Four-star scale NINTENDO 3DS GAMES — “LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars” by LucasArts for 3DS — Plays more fun in 3-D as a handheld game, elevating what would be just another “LEGO” adventure. Looks very good. Moderately challenging. Rated “E 10+” for cartoon violence, comic mischief. — “Madden Football” by EA for 3DS — Plays very fun, smooth and big, just like “Madden” should, but in 3-D. Moderately challenging.

Search metadata Search full text of books Search TV captions Search archived web sites Advanced Search.

Rated “E.” Four stars. — “Mario Kart 7” by Nintendo — In this really good, arcade combat-racing game, you drive karts on tracks while also using special weapons to blow up rival cars. Your mission is to win in a field of eight competitors. But you can only win if you drive over boxes to collect special powers. Some special powers let you drive really fast for a few seconds, so you can catch up to rivals in front of you. Other special powers let you rain down lightning storms, banana peels and bombs to slow rivals.

If you’re sick of “Mario Kart” games, this one’s not much different. “Mario Kart 7” does have new and revamped tricks (gliding through the air on big jumps, and speeding through underwater courses). You also collect coins to for little speed boosts. In addition to regular racing on 16 new courses and 16 retro courses, you can play a collect-all-the-coins racing mode, and a competition where you try to bust balloons attached to rival cars.

More impressive is the impeccable online racing. It’s fluid, flawless and fast. It’s stellar. Easy to challenging, based on settings you choose.

Three and one-half out of four stars. 'Mario Kart 7' is fluid, flawless and fast. Nintendo — “Pac-Man & Galaga Dimensions” by Namco Bandai Games America for 3DS — This comes with the original “Pac-Man” and “Galaga,” but it includes the more fun “Pac-Man Championship Edition,” a zippier, faster “Pac-Man” in which the dots and the mazes are constantly changing locations, which creates fun, timer-limited experiences. There’s also “Galaga Legions,” which updates “Galaga” into a sort of laser-light show. Rated “E 10+” for comic mischief and fantasy violence.

— “Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 — 3DS” by Konami for 3DS — An enjoyable soccer experience typical of the “PES” series. The only wrinkle holding “PES 2011” back is the same thing that inhibits all soccer games: Rival soccer players always run faster than you, whether they’re dribbling a soccer ball or stealing yours. Very challenging. Rated “E.” Three stars.

— “Resident Evil: Revelations” by Capcom for 3DS — You portray “Resident Evil” veterans Jill and Chris in this third-person survival-horror. A group of bioterrorists has destroyed a Mediterranean island city that existed on solar power. The island has gone all “grrr” with zombie-esque creature things filled with disgusting fluid. So you go on missions with a peer.

This sequel has traditional templates. You walk slowly through a decrepit dark ship, and through snowstorms and other locales, shooting zombie-like creatures and devil dogs. The tone is nice and yuck. But here’s the wrinkle. You use a gun-styled X-ray scanner as you walk room-to-room, to find hidden bullets and secret items, such as keys and grenades.

This slows down the pace of the already-creeping game. You also search for bullets constantly. “Revelations” is pretty good. It moves smoothly. It looks and sounds terrific.

The monster-killing is satisfactory. The scanner is tedious.

Rated “M” for blood, gore, intense violence and language. Three and one-half stars. — “Ridge Racer 3D” by Namco for 3DS — Plays sort of fun as a large, above-average racing title.

Rated “E” for mild suggestive themes. — “The Sims 3” by EA for 3DS — Plays only slightly fun, as it takes too long for the game to lodge character choices on a minute-by-minute basis. Rated “T” for crude humor, mild violence, sexual themes.

— “Sonic Generations” by Sega for 3DS — This like a greatest-hits of “Sonic,” featuring super-fast levels from the past 20 years of “Sonic” games. It’s much harder than “Mario” games. But if you dig on tradition, “Sonic Generations” is a sleek and cool resurrection of the world’s most famous hedgehog. Rated “E.” Three and one-half stars.

— “Star Fox 64 3D” by Nintendo — This is a remake of a 1997 Nintendo 64 game for kids, which itself was a reboot of a 1993 Super Nintendo game. You pilot the spaceship of a fox named Fox, firing weapons at dinky little rival spaceships. “Star Fox 64 3D” is simply too retro. The 3-D effects and illustrations are sweet. If you loved “Star Fox” 14 or 18 years ago and want to relive it, have fun.

But to me, “Star Fox 64 3D” is a waste of high tech 3-D to remake a cobwebbed hit from two decades ago. Been there, done that. Plays like retro retread.

Rated “E 10+” for fantasy violence. One and one-half star. — “Steel Diver” by Nintendo for 3DS — Plays quite fun at first, as a submarine game where you sink ships in first-person mode, or omnipotent-view battleship mode, but it wears thin too fast. Rated “E 10+” for mild violence. One and one-half stars. — “Super Mario 3D Land” by Nintendo for 3DS — This is the most fun Mario game to come along in a long while.

It’s a pretty platform adventure, with all the familiar elements. You run, jump and fly as Mario, figuring out how to navigate puzzling jumps and secret alleys, while battling mushrooms, turtles and Boswer. You travel a wondrous series of lands. The difficulty level is perfectly balanced for both casual and serious gamers.

And the 3-D effects are awesome, as things seem to float out of the game toward your eyes. Plays very fun.

Moderately challenging. Rated “E.” Four stars. — “Super Monkey Ball 3D” by Sega for 3DS — Plays fun if you enjoy “Monkey Ball” and marble-balancing games, although its scope is limited to just that: rolling a marble across weird surfaces while avoiding obstacles.

Moderately challenging. Rated “E” for cartoon violence. — “Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition” by Capcom for 3DS — Plays fun and comes with a full range of Capcom’s historic fist-fighters and feet-foes.

Rated “T” for mild language, mild suggestive themes, violence. Three and one-half stars. — “Tetris Axis” by Nintendo for 3DS — “Axis” is exactly what you want from any old “Tetris” game. Blocks fall from the sky. You organize them into the correct position to fit together. “Axis” comes with different versions of “Tetris,” including falling pieces that form jigsaw puzzles.

