Metroid: Other M
For: Wii
From: Team Ninja/Nintendo
ESRB Rating: Teen (animated blood, violence)

Nintendo took a risk with “Metroid” in 2002 by turning a sidescrolling, exploration-heavy platformer into a trilogy of first-person shooters, so it’s kind of funny that “Metroid: Other M” feels significantly riskier despite at least partially fulfilling what fans expected a 3D “Metroid” game to look like in the first place.

Generally speaking, “M” is a third-person action game that’s heavy on shooting but presented through a semi-fixed camera perspective typically reserved for “God of War” and other action games that lean on melee combat. The shooting is assisted to the point where it feels like an old “Metroid” game: Samus fires in whatever general direction she’s facing, and instead of testing players’ aiming proficiency, the game challenges by loading areas with enemies and forcing players to dash, jump, dodge and otherwise change direction quickly. It works, and in terms of combat intensity, it’s a huge leap forward.

In another nod to “Metroid’s” formative years, players control “M” solely with the Wii remote, holding it sideways and moving Samus with the D-pad instead of the more natural nunchuck joystick. It’s an odd fit given the game’s 3D disposition, but the controls are responsive enough to make it work when in third-person mode.

Where the nunchuck is missed is during “M’s” most clever trick, which lets players enter first-person shooter mode at any point by turning the remote and pointing it at the screen like a blaster. The additional viewpoint is an ingenious use of the Wii’s capabilities, and “M” capitalizes on it by giving players free reign to mix both viewpoints during exploration as well as combat. Problem is, the lack of joystick support means players are sitting ducks in first-person mode. Switching between the two perspectives is a bit jarring, and when you have to do so quickly and in the company of enemies whose movements are never restricted, cheap attacks are inevitable.

That occasional problem aside, though, the gutsy use of two disparate viewpoints and schemes makes “M” a special game instead of simply what everyone expected “Metroid” to become, and it doesn’t come at the expense of anything for which the series is known. “M’s” lush landscapes are rife with secret passageways, hidden upgrades and non-linear terrain that only becomes traversable once Samus finds some of those upgrades. Classic enemies accompany numerous new faces, and the boss fights that have long been the franchise’s hallmark are consistently inventive and, thanks to “M’s” new ideas, very intense. This is a wonderfully tough and intelligent game.

Perhaps “M’s” biggest risk of all is its outfitting of Samus with a full backstory, that she narrates, after 24 years of games in which she rarely uttered a single word. “M’s” stab at Samus’ origins is drippy and clumsy, and those who have enjoyed her silent stoicism might wish to avert their eyes and ears from her newfound ability to pour her feelings everywhere. But any attempt to color the past of an iconic Nintendo character is a valiant one, and even if “M” doesn’t take the history where some would like it to go, it still beats driving down the same tired avenues we already know by heart.

And if you absolutely hate the story? Sorry, you can’t skip the cutscenes. But they’re brief, and they don’t dictate the mood of the gameplay, which is as perfectly “Metroid” in this incarnation as in any other.

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Mafia II
Reviewed for: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
Also available for: Windows PC, OnLive
From: 2K Czech/2K Games
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood, intense violence, nudity, sexual content, strong language, use of drugs and alcohol)

Because “Grand Theft Auto” popularized it and because most other games have simply fallen in line, conventional wisdom suggests that any game with an open world must fill that world with umpteen pointless activities to justify its worth.

“Mafia II” doesn’t do this. Empire Bay, the fictionalized but very recognizable riff on 1940s New York City, is wide open for discovery, and players can steal cars and visit shops between missions until their thumbs are sore. But outside of some collectibles and a small smattering of elective activities, there really isn’t much of anything for players to accomplish off the storyline’s main roads.

But is that really a terrible thing when those main roads include a storyline that spans 12-15 hours and takes players from World War II, through prison and up the ladders of multiple families? “Mafia II” prioritizes its characters and the finer details of their world over obligatory busywork, and the choice pays off at little expense to the game’s value.

It certainly helps that 2K Czech gets the core mechanics right, even if the game falls into the open world mission design trap of having players repeatedly assume the role of virtual errand boy. Story dictation aside, the bulk of “Mafia II’s” missions consist of some combination of driving to a destination, shooting or brawling with enemies, and driving back.

But while the shooting is standard cover-based third-person fare — and is saddled with a radar system that occasionally misleads players about the proximity of enemies — the action is considerably more polished than the sloppy gunplay that was excused in the “Grand Theft Auto” and “Godfather” games as a byproduct of their open-world design. “Mafia II’s” hand-to-hand combat portions lose steam due to how easy it is to dodge punches, but the one-on-one nature of the fistfights far outclasses the meandering brawling found in those other games.

“Mafia II’s” driving controls, while no more exemplary than the norm, are similarly dependable, and the game strikes a nice chord by both increasing and decreasing the realism at the same time. Empire Bay’s cops try to pull players over for speeding and running red lights in addition to the usual violations, and cars flagged as wanted remain that way until they’re modified at a body shop. At the same time, the game doesn’t make it a hassle to lose the police — especially when a mission is in progress — unless the chase is part of the mission’s design.

Small considerations like those continually enhance the experience. Stealing cars means physically picking the lock instead of just tapping a button, and because it’s easier to just keep the car you already have, it’s also easier to form bonds with (and pay to upgrade) certain cars instead of steal any ride in sight. Hiding from cops while wanted is fun because the cover controls double as stealth controls, and while injuries heal themselves and cars always run, players who stop for food and gas will outperform those who don’t.

It’s also easy to develop a true sense of place when the game coats the streets with ice and plays Christmas music during one stretch and presents the same environments later on with the effects of changing seasons and passing years both accounted for. “Mafia II’s” storyline borrows liberally from the big box of Mafia movie tropes, but between the scope, the details and how good everything looks and sounds, the excessive reverence is easily forgiven.

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Shank
For: Playstation 3 via Playstation Network and Xbox 360 Live Arcade
From: Klei Entertainment/EA
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, sexual themes, strong language, violence)
Price: $15

Everything about “Shank” has been done before and will be done again, but maybe no game has put it all together and made it look this easy to do so. Like “Metal Slug,” “Shank” is a cartoony sidescroller that outfits players with some guns, a few grenades and a jump button. But “Shank” also borrows the melee combat of a “Devil May Cry” and, like that game, lets players mix the two styles on the ground, in the air and in whatever combination they please. A handful of hand-to-hand attacks — including the magnificent pounce ability last seen in the “Wolverine” game — further expands the arsenal, and the ability to scale ledges and run along walls lets players perform stunts normally reserved for the Prince of Persia. “Shank” is by no means an easy game, and some of the tougher enemies and bosses have some pretty cheap attacks in their bag. But the game’s rich arsenal of abilities is outclassed only by its ability to tuck everything into a dead-simple control scheme that turns even middling players into supermen, and a generous checkpoint system allows players to play dangerously without worrying excessively about the consequences. “Shank” sports a single-player storyline as well as a separate suite of co-op (local or online) missions, and it bakes both inside an outstanding graphic novel presentation that’s refreshingly minimalist, beautiful to look at and bursting with awesome character designs.

Ivy the Kiwi?
Reviewed for: Wii
Also available for: Nintendo DS
From: Prope/XSEED
ESRB Rating: Everyone (comic mischief)

If you squint hard enough to see through the Wii’s forest of ill-devised motion control tech demos, half-baked mini-game collections and one-trick peripherals, you might be lucky enough to spot a game like “Ivy the Kiwi?,” a completely sublime example of a game that hones in on one thing the Wii does best and takes perfect advantage of it without any unnecessary fuss whatsoever.

“Ivy’s” premise is simple: Ivy, a freshly-hatched chick, is lost and looking for her mother, and players are tasked with making that reunion happen.

“Ivy” presents itself as a sidescrolling platformer, but players have no direct control over Ivy: Instead, they point the Wii remote at the screen and use it to create vines that Ivy can walk on, spring from and use as protection from traps and enemies en route to reaching a level’s goal. Like a lemming, Ivy never stops walking, so a quick, steady hand is needed to create vines quickly and put them to good use.

If you’ve played “Kirby Canvas Curse” on the Nintendo DS, you have a good idea how this works, and it’s no surprise “Ivy” is appearing on that platform as well.

But while creating vines is easier with a stylus, it’s considerably more fun with the remote. “Ivy” lets players “swing” the vines while creating them by swinging the remote in a circular motion, which in turn launches Ivy forward or upward. Players also can treat a created vine like a slingshot and launch Ivy toward enemies and destructible blocks. All of this is elementarily possible with a stylus, but the Wii controls are so natural and intuitive that the sensation of unfurling, swinging and slinging vines feels surprisingly like the real thing.

