Better late than never, we award the best game of June our Game of the Month honors.

"Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November..."

Had I remembered that little poem earlier, then the article naming our June Game of the Month might have seen light on GWN prior to the beginning (okay, now due to additional issues, the middle) of July.  Nonetheless, as summer is fully upon us there seems to be a lot happening in the world of videogames. 

A little gathering called E3 is underway in its new, compact, form; Sony has announced a C-Note of savings on it's pricey PS3 making it just a double sawbuck more costly than the most expensive version of the Xbox 360 (and Microsoft is pretty much expected to announce a 360 price drop of some kind at E3); the world is up in arms over the content of Rockstar's Manhunt 2; and there were a number of interesting games released in late May and June for us to consider for Game of the Month honors. 

The undead - or whatever they are - rear their ugly heads yet again in yet another release of Resident Evil 4, we get to see what the bastard child of Pikmin and those mischievous Gremlins from the 1984 movie might look like in Overlord, we get to experience The Darkness in, well, The Darkness; and we get to revisit Lara Croft's first adventure in Tomb Raider: Anniversary; just to name a few.  So, awaaaay we go!

Halo 2
Platform: PC (Windows Vista only)
Developer: Bungie
Publisher: Microsoft
Release: 5/31
ESRB: M

If you don't know what Halo 2 is all about you've been living under a rock for the past three years.  Released on Xbox in 2004, the game that is probably the most popular shooter in the history of forever has finally arrived on PC.  Granted you can only enjoy it if you have the Windows Vista operating system and you can only enjoy the game to its fullest if you have a Windows Live (or an existing Xbox Live) account, which will cost you an extra fifty bucks a year. 

It's worth noting here, however, because despite being three years old this is a landmark move for Microsoft and one more step in their attempts to merge the worlds of online play between the PC and the company's Xbox 360 - even though the game doesn't support cross-platform play like the company's recent Shadowrun - and Halo 3 is mere months away.  The game is solid, can be controlled with the traditional mouse and keyboard or an Xbox 360 gamepad (and some say that gamepad users are getting a slight advantage with a certain degree of auto-aim), but have graphics that don't quite live up to more recent standards.  But hey, it's Halo 2 on the PC and that's got to be making a lot of people happy.

Tomb Raider: Anniversary
Platform: PS2, PC
Developer: Crystal Dynamics
Publisher: Eidos
Release: 6/5
ESRB: T

Lara Croft is back again and taking us through the tombs and forgotten cities that she explored in the original PlayStation Tomb Raider back in 1996.  This is not just a hackneyed rehash of that classic game, however.  Everything is bigger and better in this new Tomb Raider.  Many of the original game's best moments, environments, and puzzles are present and accounted for but all have been updated in every way imaginable. 

The T-Rex is more frightening, the wolves deadlier, the Cistern more immense, and the heroine more interesting than she's ever been.  Tomb Raider sequels over the years have ranged in quality from amazing (Tomb Raider 2) to abysmal (Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness), but Crystal Dynamics proved with Tomb Raider: Legend that they had what it takes to bring Lara back to her former glory and they've now hammered the point home with Anniversary.  Let's hear it for Lara!