It’s addicting. Moderately challenging. Rated “E.” Three stars. NINTENDO WII — “New Super Mario Bros. Wii” by Nintendo for Wii — The name “Mario” might let you think this is an easy kiddie game. It’s a very difficult solo side-scrolling platform jumper, which looks and feels very familiar. You run left to right, and climb upwards, in a level-by-level rescuing of Princess Peach, who has been kidnapped yet again.

All the familiar “Mario” stuff is here, the characters, the killer mushrooms, the dinky music and sound effects -- the whole shebang. Although it’s merely a better-looking version of 20 years of “Mario,” the game play is pretty addictive and fun. And the new offline, four-person cooperative mode is an excellent idea, where you and up to three friends can take on these same worlds. The caveat of the cooperative mode is it’s unreal, the amount of villains and ammunition being thrown at you. It’s so very hard. On the other hand, if you and your friends are hardcore “Mario” fans, these challenges could thrill you. Plays very fun, both as a solo side-scroller and as an offline cooperative multiplayer.

Very challenging, especially in cooperative mode. Looks great for a “2-D” game. Rated “E.” Four stars. 'New Super Mario Bros. Wii' is not as easy as you'd think. Nintendo — “Rayman Raving Rabbids” — A minor masterpiece. You play dozens of mini-games based on Whack-a-Mole and shooting galleries, among other arcade and classic games. Superstamps Download Music.

It’s rare, too, in that it’s funny. Plays as fun as games get. Quite challenging. — “Resident Evil 4” — One of the very best games of all-time, you trek through scary horror towns full of evil farmers, kill them and try to save a girl from religious cultists. Plays very fun.

Very challenging. GAME SYSTEMS — Microsoft Xbox 360 — Since 2006, this system offers high-definition, plays DVDs, Netflix and other apps. Msn Recorder Max Serial Keygen.

Games played online through Xbox Live. — Nintendo 3DS — A March 2011 launch, this handheld game system amazingly plays games in 3-D without making the user wear eyeglasses.

It comes with WiFi for surfing online, downloading games from Nintendo, and competing in online multiplayer. It can find nearby 3DS gamers for you to share your game with, to compete. It’s backwards compatible, playing your old DS and DSi games. It comes with cameras for you to take photos in 3-D, though they’re low-definition photos. Battery life is but two to five hours, depending on how rich a game is.

Easy to challenging games. — Nintendo Wii — The famously interactive game system is a great choice for kids of violence-paranoid parents. — Nintendo Wii U — This is Nintendo's high-definition system. It's still good for kids, since available games trade in such familiar names as 'Mario' and Mickey Mouse. But it also offers 'Call of Duty: Black Ops II' and other hardcore games for serious players. The 1-pound, agile and easy hand controller is a tablet-esque thing with a touch screen. Wii U also has online game play, plus apps for Netflix and other popular offerings.

Nintendo's Wii U is good for kids and hardcore gamers. Nintendo — Sony PlayStation 3 — The high-definition system with the most powerful computer system in it. It can act as your online surfer, if you have broadband cable in the house.

Plays Blu-ray movies and Netflix. — Sony PS Vita — Launched in February 2012, the Vita makes Sony’s old PSP seem ancient. It plays great, high-definition video games, with two joysticks, a touch screen, and a backside touch screen for some motions in games.

It makes phone games and Nintendo 3DS games seem putrid. Goes online through WiFi or 3G connectivity.

MOVIE/NARRATIVE — “Assassin’s Creed III” (Ubisoft) for Xbox 360, PS 3 and PC — We again portray a present-day bartender who got kidnapped by a secret society that forced us to time-travel to the past. This secret society thinks we are The One who can stop the world from ending due to a solar flare. We must save Earth by seeking magical thingamabobs that guard against solar flares. So we time-travel to Colonial and Revolutionary Boston, we look for magical thingamabobs, we kill bad dudes, we kill dogs who treat us poorly, we pet dogs that treat us nicely (for real), we climb buildings (parkour-style) and jump across rooftops, we ride a boat, we run through snow, and we solve mysteries. But mostly, it feels to me, we’re watching a lot of stunning film scenes about plot. I admire the artistry and the attempt to interest me with a long narrative. But I played 10 hours, and it bored me to tears (literally, yawn tears).

There’s not much action to be had, or that compelled me. We listen to people talk. When we’re lucky, we engage in a quick and easy sword fight. When we are seldom even prompted to push a button to watch characters chat, we don’t even have a dialogue tree to choose our sentences. Camera angles can be quirky. I had trouble making muskets work.

The quick-time event in the snowy-forest dog attack is tedious. I hate the escort missions. I hate riding a horse for 15 minutes. I didn’t give this game a star rating, because after 10 hours (15 percent of the game), I had to quit to save my life from boredom. Moderately challenging. Rated “M” for blood, intense violence, sexual themes and strong language.

(Reviewed 10/30/12.) — “Alan Wake” by Microsoft for Xbox 360 — This psychological-horror title owes much inspiration to the novels of Stephen King. You portray the title character, a novelist suffering writer’s block, who goes to an island cabin with his wife, who vanishes. For a long, long time, you don’t know if she is alive, dead, kidnapped, or what. The plot is fleshed out with cinematics.

The action involves you roaming forests, shining flashlights on evil spirits to illuminate their human form, then you shoot them. The storyline is quite novelistic, with flashbacks and psychological twists and tricks. Plays fun and interesting.

Looks very good. Moderately challenging. Rated “T.” Four stars. — “Catherine” by Atlus for PS 3, Xbox 360 — This is a very creative and interesting, moralistic game about sex. You portray a loser, lying adulterous scum, but the two women you’re cheating on include an overbearing nag and a potentially violent jealous freak. It’s a story-heavy game with unredeemable characters who are misogynists and witches.

For half the game, you watch beautifully drawn anime scenes between these idiot characters. Occasionally you choose phrases that make you either more evil or more good. The other half of the game is like a giant game of Jenga, where you climb skyward up huge blocks of moveable metal, ice and spikes. This would have been a great game, except that the Jenga-like games are very, very difficult, yet the controls don’t always work well for me.

If a game is going to be insanely demanding, it must offer perfect controls. Plus, the faster I solve a puzzle, the faster big villains chase me, punishing me for being good at their puzzles. Insanely challenging.

