Dante’s Inferno
Reviewed for: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
Also available for: PSP
From: Visceral Games/EA
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, intense violence, nudity, sexual content)

It isn’t very original to half-dismiss “Dante’s Inferno” as a “God of War” knockoff, but guess what? “Dante’s Inferno” isn’t very original, either, because guess what? In every way beyond the source material that inspired its storyline, “Inferno” is the “God of War” knockoff to end all “God of War” knockoffs.

It’s good to preface this by stating that this isn’t necessarily a bad thing or even a criticism, because for the most part, “Inferno” pays pretty good tribute to the game that so obviously provided its blueprint. Dante executes his arsenal of moves with the same fluidity as does Kratos, and “Inferno” tosses nine circles’ worth of demons, behemoths and the damned at him without any wear whatsoever on the action, which cruises along at the same rocksteady framerate for which “War” is so well known (and, to Visceral Games’ credit, few “War” imitators get remotely right).

Though some will never see the transformation of the 14,000-line, 14th century Divine Comedy into a high-octane video game as anything short of blasphemous (and though they certainly have an argument), “Inferno” doesn’t trample the poem’s memory as it so easily could.

Visceral whittles Dante’s odyssey down to consumable levels, piecing the nine circles of Hell into objectives and environments designed around their themes. But while the game takes liberties in order to be a game, it stays faithful to the outline. Those who accept “Inferno” for what it is — a gutsy reimagination of a seemingly completely incompatible art form that in no way is meant to replace the original form — the translation is quite an achievement in terms of the balance it strikes between reverence for the original work and an understanding of what it needs to work in this context.

And if you don’t care about any of that, “Inferno” still is a solid action game that, like “War,” borrows from legend to create some visually awesome locales for its fights, platforming challenges and environmental puzzles. Chunks of the game fall prone to fights against the same old enemies, and the last circle absolutely phones it in with a series of challenges entirely too contrived to sustain any sense of narrative immersion. But “Inferno” hits more than it misses, and some of the imagery Visceral brings to life — waterfalls of the damned splashing into lakes of fire, walls made of souls screaming for redemption, rivers of blood — is effectively unnerving.

As if to acknowledge the fact that “God of War III” is barely a month away on the PS3, EA has sweetened the pot on the PS3 side with a forthcoming bonus prequel level that will be free to download in March. The PS3 edition also includes a making-of documentary, soundtrack, digital artbook and digital reprint of the poem.

But “Inferno’s” real downloadable treat (for both consoles) might arrive in April in the form of an online co-op mode that also allows players to create and share their own custom-designed circles of Hell. No telling yet whether it’ll be good or how much it’ll cost, but the teaser video on the disc hints at a pretty robust level designer that, in the right hands, will give the game some inspired additional legs.

—–

Darksiders
For: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
From: Vigil Games/THQ
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, intense violence, suggestive themes)

Games imitating games isn’t exactly press-stopping news, but it’s pretty well impossible to ignore the influences — “The Legend of Zelda” here, “God of War” there, a few other surprises in between — at play in “Darksiders.”

It also isn’t a bad thing, most particularly because in borrowing so many little things that make “Zelda” games what they are, “Darksiders” also manages to do one thing — kick players’ tails — they haven’t done in forever. “Zelda” fans who admire the series’ clever dungeon designs but long for the days when the games used to punish players might want to give this a hard look, because it’s pretty clear Vigil Games got tired of waiting and just took matters into its own hands.

“Darksiders’” story — in which War, the first Horseman of the Apocalypse, must redeem himself after accidentally igniting a war on Earth between Heaven and Hell — is darker and bloodier than your typical “Zelda” tale, but the little things that series (and often, only that series) does are nonetheless peppered all over this one.

A fairly robust overworld notwithstanding, the game’s primary action takes place in dungeons — some of which (wait for it) contain an item that (surprise) comes in handy in defeating that dungeon’s boss enemies. One of those items? It’s a boomerang, which War utilizes via a targeting system that’s an unmistakable descendent of “Zelda’s” near-proprietary Z-targeting system. Numerous puzzles utilizing the boomerang (and, among other “surprise” items, bombs that grow in plants) are cleverly designed in “Darksiders,” but “Zelda” pros almost instinctively will have some semblance of how to overcome them.

But while “Darksiders” isn’t short on influences, it also isn’t short on surprises. And while its dungeons are evocative of “Zelda” in numerous spots, they regularly surpass “Zelda’s” offerings in terms of scope. The satisfaction of toppling them comes compounded by the fact that, wholly unlike “Zelda,” the enemies lurking inside are formidable and occasionally brutal.

This is where the “God of War” influence rolls in. If you’ve thrown down as Kratos, a considerable chunk of “Darksiders’” combat — from the camera perspective to the controls to War’s finishing maneuvers to the orbs enemies spew upon perishing — should instantly resonate. “Darksiders” takes some welcome liberties by placing additional emphasis on evasion and counterattacks, and some will certainly appreciate that War’s finishing moves require only a single button press instead of a series of monotonous prompts. The weapons, move sets and terminology also are original, even if their influences are laid pretty bare.

Sincere forms of flattery aside, the sum total gels well… mostly. “Darksiders” occasionally stumbles when influences clash — relying on a targeting system designed for a much easier game can lead to fatal camera problems in tight areas packed with enemies, for instance — and there are occasional encounters that propel the difficulty to an arguably cheap degree.

For some, the biggest problem “Darksiders” will pose is its inability to change difficulty settings midstream. Players of so-so ability may want to swallow some pride and play on Easy, lest they continually succumb to one of these spikes and have no recourse but to start the game over.

—–

Chime
For: Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade
From: Zoë Mode/Valcon Games
ESRB Rating: Everyone
Price: $5

Even if you don’t like “Chime,” you can feel good about giving it your five dollars, because developer Zoë Mode is donating more than three of those dollars to the OneBigGame initiative, which distributes those donations to the Save the Children Fund and the Starlight Children’s Foundation. Fortunately, players who love puzzle giants “Tetris” and “Lumines” most likely also will love “Chime,” which takes portions of both games, mixes in some Tangrams, and emerges with something serenely unique. The object in “Chime” is to arrange shapes (some straight out of “Tetris,” others inspired by it) into quadrants with the eventual hope of filling every block on the playing grid before time runs out. As in “Lumines,” a virtual beat line slides horizontally across the screen, and portions of the song play in concert with how many squares you clear in any given measure. “Chime’s” excellent five-song soundtrack, along with the fact that players arrange shapes at their pace instead of catch them as they fall from the top of the screen, makes for a experience that’s considerably more tranquil than those from which it draws inspiration. But while “Chime” offers enough mode flexibility to engage just about anyone, those looking to tackle all five levels with 100 percent completion will be shocked to find out just how entertainingly tall an order that turns out to be.

Posted in Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Xbox Live Arcade

Army of Two: The 40th Day
Reviewed for: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
Alternate version available for: PSP
From: EA Montreal
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood, intense violence, strong language)

The things that polarized players of 2008’s “Army of Two” return either mostly or completely intact in “Army of Two: The 40th Day,” and depending on what side you’re on, that’s either somewhat unfortunate or the best news this review could provide.

That’s because, feelings about the things “AO2″ did aside, it was those things that made it a wholly unique third-person shooter in an era crawling with them. “Day” is designed to be played with a friend (or, failing that, a surprisingly capable A.I.-controlled partner), and while its attempts to stress the value of teamwork come off as pretty contrived, they’re also pretty effective if you’re willing to play along and take advantage.

For its part, “Day” at least learns from some of its predecessor’s missteps. It still places a premium on one player drawing fire while the other moves around and flanks the enemy, and it still communicates this technique with the occasional enemy who only takes damage from behind and an entirely manufactured “Aggro” meter that shows which character has the enemy’s attention and which is free to advance and find cover.

But while the first game compounded these techniques with levels so obviously designed to take advantage of them in terribly obvious ways, “Day” offers larger, more open-ended environments that afford players considerably more strategic freedom. The set pieces are pretty cool to experience just on a visual level — war-torn Shanghai falls spectacularly apart while the action pushes forward, and some buildings become so torn that indoor and outdoor levels blend together — and the ability to tackle them numerous ways is never a bad thing.

