Pac-Man championship Edition
Platform: Xbox Live Arcade
Developer: Namco Bandai Games
Publisher: Namco Bandai Games
Release: 6/6
ESRB: E

Everyone loves Pac-Man and now Namco has given us a new reason to fall in love with the little yellow guy all over again.  Released in tandem with the Pac-Man world championship competition, this CE version of Pac Man ups the excitement with some all-new takes on the classic Pac-formula without losing any of the simplistic charm that made the original arcade game one of the first true video game hits. 

This is Pac-Man on speed with lightning fast gameplay, interesting twists on the mazes, cumulative points for chomping blue ghosts past the fourth one, and a formula that splits the maze in two pieces, adding additional edible dots to one half only after the player clears them and munches the fruit item that appears afterward.  The game rocks in ways that Pac Man was never intended to and that's a good thing.  This is a download that is well worth each and every Microsoft point that it costs.

Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition
Platform: Wii
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Release: 6/19
ESRB: M

Like the undead zombies and unspeakable horrors that populate the earlier entries in this long-running franchise, Resident Evil 4 just won't die.  Because of the new consoles in this next generation we'll be seeing a lot of ports and updates for a while.  One hopes they can all be this good.  While there's nothing to this version of the game that we didn't see in the PS2 release (aside from the motion-sensing controls, of course), this game seems to be the definitive version of Capcom's best game in the RE series. 

That may change if they decide to beat the undead horse another time or two to get the game onto the 360 and PS3 (doubtful), but for now this is THE version of the game.  Even if you played this on the Gamecube or the PS2 a year later... or the PC even later, you owe it to yourself to play it on the Wii if you have one.  I don't know that I'd buy a Wii just for RE4, but its worth surviving Leon's European adventure one more time if you have the option available.

Dirt
Platform: Xbox 360, PC
Developer: Codemasters
Publisher: Codemasters
Release: 6/19
ESRB: E

It's ballsy to release a racing sim hot on the heels of Microsoft's Forza Motorsport 2, but the cheeky Brits at Codemasters have done just that with Dirt, the latest entry in the company's long running Colin McRae rally racing franchise.  More of an arcade/sim hybrid than a true racing sim, Dirt offers six distinctly different racing disciplines, the damage modeling that the series is famous for, and literally scores of offline races. 

There is online multiplayer as well, but it is simply not that impressive and certainly not the place where Dirt shows its strengths.  Dirt is a technical and graphical achievement first and foremost.  It's hard to think of a game that looks quite this good, the latest Forza entry included.  Framerates, however, do suffer from time to time as a result, especially in the PC version.  Cars also feel a little floaty, but not so much that it detracts from one's enjoyment of the racing goodness.

The Darkness
Platform: Xbox 360, PS3
Developer: Starbreeze
Publisher: 2k Games
Release: 6/24
ESRB: M

The Darkness is based on the Top Cow comic book series of the same name and it may well be one of the most compelling new titles (that doesn’t have the words Grand Theft Auto or Metal Gear Solid in the title) we'll see this year.  An FPS with a twist (Darkness powers), The Darkness is a triumph in terms of graphics and storytelling the likes of which we've not seen in a new IP since Gears of War released last year.  As an FPS, The Darkness is far from perfect since most of the conventional weapons are pretty much useless and the multiplayer mode feels like an afterthought (but is nonetheless enjoyable), but the gruesome story and visual excitement simply can't be beat.  Besides, you get to eat your slain enemies' hearts with the touch of a button.  How cool is that?