The bigger screen also allows “Ivy’s” magnificent visual presentation — picture an animated watercolor drawing presented as a living storybook — to dazzle that much more. “Ivy” is a minimalist work in terms of art, sound and storytelling, but it’s a marvelous example of how to do a lot with a little. If little Ivy doesn’t charm you, little else can.

Like many of history’s best 2D platformers, “Ivy’s” adorability belies how challenging its 100-plus levels eventually become. The game is generous with extra lives and endless continues, but in return, it asks players to complete levels without making a single fatal mistake. Simply doing that is a hearty (but very fair) challenge by itself, and the truly bold can test themselves further by trying to collect the 10 feathers scattered around each level and still reach the goal before the clock hits zero. “Ivy” grades players’ performance on each level, and perfectionists can revisit completed levels at their leisure to improve their marks.

Beyond how well it accommodates both novice and skilled players, “Ivy’s” biggest surprise might be its multiplayer (2-4 players, local only).

A co-op mode allows two players to draw vines for a single Ivy, which turns “Ivy” into a terrific game parent and child can play together. Competitive multiplayer, meanwhile, pits four Ivys in a splitscreen race to reach the goal first, which sounds completely ordinary until players realize they can draw vines in other players’ quadrants and sabotage their progress. Instantly, a sweet story about a chick looking for her mama becomes one of the most cutthroat and hilariously fun multiplayer modes to grace the Wii this year.

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Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days
For: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
Also available for: Windows PC, OnLive
From: IO Interactive/Eidos/Square Enix
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood, drug reference, intense violence, partial nudity, strong language)

It’s almost reflex to criticize the storyline portion of “Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days” for being too short at around four hours long. But given how dishearteningly the story’s backward steps outnumber its forward steps, four hours might be plenty — especially if you find the more inspired multiplayer offerings more to your liking anyway.

On the positive front, “Days” is a more polished third-person shooter than its 2007 predecessor. Finding cover actually generally works this time, and while the automatic weapons remain frustratingly inaccurate, the pistols and absurdly powerful shotguns are sufficiently precise. In addition to smoothing out the framerate, a clever new visual style presents the action as though it’s being filmed on a handicam — video grain, compression artifacts, color separation, light streaking — and it effectively enhances the ugliness of the game’s violence. (The nauseating shaky cam effect can, mercifully, be disabled.)

But those filters color a storyline that drops players into much duller scenarios and offers exponentially less character insight than the first game did. Kane and Lynch weren’t exactly lovable in their debut, but “Days” renders them downright loathsome, and helping them reach the game’s laughably abrupt ending feels nearly as empty as getting them killed.

And while “Days” is a better shooter than its predecessor, it still sins too often for its own good. Enemies require far too many bullets to defeat — a problem compounded by the aforementioned inaccuracy — and it’s a slog to take them down when their psychic A.I. allows them to pelt away the second players pop out of cover. Occasionally, the cover doesn’t even work, forcing aggravated players to decide between being slowly decimated by endless gunfire or seeking new cover at the risk of being knocked down and cheaply ripped to shreds.

The failure to truly polish the shooting mechanics makes it harder to understand the complete removal of the squad mechanics that allowed players some control over their A.I. partner in the original. “Days” is best played with a friend controlling the second character via splitscreen/online co-op, but that’s little solace to players who have to fly solo and deal with an A.I. partner who isn’t terribly helpful. Between this, the uninspired level designs and the shoddy mechanics, “Days” doesn’t even need the entirety of its short lifespan to wear out its welcome.

Fortunately, while those mechanics carry over to “Days’” online multiplayer (8-12 players), the level playing field and terrific general premise make them significantly more tolerable.

The common thread connecting the multiplayer modes is trust, or lack thereof. Fragile Alliance pits players in a co-op heist against A.I. cops but lets players turn against the group in the name of greed. (The downside is, of course, getting killed by the group and respawning, penniless, as a cop.) Undercover Cop, meanwhile, designates one mystery player as a mole, tasking him with taking the alliance down from within before the other players can out him.

The pinch of paranoia transforms just another shooter into a mind game with guns, and the ability to parlay heist earnings into better weaponry provides “Days” some badly-needed replay value. Other multiplayer shooters do the shooting part better, but until they rip these ideas off, “Days” is just unique enough to merit a look.

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Monster Dash
For: iPhone/iPod Touch
From: Halfbrick Studios
iTunes Store Rating: 9+ (infrequent/mild profanity or crude humor, infrequent/mild horror/fear themes, infrequent/mild cartoon or fantasy violence)
Price: $1

No one born before yesterday will give “Monster Dash” credit for being original: It’s another derivative of “Canabalt,” and outside of giving players a weapon and some monsters to shoot, it doesn’t mess with the formula. For those unfamiliar with “Canabalt,” the gist is simple: The game’s main character is constantly and furiously running from left to right, and players must hit the jump button at the right times so the character leaps from platform to platform without falling to his demise. The longer he runs, the better your score. “Dash” adds its own small twist to the niche by populating the platforms with monsters and giving players a default pistol (and some clever collectible weapons) with which to dispatch them, but that little touch becomes a big touch when it effectively doubles the number of tasks that “Canabalt” asked players to perform. That doesn’t magically transform “Dash” into a supremely deep experience, but between those mechanics, the multiple environments, the random generation of each environment for each play and the innately addictive nature of pursuing personal and online high scores, there’s plenty of enjoyment to justify the bargain-basement asking price. The appealing presentation — colorful cartoony graphics, a catchy soundtrack and a sense of humor in the menu screens — doesn’t hurt, either.

Kid Adventures: Sky Captain
For: Wii
From: Torus Games/D3Publisher
ESRB Rating: Everyone (cartoon violence, comic mischief)

Though not backed by a popular toy or movie brand — and, sadly, condemned to be overlooked for that very reason — “Kid Adventures: Sky Captain” is exactly the kind of summertime title parents are searching for when trying to find a well-made game that tailors to kids without treating them like idiots.

To wit, after a tutorial that introduces basic flight controls and runs maybe two minutes long, “Captain” hands players the keys to an entire island as well as their first plane. An entry-level crop of missions scatters itself around the island, and players are immediately free to select whichever missions they please or simply fly around the island and explore for as long as they like. For a game so squarely aimed at kids, the complete liberation players so quickly receive is startling and extremely refreshing.

Though an overriding storyline introduces a rival pilot who challenges players to be the island’s sky captain, “Captain’s” world is rather saccharine. Crashing planes bounce on the ground like plastic toys before the game returns players to the air with little consequence, and the game employs water balloons instead of bombs when missions call for some kind of target shooting.

But the cheerful exterior works just fine, and because “Captain” has such harmless substitutes as water balloons in tow, the game is able to devise multiple mission types without resorting to aggression and turning off parents. (An early water bomb mission, for instance, has players firing at a building in hopes of helping extinguish a fire.)

The best news about “Captain’s” controls is that there isn’t really any news at all. The Wii remote is all players need, and controlling the planes is as simple as tilting the remote right and left to steer and back and forth to ascend and descend. Getting used to the tilt sensitivity might require a little acclimation, but the controls perform exactly as they should, and the game makes it very easy to dive, roll and navigate through narrow spaces around the island.

Though there are only 40 total core missions, “Captain” gives them replay value by attaching gold-, silver- and bronze-medal scores to each. The game further sweetens the pot with an experience system that rewards points for completing missions, fulfilling optional achievements, performing dangerous stunts and flying through stunt rings scattered all over the island. Those experience rewards translate into new planes and additional paint jobs for existing planes, giving completists and fashionistas alike plenty more to do than the mission count initially suggests.

Though “Captain’s” two-player splitscreen mode is about as basic as can be — it allows two players to explore the island separately and take on missions competitively — it’s a great choice in practice. Players can freely race each other and dream up their own competitions in addition to playing any of the challenges from the single-player mode, and the freedom to switch between structured and freeform play is a luxury kids’ games rarely receive. The horizontal splitscreen presentation is a bit constricting, particularly with this being a flying instead of driving game, but that’s more a byproduct of logistics than a fault of the game.

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Despicable Me: The Game
For: Wii
From: Vicious Cycle Software/D3Publisher of America
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+ (mild cartoon violence)

There’s a perfectly valid argument to be made in favor of “Despicable Me’s” opening tutorial level, which holds players’ hands at a pace that can generously be described as agonizing. The primary gameplay — straightforward 2D running and jumping — needs no introduction, but Gru’s weapon (a multifunction raygun whose functions can be combined) and minions (those cute yellow guys, who help Gru solve puzzles and reach previously unreachable areas) justifiably merit some explanation.

By the end of the 20-minute tutorial, though, all the unskippable stopping and explaining is enough to make seasoned players wistful of the days when games had no scruples about dropping kids into a gauntlet and daring them to figure it out themselves.

