Every holiday season, there's a flood of new video games and entertainment hardware on the market, and it can be difficult to separate the best from the rest. Whether buying for yourself or for someone else this December, it's always helpful to get a second opinion about which games are worth your hard-earned cash. Here, in no particular order, are the top three video games experiences that gamers are scrambling for this year.
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (PC, PS3, Xbox 360) \nAssassin's Creed: Brotherhood is a direct sequel to last year's hugely successful Assassin's Creed II. Players get the chance to explore - and cause havoc in - Renaissance-era Rome as they again step into the shoes of skilled assassin Ezio. The single-player story is as intense and compelling as ever and new gameplay mechanics - such as coordinating with other assassins from the titular "brotherhood" - allow the game to feel fresh even as it stands on the shoulders of its predecessor. Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood also introduces online multiplayer. A first for the series, the online aspects of the game mirror the cat-and-mouse experience offered in the single player and will provide hours of entertainment long after you've finished the main quest.\n\nRock Band 3 (PS3, Xbox 360) \nArguably the most popular party game franchise of all time, Rock Band ran with the concept popularized by Guitar Hero and never looked back. Now on its third main iteration, it would be easy for developer Harmonix to rest on its laurels and churn out a carbon copy of Rock Band 2 with an updated setlist. But fortunately for us, the developers instead pulled out all the stops and propelled Rock Band 3 to heights never before reached by the game's predecessors. With 83 new songs, a pro mode that allows the use of more precise and challenging instrument peripherals and support for the new keyboard controller - all with support for up to six players at once through the introduction of vocal harmonies - Rock Band 3 delivers just about everything one could want out of a music video game.\n\nFallout: New Vegas (PC, PS3, Xbox 360)\nBethesda Softworks, developer of the critically acclaimed and commercially successful Fallout 3, took a huge risk when they handed the reins of the franchise to Obsidian Entertainment for Fallout: New Vegas, but it's a risk that paid off. Keeping everything that made the previous game great while offering a plethora of new locations and characters, Fallout: New Vegas offers dozens, if not hundreds, of hours worth of content to keep you busy in the morally - and visually - gray sprawl of a post-apocalyptic Las Vegas. The graphics and animations are a little dated, but the core gameplay is one of the most compelling out there among western role-playing games. There are still the same technical glitches and occasional freezing issues that plagued Fallout 3, but nothing so troubling that it would knock Fallout: New Vegas off of your must-play list this holiday season.
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