With that said, the increased scope regularly finds “Day” elongating fights, trotting out soldiers as if from a clown car to engage in battles that sometimes drag out longer than seems reasonable. That, along with a puzzling save system that often places checkpoints right before (not after) unskippable cut scenes players potentially will have to watch multiple times, represent the game’s most unfortunate slips.

One also could argue that “Day,” broken down, is just one similar firefight after another for five or six hours. But while that’s somewhat true, “Day’s” gunplay and control fundamentals are so sound that the moment-to-moment action is too fun to grow stale during any reasonable sitting. That’s especially true for those who take advantage of the staggeringly deep weapon customization system, which allows players to customize and outfit their arsenal (and, with armyoftwo.com’s help, their outfits) in the same manner a racing sim lets them customize cars.

As it did with “Two,” “Day’s” teamwork methodology trickles down to multiplayer. The campaign, as mentioned, is playable via local or online co-op. And while the competitive multiplayer modes — deathmatch, territory and objective-based — are the usual standards, the unique team distribution (up to five teams of two players each) and special techniques that arrangement entails give “Day” more legs than if it was just another third-person shooter doing the same old thing.

—–

Alien Breed Evolution: Episode 1
For: Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade
From: Team17 Software
ESRB Rating: Teen (blood and gore, violence)

Connoisseurs of 20-year-old computer games might remember the Amiga game “Alien Breed,” a fairly traditional overhead shooter in which players defended the corridors of a spaceship from waves of aliens bent on hijacking the ship and taking humanity down with it.

Two decades and numerous technological advancements on, the premise remains unchanged in “Alien Breed Evolution: Episode 1.” A new ship is under attack by a horde of bug-like aliens, little human life remains aboard, and the object — fight off the aliens, escape with your life — hasn’t changed.

Because this is a $10 downloadable game and not a big-budget reboot, “Evolution” is, indeed, little more than an evolution. Polygons constitute the graphics instead of pixels, but the action still takes place from an overhead perspective, and it rarely gets more complicated than “shoot aliens, go to checkpoint, trigger switch, repeat.”

Taken for what it is and within the constraints of its old-fashioned sensibilities — and it’s important to emphasize that these old methods most definitely aren’t for everyone anymore — “Evolution” gets far more right than it does wrong. Like “Shadow Complex” and “Bionic Commando: Rearmed” before it, the game deftly mixes 3D graphics and 2D perspectives, resulting in animation and visual effects that weren’t even imaginable during the Amiga’s prime.

The general gameplay benefits in kind. Doubling back to avoid encroaching aliens, for instance, is easy because the animation and controls are so fluid. And while this isn’t a dual-stick shooter in the same vein as “Geometry Wars” and its ilk, “Evolution” uses both joysticks to great effect, making it easy to strafe and shoot when aliens attack from multiple directions. As contemporary solutions to old gameplay problems go, “Evolution” gets the important stuff right.

With that said, there’s a reason these games don’t appear as often as they once did. “Evolution’s” moment-to-moment gameplay is fun, but it sticks to a formula, and little happens in the last chapter that doesn’t also happen in the first. A secondary Assault mode, which supports co-op play (two players, local or online) and ditches the exploration in favor of punishing players with ridiculous waves of aliens, is a nice bonus. But that mode is as straightforward as it sounds, and no part of “Evolution” dares to be different than the many overhead shooters that preceded it.

Consequently, it’s a bit puzzling that “Evolution” is coming at us in three episodic installments. The first episode’s gameplay and production values make it an excellent value in its own right, but its storytelling — to say nothing of the iffy end-episode cliffhanger — leaves a lot to be desired. Whatever lies in store for the second episode, it’ll need to provide more than a continuation of a story that, so far, isn’t terribly engaging. Paying $10 after 20 years for an updated take on “Breed” is an entirely recommendable act, but dropping another $10 a few months later won’t be if episode two is nothing but more of the exact same thing.

—–

Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter
Reviewed for: Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade
Also available for: Windows PC
From: Croteam/Majesco
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, violence)
Price: $15

Here’s the easy part: “Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter” is a perfectly proficient high-definition repackaging of the PC first-person shooter of the near-same name. It looks sharp (albeit unmistakably aged), moves at a recklessly high speed, and includes four-player co-op support (online only) for maximum fun and insanity. The harder part is whether, in 2010, you want to play a 2001 shooter that itself is a callback to (or arguable parody of) shooters from 1996. All the hallmarks of old shooters — brain-dead AI, tissue-thin storytelling, enemies that spawn behind you from nowhere and create occasion for very cheap deaths — are here, and the perks one from a 21st century shooter are completely nonexistent. That isn’t an altogether bad thing: “Encounter” comes alive as a brutally tough test of twitch reflexes more than just another series of engagements against the same old enemy, and its weird sense of humor and wonderfully bizarre enemy design are a callback to the days when arcade games stopped at nothing to break players first and entertain them second. Given how quickly contemporary games drop to $20, “Encounter’s” $15 tag is $5 too high, but for the crowd that loves this game as much now as it did then, a return on investment is assured regardless.

Posted in Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Xbox Live Arcade

Bayonetta
Reviewed for: Xbox 360
Also available for: Playstation 3
From: Platinum Games/Sega
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, intense violence, partial nudity, strong language, suggestive themes)

The net worth of “Bayonetta’s” idiosyncrasies is game for debate until time ceases ticking. Some will marvel at the insane narrative theatrics and some will find the overt sexuality of the vixenish titular main character either genuinely titillating or so overt as to be farcical. Others will be repulsed or embarrassed by what they view as a sophomoric display of adolescent fantasy come bursting alive, while still others will find themselves unable to tolerate how little sense the story makes or how incomprehensibly noisy the whole production generally is. (If you’re on the fence, both systems offer a downloadable demo that should clear up any confusion.)

But “Bayonetta” is what it wants to be and probably wouldn’t dream of being something for everyone. And while what it is makes it impossible to blindly recommend or pan, how it goes about being what it is is almost inarguably impressive.

Themes and imagery aside, “Bayonetta” plays in the “Devil May Cry” and “God of War” school of action games, and it matches those games in terms of combat arsenal, control responsiveness and general visual and technical polish. Button mashers can wreak havoc on the easier difficulty settings, while a huge list of special attacks allows more skilled players to deal damage with a surprising degree of strategy for such a frantic game.

Most impressive about the combat is the emphasis placed on fighting defensively. Dodging enemy attacks the instant before they connect — and every enemy has tells — temporarily sends all but the player into slow-motion, allowing Bayonetta to unleash unspeakable damage before the enemy even knows what happened. Bull-rushing the enemy on normal or higher difficulty is a recipe for trouble —  like the best of these kind of games, every fight in “Bayonetta” has the potential to cost dearly — but using these defensive techniques is so much fun that no extra motivation is necessary to learn them.

Structurally, everything else falls in line. The polish and fearless design translates into labyrinthine levels and massive, multi-part boss fights that give “War” a run for its money, but “Bayonetta” complements these ruthless fights with a generous checkpoint system that lets players of all disciplines fight dangerously. Old-school pattern memorization comes in handy when taking on tougher enemies, but the controls are so fluid that it’s easy and entirely fun to wing it and take Bayonetta’s combat arsenal for a ride. All that zaniness will rub people different ways, but it does translate into a healthy variety of environments that keeps things interesting over the course of a satisfactorily lengthy single-player trip.

A review of “Bayonetta” would be incomplete without mentioning that Platinum Games, which developed the Xbox 360 version in its entirety, passed off some of the Playstation 3 version’s development load onto Sega’s internal studio. A review copy of the PS3 edition wasn’t available for evaluation, but while the games remain identical in terms of content, reports of performance issues in the PS3 version — in particular, some ugly slowdown and longer load times in spots — are commonplace enough to recommend picking up the 360 version if it’s an option.

—–

Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces
For: Wii
From: Project Aces/XSEED
ESRB Rating: Teen (mild language, violence)

Those unfamiliar with Project Aces or the origins of its latest dogfighting game won’t know it just to look at it, but “Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces” comes courtesy of the same development shop behind the deservedly-beloved “Ace Combat” games. So while the $30 price tag and slightly out-of-left field release might make “Aces” look like just another budget flight sim on a console that’s already full of them, its pedigree suggests something else entirely.

Happily, pedigree beats perception, in large part because “Aces” soars and stumbles in much the same way the “Combat” games do.

