Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers
For: Wii
From: Square Enix
ESRB Rating: Teen (alcohol reference, crude humor, fantasy violence, mild language, suggestive themes)

For better or worse — and a trip through this game provides ample evidence of both — “Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers” is trying to do exactly what Wii games should be doing in the system’s fourth year of existence. Whether the result is good or not — and again, the pendulum swings both ways — “Bearers” does things that are unique, weird and physically impossible on other hardware.

“Bearers” certainly gets off to a fun start — first, by tossing players into a free-falling shootout in the sky, and then by putting them at the literal wheel of a humungous airship for a chase sequence through tight canyon corridors. The convoluted storytelling aside — and per “Crystal Chronicles” tradition, the tale of good, evil and crystals is a potpourri of incomprehensible mythology and bad dialogue — it’s clear almost immediately that “Bearers” is going for a much more action-oriented bent than its series predecessors.

The game’s primary means of action also steps far outside traditional “Final Fantasy” bounds: Using a cursor-centric aiming system, players point the Wii remote at people and objects on the screen and then lift them into the air, Darth Vader-style, to move or toss them around. Anyone who played “Star Wars: The Force Unleashed” can grasp the combat and level-manipulation possibilities here, and while “Bearers’” control scheme and camerawork leave plenty to be desired, it nonetheless fulfills that promise.

The combination of this core mechanic, a sloppily passable story, “Final Fantasy” iconography and a consistent barrage of experimental diversions — from Chocobo races to a flawed but fun stealth challenge to a completely bizarre game involving girls, a beach and good balance — is enough to make “Bearers” fun when it works.

But “Bearers” often falls short, and when it does, it falls hard. Worse, the most offensive problems stem from lousy design decisions that would seem almost mandatorily avoidable in 2010.

Far and away the game’s biggest issue is the onscreen prompts it uses to instruct players on what to do during these one-off diversions. Too many of them are confusingly vague, while a few are cryptic to the point of misleading, throwing up meters without explanation and displaying controller animations that only barely resemble what a player is supposed to actually do. “Bearers” is generous with save checkpoints and many of these diversions are impossible to completely fail outright, but stumbling your way through a badly-designed challenge isn’t fun simply because it doesn’t halt your progress.

The problems are less acute during the main adventure, but they’re no aggravating. The opaque map and navigation system feel strikingly unfinished given Square-Enix’s experience with interface design in traditional “Final Fantasy” games, and getting lost or slogging from point to point is entirely too easy. That isn’t helped by the fact that during these slogs, there simply isn’t much to do. For every example of blinding ingenuity “Bearers” displays, there are two or three that feel perplexingly amateurish, and the ratio may prove too much for all but the most ardent and adventurous “Final Fantasy” fans to handle for very long.

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Borderlands: Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot
For: Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows PC
Requires: Borderlands
From: Gearbox Software/2K Games
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, intense violence, mature humor, strong language)
Price: $10

Though entirely enjoyable as a solo first-person shooter experience, “Borderlands” relies on a story, quest and inventory structure that’s best enjoyed with teammates (four players online, two locally) via cooperative play. Happily, players who want it both ways have the flexibility to play parts of the game alone and bring in friends on the fly without starting over as a new character.

Good thing, too, because whether you’ve played “Borderlands” alone, with friends or both up to this point, there’s pretty much no point in playing the “Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot” downloadable expansion without help.

As its name somewhat implies, “Riot” ditches the typical exploratory nature of “Borderlands’” quests in favor of post-apocalyptic arena combat: Moxxi is the host, and her “sport” consists of a survivor or four shooting their way out of a labyrinth that’s parts shanty town, stadium and game show studio. Moxxi emcees the action, and between her amusing taunts and the general gaudy design of the three arenas, “Riot” is a fantastic demonstration of the audiovisual spectacle that makes “Borderlands” so unique in spite of its bleak setting and genre.

Just don’t bask in the spectacle alone unless you really enjoy punishment.

“Riot” divides each match into five rounds, and those rounds split into five themed waves. Completing each wave consists of mowing down every enemy in the arena, and the reward for doing so is a brief supply drop of ammo and health. When all five waves of a round are wiped out, Moxxi drops a few items of actual value beneath the stage. Complete all 25 waves, and the match ends. Easy, right?

Not so much — and definitely not if you’re playing alone. Players who succumb to the enemy can continue to assist in the fight, but are confined to a penalty box until the next wave. If all players get sent to the box, gameplay halts and the round starts over from the first wave.

The task of conquering the harder waves and rounds is daunting enough, particularly when Moxxi alters the rules to remove gravity, nullify certain weapons useless or even strip away players’ shields. The challenge amplifies when fighting alone, and it’s made arguably unfair by the fact that if you get banished to the penalty box, the round automatically starts over by virtue of your having no teammates on the ground. Because “Riot” puzzlingly awards no experience points for killing enemies in the arena, it amounts to a lot of effort for no reward.

Though the continued emphasis on teamwork in “Borderlands” is admirable, it would’ve been nice, just this one time and only because the pool of “Borderlands” players has understandably shrunk since October, if Gearbox backed down a little and allowed solo players to enlist an A.I.-controlled teammate or two. “Riot” offers players a mountain of content and perhaps the stiffest challenge so far, but unless you make a pact with friends to take it on together, proceed with caution.

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Piyo Blocks
For: iPhone/iPod Touch
From: Big Pixel Studios
iTunes Store Rating: 4+
Price: $2

Turnabout appears to be fair play to “Piyo Blocks,” which borrows some unmistakable design points from a game, “Zoo Keeper,” that itself was a pretty transparent knock-off of “Bejeweled.” If you’ve played “Bejeweled” — and pretty much everyone in the world has at this point — the core gameplay in “Blocks” offers little surprise: A grid of colored blocks fills the screen, and players switch two blocks to create as many rows of three or more as possible before time runs out. Creating rows clears the blocks and adds some time to the clock, and meeting certain quotas (as defined by “Blocks’” three separate modes) advances the action to new levels with trickier (albeit randomly-generated) starting patterns. Though it doesn’t have “Keeper’s” charming animal characters, “Blocks” still pretty faithfully mimics that game’s cheerful, intentionally blocky good looks. More importantly, it gets the basic mechanics of “Keeper’s” controls — including the ability to string combos together while the game clears other blocks away — down perfectly. For a game that costs less than a bag of chips, the level of polish, if not the originality of the concept, is most impressive. For good measure, Big Pixel includes support for the OpenFeint network, which provides online leaderboards, friends support, chat functionality and achievements.