Rated “M” for blood, partial nudity, sexual themes, strong language, use of alcohol, violence. Two and one-half stars. — “The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena” by Atari for Xbox 360 and PS 3 — Vin Diesel returns in the lead, hero role of Riddick in this first-person stealth-action adventure, containing intriguing voice-over narratives and cinematic cut scenes. One part of the game is a revamped and faster, high definition upgrade of the 2004 title, “The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay.” Another part is an all-new sequel where you escape from a spaceship. In each, you shimmy ledges and ladders, sneak up on people to slice or shoot them, and figure out how to escape without a portable map. The online multiplayer is standard but solid.

Plays addictively fun. Rated “M.” Four stars. — “The Darkness” for Xbox 360 and PS 3 — An ugly-beautiful game, “Darkness” offers a gloriously detailed New York, though it’s a nasty and grimy setting for a bizarre shooting game.

You blast mobsters, but you also feed their corpse hearts to demon snakes protruding from your torso. Plays fun when not sporadically boring. Moderately challenging. — “Deus Ex: Human Revolution” by Square Enix for Xbox 360, PS 3, PC — This is about as perfect a game as you’ll find. It’s an action-adventure packed with: 200,000 spoken lines of dialogue; immense cinematic scenes; and three kinds of games in one. It’s a role-playing game in which you converse with characters and try to make the right verbal choices to solve detective plots.

It’s a computer hacking game where you hack into mainframes and doorways via mini games. And it’s a sleuth-or-shoot spy game in which you can either sneak up on henchmen and kill them, or sneak past them or shoot them with stun guns (if you have a conscience). In other words, the game is mindful of both “Mass Effect 2” and “Metal Gear Solid,” but wholly an original, addictive adventure set in a sci-fi future Earth, where you upgrade your hero character’s bionic head, arms, torso and legs.

You can even become invisible, and that’s always a good thing. Plays amazing. Looks amazing. Rated “M” for blood, drug reference, intense violence, sexual themes, strong language, use of alcohol. 'Deus Ex: Human Revolution' was the best of 2012.

Square Enix — “Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion” for PS 3, Xbox 360 — It’s one of the finest fantasy-adventure games, with knights, elves, swords and vast kingdoms. Plays fun, though with some slack moments. Three and one-half stars. — “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim” by Bethesda Softworks for Xbox 360, PS 3, PC — This is an enormous, epic adventure full of dungeons, dragons, sword fights and magic spells.

But the pacing is awfully slow, and the game froze my Xbox 360 a few times, plus I experienced severe frame-rate slow-downs during battles. You portray an elf, human or other character (your choice). Then you embark on adventures on a fantasy planet where you’re attacked by wolves, bears, trolls, ice wizards and vampires. The story: Dragons are terrorizing villages. Your character was born with the power to kill and absorb dragon souls. So you kill random baddies, steal their best weapons, and find and hone magic skills — while exploring 150 dungeons and other locales to murder dragons. You are regularly asked to help villagers carry out side quests, from working a day job to joining gangs.

It literally could take you months of hardcore gaming to do everything in “Skyrim.” And then, you could start it all over again as a different character. But you must scour caves for books and other tedious details, which becomes ponderous. You must travel by foot to villages by foot at first (for 10 minutes or more, boringly) before you can start time-warping to towns.

It’s worth the effort if you like this type of role-playing, open-world, action game. Rated “M” for blood, gore, intense violence, sexual themes, use of alcohol.

— “Fable III” by Microsoft retails for $60 for Xbox 360 — Transport yourself back to the British-styled fantasyland, a mythical place of treasure chests, wenches and scallywags. Your mission is to spend dozens of hours on missions, helping villagers deliver packages and uncover booty.

You upgrade weapons and magics. You get married if you want, and have kids. You buy homes and businesses.

And you do that while working your way through quite a few villages, trying to capture your family throne. Also comes with online play and cooperative mode. Plays addicting and enjoyable. Looks fantastic. Standard challenges. Rated “M” for blood, language, sexual content, use of alcohol, violence.

— “Fallout 3” for Xbox 360 and PS 3 — The future is not bright in this post-apocalyptic tale in which you play as a young man or woman, escaping a bomb shelter, reaching a surface around Washington, D.C., that looks like gray destruction, and demands you kill or be killed. But you also help villagers to increase your good karma, and to power up your traits of charm, thievery and killing might. Plays intriguing.

Moderately challenging. Rated “M” for blood, gore, intense violence, sexual themes, strong language, use of drugs. — “Final Fantasy XIII-2” by Square Enix for PS 3 and Xbox 360 — This game takes place on a faraway, anime planet, where a meteor is tossing monsters onto the planet and causing havoc. You portray two warrior heroes, Serah and Noel, who battle monsters and try to solve the thick plot, by traveling to more than 30 locations by using gates into time-space rifts. This sequel is three things: Watching dialogue-heavy narrative scenes; slaying monsters; and earning points to upgrade your magic and combat skills.

Anime film scenes are beautifully drawn. Storylines are mildly persuasive. It’s a huge, complex game. It lets us upgrade the heroes’ fighting strength, magic and self-healing abilities, via hundreds of options in the pause menu. Sometimes after you defeat a monster, you capture it, and it travels with you, fighting your foes at your command.

My main caveat: The action of battling monsters is old-school RPG. You don’t move around and swing swords.

Instead, you take your turn by choosing which attack force to throw at a monster. Then the monster takes his turn. Back and forth, this goes. All the while, the otherwise static TV screen fills up with numbers to show you how many hit points you dealt your opponent, and vice versa. That can feel tedious. But this cinematic, sci-fi, fantasy, real-time, turn-based, action-role playing sequel is mostly enjoyable. Looks terrific.

Rated “T” for drug reference, mild language, mild suggestive themes, simulated gambling and violence. Three and one-half stars. (Reviewed 01/31/12.) — “Heavy Rain” by Sony for PS 3 — this is a mature, interactive novel-type game, where you play as various characters in a mystery. There’s a serial killer on the loose.