Don’t worry: Those days make a fierce comeback in level two.

Almost instantly, “Me” transforms into a beast, trotting out a string of platforming challenges that amp up the difficulty so quickly as to be unrecognizable by comparison. The game immediately asks players to demonstrate a mastery of running, jumping and raygun shooting finesse that all work in tandem, and the demands are daunting enough to rightly challenge the seasoned players who scoffed at level one. “Me” is generous with checkpoints — there’s one between every platforming challenge, so players won’t have to repeat something they cleared after failing whatever follows — so it speaks to “Me’s” ruthlessness that it’s a nasty game even with this generosity taken into account.

The same holds true for the minion portions of the game, in which players aim the Wii remote at the screen and “fire” minions into the level in ways that activate switches, form bridges and otherwise allow Gru safe passage to the exit. The demonstrations of this trick in the tutorial are completely banal, but the first real challenge necessitates thinking about the problem in a way the tutorial didn’t even present as necessarily fathomable. “Me” makes yet more concessions by scattering hint cards that reveal the solutions to the truly hopeless, but even these don’t always paint the whole picture for those who can’t think a bit critically.

The shock to the system that is most of “Me’s” post-tutorial content — a few flying segments, while a nice change of pace, feel a bit half-baked by comparison — will likely feel like found gold to players who crave a fierce challenge and never expected to find it here.

But that speaks to “Me’s” problem: It’s a game that has an identity complex and is ultimately catered to people who will never know it’s for them. The subject matter and early handholding make it entirely easy to dismiss as fare for kids, but just about everything else appears designed to send those same kids into the arms of a demoralizing temper tantrum. Even parents who attempt to assist their kids might come away defeated by something that, if presented without the family-friendly license, would almost certainly be embraced by the hardcore crowd.

So while “Me” is the arguable diamond in the summer movie game rough, it’s also completely impossible to recommend to the very specific audience that might seek it out — unless, of course, parents want to give their kids a taste of the way kids’ games were when they grew up.

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Dive: The Medes Island Secret
For: Nintendo Wii via Wii Shop Channel
From: Cosmonaut Games
ESRB Rating: Everyone (mild violence)
Price: $10

Anyone pining for a contemporary equivalent to Sega’s “Ecco the Dolphin” games might want to take a chance on “Dive: The Medes Island Secret,” which, like “Ecco,” is a very pretty sidescrolling action game centered around deep-sea diving instead of running and jumping. “Dive” stars players as a scuba diver instead of a dolphin, and the objective — plunge to the depths of the sea and recover valuable treasure forgotten by time — is pretty pedestrian. The execution, however, is not: “Dive” uses a cursor-based control scheme instead of traditional D-pad or joystick movement, with players “pulling” the diver around with the cursor. That unusual approach will potentially annoy those who steadfastly prefer time-tested 2D controls, but they allow for some surprisingly fluid swimming motions that perfectly complement the pace of the game and the measured speed of both the diver and the hostile sea creatures he either must tranquilize or evade. “Dive’s” most valuable asset is its emphasis on exploration over high-octane action: Like a good “Metroid”-style game, it offers multiple pathways through which to discover additional secrets, and an upgrades shop allows players to purchase equipment that lets them plunge deeper into the sea. Along with a set of achievements that should appeal to players who like to pick a game clean, there’s much to do beyond simply taking “Dive’s” main roads.

Sin and Punishment: Star Successor
For: Wii
From: Treasure/Nintendo
ESRB Rating: Teen (fantasy violence)

The genius of “Sin and Punishment: Star Successor” is not simply how skillfully it creates order out of what initially looks like sheer insane nonsense, but how easy it continually makes that skill look during the five or so hours it takes to experience it for the first time.

Dismissively, “Successor” can be classified as an on-rails shooter, which has become a term synonymous for all the Wii lacks in terms of traditional control schemes. The tag technically applies, because outside of when it pauses to swarm players with enemies or a boss fight, “Successor” is constantly in some form of forward motion, and it’s the duty of players to clear enemies away and keep up with it. Think of “Successor” as an old-fashioned space shooter that moves forward in three dimensions instead of sideways in two, and you can start to picture what’s going on here.

Like most on-rails shooters on the Wii, “Successor” also employs a cursor-based control scheme for shooting purposes. Aim the Wii remote around the screen to pick targets, press B to fire. No surprises there.

But “Successor” enhances these core elements by mixing in more extensive character control than the genre traditionally allows. Isa Jo and Achi, the game’s playable protagonists, can freely run and jump on the ground as well as hover to any corner of the screen, and outside of the on-rails forward and backward movement, “Successor” leaves all character movements in players’ hands.

Even the cursor controls, which complement the often frantic pace by incorporating a perfect dose of aiming assistance that’s effective but so subtle as to potentially go unnoticed, puts most similar control schemes to surprising shame. (An optional control scheme, supporting both the Classic and Gamecube controllers, allows players to go all the way traditional and control the targeting with the right stick.)

All that freedom is crucial, because “Successor” inspires more thrills from mastering and avoiding enemy attack patterns than from putting on a good offensive show. Like a great sidescrolling shooter, “Successor” swarms players with such a high variety of frantic enemy attacks that at first, it looks nothing short of (a) completely random and (b) impossible to circumvent. But everything in the game has a pattern, and players who put in the time to figure “Successor” out will gradually start to see it in a completely different (and far more appreciative) light once those patterns start to emerge.

The quest to master the insane variety of patterns “Successor” devises gives the game considerably more value than initial impressions might imply. The game has a story, and it’s sufficient if you absolutely need some narrative purpose, but seeing how it ends is nowhere near as interesting as playing and replaying stretches of the game to push your high scores up the online leaderboards.

“Successor” scores players like a classic arcade shooter, rewarding the ability to stay alive while also dangling a score multiplier that’s continually in flux and dependent on players’ ability to shoot quickly and just a little recklessly. The system lends itself perfectly to score chasers and perfectionists, and “Successor’s” complete understanding of that art — along with hours of great game design to back it up — makes this a must-play for anyone who identifies with either demographic.

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The Cages: Pro Style Batting Practice
For: Wii
From: Alpha Unit/Konami
ESRB Rating: Everyone

At no point does this review know whether “The Cages: Pro Style Batting Practice” is a smart option for would-be baseball stars who, for all baseball science can tell us, might screw up their swing technique by swinging a Wii remote at a television instead of a real baseball bat at a real baseball. Considering the discrepancies in bat weight, among other obvious factors, it’s entirely likely this is more harmful than helpful for serious baseball players.

But taken simply as a video game simulation of a trip to the batting cages — and taking into account the limitations of the Wii even with the MotionPlus attachment in tow — “Cages” does a surprisingly good job at recreating this particular aspect of baseball practice.

With that said, first things first: Though “Cages” is playable without the MotionPlus attachment, the loss of precision that little attachment provides makes this a useless practice tool at best and completely unplayable at worst. If you’re at all serious about enjoying “Cages,” owning or purchasing a MotionPlus attachment should be viewed as mandatory in order for anything that follows to apply to your experience.

“Cages’” primary interface is as spartan as you might imagine: There’s a baseball field, a pitching machine, your bat (which, in the recommended first-person view, you barely even see) and very little else. The machine throws pitches, and players swing the Wii remote like a bat to try and hit the ball.

What makes it work, in addition to a refreshingly unforgiving demand on swing precision, are the options and interface touches the game lays atop the threadbare gameplay. Every pitch is followed by a skippable but very useful swing analyzer that shows players how early, late, high, low, inside or outside their swings are in relation to the ball’s trajectory. Players also can customize and save presets for the pitching machine, selecting what pitches it can throw and the range of speeds at which it can throw them. A stat-tracking feature logs your batting average and other numbers, and a calorie counter provides a morale boost for those days when your swing completely fails you.

“Cages” pads its value with a couple competitive multiplayer modes (one for two players, another for four), but nothing in the game’s feature set will satisfy players looking for anything resembling a game of organized baseball. The game, along its budget price tag, make no bones about its acute focus, and buyers who expect more from it will do so at their own peril.

What it does though — and taking into account the disclaimers from paragraphs one and three above — it does rather satisfactorily. By no stretch of any imagination is “Cages” a better experience than hitting real baseballs with a real bat, and its value as a training tool is pretty dubious. But for those who go to the cages purely for enjoyment’s sake but wouldn’t mind an alternative in a pinch when the time or means isn’t there, this isn’t a bad investment to make.