Posted in Nintendo Wii, Playstation 3 Downloadable Content, Xbox 360 Downloadable Content, iPhone/iPod Touch

Space Bust-a-Move
For: Nintendo DS
From: Taito/Square-Enix
ESRB Rating: Everyone (comic mischief)

A dramatic overhaul would not appear to be in the cards for “Bust-a-Move,” which has stuck to the same script — shoot bubbles toward a cluster of bubbles at the top of the screen and match sets of three or more same-colored bubbles to clear them — for ages now. That’s doubly true for “Space Bust-a-Move,” which isn’t even the first “Bust-a-Move” game to appear on the DS.

But within the confines of that formula, “Space” turns out to be a surprising departure from 2006’s plain-named “Bust-a-Move DS” — and not just because, for whatever reason, it takes place in space.

The starkest change comes in the control scheme. The first DS game used a fun touch screen mechanic that allowed you to shoot bubbles with a virtual slingshot, but “Space” opts for more traditional, button-friendly controls (D-pad to aim the bubble shooter, shoulder buttons to fire). You can use the touch screen to emulate the button controls, but it’s disadvantageously slow.

But the loss of slingshot controls, which took up the entire touch screen in “BAM DS,” isn’t in vain. “Space” shifts the action down so that the shooter and the bubble cluster share the same screen, which also alleviates the previous game’s biggest problem: that annoying gap between the two screens and the havoc it could wreak on a perfectly-angled shot. The top screen generally serves a presentational purpose, which means different things in different modes.

The big exception to that rule takes place during “Space’s” entirely nonsensical but entirely wonderful story mode, which finally gives Bub and Bob some narrative motivation for clearing all those bubbles. It also blesses “Space” with some impressive two-screen boss fights, and guess what? “Bust-a-Move’s” gameplay lends itself startlingly well to boss fights.

The story mode headlines a slew of new feature tweaks “Space” tosses at the wall to belie its $20 asking price. Single-card local multiplayer (four players, down from five) returns, and the debut of online multiplayer (four players) goes off without a hitch despite some occasional and very temporary lag issues.

For dedicated solo players, a game-wide rewards system awards currency good toward unlocking a handful of alternative modes that tack on different rules to the standard “Bust-a-Move” gameplay. “Space” even tosses in a “Brain Age”-style challenge system, which tracks daily progress through a pair of time trial challenges. The customary, no-frills endless mode is, of course, in there as well.

Under the “useless but cool” umbrella, “Space” also lets you use the rewards currency to change the bubble and shooter designs, which only enhances what already amounts to a hilariously whimsical explosion of audiovisual cute. Charming though “BAM DS” was, “Space” ups the ante in every respect, and the goofy storyline knocks it out of the park.

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G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
Reviewed for: Xbox 360 and Playstation 3
Also available for: Nintendo Wii, Playstation 2, PSP and Nintendo DS
From: Double Helix/EA

Double Helix wants to take you down memory lane with “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra,” but it probably isn’t the destination anyone had in mind.

Rather, instead of capitalizing on the nostalgia of the cartoon and toys that inspired the movie of the same name, “Cobra” evokes memories of the original Playstation era, when third-person shooters first ventured into three dimensions but lacked the sophistication or capability to do the things we now take for granted.

Instead of over the shoulder or even behind the back, “Cobra’s” action takes place from a partial bird’s-eye view. The right analog stick controls neither the camera, which sits at a fixed perspective, nor your weapons’ aiming reticule, which doesn’t even come into play. Holding a trigger activates the game’s auto-aim capability, and all the right stick does is swap between enemy targets. In terms of shooting sophistication, “Cobra” doesn’t even approach “Robotron,” much less “Gears of War.”

“Cobra” attempts to compensate for the mindless demands by laying down a pretty thick gauntlet of enemies. The game tips its cap to present day by including a cover mechanic, but the action tends to get so manic that you’re almost better off continually running and dive-rolling under hails of gunfire whenever your Joe’s health needs replenishment.

Sometimes, you don’t have a choice. “Cobra’s” fixed camera usually does what it should, but there are recurrent instances in which you’ll be firing blind because the enemies have spawned from behind or have populated an area before the camera swings around to show them. “Cobra” flirts with complete disaster during fights against ultra-powerful mechs that are only vulnerable from behind: Not only does the camera lag miserably while you try to get in position for a sneak attack, but occasionally it hides the enemy altogether, which for obvious reasons is a potentially fatal problem.

Dying is no small matter in “Cobra,” either. Each mission features two faux-checkpoints, but failing a mission sends you back to the start no matter where that failure happens. You can sidestep this problem by playing “Cobra” on its easiest difficulty, which revives your Joe ad nauseam until you beat the mission, but there’s no real gratification in playing a game you essentially cannot lose.

The strange nods to outdated conventions, along with “Cobra’s” bland presentation — a byproduct of staying faithful to an equally drab film — add up to a game that cannot possibly be universally praised nor recommended as a $50 purchase in 2009.

But “Cobra’s” unwavering adherence to its bizarre design sensibilities also makes it more unique than the bevy of third-person shooters that aim higher. When the game isn’t getting in its own way — and, particularly, when you have a friend (offline only) instead of the computer playing alongside you as the second Joe — “Cobra” makes for a stupidly fun good time for an audience that can appreciate the old-time mentality. For that small sliver of the gaming public, this has “guilty pleasure” stamped all over it.

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Fallout 3: Mothership Zeta
For: Xbox 360 and PC
Requires: Fallout 3
From: Bethesda Softworks
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, intense violence, sexual themes, strong language, use of drugs)
Price: $10

It’s been an exemplary ride for “Fallout 3,” which followed a fantastic core game with four pieces of downloadable content that each improved on what came before it. So it’s quite a shame to see “Mothership Zeta” not only end the game’s run on a down note, but lay bare “Fallout 3’s” most glaring weaknesses in doing so. The premise, which finds you the object of a 1950s-style alien abduction, is no slouch, and it certainly marks a departure from everything that preceded it. But it also means you’re conducting business almost entirely in the tight confinements of a spaceship, traversing one generic corridor after another while doing little more than hitting a few switches and blasting the same aliens and drones ad nauseam. “Fallout 3’s” shooting mechanics have always fared competently in the wide-open wasteland against a wandering enemy or two, but they’re a nightmare in a claustrophobic hallway against a half-dozen ruthless aliens. Some audio logs and a few cool (but only incrementally more powerful) weapons aside, “Zeta” also leaves nothing to discovery, which arguably is the bread and butter of the “Fallout 3″ experience. The listless story isn’t nearly compelling enough to counter all that’s wrong here, and it’s probably best to save those $10 for 2010’s “Fallout: New Vegas” instead of spending it here.