The stumbling happens, albeit innocuously, when “Aces” tries to tell its story. Fans of the “Sky Crawler” novels (and eventual animated film) have more than enough guidance in the game to know exactly what’s going on, but those who come in cold won’t get as much from the narration as they might want. Like “Combat,” “Aces” sets the table with some nice cutscenes and some compelling mythology, but also like “Combat,” it leaves much of the storytelling to between-mission briefings that look and sound great but can do only so much in terms of character and environmental development.

Fortunately, a bare-bones understanding of the situation is enough to enjoy the game, and those bare bones (world at peace, greedy corporations disrupt peace, war erupts) aren’t terribly difficult to grasp.

Where “Aces” gets it right, as Project Aces always does, is in the air. Neither the air combat nor the art of banking and diving is mindlessly simple, but “Aces” places a premium on action over simulation and backs it up with fast, intense dogfights that are accessible to anyone in spite of the challenges they present.

Additionally, “Aces” lets players play their way within the confines of its tempo. Control schemes range from traditional (Gamecube/Classic controllers included) to a motion scheme (nunchuck emulates the yoke, Wii remote emulates the throttle) that works pretty well with practice. Per developer tradition, “Aces” also allows players to view the action from inside the cockpit or behind their plane. The former adds an extra layer of immersion and challenge while the latter allows less experienced players to play without handicapping the action.

“Aces’” more substantial misgivings arguably are more the fault of the system its on than the game itself. It looks great but obviously cannot touch what “Ace Combat 6″ did visually on the Xbox 360. That game’s online multiplayer functionality also doesn’t cross over — no surprise, given that the odds of an online community forming around a niche flight simulator on the Wii is basically nil.

But “Aces” also costs a full half of what “AC6″ cost when it first released, which more than compensates for some unavoidable graphical downgrades and the loss of a mode most people likely would ignore anyway. XSEED has done an admirable job of importing great Japanese Wii games, localizing them and selling them for a song, and if the Wii’s first notable game of 2010 is any indication, there’s more to come in that department.

—–

Polar Panic
For: Xbox 360 Live Arcade and Playstation 3 via Playstation Network
From: Eiconic Games/Valcon Games
ESRB Rating: Everyone (mild cartoon violence, tobacco reference)

Most puzzle games aren’t actually puzzles so much as color-matching reflex tests, but the charming “Polar Panic,” which stars players as a polar bear who has to get his paws dirty to keep trappers off his back, embodies the genre’s name quite nicely. “Panic” takes place in a series of top-down, maze-like levels, and the general objective is to eliminate the trappers by pushing ice blocks off maze walls and, eventually, straight into them. There’s an element of action to the challenge — the trappers don’t stand still — but pushing the ice blocks off the right sequence of walls in order to line up a direct shot at each trapper (or better yet, multiple trappers at once) requires a good degree of on-your-feet thinking once the game takes the kid gloves off and starts delivering harder levels. “Panic’s” 50-level Story mode is its arguable centerpiece, but the 50-level Puzzle mode (which ditches the trappers and tasks players simply with escaping the maze in as few moves as possible) and Survival mode (take out as many trappers as possible, ad infinitum) do wonders for giving a simple concept a ton of legs for the price.

Posted in Nintendo Wii, Playstation 3, Playstation Network, Xbox 360, Xbox Live Arcade

Borderlands
Reviewed for: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
Also available for: Windows PC
From: Gearbox Software/2K Games
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, intense violence, mature humor, strong language)

If “Fallout 3″ represented the courtship phase in the inevitable marriage of role-playing games and first-person shooters, then “Borderlands” marks the co-habitation period. There are some messy revelations that weren’t apparent before and will need addressing in the future, but for right now, the net effect is pretty nice.

The changing tide is apparent almost immediately: Following a brief storyline introduction that doubles as a tutorial, “Borderlands” drops you into a gameplay flow that’s more indicative of a massively multiplayer RPG than a first-person shooter. Different spots on the map post missions, and you’re free to simultaneously take on as many as are available. A few of them trigger storyline advancements, but most (even those central to the story) offer little more than some dialogue text inside the mission info screen.

“Borderlands” lets you experience the story alone, with up to three friends online or via LAN, with a friend via splitscreen, or any combination of the three at any point, and the storyline structure remains consistent regardless. The game isn’t lacking for personality: The frontier setting is home to some wonderfully seedy characters and a darkly funny sense of humor, and the cel-shaded graphical style looks terrific and lends a great sense of irony to all the dark inhumanity it paints in vivid color. But those searching for some engaging storytelling will find no such thing.

The real goal here — in true MMO or “Diablo” fashion — is to kill nearly everything that moves, rack up experience points and level up your character so he or she has access to the game’s ridiculous assortment of armaments and mods. “Borderlands” absolutely nails the leveling system: The character class upgrades are endlessly useful, the weaponry mods often wonderfully clever. And because weapon upgrades apply to entire classes of guns rather than specific weapons, you can apply them liberally without fear of wasting cash or having to stick with old weapons when better ones come along.

Better ones do come along, too — and often. In true “Diablo” fashion, “Borderlands” goes absolutely crazy with just about every first-person shooter weapon staple, mixing and matching fire modes and gifting rarer guns with powers that typically are the domain of superheroes. Precious few games can entice a player to ditch a rocket launcher in favor of a pistol that packs more punch, but “Borderlands” can and regularly does — until, of course, an even crazier rocket launcher comes along.

All of this and more lies in store … eventually. The sum total of “Borderlands’” main and side quests amount to a massively long adventure, and the first five or so hours of that experience have you fighting waves of scags (think giant rats) and dimwitted barbarians who lack any artificial intelligence whatsoever. It’s dull with friends, and it’s even worse alone. Just keep at it: The A.I. never reaches Mensa country, but it does improve exponentially, working in tandem with all those perks and weapons to make “Borderlands” a much more enthralling shooter than it first appears to be.

—–

Afrika
For: Playstation 3
From: Sony/Natsume
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+ (mild blood, mild violence)

There are two Africas in the video game world — the one, seen in “Far Cry 2,” in which every living being is a hostile target, and now this one, where the only thing you shoot is photographs.

If you can appreciate the unique skill set that comes with that activity — and, just as importantly, put up with a slow start and some presentational issues — this isn’t a bad place to be.

It’s best to start with what ills “Afrika,” because the game dishes it straight away. “Afrika’s” long development cycle is well-documented, and the game shares markings — a mandatory install procedure, an enormous save file that takes forever to access — indicative of games from the console’s early days. Even with the installation, though, “Afrika” succumbs to an enormously long load time every time it first boots up.

All signs point to inefficient coding: “Afrika” still looks great but no longer drops jaws like it did during its 2006 unveiling, and there’s nothing so flashy about the presentation (which lacks even voice acting) to justify these issues.

But these amount to the game’s most pressing problems. And once you begin the act of actually playing “Afrika,” they really don’t register.

Your virtual e-mail is your master in “Afrika,” and from it you’ll receive assignments to shoot animals from specific angles and during specific acts and poses. Completing each assignment consists of getting the shot your clients want, but your payout depends on how good the shot looks in terms of proximity and technique.

“Afrika’s” restrictive early going has you riding in the back of the Jeep rather than driving it yourself, and your guide dictates which areas you can shoot. It takes a few sessions before the game doles out more than one assignment at a time, which means you’ll ride out, complete one objective, ride back and repeat a few times.

This, presumably, is a good time to get to know “Afrika’s” control scheme, which is hampered only by the lack of an invert-Y option for those who want one.

The camera controls are straightforward — sticks control aim and zoom, R1 shoots — and responsive enough to handle quick bursts of shots. (In a nice touch, turning the controller sideways does the same for the camera lens, allowing you to shoot vertically.) Action outside the first-person viewfinder takes place in the third person: You can walk freely around the environment, and the D-pad allows for crouching and leaning as needed to sneak an ideal shot.

Once the game takes the kid gloves off and hands you the keys to the Jeep and the kingdom, the experience lives up to the promise. “Afrika’s” virtual world feels dynamic and alive thanks to the animals’ eerily authentic behavioral animations, and the lack of artistic restriction (especially once you upgrade your equipment) frees you to shoot at your leisure whether on assignment or not. “Afrika” lets you export your favorite shots as JPEG files from the main menu, so you can enjoy and share your virtual photograhic exploits just as you would your real ones.

