A WORD ABOUT THE GALLERY Long-time contributor John Roche wanted to try something different with his reviews.  Instead of lengthy critiques with numeric ratings, he wanted to keep his summaries short and sweet.  This led to the creation of The Roche Gallery.  Each review in this section is kept at two paragraphs or less, and the ratings are even more succint, with a simple "Worth It" or "Not Worth It" assessment.

An eclectic selection of game reviews by John Roche. Dead to Rights: Reckoning (PSP) Namco (Rebellion) Price: ~$15 (used) On the one hand, you can actually wield two sawed-off shotguns at once--a feat which I'm sure would probably dislocate your shoulders in real life.  On the other hand, the game is fairly boilerplate (think Max Payne if he had a dog), the ending makes less sense than the final act of Metal Gear Solid 2 (And not in the "everything just got a whole lot weirder" sense either--which is a shame, as MGS2 showed that something could be salvaged from that sort of thing), and at one point, the game red-screened with an "out of memory error"--something that simply should not be happening on a console. Dead Head Fred (PSP) D3 Publisher (Vicious) Price: $15 (new) The game has you as a detective who is a body with a brain in a jar for a head.  (Or a skull for a head, or a zombie head for a head, or a mannequin head for a head...)  Most of the heads are useful for particular situations, certain heads being more useful against given enemies than others (particularly, in countering the attacks of the enemies; so think God of War meets Mega Man and you'll "get" this particular aspect of the game.)  Plus, it's got more John C. McGinley for your money than a boxset of Scrubs. Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops (PSP) Konami (Hideo Kojima) Price: $20 (new) The Metal Gear series was a bit different from the typical contemporary fare--it emphasized sneaking around rather than shooting, blowing up, or stabbing everyone in sight (and the occasional off-screen goon).  After a (roughly) decade-long hiatus, a PS1 game came out to some fanfare.  Then, a sequel came out and completely changed the game in a way that was mostly like the first one with a new set of characters...okay, it was pretty much EXACTLY like the first MGS with a new set of characters.  Also, the last half-hour or so made no real sense.  Then, they made a prequel to the game, putting The Artist Not Yet Known As Big Boss in the Russian jungle, pitting him against his former mentor and the wild. This game is a sequel to Snake Eater, with everyone's favorite gravel-throated-superspy-voiced-by-a-screenwriter forming a band of abandoned Russian soldiers while trying to stop global thermonuclear war.  Also, you can use Wi-Fi hotspots to recruit new soldiers (probably one of the more creative ways to use this feature).  It's probably one of the best sneaking games you'll see on a portable console (and this is against two Syphon Filter games and a Splinter Cell game, so it's not exactly "wins by default" here).