Posted in Nintendo DS, Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Xbox 360 Downloadable Content

Grand Slam Tennis
For: Nintendo Wii
From: EA Sports
ESRB Rating: Everyone

Before the Wii was marketed as a system for everyone, it was pegged as a beacon for unprecedented immersion. Now that Nintendo’s $20 Wii MotionPlus peripheral is finally here — and, more importantly, games like “Grand Slam Tennis” are on board to support it — that original claim finally holds true.

It demands mentioning that “Tennis” plays fine without the peripheral. The same control scheme from “Wii Sports” is included, and “Tennis” betters it by mapping lob and drop shots to the A and B buttons and allowing players to use the D-pad to shift their character between quadrants on the court. A more advanced scheme, incorporating the nunchuck attachment, affords players full character movement along with the same shot controls. “Tennis” allows you to swap schemes and difficulty levels on the fly, which makes establishing your ideal setup reasonably painless.

But “Tennis” becomes an exponentially better game when the Wii MotionPlus enters the picture. Instead of simply reading every motion as a generic swing, “Tennis” translates your handling of the Wii remote directly into how your character handles the racket. Shots are aimed rather than merely timed, and the trajectory of your motions significantly affects the path the ball takes.

The irony of this is that en route to becoming a better game, “Tennis” becomes a much more unfriendly one first — to the point where it initially doesn’t even seem like the thing works. “Tennis’” video tutorial is decent, but this kind of precision is so foreign to the Wii that a significant period of acclimation almost certainly will be necessary.

Give it that time, though — and that may mean an hour, even two, of solid play — and it should click. When it does, it feels extraordinarily precise.

Either way you play, “Tennis” backs it up with a hefty feature set. The single-player career mode is fairly standard stuff, but some of its ideas — particularly the ability to beat the likes of Nadal, McEnroe and Williams and then assign a signature move of theirs to your created player — are implemented really nicely. Local multiplayer (four players) comprises of both traditional tennis and a handful of party configurations. Online multiplayer (four players) sticks strictly to traditional singles and doubles matches, but in another nice touch, two players on the same console can play doubles together against online competition. “Tennis” also uses EA’s superior online service instead of Nintendo’s friend codes system.

But the slickest trick of all might be the Get Fit feature. Link your created character to a slot in Get Fit, and “Tennis” tracks your activity throughout the entirety of the game’s other modes whenever you play with that character. One can only guess what method of calorie counting “Tennis” uses and how accurate it is, but seeing this little bit of progress stamped across the game’s other screens adds a nice layer of secondary reward that turns even the most abysmal tennis performance into a source of positive reinforcement.

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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Reviewed for: Nintendo Wii
Also available for: Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Playstation 2, PSP, Nintendo DS, Windows, Mac
From: EA Bright Light/Electronic Arts
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+ (fantasy violence, mild language, mild suggestive themes)

It seems somewhat unfair to criticize “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” for feeling a whole lot like “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” which came and went two full summers ago. “Phoenix” broke significant ground by giving players complete, open-world access to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and “Prince,” which aims to faithfully replicate a film that largely takes place in the same world, has no choice but to do the same thing.

Fair or not, there’s no way trekking through these same classrooms and corridors can inspire the same level of awe it did the first time around. “Prince” provides as much access as “Phoenix” did, and it does make improvements on your ability to adjust the camera manually and find the fastest route between two points. But the improvements are incremental, and beyond a few new areas and some new side objectives to complete, the game feels handcuffed by its need to stay faithful to a story that, at least in the present tense, goes few places “Phoenix” already hasn’t been.

(The flashback scenes, which play a crucial role in “Prince’s” story, play out purely as non-interactive cutscenes, which makes sense but, if you’re familiar with their implications, arguably represents the game’s biggest missed opportunity to shake things up.)

Perhaps the most notable addition to “Prince” is the return of Quidditch, which finds you playing exclusively in Harry’s shoes as the Gryffindor seeker. As a diversion to the rest of the game, the Quidditch bits are fast and fun. But they also never aspire to be more than a diversion. There’s no sport-specific strategy to capturing the Golden Snitch: All you have to do is fly around some obstacles and through star-shaped rings, and it’ll be yours. The speed of these sequences makes them more exciting than they sound on paper, but by no means does this aim to replicate Quidditch the way EA’s “Quidditch World Cup” game did back in 2003.

“Prince” also introduces a nifty potion-building mini-game, which gets over some slow and simple beginnings and evolves into a surprisingly fun franchise answer to the “Cooking Mama” games. The object is the same — mix the requested ingredients in a specific order without overdoing it — and “Prince” doesn’t really take it anywhere beyond there. But the relative freedom the game affords with regard to handling ingredients keeps it from being a mindless exercise in following onscreen prompts.

Overwhelmingly, though, “Prince” is more of the same. The Dueling Club challenges are repackaged instances of the wand duels that already appeared in “Phoenix,” and they’re not deep enough to make the inclusion of a two-player duel mode a terribly big deal.

The ultimate draw of “Prince” remains its capacity to bring the story to interactive, single-player life. For those who understand what that entails — and how it handcuffed the developers — there’s a pleasant, if very familiar, experience to be had.