—–

Forza Motorsport 3
For: Xbox 360
From: Turn 10/Microsoft
ESRB Rating: Everyone (mild lyrics)

The best thing one could hope for from “Forza Motorsport 3″ is that it makes its predecessor look like a dress rehearsal by comparison. Pixel-perfect racing sims don’t have the freedom to reinvent themselves at will the way arcade racers can, and a huge chunk of “FM3″ — the real-world cars (now more than 400 from 50 manufacturers), the real-world tracks (more than 100), and the things you can do with those cars on those tracks — offers about as much creative liberty to Turn 10 Studios as the game of football allows to any given iteration of “Madden.”

It doesn’t help matters that “Forza Motorsport 2,” released little more than two years ago, already was something of a stroke of brilliance in its own right.

With all that said, Turn 10 does a nice job — albeit a mostly risk-free one — of making “FM3″ both a roundly better experience for those who ran its predecessor ragged and a considerably friendlier one for the those intrigued by the game’s content but intimidated by its learning curve.

At its highest difficulty settings, “FM3″ is as much a beast as ever, and the new in-car view presents a whole new (and wholly rewarding) difficulty curve for “Forza” pros to climb.

But the other end of the difficulty pendulum is brimming with hand-holding enticements — an effective suite of turn lines and physics assists, but also a rewind button players can use as they please to literally rewind part of a race and correct a mistake on the fly and without limit nor consequence. The rewind button feels like a dirt-under-the-carpet solution to “Forza’s” imposing difficulty to newcomers, but those who want nothing to do with it can disable it and pretend it never existed. “FM3,” for its part, rewards players who race at higher difficulty settings with more experience points and monetary compensation whenever they complete a race in the season mode.

Speaking of, “FM3″ undergoes a welcome single-player makeover by designing your seasonal race schedule around your vehicle preferences rather than obligating you to compete in races that force you to stock your garage with cars you may not want. The game’s personalization options are as vast as they were in “FM2,” which became more famous for its design tools than its on-track component, and it’s nice to be able to stick with a favorite car and continue tweaking and tuning it for the entirety of the mode’s lifespan. (For the amateurs, good news: “FM3″ has a Quick Upgrade option if you want some say in your car’s performance but don’t wish to delve too deep into the particulars.)

“FM2’s” suite of online features — traditional races, non-traditional races, and especially the ability to “sell” designs for in-game cash — was its crown jewel, and “FM3″ doesn’t mess with perfection. Designers now have a sales leaderboard of their own, which is a simple but ingenious nod to that movement, and a pretty extensive rules editor allows players to rather explicitly design races around criteria of their choosing.

—–

Axel & Pixel
For: Xbox 360 Live Arcade
From: Silver Wish/2K Play
ESRB Rating: Everyone (comic mischief, crude humor)
Price: $10

We’re waist-deep in a 2D gaming renaissance that has seen character animation reach Disneyesque levels, so it’s an ironic kind of pleasant to experience “Axel & Pixel,” which magnificently bucks that trend by acting as if the 1970s never ended. “Pixel” operates primarily as a point-and-click adventure game, and it follows the rules of the genre — explore the scene and figure out what objects and cause-and-effect relationships will get Axel and his trusty dog Pixel to the next area — pretty faithfully. The control scheme and cursor design feel tuned to accommodate a gamepad, making the lack of a mouse a non-issue, and occasionally “Pixel” interrupts the storyline with a more action-heavy mini-game that uses the controller to full effect. (Three of the mini-games are playable as standalone modes with additional levels and leaderboards, and one of them — a physics-heavy dune buggy platformer — arguably is the best part of the entire package.) The sum of these parts would be nice in any clothing, but “Pixel” knocks it out of the charm park by taking two very likable leads and dressing their world in a visual and animation style that feels like a product of the same pen Terry Gilliam used for all those wonderful “Monty Python” animations. It’s weird, but it works, and it elevates “Pixel” from just another fun point-and-click adventure to a class all its own.

Posted in Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Xbox Live Arcade

Wii Fit Plus
For: Nintendo Wii
From: Nintendo
ESRB Rating: Everyone (mild cartoon violence)

Nintendo lags behind convention when it comes to online content delivery, which is why “Wii Fit Plus” exists as a standalone disc only instead of a downloadable content pack for existing owners of the original “Fit.”

This doesn’t mean a whole lot of anything to those getting into “Fit” for the first time. “Plus” essentially replaces “Fit” on the marketplace: If you buy the $100 Wii Balance Board, this is what’s bundled inside now. Everything that was in “Fit” is in “Plus,” which is a standalone game despite some confusing language on the box that suggests you need both discs.

For those who already have “Fit,” the transition to “Plus” is about as smooth as it should be, particularly because “Plus” reads and converts your save data from “Fit” and doesn’t make you start all over with new data. In another nice touch, the game also specially recognizes returning players by quickly pointing out the new features and otherwise letting them get on with their workout.

The additions to the base program aren’t quite as extraordinary as one would hope from an additional 16-plus months of development time on Nintendo’s part, but they do fall roughly in line with what one might expect the asking price ($20 for game without the board) to deliver.

Most essentially, “Plus” adds the capacity to create custom exercise routines rather than simply play one exercise at a time and continually bounce between menus while doing so. It’s a pretty elegant system, too: The game’s preset routines are organized by goals and needs rather than exercise types, and you can combine these routines to build your own without much work. The freeform routine creator is similarly easy to use, though it’s not without limitations: You only can add strength and yoga exercises to this routine, and you can’t save and switch between multiple routines. A favorites list, which provides single-menu access to your favorite (and, cleverly, least favorite) routines, makes a very welcome debut in this area as well.

The other interface enhancements run the gamut. A pass-the-Balance Board multiplayer mode (only one controller and one board necessary) adds a fun competitive element to the aerobic and balance mini-games. The calorie counter is a no-brainer: There’s no way “Plus” can precisely gauge your caloric loss given the technology on hand, but a slightly imprecise measure of progress is a metric all the same. A feature that allows you to register and weigh babies and pets is a bit out of left field, but it works, and therefore has value to those who might wish or need to keep tabs on such things.

Predictably, “Plus” tops off the package with some exercises — only a few new strength and yoga exercises, but 15 new mini-games that include a Segway race, rhythmic Kung Fu, a snowball fight and a game that has you flying like a chicken. “Fit’s” sense of humor was an essential ingredient of its accessibility, and “Plus” does a great job of carrying the torch in that regard.

—–

MySims Agents
Reviewed for: Nintendo Wii
Other version available for: Nintendo DS
From: EA
ESRB Rating: Everyone (comic mischief)

Here’s a question: Whatever happened to the great educational computer games of yesteryear — “The Oregon Trail,” “Odell Lake,” but especially the sparkling likes of the Carmen Sandiego series? When did kids’ gaming become nothing more than fetch quest-a-thons licensed by animated movies of similarly uninspired ambition?

“MySims Agents,” the latest surprisingly good entrant in what has become a startling case of brand milking done completely right, doesn’t necessarily have the answer. But whether EA intended it as such or not, it is an overdue nod in that genre’s direction — a game that very explicitly encourages younger players and their siblings or parents to put their heads together and have some actual fun doing so.

Though “Agents” looks, controls and generally operates like most of the previous “MySims” games — you still design a Sims avatar and move him or her directly in a 3D game environment — the real crux of the game lies in solving cases as a local detective (and, eventually, a debonair special agent).

The system for doing so is, depending on your perspective, either elegant or simplistic.

A good (and, somewhat surprisingly, sharply funny) story glues the whole thing together, but the general gist is elementary: Your boss or clients give you a case and a few starting clues, and you need to interview people around town and use your detective tools (at first a rudimentary magnifying glass and crowbar, but eventually some gadgetry that would make 007 proud). There’s some light platforming action, and some of the gadgets give way to brief (and generally fun) mini-games, but the bulk of the game’s demands are cerebral in nature.

Perhaps knowing this and perhaps acting preemptively to keep players from getting stuck or excessively frustrated, EA compensated a little too much in the hint-giving department, and it’s possible to have your detective’s virtual notepad do too much of the thinking for you if you choose to lean on it. “Agents” tries to find a balance between posing a challenge and keeping players moving along, and there are times when it swings both ways — practically handing out the answers in some places, occasionally (but rarely) making it difficult to figure out where to even go in others when you’re between cases.