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DeathSpank
For: Playstation 3 via Playstation Network and Xbox 360 Live Arcade
From: Hothead Games/EA
ESRB Rating: Teen (blood, cartoon violence, crude humor, mild language, mild sexual themes)
Price: $15

Considering the enduring popularity of the two things — “Diablo”-style dungeon crawling and comedy — “DeathSpank” attempts to merge as one, it’s rather amazing it’s taken this long for the two to come together as naturally as they have here. “DeathSpank” starts off a little slow, and there are a handful of things it does adequately but never expertly. The sensation of combat “Diablo” absolutely nails never feels quite so satisfying here, and between the simplicity of the quest designs and the modest ambitions of the game’s comedic writing and voice acting, this likely will be neither the best-playing dungeon crawler nor the funniest game you play this year. Fortunately, what “DeathSpank” doesn’t do amazingly well, it does more than well enough — so much so that the experience actually improves rather than degrades once the novelty of comedic dungeon crawling wears off. The quests, while not terribly ambitious in terms of variety or design, are at least numerous, as is the bounty of armor, weapons and items waiting to be discovered. The depth of the combat improves with the ability to cast new spells and even combine special attacks. And the world’s fleeting resemblance to an illustrated pop-up book (without the actual pop-up animation) works in tandem with the amusing overall tone to create a universe that, imperfections or not, is a whole lot of fun to explore.

Crackdown 2
For: Xbox 360
From: Ruffian Games/Microsoft
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, strong language, violence)

Conventional wisdom would suggest that while “Crackdown’s” combination of open-world freedom and superhuman powers made it a deserving cult sensation in 2007, enough has happened since for more of the same to not be enough. “Infamous” and “Prototype” trotted out similar ideas with deeper storylines, “Assassin’s Creed” sped up rooftop bounding with its parkour controls, “Just Cause 2″ blew the roof off the limits of verticality, and “Red Faction: Guerrilla” raised the environmental destruction bar considerably.

But in all that time, and with respect to all those games, none of them really went head-on with the little things that made “Crackdown” so uniquely awesome. “Crackdown 2″ is more of the same with sprinkles on top, but it so perfectly nails everything the first game — and only that game — did right.

It’d better, too, because a lot of it might as well be the first game. “Crackdown’s” nearly non-existent storyline has been upgraded to threadbare here, but the objective — kill the evildoers — is identical. The last game’s ending carries over, and the mutants that began populating Pacific City in “Crackdown” are now overflowing the geographically-altered city during “Crackdown 2′s” nighttime hours. A single, monstrous gang patrols the streets during the day, and players once again take orders from a bloodthirsty and completely hilarious narrator at The Agency. (Yes, it’s called The Agency. Threadbare, see.)

Just as they did last time, players gradually increase their abilities — from jumping distance to ammo expertise to driving acumen — by utilizing those abilities in the game, and players who max out those abilities will outrun cars, jump (or, new to the sequel, glide via a wingsuit) clean over buildings, equip grenades capable of detonating block-wide chain reactions and gain access to some amazing modes of transportation.

In other words, everything practically is as it was three years ago. The enemy A.I. hasn’t evolved, with the gangs still fighting like meatheads and the freaks just plowing forward in extreme numbers. The upgrade system feels mostly the same. The optional pursuit of collectable orbs (500 perched atop structures, 300 hidden away, and a few that actually run away or only activate during co-op sessions) feels mostly the same. Even the highly imperfect targeting system from “Crackdown” returns with no significant improvements made.

But while the amazing level of disinterest Ruffian Games shows in evolving the “Crackdown” formula almost certainly should reflect poorly on “Crackdown 2,” a typical game session often delivers more than enough arguments in favor of not breaking what no other game since has outdone. “Crackdown 2′s” control schemes for running, jumping and driving feel magnificently responsive, and while the weapon targeting definitely could be better, the system in place offers enough upside to justify its presence. The game offers tremendous freedom almost from the start, and the sum total of all the firepower, horsepower, geography and Agency-given talent adds up to an experience that’s shallow but explosively, tremendously fun.

Like its predecessor, “Crackdown 2″ allows players to carry on with or without other players in their world, and the customizable four-player dynamic co-op emphatically improves on “Crackdown’s” barebones two-player support. “Crackdown 2″ also offers 16-player competitive multiplayer for maximum chaos, but while it’s fun in small does, the element of open-world teamwork and anything-goes ingenuity falls away when everyone’s sole focus is on killing everyone else.

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Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4
Reviewed for: Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Wii
Also available for: Sony PSP, Nintendo DS and Windows PC
From: TT Games/Warner Bros. Interactive
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+ (cartoon violence, crude humor)

Anyone who was charmed by 2005′s “Lego Star Wars” and gradually less impressed with the franchise’s takes on Indiana Jones and Batman will likely be downright annoyed to discover “Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4″ continues the Lego games’ unfortunate tradition of not evolving in ways they really, really should.

But this wouldn’t really be a problem if “Potter” didn’t continue the series’ other tradition of continually turning out surprises within the constraints of its formula. It does — perhaps to a greater degree than any game since that “Star Wars” game — and so we’re faced yet again with taking the bad in order to take the good as well.

As the name implies, “Potter” covers the first four years of Harry’s seven-year saga, and you either don’t want the plot details spoiled for you or already know them like you know your own last name. As per series tradition, the game reenacts each year’s biggest moments using pantomiming Lego characters and recreating the scenes with a mix of authenticity and genuinely amusing creative license.

But “Potter” also covers a surprising number of lesser moments in each chapter, and the game allows players to take control of practically everyone — Dumbledore, Sirius Black, Dobby, even Scabbers the rat, among more than 150 others — in addition to Harry, Ron and Hermione. The amount of learnable spells is impressively high, and by using two cavernous hub levels (Diagon Alley/Hogsmeade and Hogwarts) instead of one, there’s a ton of fan service to discover off the stories’ main roads.

Per usual, passing a story level opens it up to free play, allowing players even more freedom in terms of the “Potter” characters they wish to control. Between all the possibilities that allows and the aforementioned main and optional content, “Potter” is a massive playground that offers 20-plus hours’ worth of stuff to do.

Unfortunately, those hours are also chock full of the same annoyances that have persisted since “Star Wars.” For a game that features fixed camera angles and lots of running and jumping, the jumping controls are still too squirrelly. Ditto for the targeting system, which occasionally makes casting certain spells with precision a case of trial and error if too many possible targets are clustered together.

The control imperfections are harder to understand because, for the most part and regardless of story scenario or characters used, “Potter” generally plays the same way. Some nice broom controls and the occasional vehicular objective are both welcome, but neither makes enough of an impact to give the game a strong sense of variety. Similarly, while “Potter” is loaded with cause-and-effect puzzles, most of them are too straightforward to count as puzzles so much as steps to take in order to make X happen and clear the path to get to Y.

Finally, while “Potter” supports two-player local co-op play, TT Games inexplicably continues to omit online co-op play. Sharing a couch with the other player is the best way to play, yes, but how hard can it be at this point to throw a bone to players who may not have the luxury of a willing second player nearby?

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Puzzle Quest 2
Reviewed for: Xbox 360 Live Arcade
Also available for: Nintendo DS
From: Infinite Interactive/D3Publisher of America
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+ (mild fantasy violence, mild language, mild suggestive themes)
Price: $15

After 2007′s “Puzzle Quest” surprised just about everybody by taking “Bejeweled” and using it as a means of battle in a story-driven role-playing game, a handful of weird offshoots tried and mostly failed to take the idea to new avenues. So it’s no surprise to finally see “Puzzle Quest 2,” which brings the idea back to its roots and simply gets to tweaking from there. The net worth of those tweaks will certainly vary to players of different disciplines. The story is thin to the point of being boilerplate, and instead of capturing cities and managing armies, players rarely do more than move from fight to fight. But while “PQ2′s” outer shell feels dumbed down, the battles themselves are improved. Standard fights feel considerably more balanced than “PQ1′s” fights, which frequently approached untenably difficult levels, and the new item system aids an increase in gem types to let players win with skilled, creative play instead of waiting for the same old gems to appear. “PQ2″ mixes in the occasional mini-game for variety’s sake, but the fight system evolves enough to carry the surprisingly lengthy single-player campaign. Naturally, players who want some human competition can find it via the game’s two-player local and online (360 only) multiplayer, which function exactly as one hopes and expects they would.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11
Reviewed for: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
Also available for: Wii
From: EA Sports
ESRB Rating: Everyone (comic mischief)

It takes a special kind of thread to maneuver a needle as well-established (and, because it’s a professional golfing simulation, creatively handcuffed) as “Tiger Woods PGA Tour,” and it’s doubly difficult to please everybody in doing so. But in making changes that separately benefit those who want a more accessible golf experience and those who want a game that makes that first group cry, that’s precisely what “Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11″ does.

