Hard to believe it took this long for an American Idol-branded karaoke game to show up.

And, being over three years after the first Karaoke Revolution game, this means we're up to some very full-featured titles. Good song list, a microphone instead of a headset (duh!), plenty of unlockables, and an eerie face-mapping application that puts your head in the game.

The American Idol aspect is a nice fit; judges Randy and Simon critique your performance. The Idol scheme really helps this feel like a real event, even if the judges' comments are only tangentially related to your singing. It's even more fun in multiplayer where you can actually stage your own American Idol sing-off (just without voting from the audience at home).

This is a fine capper to the series... albeit for a franchise that is likely DOA these days thanks to Sony's own SingStar and the upcoming karaoke+music monster Rock Band.

Memory Score: Laura?

Definitely one of those games that I had to have, no matter how it would turn out.

This little-known game was just barely released in the US, becoming an EB budget exclusive after years of almost total abandonment. It's an adventure game (very point-and-click in feel, actually) where you have to perform errands and talk to people until you find the right moment to kiss them. Oh yeah.

It's a subtle kind of nuts. Very Japanese, but not in the colorful, over the top style of Katamari or No One Can Stop Mr. Domino. It's subdued and charming, full of memorable characters and bizarre story fragments.

It is also unfairly, tragically, monstrously hard.

It is impossible to tackle Chulip without a guide of some sort. You just can't. The puzzles (most of which involve a lot of waiting around during day/night cycles) just can not be parsed by humans. It's not even possible in the cheap old RPG way of "I'll just level up like crazy and then defeat the boss." It's just complete nonsense from start to finish, and you need the patience of a saint to muddle through it. I died from going down a slide at the playground, for crying out loud.

That's not to say it's a bad game, or that it isn't a rewarding experience. It just is not the kind of game where you can expect to logic out solutions. You can't even expect the game to provide gentle hints. Swallow your pride and have a guide at the ready.

Memory Score: And it won't play on older PS2s, so don't bother unless you have a slimline.

I had every intention of getting Okami when it came out, but I was pretty jammed up at the time (Bully, LEGO Star Wars II, Wild World and Killer 7!) I figured it would be good, but I also figured it could wait.

And then the game sold so poorly (especially in Japan) that the studio that created (Clover Studio, previously known for the Viewtiful Joe series) was shut down completely. So no, you probably can't wait too long because I doubt they printed a million billion of these.

I probably don't need to heartily endorse Okami because everybody else did. It's a sure-fire Best of PS2 contender, but nobody bought it. I don't get it. Was it the wolf-as-main-character? Was it the Wind Waker-ish visuals? Was it the lack of established IP? Was it marketing's early emphasis on the sumi-e brushwork? Was it too Japanese for even the Japanese? What the hell went wrong here?

This is a lengthy, worthwhile, high-quality experience. It is an indictment on PS2 owners that it just squeaks in as the 100th best selling game of 2006, ranking behind such luminaries as Happy Feet and Superman Returns. And you can't blame the press, because, to a man, they were all behind this game. No, this is a marketing failure and an audience failure. Gamers are notorious for creating word-of-mouth successes... I just can't understand what happened to let this one slip by.

Memory Score: Buy it. The stylized art means Okami could have legs even when set against new-gen games.

Next time: it's cheap game catch-up time!