With all that said, though, the total package still emerges as a pleasantly surprising one-of-a-kind console game. “Agents” is a family game that really feels designed to be played by a family (younger players in the driver’s seat, parents/siblings at the ready to assist) instead of any old group of people. The base ingredients are implemented with polish, and the story keeps them interesting by mixing in new locales, gadgets and even the ability to recruit and mangage additional A.I.-controlled agents.

Per usual, “Agents” also offers more in the way of visual customization — in this case, decorative control over a five-story detective agency — than a game not brandished with the “MySims” tag would provide. The process is mostly ornamental in nature, but a game never hurt itself by giving players the freedom to personalize it.

—–

The Warriors: Street Brawl
For: Xbox 360 Live Arcade
From: Paramount Digital Entertainment
ESRB Rating: Teen (animated blood, mild language, violence)

If being both isn’t an option, then it’s probably, as “The Warriors: Street Brawl” demonstrates, better to be fun than good. “Brawl” emulates the mindless fun of sidescrolling brawlers from the 1990s, using 3D graphics and animation but playing out on a mostly 2D plane. It also incorporates a number of warts (sloppy collision detection, wild inconsistency with regard to environmental destruction) that probably should have been completely overcome since those days. More distressing is how easy it is for players (and, on harder levels, the enemies) to completely rig the fighting system: Blocking works as a cure-all defense against everything up to and including weapon beatdowns, and the AI is dictated by rigid attack patterns rather than actual intelligence. Some unfortunate boss fights merely amplify these blotches to various degrees. But guess what? The game’s fun anyway. For everything it gets wrong, there’s a crucial ingredient (satisfactory attack arsenal, nice sense of oomph to the fighting, good use of the movie that inspired it, lots of content to explore) it gets right. That’s especially true with friends on board: Any brawler worth its salt needs co-op support, and “Brawl” (four players online or offline, as well as a two-player versus mode) easily delivers in that respect.

Posted in Nintendo Wii, Xbox Live Arcade

Need for Speed: Shift
Reviewed for: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
Also available for: Sony PSP, Windows PC
From: Slightly Mad Studios/EA
ESRB Rating: Everyone (mild violence)

EA’s annual “Need for Speed” releases have sputtered since roughly 2006 — so much so that a reasoned, prudent publisher would bench the franchise for a year, retool, and start fresh in 2010.

EA, on the other hand, decided instead to not only double the dose — an entirely different “NFS” game arrives on the Wii in November — but also, with “Need for Speed: Shift,” take a second crack at the legitimized track racing approach that made 2007’s “Need for Speed: ProStreet” the franchise’s all-time low point.

Good for them, too. “Shift” sidesteps all the pitfalls that dragged “ProStreet” down, but it also rather masterfully nourishes the famished middle between the glut of arcade racers and super-simulative likes of “Forza” and “Gran Turismo.”

That’s largely because “Shift,” despite trading in fictional street races for real-world tracks, never actually abandons the fundamental thrills that made past games so exciting. The surface ingredients of a serious driving sim are there, and winning races is a demanding endeavor when the artificial driver intelligence is maxed out and the brake lines and various driving assists are deactivated. But Slightly Mad Studios has developed an all-encompassing difficulty curve that’s as inviting to those who fear “Forza” as it is to those who’ve mastered it, and at no point — on any setting — is the sensation of the ride anything less than the first priority.

It’s here where “Shift” absolutely sparkles despite doing nothing more than small things. The camera shakes violently at high speeds, loses color during paint trades, and crumples into a mess of blurred, offset images when you nail the guardrail. “Shift” consistently impresses in motion, but it takes things to a separate plane of excitement during a race’s most exciting moments. That, along with all that accessibility, makes it a racing sim anyone can play and love.

In terms of features, “Shift” feels like a prototypical “NFS” game, albeit without the open-world approach most recent entries took. The career mode is dense with races of different configurations, time trials and the always-fun drift competitions. There’s a nice array of exotic licensed vehicles you’ll never drive in real life, and the degree of visual and performance enhancements is plenty sufficient for most players. “Shift” doesn’t offer nearly as many options or gameplay hours as the super sims, but not everyone will see that as bad news.

Where “Shift” surprises a bit is in its meta content. An in-race points system, which awards gutsy and skilled driving, looks like a knock-off of “Project Gotham Racing’s” kudos system until you realize it’s attached to a 50-tier leveling system that dishes rewards each time you level up. A mountain of winnable badges gives “Shift” an additional layer of achievements to strive for, and players with healthy friend lists will appreciate a subtle interface tweak that shows whether you or a friend has the best time on any given track. (Naturally, “Shift” also includes traditional multiplayer for up to eight players. Split-screen, unfortunately, gets shafted again.)

—–

IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey
Reviewed for: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
Also available for: Sony PSP, Nintendo DS
From: 1C Company/505 Games
ESRB Rating: Teen (mild language, violence)

A game’s ability to carry a player through its main menu and opening cut scene isn’t necessarily a harbinger for its ability to entertain the player from there. That’s good news for “IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey,” a versatile World War II dogfighter which enjoys the odd distinction of being a game that has more trouble when the action is paused than when it reaches a crescendo.

The problems are fleeting, insignificant but, at least initially, also a little unsettling. The background music stutters like a skipping CD when the game loads its opening cinema. The video, which packages real World War II footage to introduce the game’s campaign, looks nice but also stutters and even freezes before kicking back into gear. Some more stuttering, a so-so menu interface and a long load screen later, we’re into the tutorial mission.

Fortunately, and appropriately, this is where “Prey” starts to deliver. Not only do the weird glitches fade away once the action takes to the skies, but that action looks great, moves authentically and proves surprisingly capable at presenting the same storyline and missions to gamers of dramatically different disciplines.

The flexibility starts and ends with the game’s three control schemes, and the names pretty much tell the story. “Prey’s” arcade scheme enables multiple aiming and airspeed assists and disables most spot damage, making it easier to just dive into battle with reckless abandon. The simulation scheme, on the other extreme, strips out all assists and reduces visibility to only what a real pilot would see. The realistic scheme, meanwhile, makes concessions in both directions for a flexible but challenging middle ground.

What “Prey” doesn’t change throughout these settings is the pace of the action. Even on the arcade setting, it’s truer to the speed of a serious flight simulator than the arcadey likes of an “Ace Combat” or “HAWX.” Players who have trouble getting into the genre won’t find “Prey,” even on its friendliest setting, to be the game that changes their mind. But console gamers aching for the kind of flight sim typically reserved for PC gamers should embrace this without hesitation, while those on the fence at least can get their feet wet under the game’s more accessible settings.

“Prey’s” single-player component is decent enough in terms of length, though it also suffers from the same glut of mission repetition that hampers most every other dogfighter. There are only so many objectives one can complete from the cockpit of a WWII fighter, and most involve shooting down similar squadrons of enemy planes. Such is how it is. At least the game drops you into different aircraft during different chapters of the campaign, which does make a difference.

On the multiplayer side (16 players, online only), the mode offerings — deathmatch, team deathmatch, two forms of territorial battles — are standard but sufficient. The greatest concern here, as always with this genre, is whether “Prey” can accumulate a community large enough to provide round-the-clock competition. Time will tell.

—–

Defense Grid: The Awakening
For: Xbox 360 Live Arcade
From: Hidden Path Entertainment
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+ (fantasy violence, mild language)
Price: $10

The world needs another tower defense game like a turkey needs Thanksgiving, and “Defense Grid: The Awakening” does itself no favors with that vanilla title and reasonably pedestrian art direction. But “Awakening” isn’t just another also-ran: It circled the block last year as a stellar $20 PC game, and the only thing it loses in its migration to Xbox Live is half its original price. “Awakening” doesn’t bend rules or do any fundamental things other tower defense games don’t also do. Rather, the not-quite secret to its success lies simply in how carefully and skillfully it does it. There’s a balance in the tech the game provides versus the enemies it throws at you, and there’s a similar balance in the rhythm of the checkpoint-laden missions, which consistently lift the action to a satisfying zenith without tossing story overboard and carelessly dumping enemies on your head. That story isn’t anything special in its own right, but it’s serviceable, and the charming sentient computer that aids your defense planning provides the game with personality almost immediately. Like most tower defense games, “Awakening” is a solo-only affair. But for all $10 gets you — a surprisingly lengthy story mode and more than 100 challenge levels on the side — the game’s value isn’t even questionable.