On the accessibility front, “TW11″ introduces a slightly fantastical currency, called focus, that players can accrue by playing well and spend as they choose to add power to a shot, increase accuracy or (among other things) use a putt preview mechanic to help fine-tune a shot on the green. The focus interface’s subtle design respects the integrity of the simulation, and because it’s rewarded to players through skillful play and hands out benefits with entirely believable results, it’s satisfyingly authentic despite being an inarguably contrived video game mechanic.

The focus currency headlines a number of more subtle changes that let unseasoned players cater “TW11″ to best address their shortcomings. The career mode once again distributes skill improvements as players advance their created golfers through the PGA Tour calendar, but now players can allot experience points to the areas — putting, driving, fading and so on — that most need the help. The optional tutorial lessons do a much better job of preaching the value of draws, lofts and shot types, and the analog stick controls (and meters for reading their accuracy) are responsive without, as they sometimes have in previous games, resorting to excess sensitivity.

On the complete other side of things is the new True Aim mode, which takes away all of “TW11′s” gamey assists and presents the entirety of the action, even post-shot, from the golfer’s point of view. Outside of a GPS device that helps players read the terrain and know the distance to the hole, the True Aim filter is akin to playing golf the way real golfers play it. It’s little more than a new camera angle and a disabling of certain viewing functions, but it arguably is “TW11′s” best addition for players who crave authenticity and want a new kind of challenge from the series.

Though the aforementioned tweaks might be the best thing about “TW11,” the addition of team play is the most prominent. The Ryder Cup, complete with captain duties and team management, joins the roster of playable championships, and “TW11′s” online team play supports up to six teams of four players each.

Traditional solo play (up to four players locally or online) returns, but now all players can shoot at their own pace online without watching everyone else take their turn. That welcome change heads the usual list of tiny enhancements, including some tweaks to the graphics and ball physics, more realistic green layouts, dynamic wind patterns that are prone to gusts, and a livelier GamerNet Challenges system, which allows players to challenge community shot records and accrue bonus experience points without ever leaving whatever mode they’re already playing.

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Toy Story 3
Reviewed for: Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Wii
Also available for: Windows PC, PSP and Nintendo DS
From: Avalanche Software/Disney Interactive
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+ (comic mischief)

“Toy story 3″ is what happens when inspired ideas fight a battle to the end with uninspired ideas while good and subpar execution duel similarly in the background.

Fortunately, if not easily, the good guys win more battles than they lose, and the game is significantly better than its five-car collision of ingredients would imply.

The struggle is apparent immediately, with “TS3″ pushing players into the story’s first level — an on-horse Wild West chase level starring Woody as the playable character — before the main menu even pops up. The level is simple, straightforward fun, but it’s also hampered by an unpolished control responsiveness (in this case, some imprecise horse jumping controls) that infects other control schemes throughout the game. A very generous checkpoint system makes it easy to forgive the setbacks the controls cause, but not so much that they aren’t still annoying when they pop up in bunches.

Immediately following that first level, “TS3″ drops players into an entirely different mode — the Toy Box — and it does so without adequately clarifying that players who wish to continue the story can do so without doing a single thing in this mode. But the confusion might be for the best, because it’s probably the most foolproof way to demonstrate to players that it’s this mode — and not the storyline, which feels more like a collection of self-contained vignettes than a coherent storyline — that really makes “TS3″ better than just another kids’ movie game.

Toy Box is “TS3′s” answer to sandbox gameplay — a fully open world, teeming with citizens, “Toy Story” characters and a horde of missions to complete and virtual toys (characters, vehicles and full-blown playsets) to unlock.

The missions aren’t exactly ingenious, with most of them being either fetch quests or simple facsimiles of side quests found in other open-world games. But “TS3″ designs them to be either quick or open-ended, making it easy for players to take on multiple objectives at a time while collecting more as they check some off the list. The variety of quests does plenty to compensate the lack of original mission design, and it only increases as players compile rewards and use them to purchase new toys — a horse here, a stunt car track there — that come with new mission types.

Those occasionally dodgy controls rear their head here as well — particularly with regard to the toy car controls, which are among the worst driving controls to be found anywhere in 2010. But “TS3′s” mission structure is so dense that when one quest is giving fits, there’s probably another one right behind it for players to work on before they go back and give the first one a shot. It’s a busybody’s paradise, it uses the “Toy Story” license very well, and it offers ambitious players a ton to do if they wish to turn the game inside out.

The story missions, by comparison, are less impressive, in part because there aren’t too many of them and they don’t tell much of a story. What they can do, though, is experiment with level designs the Toy Box’s open-world structure couldn’t properly accommodate. Not every experiment is a success, but enough of the missions do enough things right to make this a welcome addition to the game’s surprise main attraction.

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Wake up the Box!
For: iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad (universal app)
From: Wandake
iTunes Store Rating: 4+

“Wake up the Box!” is an imperfect game in some pretty significant ways, but developer Wandake appears to have partially acknowledged that by rewarding those who get in on the ground floor. Like a handful of other physics-based puzzle games, “Box” gives players a set amount of pieces in each level and tasks them with arranging them to influence the laws physics and successfully complete the level. But unlike most of these games, the object in “Box” is to create a chain reaction that leads to havoc — specifically, waking the napping Mr. Box — instead of prevent it. Though “Box” gets the physics and piece controls perfectly right, it does a poor job of explaining this objective, and a lack of instruction means you’ll have to decipher the game’s methods, interface and scoring system yourself. “Box’s” level count — 15 total, 10 of which are pretty easy to solve — is similarly lacking. But Wandake has promised lots of updates to come as “Box” evolves, and because the game is free for the time being, questions of value cease to exist for those who download it before the price increases. So get it now, get comfortable with it and get ready: Once “Box” reaches the 11th level, it assumes players have the basics down and are ready for some seriously tricky challenges, and future level additions are likely to tax the brain similarly once Wandake pushes them out the door.

Super Mario Galaxy 2
For: Wii
From: Nintendo
ESRB Rating: Everyone (mild cartoon violence)

Nintendo has made zero bones about “Super Mario Galaxy 2″ being more of the same stuff that made “Super Mario Galaxy” what it was, and because “Galaxy” was one of 2007′s best games, no one really seemed bothered by the idea of “SMG2″ being, at worst, the same fundamental game with new levels.

And at worst, that’s exactly what this is. But that’s also what the first “Galaxy” was — a prototypical 3D Mario game that had the same old story and was more notable for the unbelievable variety of new level designs it unleashed than any revolutionary change to the way players controlled Mario.

This time, just like last time, Nintendo relegates motion controls to special self-contained challenges that serve as diversions more than the main course, which plays out using the same traditional control scheme Nintendo has been using since Mario first entered the third dimension in 1996. A second player can once again use a Wii remote to help (or hinder) Mario in a few minor ways, but this doesn’t change the core game so much as give it a light social element. Like its predecessor, and unlike last year’s “New Super Mario Bros. Wii,” “SMG2″ isn’t designed with multiplayer in mind beyond sharing turns and passing the controller around.

With none of “Galaxy’s” basic ingredients needing any repair, Nintendo did as it should and focused primarily on unleashing two-plus years’ worth of whatever crazy new level ideas it could conjure.

The result, without getting too specific and spoiling anything, is nothing short of exquisite. “SMG2″ reuses bits and pieces of certain “Galaxy” levels, but it largely reinvents the wheel, constructing worlds that play liberally with the laws of gravity, collapse upon themselves, make Mario feet 2 feet tall, dream up impossibly crazy boss fights and even pay tribute to Mario’s past adventures. New characters join in, old favorites return, and the whole thing is an unapologetically colorful ball of joyful, brilliant design that perfectly toes the line between welcoming players of all stripes and challenging the best of them to bring their A-game. Picking every level clean will take a good 15 skillful hours to do, and there isn’t a moment in those hours where Nintendo’s level designers just coasted by.

“SMG2″ expands Mario’s suit repertoire by combining his classic (Fire Mario) and “Galaxy” (Bee Mario, Spring Mario, Boo Mario, Rainbow Mario) power-ups with a couple new entrants. Rock Mario can wreak havoc as a living boulder, while players who could use a hand will appreciate Cloud Mario’s ability to create his own platforms.

But perhaps the most welcome addition — along with being able to occasionally play as Luigi without beating the whole game — is the return of Yoshi, whose unique abilities come into play much more effectively than they did in his last appearance eight years ago. “SMG2″ generally reserves Yoshi’s appearances for specific levels, but the upshot is that those levels better cater to Yoshi’s ability to eat this and grab onto that than would be the case if Mario could enlist him at any time. Yoshi gains a few new powers of his own, including the ability to illuminate like a light bulb and turn into a makeshift blimp, but the same abilities he’s had for 20 years remain the most fun to use here.