You portray a suspect, as well as a detective and others. The look of the game is realistic to the point that when you go potty or take a shower, it looks like you’re going potty and taking a shower. There are many choices to be made, and some of them will alter the life cycle of characters and the ending. So be careful. The action sequences are like a mix of the old games, “Dragon Slayer” and “D.” You push buttons when told.

Plays intriguing. Moderately challenging.

Rated “M.” Four stars. — “Kingdoms of Amular: Reckoning” by EA for Xbox 360, PS 3 and PC — In this single player, role-playing fantasy, you portray a man or woman (your choice) who dies in battle on a fictional planet resembling the Earth of king-or-dragon films of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. You awaken in an afterlife, discover you are the only creature reborn without an assigned fate, then battle your way back to Amular and through it. For the next 60 to 1 zillion hours of game play, you travel towns, caves and countryside, searching for your fate, while accepting side missions to aid the injured or bands of warriors, and such.

The makers of “Amular” clearly aimed to make a mix of “God of War” (adventure hand-to-hand combat) and “Oblivion” (role-playing nerd-dom, featuring a novel’s worth of dialogue and exposition). But “Amular” is far more “Oblivion” (but without the glitches) than “God of War.” Combat is superior, featuring scores of weapons and armors. But “God of War” games are linear narrative.

“Amular” is not linear. It’s free-roaming.

So if you venture too far, too fast, your character won’t be super-powered enough to take on villains that are meant to be faced later in the game. And you befriend hundreds of characters who want to blab to you about their lives, their struggles, and blah blah blah. A typical gamer could easily be turned off by having to pause the game every few minutes to level-up boots, pants, gloves, armor, etc., etc., ad infinitum. The music score is incredible. Plays long, deep and entertaining. Very challenging.

Rated “M” for blood, gore, intense violence, suggestive themes. — “Mass Effect 2” by EA for Xbox 360 and PC — This is a fun, addicting, cinematic masterstroke. It’s half-shooting game and half-role-playing adventure. You portray a spaceship commander (male or female; your choice) who docks your spaceship at planet after planet, in a galaxy of stars. Then you interact with baddies, good guys and indifferent aliens, choosing dialogue from among a set of moral and amoral choices. Then you go into battle with villains, in a quest to save the universe from destruction.

The details of plot and character aren’t very fresh or original, but who cares? The breadth and incredible execution of the game is nearly flawless.

Plays intensely fun. Looks terrific. Fairly easy to challenging, depending on settings you choose.

Rated “M.” Four stars. — “Mass Effect 3” by Electronic Arts for Xbox 360, PS 3, PC — This is a long game, as long as a few novels. In the sci-fi future of “ME 3,” outer space bullies called Reapers are brutally destroying every organic life form in our galaxy. You portray Commander Shepard (a man or woman; this choice is yours).

Your main mission is to broker peace among intergalactic species, and convince them to engage in intergalactic war against the Reapers. So “Mass Effect 3” is three things: 1) A role-playing game with lots of dialogue options during conversations, for you to win over allies and to gather intelligence. 2) A very good cover-shooter. 3) A bunch of compelling narrative movie scenes. You travel back and forth between your spaceship (chatting with underlings about important stuff for an hour at a time) and dozens of planets and moons. On those planets and moons, you kill baddies, rescue goodies, and talk with potential allies. Here’s a great twist.

Through menu options, you can tell the game to be a straight-up shooter; or to be a verbal-rich role-playing shooter. That terrific option gives fans of pure cover-shooting to dispense with long conversations. But it is more fun as an RPG-shooter, making one feel more invested in battle, instilling nerve-wracking purpose to your warring. Complaints: I was often confused as to which part of the galaxy to travel to, for pending missions; and the game makes players change between two discs on Xbox 360 repeatedly, as the galaxy is spread across both discs. Plays addictingly fun.

Rated “M” for blood, partial nudity, sexual content, strong language, violence. (Reviewed 03/06/12.) — “Saints Row: The Third” by THQ for PS 3, Xbox 360, PC — This satire of “Grand Theft Auto” is hyperbole turned in on itself. In this open-world game, you swing a giant adult toy to beat up prostitutes, pimps and zombies roaming city streets.

You command tanks to blow up cop cars. You fly a hover jet that shoots missiles at innocent buildings.

You call in air strikes on a rival gang on a basketball court. This is not a war game. It’s a gangster game with tanks.

You portray a rich and famous gang member in an America that now values gangsters the way it values the Kardashians, as empty-calorie celebrities. Ordinary pedestrians cheer you on, even though you rob banks and kill them. This is a ripe idea for modern parody, and it’s pitch perfect in its silliness. Two valid criticisms. There’s no auto save? That’s worth docking the game a half-star from its grade.

And since it’s vapid moment to moment, it is a sleek machine without heart. It begins easily but becomes quite difficult after some hours.

Missions require killing scores of rival gangsters and cops without dying. You can play the solo campaign or a cooperative mode.

A hoard mode sees you killing wave after wave of prostitutes and zombies, on a timer, while armed with shotguns, rocket launchers and an adult toy. Rated “M” for blood, gore, drug reference, intense violence, partial nudity, strong language and sexual content. Three and one-half stars. — “Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions” by Activision for PS 3, Xbox 360, Wii, DS — This is the most fun “Spider-Man” game since “Spider-Man” 2. It’s a linear action tale.

A magical tablet that controls order and chaos in the universe has broken, and the bits have traveled to four dimensions. So you portray four different Spideys in four distinct dimensions, tracking those tablet bits down. You portray the iconic Amazing Spider-Man; the futuristic 2099 Spider-Man; a 1930s-esque and stealthy Spidey inspired by Frank Miller (“Sin City); and Ultimate Spidey, a cartoon guy with slappy-dappy rubbery arms.

There are some problems at times with camera viewpoints and crawling on walls and ceilings. But woes don’t nearly outweigh awesome art direction, fun game play and funny, cheesy dialogue. Looks stellar. Rated “T” for mild language, mild suggestive themes and violence. — “The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings” by Warner Home Video Games for Xbox 360 and PC — It’s a quite good action-role-player, a fantasy-adventure of kings, dragons, elves and monsters.

You portray a “witcher” (a warlock) named Geralt. He wears his white hair in an unfortunate ponytail.