Posted in Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Xbox Live Arcade

Spectrobes Origins
For: Nintendo Wii
From: Genki/Disney Interactive
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+ (fantasy violence)

The debut of “Spectrobes” on the Nintendo DS was an auspicious anomaly — a game intricate enough to merit its 80-page manual, yet one so recognizant of those intricacies that the whole experience was startlingly accessible. Its mix of depth and user-friendliness was so pleasantly enjoyable, in fact, that it was able to draw inspiration from Nintendo’s “Pokémon” games while simultaneously engaging players who typically would want nothing to do with them.

“Spectrobes Origins,” by contrast, ships with a nine-page manual, but that merely is a testament to its ability to adapt itself to the platform rather than any sign that it’s dumbed itself down. “Origins” thoughtfully transfers the DS game’s chief ingredients to the Wii, employing smart but modest motion controls and using the increased screen real estate to integrate the instruction manual into the game’s opening hours.

It can be overwhelming at first, because even without taking the storyline and “Spectrobes” lore into consideration, “Origins” has much ground to cover. The game will fill in the narrative blanks, but the objective is (as with “Pokémon”) to discover, raise and eventually employ Spectrobe creatures in battles against an invading army of enemy Krawl creatures.

The chief difference is that in “Origins,” those battles take place in real time instead of through turn-based play. The Wii remote’s buttons handle your human character’s combat, while a series of adequate motion controls allow you to order your Spectrobe to fight, retreat and target one particular enemy while you work on another. Party management comes down to little more than switching out Spectrobes and keeping yourself healthy, but the no-frills approach nicely complements the battles’ fast speed and brief nature.

Especially fun is “Origins’” capacity for drop-in/drop-out local co-op, which allows a second player to control the Spectrobe directly. The game’s camera occasionally struggles to frame both players when the fight spreads out, but the small quirk does little to diminish the fun of taking the game on with another person in tow.

Where “Origins” gets a little bolder — and where it nails the motion controls — is in its intricate system for intervening at every stage of a Spectrobe’s evolution, from fossil excavation to incubation to training to using them in battle (or, the case of child Spectrobes, search expeditions.)

For the most part, “Origins” handles these tasks through interfaces similar to what we’ve all seen in some form before.

But the game’s fossil excavation mode, in which you use tools to break apart a fossil that’s encasing a living Spectrobe organism, is, as it was on the DS, more fun than it has any right to be. The Wii remote perfectly mimics the tools at your disposal (a hammer, a drill and a laser, to name a few) and the liberating nature of the task — excavate the organism quickly and safely, but do it however you please — does wonders not only for immersion, but for instantly creating a meaningful relationship between players and the creatures they rescue.

—–

Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box
For: Nintendo DS
From: Level-5/Nintendo
ESRB Rating: Everyone (alcohol reference, mild violence)

The most surprising thing about “Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box” might be the fact that it’s here and ready for public consumption. Nintendo of America has been uncommonly quiet about the game, stealthily unveiling its existence a few months ago and keeping similarly quiet in the run-up to its arrival on shelves.

The hushed tones somewhat make sense, because really, what is there to say? For those who played “Professor Layton and the Curious Village” last year, “Box” is explicitly more of the same — a new storyline, three digits’ worth of new brainteasers to solve, but otherwise a nearly-identical game in terms of graphics, music, presentation, interface and philosophy.

For those less familiar, “Box” is, in a nutshell, a collection of genuinely smart riddles — the stuff of which brainteaser books and bar tricks are made — packaged inside a charming story that benefits from a level of care (hand-drawn animated cut-scenes, terrific voice acting, a compelling storyline) typically reserved for action and role-playing games. “Box” presents itself somewhat as a point-and-click adventure game, only with self-contained brainteasers as the barriers one must overcome to complete the story.

As with “Village,” the riddles in “Box” are startlingly diverse both in the way you maneuver through them and in how they tax your brain. The game’s optional hint system, along with its allowance for players to pick different paths through the game, permit the riddles to approach a satisfying, rewarding level of challenge without creating a situation where a single, overwhelmingly difficult puzzle could completely impede one’s progress. The complete absence of time limits also removes any need to resort to guesswork, which in turn lets players approach the game’s puzzles as methodically as they would if those puzzles were in a rainy day book instead of a video game.

Totaled up, “Box’s” mix of challenge and concession is an extremely impressive demonstration of how to make a game that not only perfectly understands its intended audience, but remains completely accessible to all without intellectually neutering the riddles that make it so unique in the first place.

“Village” understood this philosophy so distinctively well the first time around that it’d almost be a shame if “Box” tried to be anything more than a retread with new content. A new story, and the 150 or so new puzzles it brings with it, are more than enough to command the $30 asking price even (perhaps especially) for those who wrung the first game completely dry. (As it did the first time around, Nintendo and Level-5 will sweeten the deal by regularly releasing additional puzzles for free download over Nintendo’s Wi-Fi Connection.)

—–

Shadow Complex
For: Xbox 360 Live Arcade
From: Chair Entertainment/Epic
ESRB Rating: Teen (violence, mild language)
Price: $15

Someone, eventually, was bound to create a two-dimensional “Super Metroid” facsimile using modern technology, but that someone was supposed to be Nintendo. Instead, Chair Entertainment takes the initiative, crafting a tactical espionage game that stars you as an everyman, mostly uses plausible real-world guns and environments but still, for all intents and purposes, plays like a classic “Metroid” game. It works, and rather beautifully, because Chair — which openly and refreshingly copped to “Metroid’s” influence — did its homework. “Shadow Complex,” like “Metroid,” consists of a single open-world environment, and accessing certain areas requires you to first find powerups and weapons that pave the way. (Surprise!) The concept isn’t fresh, nor is the storyline. But “Complex’s” level design is no slouch by “Metroid’s” lofty standards, and those modern amenities — essentially high-definition 3D graphics and animated presented from a 2D perspective — make it the most polished of its kind as well. Best of all, Chair has designed “Complex” in such a way that — again, like “Metroid” — there are tangible incentives for playing through it multiple times. If the asking price seemed high at the outset, it feels like a bargain after your third or fourth trip through.

Posted in Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, Xbox Live Arcade

Little King’s Story
For: Nintendo Wii
From: Marvelous Entertainment/XSEED
ESRB Rating: Teen (crude humor, mild cartoon violence, suggestive themes, use of alcohol)

There’s nothing particularly little about “Little King’s Story,” which takes the gameplay sensibilities of Nintendo’s “Pikmin” and mashes it into a kingdom-management game that’s as ambitious and guilefully challenging as it is charming and surprisingly accessible.

As “Pikmin” did, “Story” stars you as the central figurehead — the titular king, in this case — and lets you instruct your underlings to do your bidding and heavy lifting. In “Story’s” case, those underlings come from your kingdom and train to become soldiers, carpenters, cooks and more. You can train your citizens (the population of which grows as you expand your kingdom) to embody different job classes, and you then can instruct different configurations of workers (up to six at first, and eventually up to 30) to follow you as you complete tasks each class is best suited to handle.

As you might have already gleaned, “Story” essentially is one giant cause-and-effect puzzle: You’ll need to establish job classes to do what is necessary to grow the kingdom, which in turn creates new challenges, which in turn creates new jobs that grow the kingdom yet more. “Story” doesn’t offer enough kingdom-building freedom to classify itself as a true simulation, but it nonetheless is fun to give orders and witness growth from the throne in between expeditions that drop you into the thick of the process.

Part of that reward comes from just how sweeping — and, after a few simple combat-centric challenges, challenging — the process reveals itself to be, particularly when it comes to managing your underlings’ strengths and vitals in battle. Taking down grunts is a simple matter of sending a few soldiers their way and letting them do their job. But “Story’s” tougher enemies — to say nothing of some delightfully inventive but brutally tough boss enemies that block your kingdom’s expansion — require significant finesse with regard to ordering troops to attack and retreat in a pattern that maximizes their effect while minimizing casualties.