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Split/Second
Reviewed for: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
Also available for: Windows PC
From: Black Rock Studio/Disney Interactive
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+ (violence)

It’s pretty clear how “Split/Second” wants to set itself apart as more than just another arcade racing game. The game’s premise exists inside a reality television show, which exists inside a fake city that players can thoroughly blow to pieces while simultaneously working their way around otherwise traditional racetracks.

Less obvious, but perhaps more important, is how well “Split/Second” does the little things — difficulty balancing, single-player rewards, a pattern of destruction that relies on timing and physics instead of simple scripted explosions — to make the big thing work so splendidly.

“Split/Second’s” core racing component should ring mostly familiar to anyone with a cursory knowledge of how arcade racers work. The game is generous with the crash physics, allowing and encouraging dangerous driving over pristine technique, and players who draft, drift, catch air and otherwise live dangerously are rewarded with further abilities toward gaining an edge.

In this case, though, those abilities translate into limited-use but freely deployable triggers that level portions of the environment and brutalize all cars that happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Those triggers translate into everything from helicopters dropping bombs to collapsing bridges to a yacht taking out a piece of highway, and “Split/Second’s” outstanding graphics engine brings every calamity to eye-popping life.

But it’s the physics more than the graphics that keep those explosions fresh beyond the novelty period. “Split/Second’s” impressively spartan heads-up display offers clues as to when it would be best to trigger a disaster, but simply hitting the button doesn’t promise anything. A.I. drivers can sidestep a poorly-timed trigger, and players very easily can trigger an attack on their own car if they don’t think it through. Nothing about the mechanic is scripted, and A.I. drivers are as prone to making the same mistakes.

For the same reasons, dodging other drivers’ attacks is arguably even more exciting than setting them off. The arsenal of trigger possibilities shrinks considerably for players who lead the race, but driving with seven targets on your back changes the game enough to more than compensate. “Split/Second’s” superb driving controls make skirting disaster by inches a tangible thrill, and the game’s diversionary events — which find players dodging bombing helicopters and outrunning semis bent on sabotage — play to this thrill as perfectly as the more traditional races do.

A point could certainly be made that “Split/Second’s” single-player career mode is hampered by some ruthless A.I. that can send players from first place to last in the blink of a single mistake. But the game rarely trips players into making unfair mistakes, and the career mode counteracts by rewarding players who finish in fifth as well as first with some kind of progress compensation. Players can repeat races at any time (and with better vehicles acquired by accumulating progress elsewhere), and while the system occasionally feels cheap, there’s something refreshing about an arcade racer that challenges you to conquer it from the very first race.

Naturally, any grievances with the A.I. fall away in “Split/Second’s” multiplayer mode (two players splitscreen, eight online), and all that’s great about the on-track action in single-player play applies here as well. Just don’t expect much beyond that: It works, and it supports most of the single-player modes in multiplayer form, but that’s about as fancy as it gets.

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Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
Reviewed for: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
Also available for: Windows PC, Wii, PSP and Nintendo DS
From: Ubisoft
ESRB Rating: Teen (violence)

Five “Prince of Persia” games in seven years after three in the preceding 14 has taken the franchise from nowhereville to sequel city in a hurry, and “The Forgotten Sands” does itself no favor by abandoning the dramatic visual and narrative makeover that made the 2008 reboot such a pleasantly fresh surprise.

“Sands” instead is a direct sequel to 2003′s “The Sands of Time,” which provides the basis of the “Persia” film currently in theaters (and, consequently, should answer whatever questions you had about Ubisoft ditching that reboot and rushing “Sands” out 17 months later).

Early on, “Sands” feels less like a sequel to “Time” than a capable but uninspired imitation of it. It plays like a typical “Perisa” game, mixing some ambitious environmental platforming with sword combat that’s more fun than special. Per series tradition, the massive traversable environments — ledges, trapeze swings, poles, cliff sides — feel like gigantic environmental riddles more than simple action game playgrounds, and the game uses an assisted character movement scheme that doesn’t hold players’ hands but also doesn’t require angle-perfect precision jumping. As with “Time,” and per story dictation, players eventually receive a limited-use ability to rewind time and correct mistimed jumps without reverting back to a checkpoint.

That rewind trick becomes indispensable once “Sands” comes into its own and gives the Prince powers that dwarf anything “Time” did. Players gradually receive the ability to alter the environment — freeze and unfreeze water, make entire structures appear and disappear — while simultaneously jumping through and climbing around it in traditional and (thanks to yet more abilities) exhilarating new ways. “Sands’” early levels aren’t exactly dull, but the designs in the second two-thirds of the game, which mix and match abilities with abandon and place a premium on meticulous timing and some serious thumb gymnastics, put them to shame.

“Sands’” combat, which pits the Prince against several dozen grunts and the occasional heavy at once, is considerably less impressive, but also an improvement on the 2008 game’s drab one-on-one combat. The Prince has a modest array of upgradable sword attacks and spells, but the combat typically amounts to little more than mashing buttons to kill a few dozen enemies while dodging the glacial attacks of the handful who get a chance to fight back. It’s nothing other action games haven’t done considerably better, but it is good for a mindless break between the more cerebral platforming parts, and it never carries on long enough to become a detriment to the fun.

What can be a detriment is “Sands’” occasional ability to just act up and not play nice. During the course of this review, for instance, a segment near the end of the game proved impossible to pass until the game was rebooted, after which point everything clicked and the same attempted maneuvers worked perfectly. The game’s checkpoint system is generous enough to make this an inconvenience more than a deal-breaker, and there’s no telling how likely it is you’ll even encounter this problem. But if you suddenly find certain techniques failing you no matter what you do, your best recourse may be the reset button.

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10 Pin Shuffle
For: iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad (Universal App)
From: Digital Smoke
iTunes Store Rating: 4+
Price: $4 (free demo version available)

The complexity of mobile games has skyrocketed since the iPhone development floodgates opened a couple years ago, but sometimes the best games remain the simple ones that just use the touchscreen perfectly right. “10 Pin Shuffle” aims to replicate the shufflepuck bowling game found in arcades and bars everywhere, and while the default control setting is excessively sensitive, the Easy Controls setting perfectly nails the sensation of sliding the puck at those pins. That alone makes this one of those games that even technophobic non-gamers don’t need instructions to play. “Shuffle’s” feature set nicely complements its intuitiveness: The 3D graphics look great, the little touches in the sound and presentation departments are a treat, and the game’s stat-tracking is impressive in its details. Best of all, there’s a bounty of modes, including traditional bowling, a really clever poker mode that combines bowling with video poker, and a version of straight-up, pins-free shufflepuck with customizable win conditions. In-progress games are autosaved if interrupted, and almost all modes support solo play, single-player with an A.I. opponent and pass-the-device or Bluetooth multiplayer. (The poker mode can’t support pass-the-device multiplayer due to its design, but it does support Bluetooth play.)

Dead to Rights: Retribution
For: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
From: Volatile Games/Namco Bandai
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood, intense violence, strong language, suggestive themes, use of drugs)

Six years ago, games like “Dead to Rights: Retribution” — third-person action games determined to do everything under the action game sun — were everywhere. Since then, most developers learned to specialize and substitute polish for versatility.

Volatile Games didn’t get that memo, and “Retribution” mostly carries on as if time never passed, competently doing a number of things (third-person brawling, shooting and stealth action) without knocking any one of them out of the park the way games today typically attempt to do. And here’s the funny thing: Because games like this don’t come along very often anymore, and because “Retribution” is nowhere near as bad as the few games that do typically are, it emerges as a much more enjoyable experience now than it might have been when this style was still in vogue.

Part of that is due to “Retribution” not completely ignoring the present. The shooter component, for instance, incorporates the over-the-shoulder perspective and environmental cover as well as the old-fashioned ability to run around and fire from the hip. The system isn’t perfect — certain objects that should provide cover simply don’t, and the welcome ability to freely switch between brawling and weapons combat also gives way to some awkward controller gymnastics and occasional camera disorientation — but it does work.

That goes as well for the brawling itself, which isn’t always pretty but is pretty enough. “Retribution” doesn’t pull any fancy tricks to make this anything but an old-school 2D brawler in three dimensions, but the control scheme is perfectly responsive and the block/counter/grapple system gives it the extra ounce of depth it needs to avoid being a completely mindless button masher.

Namco has positioned “Retribution” as a narrative reboot for embattled supercop Jack Slate, but regardless of whether such a thing was necessary — the story is fun in a dumb way but hardly special — the important point is that Jack’s canine sidekick remains at his side.

Shadow the attack dog, in fact, provides “Retribution” with its shining moments during some ridiculously improbable but wholly enjoyable stealth challenges in which Shadow must pick apart a room and clear a way for Jack.