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Fallout 3: Point Lookout
For: Xbox 360 and PC
Requires: Fallout 3
From: Bethesda Softworks
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, intense violence, sexual themes, strong language, use of drugs)

The arrival of “Point Lookout” feels somewhat anti-climactic following the release of “Broken Steel,” which both changed the ending to “Fallout 3″ and raised the game’s level cap by 50 percent. But “Lookout,” which takes us up the Potomac River and into Maryland, more than compensates. “Lookout” trades in the grey, concrete wasteland of post-nuclear D.C. in favor of shorelines, marshes and Civil War-era mansions — a stark change of scenery that occasionally better resembles Bethesda’s “Elder Scrolls” games than “Fallout 3.” With the change of scenery comes a change of culture, which pretty significantly affects both the storyline and the characters you befriend and battle. All that liberation allows “Lookout” to spin whatever wild yarn it pleases, which (without spoiling anything) also leads to the most phantasmagorical tangent since the virtual reality sequence in “Fallout 3″ proper. “Lookout” unfolds on what rather convincingly ranks as the largest chunk of virtual real estate in any “Fallout 3″ expansion thus far. Point Lookout is nearly one-fourth the size of the D.C. Wasteland, and those who travel off the beaten path will uncover a couple of first-rate side quests that both enrich the local mythology and fortify its ties to the larger “Fallout” universe.

Posted in Nintendo Wii, Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Xbox 360 Downloadable Content

Klonoa
For: Nintendo Wii
From: Namco Bandai
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+ (mild cartoon violence)

It’s hard not to admire Namco’s resilient love for “Klonoa,” which soldiers on despite more than a decade without ever setting foot in mainstream popularity’s ballpark.

“Klonoa” takes it back to the beginning on the Wii with a philosophically verbatim remake of the 1997 original that debuted on the original Playstation.

The predictable changes are here on schedule. The blocky 3D graphics are completely redone and look thoroughly modern (by Wii standards) thanks to better animation and a much smoother framerate. Gibberish gives way to a full complement of voice actors, who class up what remains a pretty goofy storyline.

Beyond that and a few new bonus stages, though, it’s the same game “Klonoa” fans adore and everyone else may or may not understand — even more so in 2009 than in 1997.

That’s because “Klonoa” is, despite its graphics and its ability to utilize the third dimension, a 2D platformer in the classic “Super Mario Bros.” vein. Levels change orientation as you twist around corners, and you can interact with certain objects that lie in front of or behind you, but you mostly are moving left and right rather than in all 360 degrees. The levels generally operate in linear fashion despite a few discoverable secrets off the beaten path.

Perhaps more distressing is “Klonoa’s” length (roughly five hours your first time through) and difficulty (pretty easy). Platforming aficionados hungry for a nail-biting challenge will not find it here.

Then again, there’s a reason a devoted swath of that very audience is what has kept this series afloat. “Klonoa’s” levels rarely leave you in great peril, but they’re imaginatively designed and a whole lot of fun to traverse anyway. The game doesn’t demand reflex perfection, but it fully understands what a good obstacle course should look like. This attention to design, combined with a control scheme that finds the happy medium between looseness and responsiveness, make those levels a whole lot of fun to run, jump and climb through.

The same philosophy holds true for the game’s enemy and boss quotient. They won’t fray your nerves like “Mega Man’s” enemies can, but taking them down is strangely, enjoyably satisfying anyway.

Hitting that seemingly unhittable sweet spot between mindlessly easy gameplay and something hardened platforming veterans can enjoy allows “Klonoa” to be one of those rare Wii games that speaks equally to everyone without leaning on gimmickry. Kids and novice players can wet their feet here, while others can have a completely different kind of fun blowing through the game every now and then. “Klonoa” remains a cult classic 12 years on because it’s as fun to replay as it is short and easy to beat, and the Wii makeover (to say nothing of the $30 price tag) does nothing to change that.

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Fallout 3: Broken Steel
For: Xbox 360 and PC
Requires: Fallout 3
From: Bethesda Softworks
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, intense violence, sexual themes, strong language, use of drugs)

Your successful ability to download “Fallout 3: Broken Steel” will be acknowledged in “Fallout 3″ via a dialogue box stating as much, but beyond that — and unlike “Fallout 3’s” previous content packs, which jetted you off to faux-Anchorage and Pittsburgh — “Steel” leaves it up to you to find it.

That, mostly, is due to the fact that “Steel” not only takes place after the events of “Fallout 3,” but possibly alters some of those events as well. If you’ve witnessed the game’s final scene, you likely know what, precisely, needs altering.

Awkward though it is for Bethesda to basically change the storyline seven months after “Fallout 3″ first appeared, the new narrative developments should please players soured by the original, abrupt finish. In addition to telling a better story, “Steel” makes it possible to continue playing at your leisure once the main storyline wraps — a huge boon given that the vast majority of “Fallout 3’s” content is optional and waiting to be discovered far outside the bounds of the main storyline. (As if to motivate you further, “Steel” raises your character’s level cap from 20 to 30 and throws in a few new perks that appear designed to reward players who wish to step off the main road.)

First, though, the story continues. Without spoiling anything for those who are no where near the game’s conclusion, here’s the basic rundown: The enemy you may or may not have taken down at the game’s conclusion has hit back, and your job is to find out how that’s even possible, to say nothing of how to stop it.

The six new missions — three mandatory, three optional — keep you inside the Wasteland, but they take you to some new areas of D.C. that did not exist previously. “Steel” also introduces you to some brutally tough new strains of familiar enemies and, per usual, counters that with some new gear — including some new weaponry that makes some of your existing arsenal look peashooter-esque by comparison.

One could credibly argue that the level cap and ending adjustments feel like a digital mea culpa that Bethesda would simply have given away as a patch in the days before paid downloadable content became the norm. “Steel” is as attractive for those tweaks as it is for the new missions and content, and any frustrations stemming from having to pay extra for (or, in the case of spurned Playstation 3 owners, never experiencing) something that should have been there all along are completely reasonable.

But those frustrations won’t change anything at this stage, so the point is moot. “Steel’s” primary objective is to live up to its $10 price tag, and it easily succeeds when all is tallied and considered. If you only indulge in one of “Fallout 3’s” downloadable episodes, this is the one to get.