“Story,” for its part, keeps the controls simple, eschewing pointer or motion controls in favor of the same lean control scheme that made “Pikmin” so easy to enjoy. The use of the analog stick instead of a pointer to pick targets for your underlings occasionally makes it difficult to quickly distinguish between two adjacent targets. That, along with your underlings’ occasional propensity to get stuck on objects and lose their way, creates a one-two punch of trouble that together take the cake as the game’s most frustrating issues.

But bad as those issues sound on paper, neither proves nearly troublesome enough to damage the overall experience, which is lengthy (30ish hours), infectiously charming, and more fun than the some of its already fun parts as result of all that personality. This has been a good year for unexpected sleeper surprises on the Wii, and for “Pikmin” fans who want to see the genre venture to the next level, “Story” may be the gem that tops them all.

—–

Daisy Fuentes Pilates
For: Nintendo Wii
From: Collision Studios/Interactive Game Group/Sega
ESRB Rating: Everyone

It’s hard to discuss “Daisy Fuentes Pilates” in the context of a game review, because when it comes right down to it, it isn’t even a game so much as (a) an interactive, customizable workout tape or (b) a personal trainer you can mute with a remote control.

As serviceable introductions to Pilates go, “Pilates” does a serviceable job. Ten exercises (not including warm-up and cool-down exercises) are available for perusal, and each features a demonstration of the exercise, a narrated tutorial, and three difficulty settings that alter some (but not all) of the exercises’ physical demands.

In a nice touch, “Pilates” also supports user-customizable workouts: Users can pick which exercises to perform, the order in which to perform them, and the number of reps for each exercise. The game has save slots for five custom workouts and complements those with five prefabricated workouts based on need and experience.

All of this, of course, leads to the exercises themselves, and this is where any notion of “Pilates” being a game in the vein of “Wii Fit” or “EA Sports Active” completely falls apart.

“Pilates” aspires to score players by using simple timing metrics to calculate whether a player is using proper form. The measurement of that aptitude is displayed in the form of a timing bar that glows green, yellow and red based on one’s ability to mimic what Fuentes’ onscreen avatar is doing. This sort of works during exercises that rely on the Wii Balance Board, because all the game does is track when a player’s feet touch the board.

If you lack a Balance Board, the exercises that employ it lack any means of scoring your work. But it honestly is just as well, because the exercises that use the Wii remote to gauge your form might as well not score you either. The motions that constitute a typical Pilates exercise are far too slow and controlled for the remote to properly understand, the game has no real way of properly judging your form, and taking the score to heart merely creates frustration where there need not be any.

The complete uselessness of the scoring mechanic — which is the only means of stat-tracking the game has — makes “Pilates” similarly useless as a tool for tracking progress. Other attempts to give credence to the “game” claim — a tool for changing Daisy’s outfit, a flimsy resort tour option (which basically just changes the backdrop), a smattering of low-tech tips to accompany the general budget-mindedness of the overall look and experience — don’t fare any better.

On the other hand, while it’s still $10 more expensive than it should be, “Pilates” costs $30. That puts it in the same price ballpark as numerous Pilates DVDs that lack the interactivity this, in spite of its significant failings as a game, ultimately does provide.

—–

Trials HD
For: Xbox 360 Live Arcade
From: RedLynx/Microsoft
ESRB Rating: Teen (mild blood, mild violence)
Price: $15

Though its visual resemblance to the Nintendo classic “Excitebike” is obvious and its control scheme similarly streamlined, “Trials HD” is a deviously different, and appropriately evolved, animal. For starters, you aren’t racing other bikers, but instead riding through some ingeniously intricate obstacle courses with one goal: finish as quickly as with as few crashes as possible. The game doesn’t impose a time limit, and a generous in-track checkpoint system means you won’t have to retry difficult early jumps if you crash during a later jump. But while anyone can conceivably complete any track, finishing quickly and safely enough to rack up medals is another story. “Trials” places a heavy emphasis on bike and course physics, and mastering the intricacies of each bike is a daunting but rewarding challenge. Racking up medals is paramount toward unlocking bonus mini-games, which allow for such silly experiments as performing a ski jump off the bike or staying upright while riding inside a giant hamster ball. But the real carrot on the fishing line is the integration of Xbox Live Friends leaderboards inside every race and every bonus mode. “Trials” lacks any sort of online or pass-the-controller local multiplayer, but the ability to continually chase friends’ record times — which appear both in the heads-up display and on the track when applicable — more than compensates. The only caveat, of course, is a biggie: You need friends on your list to buy and play the game.

Posted in Nintendo Wii, Xbox Live Arcade

Let’s Tap
For: Nintendo Wii
From: Sega
ESRB Rating: Everyone (comic mischief)

Tired of plastic guitars, drums, racing wheels and zapper guns cluttering your life? “Lets Tap” offers a solution: a gimmicky peripheral you can fold flat and even toss into the recycling bin once you’re done playing with it.

The vast majority of “Tap” is played with the Wii remote not in your hand, but placed face down on a cardboard box of your choosing. (“Tap” recommends something akin to a tissue box, but the game’s adjustable sensitivity settings make it easy to use whatever box is handy.) Playing the game, in case you haven’t drawn the conclusion already, consists of you (and up to three other players with three other boxes) tapping said box like a cheap drum.

As stupid as this all sounds, “Tap” actually works. The game can sense three different levels of tapping intensity, as well as single- and double taps, with rather remarkable accuracy. The accuracy is such, in fact, that one can navigate the menus using nothing but single and double taps and do so without aggravation. The traditional navigational method obviously works faster, and “Tap” is keen enough to pause gameplay the instant a player picks the remote up off the box, but it’s still a pretty cool trick.

The surprising degree of control on display allows “Tap” to dole out an impressively diverse, if small, collection of mini-games to support the concept.

“Tap’s” arguable showpiece mini-game is “Tap Runner,” which pits players against three human- or computer-controlled opponents in a race through an obstacle course. Tapping softly makes the onscreen character run, while a soft but fast tap sends him into a sprint and a hard tap makes him jump. Maintaining an optimal sprint without accidentally jumping is trickier (and more labor-intensive) than it sounds, and that’s especially true as “Runner” piles on hazards and alternate paths in more advanced levels.

“Tap’s” other selections run the gamut in terms of surprise. “Rhythm Tap,” which finds you tapping in time with various music tracks, makes perfect sense. Ditto for an open-ended visualizer toy, which lets you tap at your leisure to launch fireworks, paint a canvas and more.

But “Silent Blocks,” which combines tapping with what essentially is Jenga, is pretty out there. And “Bubble Voyager,” a sidescrolling shooter that adapts a “Joust”-style control scheme to tapping, might be the gem of the bunch, thanks in part to a wild multiplayer mode that’s essentially tap “Asteroids.”

Beyond its mere ability to work as advertised, what’s especially nice about “Tap” is that each mini-game comes with multiple stages, options and modes designed separately around solo and social play. For a game that revolves around a completely silly gimmick, “Tap” pretty convincingly justifies its budget price.

—–

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Reviewed for: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
Other versions available for: Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS
From: Activision
ESRB Rating: Teen (mild language, violence)

As licensed tie-in products do, “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” scores an unintentional direct hit as a game that, for seemingly avoidable reasons, feels every bit as disposable as the movie on which it is based.

It didn’t have to be this way, because “Fallen” does an awful lot right on the mechanical side. The various Transformers — and you can embody quite a few of them by playing out the story from both the Autobots’ and Decepticons’ sides — control as they should in robot form. Outside of some temporarily clumsy helicopter controls, they also move fantastically well in their vehicular incarnations.

Switching between forms happens instantly, and “Fallen” makes it fun to do so by allowing you to execute transformations and attacks in a single motion. The distinctive transformations, weapon arsenals and special attacks give each Transformer a unique fighting style that, in turn, gives “Fallen” more variety than its structure otherwise suggests.

When those ideas are given room to breathe — say, during a one-shot level above the Atlantic ocean or during some of the missions set in Egypt — a simple but fun action game emerges.

But those instances overwhelmingly lie in the minority, vastly outnumbered by claustrophobic missions set in cities so cramped, it’s often tricky just to get around, much less do so gracefully. The act of transforming in these areas causes the camera to jerk violently in search of a desirable angle, which disorients players enough to undo whatever good the transformation was supposed to accomplish.

