(Credit: 2K Sports)Thanks to EA's decision to bench NBA Live for the third consecutive year, 2K Sports has the NBA all to itself once again.

A lack of competition, though, tends to make players nervous. While the NBA 2K franchise has been a shining jewel amongst sports games in recent years, does developer Visual Concepts have what it takes to once again take the title?

It certainly seems so. NBA 2K13, which boasts Jay-Z as an executive producer and the first video game get-together of the 1992 Dream Team, is earning rave reviews.

(Credit: Blizzard)Blizzard Entertainment was hoping Mists of Pandaria, the latest World of Warcraft expansion pack, would help shore up the game's rapidly declining subscription numbers.

But so far, it's far from clear if the game is finding an audience.

Lazard Capital Markets says week one sales of the expansion came in at well under 1 million copies sold at retail. Previous WoW expansions have historically outsold their predecessors, so that would be a serious stumble if the company's retail checks are accurate.

(Credit: Capcom)

It might have morphed into a lucrative film franchise, but the game that put survival horror on the map is returning to its roots.

Releasing Tuesday, Resident Evil 6 lets gamers fight off undead beasts as multiple characters from the franchise's 15-year history. It's the largest Resident Evil game yet -- and it's gotten a significant push from both publisher Capcom and partners like Microsoft, who put it center stage during its E3 press conference earlier this year. In a holiday season filled with huge names like Halo and Call of Duty, it still manages to stand out.

But something is rotten in the state of Resident Evil, and it's not the corpses. Critics are ripping into the new game like a hungry zombie, calling it poorly paced and poorly executed.

Despite several promises that its flagship basketball franchise would return after a three-year absence, EA has decided to once again bench NBA Live.

The decision is likely to disappoint fans who were hoping to see some competition in the NBA field once again, but is terrific news for 2K Sports, whose NBA2K 13 will once again have the court to itself.

1987 was a landmark year for pop culture entertainment. It was the first time we heard Capt. Jean-Luc Picard tell the crew of the Enterprise to "engage." A dysfunctional yellow family called The Simpsons debuted in a series of shorts on "The Tracey Ullman Show." And "Dick Clark's American Bandstand" took its final bow.

The video game universe saw some pretty dramatic events as well, as several of the industry's biggest franchises got their start in 1987 -- and some 25 years later, they'll still kicking.

Here's a look at some of the huge games that were born in 1987 and what they're up to now.

Bad Piggies, Rovio's first truly original game since Angry Birds, hits app stores everywhere today, putting the focus on the light-fingered, egg-loving pigs that have long tortured the feathered protagonists.

It's a blend of familiar territory and new mechanics for the developer, blending well-known characters from its hit series with the building elements of Amazing Alex (the company's rehashed version of Casey's Contraptions that came out earlier this year). Players must build a craft out of the inventory they're given at the start of each level to let the pigs complete their goal.

Will the pigs prove as popular as the birds? Are players ready for a game without catapults?

It's the bottom of the ninth for fans of baseball video games.

While baseball used to be a viable market segment of the video game world, times have changed. Take-Two Interactive, publisher of the MLB 2K baseball game series, confirmed in May that they won't renew their exclusive contract with MLB and has strongly indicated that they won't field a player at all next year.

That's bad news for fans, but making matters worse is that no other company is likely to take its place, leaving the future of MLB games in doubt.

If you owned a Nintendo Entertainment System back in the day, you probably had a game seemingly crap out on you at some point. Perhaps the game wouldn't boot  up correctly, or would suddenly stop working in the middle of a loading screen.

For millions, the solution was clear: Remove the cartridge and blow into it again and again until it worked. It was the mid-80s version of wiping a DVD on your shirt -- and it seemed foolproof.

But now it appears we were all just fooling ourselves.