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Top Gun
For: iPhone/iPod Touch
From: Freeverse/Paramount
iTunes Store Rating: 9+ (infrequent/mild cartoon or fantasy violence)
Price: $2, though Paramount has indicated this is subject to change shortly

For all the talk about the wretched history of movie-based video games, the 1986 rendition of “Top Gun” remains an arguable Nintendo Entertainment System classic. How nice, then, to see the spirit of that game so overtly entrenched in this one. The new “Top Gun” features the kind of modern frills one expects, including a softer learning curve, achievements and a sufficient (though very visually strange) storyline to glue its 10 missions together. At its core, though, the objectives — dodge enemy fire, take down enemy planes — remain as pleasantly straightforward as ever. Freeverse’s most clever gameplay addition is a cheekily-named “Danger Zone” mechanic: The longer you stay in a danger zone — and thus, completely vulnerable to enemy fire — the more points you rack up. (As if to beat the point home, the Kenny Loggins song of the same name provides a portion of the game’s soundtrack, which, fortunately, can be muted.) “Gun’s” tilt-based flying controls work as they should, and taking down enemy aircraft is as easy on the touch screen as it is on the NES pad. Sadly, and in stark contrast to the famously difficult NES game, you can’t attempt to land the plane yourself once the battle ends.

Posted in Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360 Downloadable Content, iPhone/iPod Touch

Excitebots: Trick Racing
For: Nintendo Wii
From: Monster Games/Nintendo
ESRB Rating: Everyone (mild fantasy violence)

For all the credit “Wii Sports” garners as the Wii’s gateway drug, perhaps no Nintendo-branded game better demonstrates the benefits of motion controls than “Excite Truck,” which launched on the same day and aptly set itself apart from other racing games in ways no non-Wii game ever could.

The entirety of that game exists within “Excitebots: Trick Racing,” which lifts the controls and methodology and inserts them into an entirely bizarre but blissfully fun racing experience starring giant, mechanized bugs and animals.

Like “Truck,” “Excitebots” asks you to hold the Wii remote sideways and tilt it like a steering wheel to control your bot’s steering. The setup isn’t particularly conducive to precision steering and hairpin turns, but it also doesn’t need to be. “Excitebots” prefers hilly straightaways to sharp corners, overtly encouraging players to drive recklessly and constantly ride the fast, fine line that separates edge-of-seat control from unwieldiness.

That strong embrace, combined with “Excitebots’” unique metrics for success — winning races is helpful, but racking up stars via dangerous driving and gravity-defying turbo jumping takes precedence over everything — make for a racing experience that’s wildly exciting and completely casual at once. Achieving gold medal scores is a worthy pursuit for skilled players, but anyone who can hold the Wii remote can enjoy “Excitebots” on some level.

The inclusion of mechanized turtles, ladybugs, bats and other creatures is the most overt symbol of distinction between “Excitebots” and “Trucks,” but it isn’t the only one. The off-road tracks wouldn’t look out of place in more traditional racing games, but Monster Games has littered them with ridiculous bonus contraptions ranging from stunt triggers to bowling pins to a constructible sandwich. Take advantage of these and other surprises littered around the track — including the cool landscape-altering triggers previously found in “Truck” — and you’ll have all the stars you need to unlock additional tracks and bots.

Annoyingly (and puzzlingly), you’ll also need a few good single-player runs to unlock the game’s multiplayer content. “Excitebots” includes splitscreen (two players) and online (six) play, but you’ll have to play through the first batch of single-player races to access it. Fortunately, it’s worth the small wait: “Excitebots” ranks right up with “Mario Kart” in terms of its online suite, and being able to bet accumulated stars on races is an amusing feature with obvious upside.

Finally, there’s the entirely unexplainable inclusion of the Poker Race mode, which tasks you with simultaneously winning the race while also forming the best poker hand using cards littered around the track. Why? Who knows. Who cares. Like everything else in “Excitebots,” Poker Race is there for your enjoyment more than your understanding, and it serves that purpose beautifully.

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Rhythm Heaven
For: Nintendo DS/Nintendo DSi
From: Nintendo
ESRB Rating: Everyone (comic mischief)

If you’re rhythmically challenged and prone to bouts of impatience, you may as well stop reading now, because there will be nothing heavenly about “Rhythm Heaven.”

For those unfamiliar with the series’ previous success in Japan, “Heaven” is best described as a “WarioWare” game without Wario and with an acute emphasis on keeping the beat. Like “WarioWare,” “Heaven” is digitized madness — a few dozen or so mini-games, each with its own strange art and music styles and each with slightly different objectives built around a recurrent theme.

In the case of “Heaven,” that translates into a string of minute-long exercises centered around keeping a steady rhythm. The objectives range from pulling radishes to playing ping-pong to controlling a three-piece band of ghosts, but the crux of each challenge involves some combination of tapping, holding, and sliding the stylus across the touch screen in time with the music.

As anyone who has experienced “WarioWare” already knows, the combination of simple objectives and short-attention-span theatrics is a magnificently fun one in the right hands. “Heaven,” happily, channels most of what makes those games so appealing, and it’s almost immediately apparent that it’s a product of the same developers rather than a troubled knock-off.

Just don’t expect it to be as easy as those “WarioWare” games — or anything close, for that matter. “Heaven’s” control scheme starts and ends with the touch screen, and the touch screen simply isn’t as conducive to split-second timing as the buttons would be. Compound this with whatever troubles you might already have with the game’s rhythmic demands — “Heaven” regularly requires you to switch between sliding, holding and tapping at precise intervals — and the result can be disastrous if you can’t bring a certain level of concentration, practice, patience and rhythmic instinct to the table.

“Heaven” isn’t completely unforgiving, and you need not perfectly achieve an objective to pass it and unlock additional challenges. But those fooled by the cute graphics and expecting the usual “WarioWare” cakewalk will find themselves on the business end of a pretty rude awakening.

This, of course, should be music to the ears of player who miss the days of Nintendo knocking them upside the head with brutally challenging games. “Heaven” is surmountable for those willing to bring their “A” game, and the rewards — new mini-games, marathon versions of existing mini-games, a handful of fun digital toys, the simple satisfaction of conquering a legitimately tough game — are immense. The game lacks any kind of multiplayer option, but there’s more than enough single-player content here to justify a purchase for the right type of player.