“Fallen” does itself further disservice by ordering players to accomplish the same handful of objectives numerous times, and it only mildly rearranges these objectives between the two campaigns. That makes some missions seem longer than they are — a point made sorer by a complete lack of mid-mission checkpoints. Spend 12 minutes taking down waves of the same enemies over and over, only to die near the very end? Sorry, start over.

Outside of a few unlockable pieces of eye candy, which along with both campaigns can be turned inside out in the span of a weekend, “Fallen” sports an online multiplayer component (eight players) that, for better or worse, does exactly what one would expect it to do. The modes are standard multiplayer modes, and the cramped levels give way to chaotic fights that, while fun for a while, lack the direction and organization needed to give them any meaningful legs.

—–

Battlefield 1943
For: Xbox 360 Live Arcade and Playstation 3 via Playstation Network (coming September for PC)
From: DICE/EA
ESRB Rating: Teen (violence)
Price: $15

Despite the lower price and budgetary disposition, “Battlefield 1943″ is, in ways crummy and wonderful, a “Battlefield” game through and through. There are only three (eventually four, pending the release of free bonus content) maps, and they’re essentially remakes of maps from 2002’s “Battlefield 1942.” There’s also only one objective (territorial control) and three soldier classes (infantry, rifleman, scout) from which to choose. But the pared-down options palette merely pushes “1943″ along as the get-in-play-a–round-and-get-out experience it purports to be, and at that, the game excels magnificently. “1943″ allows friends to set up custom matches if they prefer, but for those who just want to play, a single button click is all that’s needed to drop into battle. Once one 24-player fight ends, “1943″ whisks you straight into another and continues doing so until you decide you’ve had enough. It might be a while: The classic maps from “1942″ and the technology from last year’s “Battlefield: Bad Company” are a fierce tandem, and everything that made past “Battlefield” games great — guns, tanks, planes, jeeps, boats, medals and ranks — is here. Like too many “Battlefield” titles before it, “1943″ has suffered early from server overload and all the misery that entails. But those issues have grown scarcer by the day, and they’ll likely be just a memory by week’s end.

Posted in Nintendo Wii, Playstation 3, Playstation Network, Xbox 360, Xbox Live Arcade

MySims Racing
Reviewed for: Nintendo Wii
Alternate version available for: Nintendo DS
From: EA
ESRB Rating: Everyone (comic mischief)

When EA started spinning off “The Sims” beyond its original intentions, jokes invariably were made about when, not if, the brand would succumb to its inevitable kart racer incarnation.

All joking aside, now we know.

But while “MySims Racing” most assuredly owes no small thanks to “Mario Kart” for its existence, it sidesteps most of the pratfalls that sank so many “Kart” rip-offs over the years. More importantly, it adds a few things to the experience that not only justify the franchise’s move into this arena, but also give the game some legs even “Mario Kart Wii” lacks.

“Racing” leaves little to chance in terms of its basic racing component, which looks like “Kart,” moves like “Kart” and follows the same blueprint in terms of controls, drifting techniques and the implementation of power-ups on the track. Like “Kart’s” Wii incarnation, “Racing” lets you choose between multiple control schemes, supporting motion steering with the Wii remote and more traditional play via the Gamecube controller and Classic or nunchuck attachments.

Generally, it does a sufficient job of mimicry. The handling is a touch more unwieldy than in “Kart,” but “Racing’s” drift mechanic compensates adequately with a little practice. The power-ups are similarly mixed: Some are clever and funny, while others feel either like useless throwaways or less effective imitations of “Kart’s” more iconic offerings.

“Racing’s” lone tweak to the formula — collectable on-track gems that build up your cart’s turbo capability — isn’t particularly ingenious in the realm of racing games. But those gems’ secondary purpose — as off-track currency — is a bit more interesting, and it opens the door for those aforementioned new ideas.

As any “Sims”-branded game should, “Racing” allows you to design your character, which goes a long way toward mitigating the game’s lack of identity when compared to kart racers that are stocked with familiar mascot characters. But “Racing” also lets you design and modify three carts — normal, large and toy-sized — with upgrades, accessories and paint/decal jobs. The customization tools can’t hold a candle to the likes of “Need For Speed” or “Forza,” but they fulfill their purpose in giving “Racing” enough tools to keep the experience reasonably fresh and tailor it to individual player tastes. They also, along with the surprising presence of a nonsensical but rather entertaining storyline, give the game a steady stream of rewards to achieve beyond the usual cup trophies “Kart” trots out game after game.

“Racing” falls back to earth with its multiplayer (four players, offline only), which doesn’t even attempt to match “Kart’s” exquisite online component. The four-player splitscreen works fine, though, and it serves as a nice alternative to (though not necessarily a replacement for) “Kart” when a change of tracks and power-ups is in order.

—–

The Conduit
For: Nintendo Wii
From: High Voltage Software/Sega
ESRB Rating: Teen (blood, mild language, violence)

“The Conduit’s” visual aptitude has been the source of buzz since the game’s unveiling, but a Wii game best known for its graphics is like a baseball player who leads the minor leagues in hitting. If it’s going to stand out among a sea of gorgeous, full-featured Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 first-person shooters, “The Conduit” needs more than just the best graphics on its platform to stick around.

That’s where the game’s attention to movement swoops in. “Metroid Prime” and “Medial of Honor” already illustrated how uniquely cool a Wii first-person shooter can feel, and “The Conduit” drives the point home. Motions made with the Wii remote skillfully translate to the onscreen character’s handling of the game’s guns. The default settings are spot-on with respect to turning sensitivity and differentiating your character’s head and hand movements, and a laundry list of adjustable settings gives players who disagree a foolproof degree of on-the-fly fine-tuning. Under optimum settings, it feels great — neither necessarily better nor worse than the traditional controller method, but unique in a way that makes for a fun, divergent experience.

The attention to movement, as it happens, saves “The Conduit” from the rest of itself, which otherwise suffers from a severe lack of identity and some common missteps that would be less forgivable in a more traditional shooter.

Nothing about the storyline is particularly bad: It’s entirely sufficient, with good voice acting and a plot that takes us through some cool environments. But nothing about what happens is particularly extraordinary, either, and most of it results in the same enemies attacking you in increasingly familiar waves. The game’s looks, while certainly nice by Wii standards, aren’t pretty enough to hide these bouts of repetition.

But the most glaring of “The Conduit’s” issues lies in its enemy A.I., which ranges from indifferent to relentless with very little in between. Enemy soldiers occasionally take cover, but they’re more likely to just stand still and let you unload. Some of the game’s other enemies, conversely, pounce at you and keep coming until you find and destroy the conduit from whence they came. The massive discrepancy between A.I. leads to a similar rift in difficulty, with cakewalk sequences punctuated by instances that just feel cheap.

But it bears repeating that the unique control scheme makes these issues more forgivable than they normally would be. Disappointing though some of “The Conduit’s” facets are, it’s still fun to play a shooter this way, and until it becomes a more common experience, this suffices.

That goes as well for the online multiplayer (12 players). It breaks zero ground, and the Friend Code system remains a bummer. But it works and, free of those A.I. issues, it’s pretty fun. In a nice (and depressingly unusual) touch, “The Conduit” supports the Wii Speak microphone, though whether anyone will bother hooking one up anymore remains to be seen.

—–

Rocket Riot
For: Xbox 360 Live Arcade
From: THQ
ESRB Rating: Everyone (cartoon violence)
Price: $10

The $10 downloadable game concept was devised precisely for games like “Rocket Riot,” which stars you as a tiny character wearing a jet pack and firing rockets (and other power-ups) at other tiny characters inside arenas designed entirely in pixel art. The concept could have existed decades ago, but the controls (left joystick to propel around the area, right joystick to flick or launch rockets at whatever angle you choose) play according to more modern conventions. That’s true also of the rocket physics as well as the fully destructible areas, which explode in tiny pixilated messes whenever rockets make contact with walls or other objects. It’s a great effect, and it contributes immensely to “Riot’s” colorful, infectiously cheerful demeanor, which itself stands in humorous contrast to the conflict at hand. “Riot” earns its asking price with a lengthy and increasingly challenging single-player component, but it’s the eight-player online (or four-player offline) multiplayer that really drives home how chaotic and silly things can get. The feel-good presentation and pick-up-and-play nature immediately make this one of the better fast-action party games in Xbox Live Arcade’s library.

Posted in Nintendo Wii, Xbox Live Arcade