"Jade Empire: Special Edition"

Publisher: 2K Games

Platform: PC

Rating: Mature

"Jade Empire" was first released on the Xbox a few years ago. Now it has a new lease on life as a gussied-up Windows version.

The player guides a young warrior through an epic quest, making allies and enemies, fighting monsters and affecting those around him or her with frequent moral choices that skew toward a good or evil path. Combat is more action-oriented and simplistic compared with other BioWare RPGs, though the game offers a wide variety of fighting styles to choose from and combine.

The game is controlled smoothly with a keyboard and mouse, or a player can hook up a wired Xbox 360 controller or other game pad if desired. This "Special Edition" also includes some new monsters, fighting styles, a bonus art book, a poster and other goodies.

The graphics have been fine-tuned and look much sharper than they did on the aging Xbox, but playing with all the bells and whistles reveals a nagging flaw.

"Jade Empire" uses recorded movie sequences that were originally made for the Xbox release. They're grainy and low-res compared with the in-game graphics, which can be quite jarring in transition.

"Guitar Hero II"

Publisher: Activision

Platform: Microsoft Xbox 360

Rating: Teen

"Guitar Hero II" is essentially the same on the Xbox 360 as on the PlayStation 2.

It looks a hair better, with more detail and higher-resolution graphics, but the game play is identical: Players hold down combinations of colored fret buttons on the guitar-shaped controller and hit the strum bar in time to the music. It's easy on lower levels, but advanced songs and difficulty levels feature finger-spraining difficulty.

That's not to say this version isn't worth having for fans of virtual guitar-shredding. The series debut on the 360 has exclusive songs mixed into the career mode and bonus selections, including songs by Pearl Jam, Deep Purple, Iron Maiden, My Chemical Romance and Alice Cooper, among others.

One feature that should have been cool was the option to download songs from the original "Guitar Hero" for play on the 360. Unfortunately, only a handful of songs are available so far. They come in packs of three for 500 Microsoft Points ($6.25) each — that price seems too high, especially when a player may not want all the songs in a given pack.

"Mortal Kombat II"

Publisher: Midway

Platform: Sony PlayStation 3 (PlayStation Store download)

Rating: Mature

"Mortal Kombat II" stormed arcades in 1993 with nearly double the characters of the bloody original, each of whom had two finishing moves that killed an opponent in an over-the-top spurt of blood and organs at the end of a match.

Kids loved it while parents and politicians hated it. And it took a generation of teenage boys a long time to realize that the game wasn't nearly as good as its 2-D contemporaries, like "Super Street Fighter II" and "King of Fighters." But even if it wasn't the best game in absolute terms, "MKII" was still fun and had a surplus of personality.

The graphics haven't held up well, and the violence seems cartoonish and quaint.