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Left 4 Dead Survival Pack
For: Xbox 360 and Windows
From: Valve
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, intense violence, language)
Price: Free

PC gamers are used to Valve padding its games’ value with free content, but it’s a special day when console gamers get something for nothing. The “Left 4 Dead” Survival pack includes Versus mode versions of two campaigns, “Death Toll” and “Dead Air,” that previously only were playable in single-player or co-op form. But the reason for downloading — and the source of the pack’s name — is the new Survival mode, which tasks you with staying alive as long as possible while an ungodly number of zombies storm you in a confined space. Likely, that won’t be very long, because Survival mode sends special zombies at you in amounts the other modes wouldn’t dream of doing. But dying quickly and repeatedly makes for some exciting short play sessions that — thanks to the addictive nature of trying just one more time for a better score — add up to a lengthy, eventful good time with friends. Not bad for the price. The only nitpick: The mode, outside of a new map that takes place inside a lighthouse, uses the same locations you already visited elsewhere in the game. Also, if you prefer to play “L4D” by yourself, this pack offers nothing for you, as Survival mode supports online multiplayer only.

Posted in Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360 Downloadable Content

Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure
For: Nintendo DS
From: EA
ESRB Rating: Everyone (cartoon violence)

At first sight and first play, “Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure” is a game that dares you not to love it. It’s immensely pleasing on the eyes, and the storyline — fronted by the charming, monocle-clad title character whose life is in your hands — is adorably but sharply amusing.

Also, the game’s premise — a “Mega Man”-style sidescroller on the top screen working in tandem with a “Tetris Attack” clone on the bottom — is uniquely, expertly executed. Enemies you topple and power-ups you find as Henry become blocks on the puzzle game below, and clearing those blocks away both prevents those enemies from returning and activates those power-ups. The two games influence each other in other clever ways, and you can switch between them at will with one button press.

If it sounds rather unwieldy, a little acclimation proves otherwise. Henry’s adventures use the DS’ buttons, while the puzzle portion works multiple ways but plays best with the stylus. Once you develop a system for keeping the stylus handy while focusing on the top screen, switching becomes second nature.

Most importantly, “Adventure” doesn’t drop the ball in either area. Had the top game released on its own as a Super Nintendo or Game Boy Advance game, it would be one of the more accomplished sidescrollers on either system. And while the “Tetris Attack” clone pretty much is exactly that, it’s a fast, fun homage that puts many dedicated DS puzzle games to shame in the responsiveness department.

All of this holds true throughout the entirety of “Adventure,” but unless you’re a sidescrolling virtuoso who enjoys an absurd challenge, it grows increasingly difficult to admire once the game unleashes a serious spike in difficultly, which happens around the midpoint of the third world.

At no point is “Adventure” hopelessly unreasonable. But there exist multiple points going forward where you’ll find yourself under attack from all angles with nowhere to escape. Once Henry loses a certain portion of his health, it’s practically a death sentence: He gets knocked into other enemies, who can pile on attacks, and your ability to rebuild his health through the puzzle portion takes a crippling hit. Throw in some sparse checkpoints and the occasional cheap bottomless pit death, and “Adventure” gives gamers of average ability every reason in the world to shut it off and never go back.

It goes without saying, then, that casual gamers seduced by the vibrant artwork and promise of puzzle-solving are better off getting those fixes elsewhere. “Adventure” ultimately is one of the DS’ better games, but not every great game is for every player. Disappointing though it is to say it, only those with godly skills and saintly patience need apply here.

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Fallout 3: The Pitt
For: Xbox 360 and PC
Requires: Fallout 3
From: Bethesda Softworks
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, intense violence, sexual themes, strong language, use of drugs)

Though fun on its own terms, “Operation Anchorage” was something of an awkward way for “Fallout 3″ to kick off its run of downloadable $10 expansion packs. The episode took place almost entirely within a simulation inside the existing game, and because the story focused on past events in the “Fallout” timeline, little beyond a few new pieces of gear stuck with you once it ended and you were back in Washington, D.C.

“The Pitt,” on the other hand, feels a bit more traditional. The location has changed — to Pittsburgh, accessible now via underground rail — but the norms established in “Fallout 3″ mostly translate verbatim. Everything plays out in the game’s real world and present day, and everything from the people you meet to the loot you find is as fair game here as it is in D.C.

Respect to “Anchorage’s” fresh ideas aside, this faithfulness makes for a much better episode. With the ground rules already established, “The Pitt” is free to focus entirely on the human fallout of post-nuclear Pittsburgh, where human slavery has returned and a makeshift monarchy — established by a new strain of the same raiders who run wild in D.C.’s landscape — inexplicably but unmistakably holds rule.

In true “Fallout” fashion, “The Pitt” gives you a starting point — disguised as a slave, with designs to help plot an overthrow — but takes the gloves off from there. A few central characters remain invincible per usual, but the vast majority can, depending on your preferred methods and intentions, be reasoned with, provoked or killed outright. “The Pitt” lets you play devil’s advocate far more than “Anchorage” did, and whether you negotiate with the overlords, play ball with them or pick them off without even introducing yourself, the presence of innocent bystanders means even a reckless gunslinger with good intentions might accidentally find a few casualties on his conscience.

Along with a better roster of characters comes a better storyline with a few fantastic detours and a truly disarming reveal near the end. As it’s presented, “The Pitt’s” storyline matches and arguably outclasses the main storyline from “Fallout 3″ proper, though it also benefits from having to fill three to fours’ time instead of 30.

Like “Anchorage,” though, “The Pitt” ultimately feels like a standalone diversion. You can revisit Pittsburgh as you please upon completion of the episode, but your travails through D.C. don’t change much as result. The major exception, of course, is the gear you bring back. In “The Pitt’s” case, that means two truly vicious new weapons that, once found, likely will become staples of your inventory no matter where the game takes you next.

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Pocket God
For: iPhone/iPod Touch
From: Bolt Creative
iTunes Rating: 9+ (infrequent/mild cartoon or fantasy violence)
Price: 99 cents

With respect to processing power, 3D graphics, tilt sensitivity and Internet connectivity, one of the iPhone’s most understated assets is the wide availability of silly, guilt-free, 99 cent amusements. “Pocket God” aptly demonstrates why. “God” gives you a simple desert island and a single inhabitant. From there you can do whatever you please within the bounds of game, which includes adding additional islanders, tossing them into the ocean or a volcano, changing the weather with a flick of a finger or sending everybody clinging for their lives by turning the device on its side. That, and a few other surprises, is all “God” really does, but that’s the point: You pay a buck once, and the game pays you back by being a perennial source of easy giggles whenever a spare moment calls for them. To its credit, Bolt Creative is encouraging return visits via free updates which it dubs as episodes. Each adds a new trick to your godly arsenal, and the title of the episode offers a hint as to what the new power is and how to activate it. Bolt has released 11 episodes since “God” debuted in January, and all indications point to more ahead.