The game begins with Geralt’s protecting a king from rival forces and a dragon. Things go askew. Then you spend the rest of the game undertaking a long journey across mountains and villages, killing bad guys and monsters with blades and magic. You also engage in long conversations with townspeople in order to unravel mysteries, side quests and romantic interludes. I can’t go into the plot more than that, because there are multiple possible plots and endings, depending on choices you make.

But storylines make sense (you can’t say that about every fantasy adventure). And they are compelling to a degree. You just have to be in the mood for fantasy dialogue composed of ornate lore, such as: “I barely escaped in Aedirn.

Your beast nabbed his nekker. Do we have a deal, elf?” The swordfighting and magic are fun. Fistfights are dull.

Character and weapon upgrades are plentiful. Altogether, you get a long adventure with much replay value. A few non-fatal flaws stink: 1) Load times are ridiculous; 2) And I frequently don’t know where to go next on a mission, due to a lacking map system. In the end, though, it’s commendable designers gave us such big, thoughtful explorations that never dumb down their deep, mature stories. Rated “M” for blood, gore, intense violence, nudity, strong language, strong sexual content, use of drugs. Three and one-half stars. (Reviewed 04/17/12.) NICHE — “Asura’s Wrath” by Capcom for Xbox 360 and PS 3 — This is a six- to seven-hour anime movie in which you occasionally play video game portions in between film scenes.

The anime looks rad. But the gaming is so concise and simple, a lot of “Asura’s Wrath” feels to me more like cinema with interactive elements. Your hero character is a mythological god of war named Asura.

You (Asura) and seven other god-of-war buddies are stationed in the skies over Earth to battle an evil-spouting volcano, which takes up about one-fifth of Earth. The other war gods kill you and your wife, then kidnap your daughter.

The gods have plans for your daughter. You spend the rest of the game traveling from Hell to Earth, angrily regaining powers to take on regular bad guys, plus big villains at the end. Much of the gaming is “quick-time events.” As you watch cinematic film scenes, sometimes a visual prompt appears on your TV telling you to press the “Y” button.

You press “Y,” and the film continues. During more frenetic action, I simply pressed the “Y” button dozens of times in a row to make my character beat up monsters or evil gods of war. Quite literally, much of my “Asura” experience went like this: “Y” button, “Y,” “Y,” “Y,” “Y,” “Y,” “Y,” “Y,” “Y,” “Y,” “Y,” “Y,” “Y,” “Y,” “Y,” “Y,” “Y,” “Y,” “Y,” “Y,” “Y” and so on. The saving grace is the anime. This thing has eye-popping film scenes. I’m compelled to break my star rating down thus: One star (out of four) for the gaming; three and one-half stars for the anime.

Plays interesting, like a movie with gaming elements. Moderately challenging at times.

Rated “T” for blood, language, partial nudity, suggestive themes, use of alcohol, violence. Two and one-half stars. (Reviewed 03/13/12.) — “Child of Eden” by Ubisoft for Xbox 360 — This is like a high-tech sort of “Galaga,” or the rail-shooter “Perfect Cherry Blossom” or even “Tempest,” the tube-shooter from 1981.

When you look at the TV screen, you see a camera view flying forward through space, while swarms of delightfully blue, red, pink and purple dots form lovely patterns of constellations resembling whales, birds, disco balls, factory wheels and other things. You shoot the pretty dots floating in space. It’s elementary and short, and it’s not easy to always discern where attacks are coming from. But it’s well-crafted for fans of button-mashing arcade shooters, with good electronic music.

Plays half-fun. Looks very good. Rated “E 10+” for mild fantasy violence. — “Deadlight” by Microsoft for Xbox Live — This is a fun zombies game, and the artistry is very pretty.

I finished it in about four hours. You portray a burly man with a gruff voice, named Randall. It’s 1986 in Seattle. Zombies have taken over.

Your brain can’t fathom where your wife and daughter have disappeared to. So you go on a quest to find them. But unlike most survival-horror zombie games, “Deadlight” doesn’t give you much weaponry. Instead, it would have you leap-frog over their heads, and sprint away from them. The look and feel of “Deadlight” recalls 2010’s “Limbo,” the Xbox Live classic, but bigger and more colorful. It’s a platform scroller (run left-to-right, jump, and avoid killer traps). The point-of-view often comes in theater panels, as if it were a play, filmed from the 20th row.

Randall runs in artful silhouette. Unlike “Limbo,” some film scenes present plot, dialogue and comic-book panels.

I’m not thrilled “Deadlight” lazily borrows an old ploy: You portray a vengeful guy yearning for his family, while suffering hallucinations and psychological lapses. It’s also dumb that if Randall falls in shallow water, he drowns. He can’t dog paddle? But “Deadlight” is pretty good, otherwise.

It starts easy and ends challenging, as guns, an axe and exact timing patterns become paramount. Looks very good.

Starts easy, ends challenging. Rated “M” for strong language, blood, intense violence, sexual themes. (Reviewed 08/07/12.) — “Dead or Alive 5” by Tecmo Koei for Xbox 360 and PS 3 — This is a great return to form for my favorite fighting series. If you’ve never played a “Dead or Alive,” this is what it’s like: You punch. You grab opponents by the head and toss them.

On defense, you try to grab a rival’s fist or foot while it’s approaching your face or torso. It’s pretty simple. And yet, you also memorize combinations of basic moves in conjunction with a thumbstick, resulting in scores of character-specific attacks. First, you can play solo against the game’s artificial intelligence. That’s pretty fun.

Second, you can play online competition. That’s where the excellence is, because fighting games (as a rule of thumb) excel as a two-person experience. In fact, I would rather lose an online match against a real person than win an offline solo match against a virtual fighter. That’s my only complaint: The solo fighting is above average (still a good time) compared to the online experience (sweetness). Also, there’s not as much partial nudity in “DOA 5” as in previous “DOA” titles. There are still lots of scantily clad women in “DOA 5.” They just don’t roll around naked on beaches this time.

Plays fun, more so online. Looks terrific. Rated “M” for partial nudity, sexual themes and violence. Three and one-half out of four stars.

