Remove The Sims from its name, and The Sims Pool is still a great pool sim. That it's this good on the iPod is very impressive, but not really surprising; Electronic Arts has made it quite clear they understand the iPod as a gaming platform, and what that should entail. The Sims tie-in isn't needed here, but I suppose it does add an interesting element for those who'd otherwise tired of just playing pool. And if pool is all you want, you can bypass the Sims elements. That makes this a great game for the iPod that would actually be a worthwhile purchase on any platform.

Here, then, we have a game perfectly suited to the iPod. It's suited to the controls, and it's suited to the small screen. What it may not be suited to is your timeframe. If you only break out an iPod game when you're trying to kill time before an appointment or while you're waiting for your kid's trombone lesson to end, the addictive nature of Cubis 2 may cause you to be late on more than one occasion.

This week on iGame Radio, the original Mac game podcast, host Omaha Sternberg completes coverage of the casual gaming conference Casual Connect 2007

Tiki Magic Mini Golf feels unfinished to me, as if they spent all of their development time on the graphics, and therefore had to abandon the physics engine, the game features, the player animations and the difficulty level a few weeks to soon. Oh, did I not mention the difficulty level? That's because there isn't one. The first time I played each course, I finished about 10 to 20 under par. You tell me...what's the incentive to go back and play again?

Perhaps it is a tribute to the allure of the Age of Empires III game and the skill of the developers that an expansion pack that improves multiple aspects of the game would come across as merely good. True, the expansion pack adds new characters and a whole new story line, and also expands your home city options while increasing both the skill needed to win and the strategies and planning available to improve gameplay. Again, I'm gushing about the options here, but it is more of the same great stuff from the Age...well, I think we can call it an empire.

Azada is a series of over 40 brain teasers for you to work your way through. Some will be very familiar (perhaps too familiar), and those that aren't certainly will be by game's end. For although there may be over 40 puzzles in total, there are only around 10 to 15 in style. The whole package comes together nicely to create a fairly unique, if perhaps too simple, puzzle-solving experience.

By all accounts, this should have been the version of The Sims that finally won me over to the franchise. Although I understand the appeal of the games, simply moving little people around, buying them lamps and making them hate each other never appealed to me. I want my games to have a point. A story. A beginning, a middle and an ending. So now, Aspyr brings us The Sims Life Stories, which actually gives preset characters, a plot and a climax to reach. The problem? They forgot to make any of them the least bit interesting.

Glamour Life Stuff is something of a less exciting add-on to the Sims canon; it doesn't allow your characters to go on jet-set trips to Rome or Monte Carlo, but allows them to dress up as if they did. An expansion of expensive items for your well-to-do Sims, it allows you to drench your characters and/or their house with modern art, expensive clothes, and other "finery," most of which is kind of garish: pop art and fur coats. It's sort of a middle class idea of what a rich person would have. But then, the Sims has always been about conspicuous consumption.

Heroes of Might and Magic is one of the longest running turn-based strategy series, and one of the most anticipated for the Macintosh platform. When Freeverse announced they were going to publish it for the Mac, fans everywhere breathed a sigh of relief that we'd be able to play our favorite game on our favorite platform. Was waiting for the port worth it? Is Heroes of Might and Magic V worth your gaming dollars?

Star Wars: Empire at War is a strategy/simulation game set in the Star Wars universe. At it's most basic, it's pretty much a cross between Age of Empires and Homeworld. At it's most complicated, it's a pretty difficult game that may not appeal to strategy/simulation fans. This is fine; Star Wars fans will buy it anyway.

The Movies puts you in charge of a major motion picture studio, and pretty much everything else that goes along with it. Hire actors, fire actors and send them to rehab. Assign directors to movies. Research new filmmaking technologies. Decide where on the lot to plant a tree. Determine whether there's more money to be made in comedies, romances or those things where second rate comedians dress up like fat women...I'm not sure into what genre those are supposed to fit.

World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade—the first expansion to the popular multiplayer game—has been out for a few months now, and here I am just now writing a review on it. Why now when everyone and their brother has already bought it? While those reviews are good, they couldn't talk about much beyond what everyone knew at the time: new races, new instances, new items, and new areas to explore. I'll take you to the parts of Burning Crusade others didn't see so you can decide whether this is the game for you.