Posted in Nintendo DS, Xbox 360, Xbox 360 Downloadable Content, iPhone/iPod Touch

Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned
For: Xbox 360 via Xbox Live
From: Rockstar Games
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood, intense violence, nudity, strong language, strong sexual content, use of drugs and alcohol)
Requires: Grand Theft Auto IV game disc

No one really knew what it meant when Microsoft promised, seemingly forever ago and at a cost of 50 million of its own dollars, two exclusive downloadable additions to the Xbox version of “Grand Theft Auto IV.”

With the arrival of the $20 “The Lost and Damned,” it’s starting to make sense. Much like Rockstar changed the face of console gaming seven years ago with “Grand Theft Auto III,” it has now dramatically altered what owners of a $60 game should expect when a publisher asks them to invest additional funds atop the initial investment.

“Damned” doesn’t move the action away from Liberty City, and in fact takes place at the same time as the events you experienced as Niko Belic in “GTAIV.” This time, though, you’re filling the shoes of The Lost Motorcycle Club Vice President Johnny Klebitz, who made a cameo but little more in “GTAIV.” Fittingly, most of the action takes place in Alderney, which “GTAIV” presented in full but rarely utilized during its storyline.

In dismissive terms, it’s more of the same. But when your storytelling and voice acting exist in a class all their own — and a fantastic opening cutscene serves as stark reminder just how good Rockstar is at that stuff — a return to that level of quality after a 10-month layoff is entirely welcome. Expansion content or not, “Damned’s” single-player component is good for roughly 10 hours of gameplay, which is competitive with most games that cost triple the price. The new story makes stars out of a new crop of Liberty City citizens, lets us reconnect with a few familiar faces, and includes some fun side missions (biker gang turf wars and “Road Rash”-style bike races, to name two) to complement the main storyline.

Those bike races — which let you enjoy the vastly improved motorcycle physics while also knocking your friends off their rides with a bat — mark the best of “Damned’s” new multiplayer offerings, which mostly (and satisfactorily) remix existing “GTAIV” modes to incorporate the biker gang motif. The other arguable highlight: a two-player Chopper vs. Chopper mode, which has one player in a helicopter hunting an escaping player on a bike. Outside of the turf war modes, it marks the best multiplayer-centric use of Liberty City’s spacious geography.

Given that “Damned” is full-featured to the point that it feels like its own game, it makes sense that Rockstar treats it like a separate entity from “GTAIV” despite using assets from the original game. But that deep division also leads to “Damned’s” only major disappointment: The new weapons (six) and vehicles (17 new bikes, three fantastic new four-wheelers) work only in “Damned” and not in “GTAIV” proper.

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Halo Wars
For: Xbox 360
From: Ensemble Studios/Microsoft
ESRB Rating: Teen (mild blood, mild language, violence)

Easily the best thing about “Halo Wars” is the degree to which Ensemble Studios has translated the Xbox’s most recognized shooter into a real-time strategy game.

“Wars” steps backward to narrate the events that preceded the first “Halo” game, but it doesn’t dare get fancy with the franchise. The same three factions you’ve fought as or against all return in full, and the troops, vehicles and special facilities from those games are replicated here without exception. (Other staples, including the music, menu interface, mission scoring system and even the collectible hidden skulls that enable special cheats, are tucked inside as well.)

On the other hand, if you don’t care about “Halo” and want, as Ensemble promised, a PC-quality strategy game that’s made for a controller, some measure of disappointment lies ahead.

Yes, “Wars” streamlines the controls, making it effortless to manage units without performing the kind of acrobatics needed in EA’s “Command and Conquer” games. But Ensemble’s solution doesn’t solve the problem so much as smooth it over. You can’t, for instance, create pre-defined assortments of different units for easy reference later. “Wars” automatically figures this stuff out as you send units to different sides of the map, but it’s a level of handholding that experienced RTS players will not appreciate.

Then again, “Wars’” equally simple single-player missions make nuanced micromanagement mostly unnecessary. Resources practically accumulate on their own, and if you build and maintain some relatively inexpensive turrets where the constricted base-building model allows them, you rarely need worry about defense, either. Outside of a few exceptions, the missions place an excessive emphasis on offense: Build an overwhelming force, steamroll forward, and you almost cannot lose.

The problems with the campaign — which, despite a short length and the complete omission of Covenant-perspective missions, drags on due to repetition — mean that, like most “Halo” games, “Wars” is best recommended for its multiplayer features (2-6 players, online/system link only).

Sure enough, this is where it shines. “Wars” lets you play as either the UNSC or the Covenant (though never the Flood) in its freeform skirmish mode, and the hands-off approach — your base and battle strategy versus theirs — makes for less predictable outcomes. It would’ve been nice to see Ensemble try something more ambitious with the Xbox Live infrastructure, but the simple controls and general fast pace of the action (by RTS standards) make this a fun option for those who like their real-time strategy in short, accessible doses.

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Downloadable game

Noby Noby Boy
For: Playstation 3 via Playstation Network
From: Namco Bandai
ESRB Rating: Everyone (comic mischief)
Price: $5

It’s hard to definitively describe a game whose full intention is either mysterious or completely absent, but that’s what you get with “Noby Noby Boy,” which must be experienced firsthand to be even remotely understood. “NNB” stars you as Boy, and the goal (maybe) is to stretch yourself out, eat stuff and just experiment at your own leisure in a bizarre, physics-centric wonderland. You then can “submit” your stretching totals to the sun, which collects submissions from everyone on the Playstation Network and uses that total to stretch a character named Girl. Once Girl can touch additional planets, those levels will open to everyone on PSN who owns the game. Yep. Don’t feel bad if you don’t understand any of that: “NNB” is so weird that you might not understand it any more after playing it than reading about it. Consider, also, that the endgame remains a secret until the PSN community uncovers it, and “NNB” becomes a purchase only if you don’t mind gambling $5 on what is, without exaggeration, a complete leap of faith. Though “NNB” comes courtesy of the guy who created “Katamari Damacy” and adopts that game’s visual and stylistic methodology, even your feelings about that game cannot dictate whether you’ll get this one. If you’re feeling adventurous, just roll the dice.