(Reviewed 09/25/12.). 'Dead or Alive 5' is eye-opening. Tecmo Koei — “Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter” by THQ for Wii and DS — On the one hand, “Next Chapter” is a basic platform action game where you run left-to-right, climb vines, jump onto platforms, bop things on their heads, and collect floating coins. But the special quality here is you must draw much of the interactive elements of the game, from your own character, to platforms to jump onto, to butterflies, clouds, cars and weapons. You draw (sloppily) using the Wii wand on Wii, and with the stylus (less sloppily) on the handheld DS.

That alone makes it a fun time, probably best suited for kids, artists and casual gamers. Plays fun enough. Looks decent. Moderately easy. Rated “E.” Three stars. — “Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet” by Microsoft Studios for Xbox Live — In this side-scroller, you fly an umbrella-shaped spaceship through an alien planet that looks like a huge series of cow intestines. You shoot and dodge evil fish and spiky things.

Half of the game is solving mind-bending puzzles, by using guns, missiles, hooks and other weapons to open valves, buzz saw rocks and do other head-scratching things. Sounds simple, and most of “Insanely Twisted” is.

But when it’s confusing, it’s really confusing. It would have been better, except for the bad map and the occasional, badly designed hidden entrance into a new level. On the other hand, it is a phenomenal-looking art game, sometimes, with purple and gold hues as backgrounds, with shadow-black cliffs and surfaces — reminiscent of “Limbo” and “Patapon.” Plays fun when it’s not dumb. Rated “E” for mild fantasy violence.

Three and one-half stars. Noire” by Rockstar for Xbox 360 and PS 3 — This game is made by the creators of “Grand Theft Auto,” but it’s not another “GTA” shooter. It’s a very ambitious, intriguing and challenging detective thriller in which you solve crime cases by studying corpses, clues lying about places, and interviewing persons of interest while scrutinizing their very intricately drawn facial responses. You must correctly guess when interviewees are lying or telling the truth, and you must correctly confront them with the right evidence, to get to the bottom of each case. There is some shooting, but not much. Plays intriguing. Very challenging.

Rated “M” for blood, gore, nudity, sexual themes, strong language, use of drugs and violence. — “Limbo” by PlayDead through Xbox Live — This side-scrolling horror-adventure is set in purgatory. A boy goes looking for his sister there. But the plot is essentially non-existent, as you travel through a forest and a factory, avoiding giant spiders that stab at you, and children who shoot blow darts at you. Much of the game play comes in the form of puzzles, especially in the second half, when you change the direction of gravity and push levers and factory wheels to figure out how to clear a path.

This is a very artful game and has won game-art awards. It’s highly recommended for those looking for art in games, but it’s as entertaining as it is intriguing. Plays fun and fascinating, though very short. Looks phenomenal. Rated “T” for animated blood, mild violence. Four stars out of four. — “LittleBigPlanet 2” by Sony for PS 3 — This sequel has a lot of the same elements as the original.

You play as little Sackboy or Sackgirl (your choice), journeying the big world. You travel many levels of left-to-right, sidescrolling, platform gaming. That action is a throwback. However, the artwork and execution is stellar. The art seems to draw from “Coraline,” “Nightmare Before Christmas,” modern street art and “found” cardboard artists such as Guillermo Munro Colosio (the younger). You can create your own levels and upload them to Sony. And you can play cooperatively.

Looks amazing. Moderately easy. Rated “E.” Four stars. — “London 2012 Olympics” by Sega for Xbox 360 and PS 3 — This is hardly enjoyable.

This game comes with 45 mini-events, from weightlifting to gymnastics, table tennis and running. You can portray USA or many other nations.

The events are quite simplistic. During skeet shooting, you aim a shotgun at skeet and pull the trigger. It’s moderately challenging, because you never know which odd angle those skeet are taking.

During a cycling race called Keirin, you press one button rapidly to go faster than other cyclists. It’s easy to win the gold.

With swimming, you master well-timed thumb stick-pushing, to maximize your stroke. I’m not great at this swimming and it’s dull.

I enjoy the high dive tricks, even though they’re easy. I basically just watch my diver while I press a few buttons when the game prompts me to.

I think you get the drift. This game is a series of sports events, which are easy-to-moderately challenging, and blah. The details of the art visuals are quite unimpressive, although nicely stylized. This probably would have been a fun phone-app game. But on the Xbox 360 or the PS 3, it feels underdressed and underclassed. Moderately easy.

Rated “E.” One star. (Reviewed 07/03/12.) — “Mirror’s Edge” by EA for Xbox 360 and PS 3 — This is the first parkour game, and it delivers big time.

You play as a “runner” in an anti-utopian futuristic city (which is drawn with primary colors and in the street art style of Shag and other street artists), where you jump from roof to roof in human ways (as opposed to superhuman ways), and “wall-climb” by dashing your feet up close-together walls (Jackie Chan-style). It’s a very exciting non-sequel that looks, plays and feels extraordinarily fresh to gaming. Plays very fun. Looks Terrific. Rated “T.” Four stars. — “My Word Coach” by Ubisoft for Wii and DS — You play this game’s mini-games to improve your vocabulary and language skills. Among the fun times: a “Tetris”-like game with letter-blocks for spelling words; and a “Hangman”-esque game where you must figure out a word based on definition clues.

Plays as fun as learning games can be. Easy to challenging, depending on your age and intellect. Rated “E.” Three stars. — “Portal 2” for Xbox 360, PS 3, PC/Mac — Simply put, this is a physics game full of nerdy, funny dialogue. You portray a woman trapped in a city-size factory in which a computer treats you as a guinea pig. That is, you must escape puzzle and obstacle rooms by figuring out how to punch wormholes into walls and floors, while avoiding machine gun fire, lasers and moats.

To balance the science and math seriousness, game makers included 13,000 lines of dialogue, most of it actually funny and silly, that runs while you play. Plays fun in a nerdy physics way. Very challenging. Rated “E 10+” for fantasy violence and mild language. Three and one-half stars.

— “Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution” by 2K Games for Xbox 360, PS 3 and DS — In this update of the PC series, you get entranced while playing Napoleon and other leaders while leading your nation to victory as an empire, from the Stone Age to the Space Age. You can play this game over and over as different nations, and never get tired of all the different ways you can build a nation into a republic, communist state or a democracy, as Albert Einstein and other notables help your nation go from warrior morons to civilized nuclear powerhouses.