A suspension of disbelief clearly is in order for a game that presents a dog with the intelligence and skillset of a special forces soldier, and “Retribution” flashes some additional technological obsolesce with regard to enemy awareness and overall artificial intelligence. But just as the cracks in the brawling and shooting segments’ polish aren’t deep enough to ruin a good time, the stealth segments are versatile enough to shake off their issues and stake a claim as the arguable highlight. Hunting thugs in the dark as a sweet-faced dog is great fun, and “Retribution’s” level designs, though never extraordinary, set the table nicely for some terrific stealth takedowns.

At the very least, when the camera and control schemes fail and Jack’s best-laid plans go to waste, “Retribution” displays a contemporary understanding of how never to let frustration linger for long. It’s forgiving in the field without being a cakewalk — when all else fails, dashing for cover and hiding out should heal wounds quickly — and the generous checkpoint allotment means that even when things go completely south, players don’t have to travel far to recover any lost ground.

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Monster Hunter Tri
For: Wii
From: Capcom
ESRB Rating: Teen (Blood, Use of Alcohol, Violence)

Capcom has tried and failed to persuade America to love “Monster Hunter” the way Japan does, but “Monster Hunter Tri” — imperfect and saturated with old trappings though it still is — might be where that persistence finally pays off.

Should “Tri’s” breakthrough happen, credit likely will go to the surprising support for four-player online co-op and downright shocking support for voice chat via Nintendo’s neglected Wii Speak peripheral.

Glorious absence of friend codes aside, rounding up a party still isn’t as elegant on the Wii as it likely would be on the other consoles. Additionally, the Wii Speak integration — assuming everyone even has the device — doesn’t always produce clear communication. If it’s logistically possible, a nearby PC and Skype account will better suffice.

Beyond these antiquities, though, the actual act of playing “Tri” online is very rewarding — due as much to the kind of game “Tri” is as its capacity for sharing the experience.

Though framed within a storyline, “Tri” structures itself like an MMO more than an adventure game. Players (solo or otherwise) accept quests centered around hunting different monsters for food and sport, and the overwhelming focus of the game centers around the act of conquering different monsters different ways than whatever rewards the story has in store for successfully doing so.

“Tri’s” environments give life to an impressive array of land and sea creatures whose mannerisms and capacities to fight back vary considerably, and after some early handholding, the game provides numerous weapons, items and tactics toward dispatching monsters any number of ways. The gist doesn’t deviate much from beginning to end, but it doesn’t need to: “Tri” zeroes in on the art of the hunt to a degree no other game does, and taming the game’s most impressive beasts is a rewarding endeavor alone and exponentially so when a plan of attack among friends succeeds.

If the concept sounds appealing, “Tri’s” unique bent should overcome some unwelcome callbacks (can’t save anywhere, overlong attack animations, large areas regularly interrupted by load screens) to outdated design. The camera controls are awkward, even when using the dual-sticked Classic Controller or Classic Controller Pro, and the control scheme takes additional adjustment when using the button-deficient Wii Remote and Nunchuck. The storyline also comes almost entirely free of voice acting, but that’s less of an issue when it becomes apparent how little a role the narration plays in the game’s enjoyment.

The good news is that all these issues are annoying more than damaging, and most of them are likely to cease mattering long before those who get into “Tri” are done picking it clean. More than 100 hours of gameplay is an easy feasibility for those who embrace all that lies within and challenge themselves to conquer every last creature, and the ability to lose oneself in a world this enormous more than makes up for the shortcomings with which it coexists.

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Blokzilla
For: iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad (universal app)
From: Tomato Interactive
iTunes Store Rating: 4+
Price: $1 (introductory price)

The concept of a Memory tribute providing thrilling, frantic action might sound ridiculous, but “Blokzilla” makes it happen by infusing the timeless card game with a bunch of timeless arcade game tricks. The concept is no more complex than matching two identical squares and clearing them from the screen, and “Blokzilla” would presume to be a cakewalk by leaving each square face up instead of face down. But rather than fight the failings of one’s own memory to succeed, players must sort through some deviously slight differences between squares that at first glance appear identical. Pick a bad pair, and the score multiplier resets. But carefully poring over each shape’s intricacies is equally damaging: “Blokzilla’s” score attack modes give players one, two or five minutes to clear as many squares and score as many points as they can, and the score multiplier melts away through inactivity as well as bad activity. The ticking clock, impatient multiplier and a delightfully loud visual and aural presentation combine to make the whole experience a startlingly intense good time. The only bad news about “Blokzilla” is the lack of online leaderboards, which are essential in a game so classically driven by high scores. But Tomato Interactive has indicated a willingness to add the feature in short order to a future update, so that may not be bad news for long.

Red Steel 2
For: Wii
From: Ubisoft
ESRB Rating: Teen (animated blood, mild language, mild suggestive themes, violence)

Remember how awesome “Red Steel” was going to be, and how the amazingly immersive mix of first-person shooting and motion-controlled swordplay promised to take action games to an entirely new plane? And remember how none of that happened at all? Oh, you do? Well “Red Steel 2″ would rather you didn’t, because three years later, all those empty promises finally have a game on which to hang their hats.

Fundamentally, what “RS2″ does is similar enough to its predecessor to bear the franchise name. It’s still a first-person shooter and motion-controlled swordfighting game cobbled together as one.

But everything about “RS2′s” methods stands in stark, and entirely welcome, contrast to its predecessor.

For starters, and maybe finishers, it’s just plain fun. Unlike the first game, “RS2″ allows players to switch between gunplay and swordplay whenever they want instead of when the game dictates, and Ubisoft puts all the pieces together to make what should be a complete controller nightmare into a slightly unwieldy but astonishingly pleasant ride. The cursor-based shooting feels considerably more intuitive this time around, and switching from gun to sword and back, while inevitably a bit disorienting given the disparity in control styles, works plenty well enough to avoid becoming the source of frustration it so easily could have been.

Though some inevitably won’t like it, Ubisoft’s decision to not just support but flat-out require Nintendo’s MotionPlus controller attachment pays off enourmously on the swordplay side. The game guides players’ movements to a small degree, but overwhelmingly, striking, thrusting and parrying are mapped precisely to how players hold the Wii remote.

The extra precision allows “RS2″ to introduce a surprisingly large arsenal of swordfighting moves as the story advances, and the combat is very gratifyingly active — arguably to a fault if active gaming isn’t your thing. Lazy flicks of the wrist won’t suffice the way they did in the first game, and if you can’t get into the idea of swinging the remote with the full might you would a sword, you should just find a game that isn’t as committed to the Wii’s original vision as this one so satisfyingly is.

Superficially, the story isn’t much different. The bland, overly serious storyline from the first game is scrapped in favor of an exuberant mix of Asian cinema, post-apocalyptic dark comedy and spaghetti western, and “RS2′s” narrative structure now breaks down, “Borderlands”-style, into bite-sized missions that players eventually can accept by the handful.

The “Borderlands” approach extends to “RS2′s” visual presentation, which combines realistic and cel-shaded graphic design to create a game that would look good on any system and stands head and shoulders above most of its Wii counterparts. That the art style also suits the storyline and action so perfectly — everything about “RS2′s” approach in all three departments seems developed with a brazenly fun-first spirit in mind — certainly doesn’t hurt matters.

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Rooms: The Main Building
Reviewed for: Wii
Also available for: Nintendo DS
From: Hudson
ESRB Rating: Everyone (mild violence)

Considering the main objective of “Rooms: The Main Building” is to rearrange the game world in order to help the onscreen character escape the room, is it fitting or ironic that the game’s biggest problem might be its inability to get out of its own way?

Conceptually, “Rooms” is sound, if something of an odd fit for a big-screen console game. The overriding objective is to move pieces of a room around, sliding puzzle style, in such a way that allows the onscreen character to reach the exit and head to the next room. The number of pieces increases as the story progresses, and the game occasionally introduces new items and situations to mix things up a bit, but the general gist doesn’t change. “Rooms” gives players point-and-click control over the onscreen character’s movements, but the tile sliding is where the game’s real action lies.

The idea of “Rooms” being little more than a string of ornate sliding puzzles — precisely the kind of toy people invented video games to get away from — would make it a pretty hard sell in its $30 Nintendo DS form, to say nothing of its $30 Wii form.

But whether “Rooms” helps or hurts itself with the extra frills it piles on is legitimately arguable. Some will adore, possibly for all the wrong reasons, the story and overall design, which incorporate full-motion video animation and the kind of sound effects that would make 1993 proud. But anyone who wasn’t around during the CD-ROM game heyday (or was, but wishes they weren’t) likely won’t see the story as anything but intrusive and confusingly designed for no real benefit.

Those who do, meanwhile, will find it hard to endure the 100 levels it takes to see “Rooms” to its conclusion. The high level count obviously is a must for Hudson to justify the high price, but all the items and special level circumstances can do only so much to spice up what essentially is the same trick repeated ad nauseam.

