayStation. However as a platformer Rayman has been fairly absent for a while, his brand mostly used with the popular Raving Rabbids games. Origins marks not only a return of Rayman but also a return of the platforming genre.

Use your ears to hover across the jump.

The perennial Call of Duty series has essentially become a sure thing for Activision. It seems that each year's release shatters sales records and it appears that Modern Warfare 3 is already well on its way to doing so again. Luckily for gamers, the developers haven't been lazy when it comes to Call of Duty and every year they make strides to improve all aspects of the game, whether it be introducing giant set pieces for the single player, adding cool  new cooperative modes or simply evolving the insanely popular multiplayer.

As much as people may push against the yearly installments, Activision has yet to come up short with a Call of Duty game, offering deep, rewarding multiplayer systems and summer blockbuster-esque campaigns that are thrilling to experience. Gamers have come to expect a certain formula from these games and Modern Warfare 3 definitely does not stray from the path. However is this year's offering enough to ask us to dive in for another serving of Call of Duty or is the meal starting to become stale after all these years?

Hit the jump in slow motion while everything explodes around you.

The problem is, it’s just that sort of thinking that can lead to disappointment. If you step into the world of Skyrim expecting your jaw to hit the floor the way it did when you first emerged from the Imperial sewers, you will feel that disappointment. Now before you grab your torch and pitchfork because I said “Skyrim” and “disappointment” in the same sentence, understand this: Skyrim starts out good – not great, but good. Then it gets better.

The level of excellence the game eventually rises to may mean little if you can’t shake that initial disappointment though, and it certainly is persistent, particularly so if you spent any amount of time exploring the frozen island of Solstheim back in 2003. That doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy Skyrim, it just means it’s going to take you longer. Thankfully, there’s plenty to keep you occupied until you decide to come around.

Acrobatics isn’t a skill anymore, so you don’t have to spam the jump.