The only downside is the very busy visuals slow down the frame rate as a mission nears the end. Plays very fun. Moderately challenging. Rated “E 10+” for alcohol and tobacco reference, mild suggestive themes, violence. — “SSX” by Electronic Arts for Xbox 360 and PS 3 — This is the sleekest, fastest and most intuitive snowboarder I’ve played. It suffers only from being an overly familiar genre to me. “SSX” has fun courses.

Winning gets hard within an hour. But it’s easy to get a feel for how to move quickly, jump tree stumps, and make huge-air jumps while twisting tricks in the wind. I love the dual-thumbstick controls. Plus, it just looks cool. Electronic Arts crafted 27 mountains (with caves, paths and rails) by fictionalizing mountains cribbed from NASA’s geotagging of the Alps, the Himalayans and other real mountains in Japan, Canada and elsewhere.

“SSX” reminds me somewhat of the old car-combat series, “Burnout,” in visual presentations and the method of unlocking future courses (but without “Burnout’s” rockets and guns). Looks very good. Starts easy, becomes very challenging. It’s rated “E” for mild lyrics and mild violence. (Reviewed 03/27/12.) — “Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor” by Capcom for Kinect — This game underlines how much I hate Kinect. Steel Battalion” is a first-person Kinect battle game. You portray a tank commander driving a mech (a tank that walks on legs instead of wheels).

You use your regular Xbox 360 hand controller to move the tank around and fire guns. You raise your real hands in the air, then the Kinect reads these hand motions to do such things as access your map, periscope and other minutia inside your tank. But the tank interior is packed with a lot of buttons and levers, and my Kinect does a hideous job of understanding which buttons and levers I am reaching for. So when I try to place my hands in a shooting position to fire at rival tanks, the game usually thinks I’m trying to shift the speed stick, or close my blinds (yes, the blinds) or something else.

Therefore, rival tanks kill me because I can’t even make this stupid Kinect realize I’m trying to get into firing position, so I just bob on the battlefield, like a sitting duck. This game, thus, seems improbable, dumb, clunky and slow. I feel as if the awfulness of the game and the awfulness of the Kinect go hand-in-hand. Plays un-fun due to the Kinect. Very challenging. Rated “M” for blood, gore, intense violence, sexual themes, strong language. (Reviewed 06/26/12.) PLAYSTATION VITA — “Hot Shots Golf World Invitational” by Sony for PS Vita — This golf sequel stars cute/hot little anime women.

I’ve only mildly enjoyed previous “Hot Shots” games. But this one is a perfect outing on par with the best “Tiger Woods” titles. There are incredible courses; no lag times between swings; upgrades to improve your golfing; and fantastic drives, approaches and putts. Plays addicting. Rated “E” for mild suggestive themes. (Reviewed 2/14/12.) — “Rayman Origins” by Ubisoft for Vita — A stunning-looking platform-style game.

You portray Rayman, the bird-like guy with hands, running and jumping left, right, up and down, across forests, lakes and other beautiful environments. I can’t think of much to say about “Rayman” that I haven’t said about hundreds of other platform games, though. Its high points are, it’s exquisitely drawn and super cute. At least “Rayman Origins” is a departure from the series’ previous shooting-gallery games. But it’s a platformer, the second-oldest style of gaming. Plays fun if you like platforming. Rated “E 10+” for comic mischief, mild cartoon violence, suggestive themes.

(Reviewed 02/22/12.) — “Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom” by Capcom for Vita — It was made for you, if you dig old-school fighting games. You fight as any of 50 playable characters, jumping, punching, kicking and making combination moves that spit fire and bullets and stuff. Very familiar territory. Plays fun if you like fighters. Easy to challenging, depending on settings you choose.

Rated “T” for mild language, partial nudity, suggestive themes, violence. Two and one-half stars. (Reviewed 02/22/12.) — “Uncharted: Golden Abyss” by Sony for PS Vita — This sprawling, cinematic adventure stars Nathan Drake, a globetrotting archeologist, a la Indiana Jones and Lara Croft. The puzzles are more plot-dependent in “Golden Abyss” than in previous “Uncharteds.” The action is excellent. The shooting is pretty good. The dialogue is funny and intriguing. Moderately challenging.

Rated “T” for blood, drug reference, language, mild suggestive themes and violence. (Reviewed 2/14/12.). 'Uncharted' rocks on Vita's small screen. Sony — “Unit 13” by Sony retails for $40 for PS Vita — This is a good shooter, but it has no serious plot, and its stealth kills aren’t very effective. It’s a collection of three dozen missions, each lasting roughly two to 10 minutes. In a typical mission, you sneak into a metallic terrorist base and shoot bad guys, while accomplishing a task, such as stealing intel, planting bombs or rescuing hostages.

There is a lot of replay value here, because you can play through all those missions with different soldiers, who have their own battle strengths. And since missions are short, “Unit 13” feels as if it was designed to be gamed in spurts, the way people play casual games on subways and planes. But the missions can be quite hard to beat. So that’s unusual: “Unit 13” (from the creators of “SOCOM” Navy SEAL titles) is a solid casual game for hardcore players. Biggest complaint: The terrible directional arrow and maps are supposed to guide my mission paths, but they’re more confusing than a Stephen King maze.

And I hate that alarms happen during stealth kills, including when I quietly sneak behind a terrorist and knife him. Rated “T” for blood, drug reference, mild language, violence. (Reviewed 04/10/12.) RACING — “Dirt 3” by Codemasters for PS 3 and Xbox 360 — This isn’t officially a simulator, but it sure does play like one. It’s unforgiving. If you drive off of a track for a second, or run into a bumper, you go spinning, flying and losing.

If you’re into such hardcore racers, this one is huge, with 32 rallies in Peugeots, Subarus and other racers on tracks of dirt, snow, mud and gravel traveling tree-lined areas, mountains, lakes and snowy terrain from Michigan to Finland. Comes with online multiplayer. Plays like an unforgiving simulator. Super challenging. Rated “T” for alcohol reference, mild violence, mild language. — “Forza Horizon” by Microsoft for Xbox 360 — This is a cross between a driving simulator and an arcade speedster. I drive very fast across open highways and dirt roads in a fictionalized version of Colorado.