Posted in Playstation 3, Playstation Network, Xbox 360, Xbox 360 Downloadable Content

Fallout 3: Operation Anchorage
For: Xbox 360 and PC
Requires: Fallout 3
From: Bethesda Softworks
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, intense violence, sexual themes, strong language, use of drugs)

The liberation of Anchorage, Alaska, from an invading Chinese army has been a source of in-game whispers and references since the original “Fallout” debuted more than 11 years ago, but the $10 “Operation Anchorage” add-on marks the first time fans have been able to experience the event through their own eyes and thumbs.

As such, the first of three downloadable “Fallout 3″ add-ons is also the most acute in its target audience. Its ties to the “Fallout 3″ storyline are threadbare — you’ll visit Anchorage via a simulation that exists inside the present setting of Washington, D.C., — and outside of experience points and some new weaponry and armor, little that happens within carries over to rest of the game.

The upside to all that autonomy is that “Anchorage” is free to play by some of its own rules. Standard “Fallout 3″ protocols apply, but “Anchorage” puts you in the middle of a war rather than a solitary trek across a post-nuclear wasteland, and the extreme emphasis on combat — including skirmishes alongside a hand-picked team of comrades and showdowns against an army’s worth of devious human and vehicular adversaries — lies in stark contrast to the rest of the game’s affinity for solitary discovery.

The downside to that upside? Not all of it works. Bethesda compensates “Anchorage’s” bloodlust by making it a too easy to stay alive and equipped without really earning it. Whereas “Fallout 3″ has you scraping for ammo and medical supplies however you can, “Anchorage” spoils you with recharge bins that replenish both without limit. Beyond those bins, 10 intel suitcases and some explosives that are harder to pick up than they should be, nothing in the environments can be scavenged for later use.

Fortunately, while “Anchorage” unquestionably takes you down a more linear path than “Fallout 3’s” missions typically do, you still have the freedom to fight as stealthily, loudly or mischievously as you wish. Per usual, certain characters are off-limits and cannot be killed, and there’s no way to change the ending of a battle that’s already entrenched in “Fallout” lore. But how you reach the end of “Anchorage’s” not-quite-four-hour runtime is largely your call.

Bethesda has confirmed two more downloadable packs for “Fallout 3,” and both appear to deal more directly with the main storyline than “Anchorage” possibly can. Overwhelmingly, this is a fun piece of one-shot fan service that anyone can enjoy but only a select audience of long-time fans will truly appreciate. If you’re not in the latter camp and simply are in it for the new enemies, weapons and armor, it’s important keep that in mind.

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Animal Boxing
For: Nintendo DS
From: Gammick Studios/Destineer
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+ (cartoon violence)

For an unassuming handheld game about boxing animals, “Animal Boxing” sure covers some ground. It’s brilliantly clever, yet fundamentally broken. It’s impossibly easy and unnecessarily difficult. Finally, depending on the quality and proximity of your friends, it’s both easy and impossible to recommend.

As touch screen boxing goes, “Boxing,” which stars you as a custom-designed human fighting some 50 not-so-innocent anthropomorphic pugilists, nails it. The game uses the touch screen as the top screen — you play “Boxing” by holding the DS upside-down — and your punches are registered through corresponding gestures: Tap to jab, swipe horizontally to hook, swipe vertically to uppercut. The buttons work your defense, and effectively dodging punches both looks and feels really cool given “Boxing’s” first-person perspective.

Unfortunately, the actual fight mechanics can’t — or rather, don’t — keep up. Playing “Boxing” the way it’s meant to be played, by dodging punches and landing a few your own while your opponents’ defenses are down, is far too difficult with the ludicrously small window of time you’re given to recognize your opponent’s action and react.

As if to compensate, “Boxing” includes a block mechanic that isn’t dependent on timing. But it’s too powerful — able to dodge flurries and super punches alike without any need to lay off the button — and it makes the game too easy to exploit. Your fellow fighters don’t vary in technique as much as they do in appearance, and once you realize the block button stops pretty much any attack cold, it’s entirely too easy to lean on it and sneak in enough jabs to score a cheap victory.

Had “Boxing” slowed down a few ticks and adopted the same pace of “Punch-Out!” or even “Fight Night,” playing it legitimately would provide a perfect mix of challenge and intuition. Hopefully, Gammick can tweak the speed for a follow-up endeavor that really does the engine justice.

In the meantime, this is where your friends come in. Assuming you can agree to resist exploiting the block function, “Boxing” works fine as a two-player game. The fact that you and a friend are mutually mashing on each other does plenty to mitigate the aforementioned problems and re-center the emphasis on all “Boxing” does right.

Alas, Gammick hasn’t made this as easy as it should be. “Boxing’s” only multiplayer outlet is via multi-card wireless, which means you’ll need two copies of the game to fight each other. That’s not an insurmountable obstacle given the generous $20 price tag, but it’s an obstacle all the same.

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Savage Moon
For: Playstation 3 via Playstation Network
From: Fluffy Logic/Sony
ESRB Rating: Teen (blood and gore, fantasy violence)
Price: $10

If you like real-time tower defense strategy games but are dismayed by their tendency to dabble in the cuter end of the video game graphics pool, “Savage Moon” — which has you defending mining facilities on the moon against waves of giant, ugly bugs — has your name on it. In complete contrast to the likes of “Pixeljunk Monsters” and “Ninjatown,” “Moon” resembles your traditional real-time strategy game, opting for gritty, realistic (by giant-bug-on-moon standards) graphics and explosive defense technology and special effects. That begets “Moon’s” other selling point: It’s fast. Everything, from unit creation to upgrades to researching new technology, happens either instantly or within seconds, and with the bugs marching at you with similar impatience, “Moon” threads the line between traditional strategy and reactionary action. That’s doubly so when you replay completed story missions in Vengeance mode, which sends endless waves of bugs until you’re overpowered. None of this is to suggest “Moon” has an genre identity crisis: Given the range of available technology and the challenges posed by the terrain, brains still trumpet brawn, and the game throws in an excellent risk/reward wrinkle by letting you adjust the ratio of firepower, defensive strength and monetary gain in order to best suit your approach. The lack of multiplayer and co-op is a real bummer, but “Moon’s” single-player scope easily recoups its asking price.

Posted in Nintendo DS, Playstation 3, Playstation Network, Xbox 360, Xbox 360 Downloadable Content