“Rooms’” multiplayer suite engenders a similar lack of fulfillment. The battle mode, which pits two players in a race to complete the same puzzle at the same time, is fun for a while, but only so long as the basic gameplay holds interest in the first place.

The existence of a level design tool, meanwhile, is thoroughly puzzling. It’s sufficiently robust and probably the most polished facet of the entire game, but it includes no way to share the level with other players unless they play it on your console. Having the ability to trade more sliding puzzles online with others probably wouldn’t do much to help a game whose concept runs out of steam long before the single-player supply is tapped out, but if you’re going to these lengths to give players a means to create, why neuter the process by quashing the ability to share?

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Save the Turtles
For: Nintendo DSi via DSiWare shop
From: Sabarasa
ESRB Rating: Everyone
Price: $5

Devising clever scenarios for match-three puzzle games is about as easy these days as inventing new uses for a glass of orange juice, so Sabarasa gets credit out of the gate for doing exactly that. The goal in “Save the Turtles” is indeed to match three of a kind. But instead of sliding gems or shapes, players have to guide cartoon turtles into matching rows in order for the ocean to send a wave to pick them up. The act of guiding living objects is novel on its own, and “Turtles” builds on that novelty by populating the beach with crabs, debris and other obstacles the turtles must avoid. The sun, and its ability to give the turtles sunburn, poses an additional threat to players who don’t make matches quickly and consistently. “Turtles’” stylus controls occasionally hiccup when creating a path for a turtle to follow, but for the most part, the controls and interface function exactly as they should. Players who get used to the mechanics might be surprised how intricate the seemingly basic gameplay eventually becomes, and “Turtles” rewards those who do so with enough content — a 32-level story mode, an endless survival mode, a quick-play mode that changes certain story mode rules, unlockable achievement-like trophies — to easily justify the $5 asking price.

Metro 2033
Reviewed for: Xbox 360
Also available for: Windows PC
From: 4A Games/THQ
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood, sexual themes, strong language, use of drugs, violence)

Give 10 nitpickers 10 hours each to run through “Metro 2033,” and each probably would emerge with a unique laundry list of missteps. There’s no multiplayer. The gunplay is just a touch off. Checkpoints occasionally appear before unskippable (and, upon failure to reach the next checkpoint, repeating) cutscenes. The running animation looks hilariously wrong. The voice acting cuts out when it shouldn’t. Human enemies have weird, sometimes amusing A.I. patterns, and they occasionally can withstand a perfect headshot and continue functioning like it’s a bee sting.

But a staunch dedication to atmosphere — and a willingness to do anything, even to the player’s occasional temporary detriment, to creatively make that ambience sing — is perhaps the one thing that makes grievances easiest to forgive. Despite dealing with themes (Nazis, Soviets, mutants, post-apocalyptic wastelands and subterranean warfare) other games have wrung dry, it’s this attention to mood that makes “2033″ not only forgivable, but an arguable must-play.

“2033″ doesn’t get terribly fancy with the basics. Mutant enemies act like rabid mutants, and soldiers, despite the aforementioned occasional A.I. disorder, act like soldiers. Controls, though a slight touch loose, are more than sufficiently solid, and “2033″ rewards ammo conservation and tactical warfare over rushing and spraying anything that moves.

But “2033′s” setting, a modern society made post-apocalyptically archaic, trickles into those basics. The result of that infection is intriguing initially and enthralling once the full might of surprisingly cinematic story is felt.

If, for instance, those slightly loose shooting controls were an accident, they’re a happy accident that creates the sensation of using tinpot weaponry that still packs a punch. Gas masks are prone to visor cracks that can prove fatal if a replacement isn’t found in time, and the stock flashlight comes with a ridiculously oversized manual charger that players must pump with the right trigger. Pre-war, military-grade ammunition doubles as valuable currency toward the purchase of shoddier bullets in higher quantities — a must, given the scarcity of ammunition in general. Homemade pipe bombs substitute for grenades, “towns” consist of dingy subway corridors, and the sky is an object of legend more than a daily reality.

The mastery of atmosphere doesn’t hide the aforementioned quirks in “2033′s” gameplay, nor does it make the occasional bout of crushing difficulty any easier for casual gunslingers to swallow. (Tip: There’s zero shame in playing this one on Easy.)

But for every shaky patch, “2033″ has a shining moment waiting nearby. An escort mission that finds players carrying a kid on their backs significantly hampers player aim with realistic kid-on-back physics, but it eschews the trappings that typically make escort missions so contemptible by not allowing the kid to wander into harm’s way. And the game’s centerpiece, an enormous mission that finds players separately infiltrating both the Nazi and Red Army front lines, is a spectacularly fun confluence of open-ended tactical warfare. “2033″ rewards an achievement to players who kill every last soldier as well as those who sneak past both lines without hurting a fly, and the multithreaded design of the level easily allows for either possibility and numerous more in between.

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Calling
For: Wii
From: Hudson Entertainment
ESRB Rating: Teen (violence)

There’s a line horror games must toe in order to entertain players while simultaneously turning them into nervous wrecks, and despite doing some things pretty well, “Calling” stumbles and falls clean off it shortly after it sticks its foot out.

It isn’t all bad at first. In fact, “Calling” gets off to an interesting start because of how quickly its clever and unfortunate sides begin butting heads.

The first-person perspective, for instance, falls prey to the general messiness that ensues when using the Wii remote to control a first-person camera. But it’s also pretty cool to play a game that isn’t a shooter from this perspective, and the lack of full-body awareness lends some extra discomfort to an interactive ghost story that favors cramped rooms and dark hallways.

“Calling’s” interface and exploratory controls contradict similarly. Opening a door, for instance, takes two presses of the A button and a swing of the remote, while examining objects and interfacing with the game’s virtual cell phone is downright laborious. But the need to make deliberate actions in the unpredictable dark enhances the tension for obvious reasons, and where the game’s visual interfaces sometimes fail, its aural design — particularly with regard to that cell phone and the role it plays in the story — is excellent.

But “Calling’s” divergencies descend from interesting to obnoxious as soon as players find their characters endangered, and between the game’s inability to (a) translate that danger into exciting gameplay and (b) do anything but repeat itself ad nauseam outside of some very uninspired puzzles, the fight between clever and unfortunate quickly turns lopsided.

Every now and then, while traversing one of “Calling’s” vaguely designed levels — lots of locked doors and hallways that all look the same, to paint a picture — players will come under attack by one or more spirits. Allow too many hauntings to spike the playable character’s heart rate past a certain level, and it’s game over.

But rather than ratchet up the tension, all these chases do is trigger frightfully annoying exercises in which players must aimlessly scramble to find the one random door or hallway that goes somewhere and, upon inevitably getting stopped by a ghost while doing so, shake the remote furiously until it backs off. Scramble, get caught, shake, repeat, repeat, repeat.

The transgressions of “Calling’s” opaque level designs would be forgivable if breaking free of a ghost required some kind of skillful play, but it doesn’t: Shaking the remote aimlessly isn’t fun, and it’s a tiresome pain to do so every 20 seconds while reconciling the sloppy camera and deducing which door is the one that actually goes somewhere.

Worse, once players find that door, all that awaits behind it is more of the same until the game ends — or half-ends, at which point “Calling” deals out a fake ending and makes players replay the whole thing to see the entirety of the story. (No joke.) Nothing about the storyline justifies repeating these exercises once, and Hudson has lost its mind by demanding players repeat the repetition to see how “Calling” ends.

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Perfect Dark
For: Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade
From: Rare/Microsoft
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood, violence)
Price: $10

No piece of entertainment of any kind has aged as gracelessly as older first-person shooters, which look like cave drawings next to their modern counterparts and often play just as unflatteringly. It’s with that in mind that the blissfully nostalgic return to “Perfect Dark” with a level head, lest their memories of 2000′s best shooter undergo harsh tarnishing. “Dark’s” story holds up reasonably well by today’s standards, and some of the things it does with regard to special enhancements — remote-control spy cams, unique weapons with creative alternate fire modes, unlockable mods for a multiplayer suite (four players locally, eight online, with combinations of the two allowed) that’s faster and looser than most modern-day counterparts — are unique enough to still be special. But even with a new dual-stick control scheme, “Dark’s” aiming mechanism and oppressive reliance on auto-aim feel really archaic, and players looking for a lean button will be dismayed to discover they can’t even jump. The smooth framerate and high-definition sheen are welcome upgrades to “Dark’s” rough visual exterior, but neither is nearly radical enough of a makeover to hide the engine’s age, and the overriding level design — lots of identical corridors, doors and elevators — would never fly in a brand-new product.