I bump cars out of my way (that’s arcade-ish). And if I fall behind in a race, opponents slow down to let me catch up (that’s arcade-ish). Still, “Horizon” feels like a sim, because I must drive very fast — yet very carefully — around corners and oncoming cars.

The big challenge is wheel handling. If I turn the steering wheel even a tad too much, I can slide off the road, which drops me behind other cars, or I can spin out completely and nearly ruin a whole race. Like all car games, the beginning allows me to drive simple cars.

As I win races (over the course of maybe 20 hours), I earn faster, more expensive behemoths in the vein of BMWs, a Speedster and Lamborghinis. It also comes with an online multiplayer. My only knock against “Horizon”: Driving in real life is a chore to me. Driving in a car game is a glorified chore if it’s not glitzy, and “Horizon” is not glitzy. But if you’re looking for a solid arcade-sim synthesis, “Horizon” is big, pretty, well-crafted, and it gives you great GPS warnings about approaching curves.

Rated “T” for drug reference, language and suggestive themes. (Reviewed 10/23/12.) — “Forza Motorsport 3” by Microsoft for Xbox 360 — This is a pretty good racing game for those of you who enjoy racing-car simulators. In the offline solo campaign, you start with slow cars, upgrade your tires and other technical bits, win races, thereby winning money to buy faster cars and better tires.

In the online campaign, it’s like most racers. You keep your pedal to the metal and try not to spin out on hairpin curves. Plays fun enough as a solo racing simulator; more fun in online competition. Easy to challenging, depending on settings you choose. Rated “E.” Three stars. — “Gran Turismo 5: Prologue” for PS 3 — This is a racing simulator, so driving looks and feels very close to the real thing, although there’s no crashing or body damage.

It shines online where gamers provide more drama than circling around tracks. Plays fun but the low number of tracks get old. Looks fantastic. Starts challenging, gets more challenging. — “Mario Kart Wii” for Wii — Return to “Kart” racing with the usual suspects of Mario, Princess and pals, as you race on 32 tracks. It comes with a plastic steering wheel, which is great if heavy.

And unlike many Wii games, you can actually play against gamers online, which is where multiplaying is even more entertaining. Looks cutesy-cartoony.

Easy offline; moderately challenging online. Rated “E.” Three stars. — “MotorStorm: Apocalypse” by Sony for PS 3 — “Apocalypse” moves and feels like previous “MotorStorm” racers, and offers more trucks, cars, ATVs and motorcycles. But the setting is urban this time, creating spectacular tracks, from destructed double-bridges to rooftop-race jumping. Flaw: Vehicles occasionally get stuck on dumb city debris, causing your car to go from fast to zero mph immediately. But the offline racing is smooth and fun otherwise, if sort of too easy.

And the online multiplayer soars smoothly, especially while riding the awesome motorcycle. Plays fun offline and online. Easy offline, challenging online. “T” for crude humor, drug reference, language, suggestive themes and violence. Three and one-half stars. — “Need for Speed: The Run” by EA for Xbox 360, PS 3, Wii, PC, 3DS — This is a good (not great) racer. You drive cars from San Francisco to Las Vegas, Denver, Detroit and New York, with plenty of stops in between.

The handling of the driving is perfection across the Golden Gate Bridge, curvy mountains, busy highways and desert dirt roads. Your often-exhilarating mission is to zoom along at 170 mph, zipping around ordinary cars, while also catching up to hundreds of rival racers in front of you. Each section of the game is broken into one of three modes: racing in a field of eight; racing a stretch of road against a timer; and racing against just one rival car.

As beautiful and smooth as this game often is, the game will put you on very curvy and wet roads with hairpin turns. Then the game places a rival very far in front of you, and you must slip-slide-and-brake around ridiculous hairpin curves to try to catch up to him. Those sections are severely un-fun and can take hours to figure out. The online multiplayer is fun despite non-fatal flaws: Long load times; sporadic lagging; and if you begin an online race with bad pole position or against a rabid gamer who owns a faster car, you’re out of luck, sucker. Plays mostly fun but sometimes frustrating. Looks very good.

Rated “T” for mild suggestive themes and violence. — “Ridge Racer Unbounded” by Namco Bandai for PS 3 and Xbox 360 — “Unbounded” feels sort of like a wild “Need for Speed” game, because it’s more illustrated than usual (less realism); it comes with a magical turbo button; and you’re encouraged to make other cars wreck. So officially, “Unbound” is a combat-racer (without rocket launchers). It looks and moves smooth.

And there are more than 50 separate racing events, on city roads, to conquer. (Although, many tracks feel like the same tracks).

Most events are races with explosions (very fun). Some are time trials (boring), or drift challenges in which you master the skill of turning corners (horrible). Other events are “frag attacks,” in which your car is impervious to damage, and you must ram a certain number of rival cars during a brief timer.

Frag attacks are great. Complaint: You must earn points to unlock supposedly better cars, but I hate most cars I unlocked. They seem worse to handle than unicycles. Even so, overall, this is a fun and difficult racer (with an online multiplayer), as long as you’re cool with those few drawbacks. Looks very good. Challenging to very challenging. Rated “T” for mild language, mild violence.

(Reviewed 04/03/12.) SHOOTING/KICKING. 'Borderlands 2' is better than the first.

2K Games — “Alice: Madness Returns” by EA for Xbox 360, PS 3, PC — This twist on “Alice in Wonderland” sends you (Alice) back to Wonderland, 10 years after you’ve been institutionalized in an asylum. It’s a colorful Wonderland. Portraying Alice, you’re constantly attacked by monsters; teapots with eyes; crabs with cannon arms and other horrid creatures. You shoot them with three weapons: a pepper grinder that acts like a machine gun; a knife; and a horse head that slams down as a sledgehammer would. Much of the game is jumping from platform to platform, and if you miss a platform you die.

The problems are too much, though. The controls aren’t super responsive, which stinks in a hard game that requires quicksilver reflects to live. Camera angles can be idiotic. And weapon upgrades come too slowly and don’t seem to make you much more formidable. Plays interesting but not super fun.