By DOUG ELFMAN
The Game Dork

There's no shame in poverty, but there's no money in it, either.


And buying video game stuff for holiday gift-giving can require lots of cash. This irritates me, since I remember what it was like growing up poor.

So I'm splitting this year's gift guide into two categories. One is for cash-strapped gift-buyers. Another is for people flush with cash. Happy holidays, players!

Low on funds?

Go to a used-game store like EB Games, GameCrazy or GameStop, where you can find a "refurbished" Nintendo DS ($80) for a kid younger than 10 or for a newbie gamer who likes puzzle games, which are available in abundance.

If you're shopping for a hard-core gaming teen or adult, you might want to go instead with a refurbished PlayStation 2 ($80) or hand-held PSP ($130).

Refurbished machines are used but spruced up at factories, as dependable as new. Do not buy an old Xbox (which is the pre-360 Xbox). No one's making games for the original Xbox ($80) anymore.

Next, you need games. You can sift through used-game bins for $2 to $20 bargains. Used games always work. And if your gift receivers don't like the titles you pick, they can usually exchange them, no fuss.

Instead of buying, it might be cheaper to rent games from stores like Blockbuster or Hollywood Video, for just a few dollars for weeklong rentals. Video stores offer gift cards for renting.

Another pricier but cooler option is GameFly.com. It's like Netflix for games. GameFly mails games you pick out online. Cost: $16 per month to rent one game at a time; $23 a month to rent two games at a time.

Money to spare?

For a hard-core gamer, buy the new Xbox 360 Elite ($450) if your gamer doesn't already own an Xbox 360. Check out store ads in the newspaper. You'll see that some offer Elite bundles with free games or other extras.

If you're buying for an online gamer, you can't go wrong with a one-year Xbox Live subscription card ($50).

If you want to get someone a second system, the PSP ($170) is my favorite, since it's like holding a PS2 in your fingers. The DS Lite ($130) is great for kids and fans of puzzle games. But the trendy system is, of course, the Nintendo Wii ($250, or up to $500 as a multigame bundle). The interactive system thrills female and kid gamers en masse. Supplies are good. This season, you should be able to actually get your hands on one in a store.

Personally, I'm falling in love with the Sony PlayStation 3 ($500 for the 80 gig; $400 for the lacking 40 gig). It's a stronger computer than the Xbox 360 and Wii. It plays Blu-Ray and DVD movies, plus PS2 games. And PS3's online gaming is free, as opposed to the fee-based Xbox Live.

The bad thing is the PS3 isn't selling great, so its future is relatively weaker than Xbox 360. The problem: there aren't tons of great PS3 games yet. And games released for multiple systems usually take weeks or months longer to hit the PS3 than the Xbox 360.

Doug Elfman is a TV columnist for Chicago Sun-Times. Game Dork appears biweekly.

Buzz games

Here's the year's hot titles -- just make sure your gamer doesn't already own them:

* "Guitar Hero III" for Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, Wii (guitar simulator, rated T for teen)

* "Rock Band" for Xbox 360, PS3 (and PS2 mid-December) (guitar, singing and drum simulator, T); be careful, this one's $170 for a full bundle.

* "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare" for Xbox 360, PS3, DS (war, rated M for mature)

* "Assassin's Creed" for Xbox 360, PS3 (action-adventure, M)

* "Super Mario Galaxy" for Wii (action-adventure, E for everyone)

* "BlackSite: Area 51" for Xbox Live (shooter, T)

* "Mass Effect" for Xbox 360 (action role-playing game, M)

* "Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction" for PS3 (action, E 10+ for everyone 10 and older)

* "WWE Smackdown! Vs. Raw 2008" for Xbox 360, Wii, PS3, DS (wrestling, T)

* "Rayman Raving Rabbids 2" for Wii, DS (mini-games, E 10+)

* "The Simpsons Game" for Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PS2, DS (adventure, T)

* "Manhunt 2" for PSP (horror, less great for PS2, Wii, M)

More can't miss games

"God of War 2" for PS 2 (action-adventure, rated M)

"NBA 2K8" for Xbox 360, PS 3, PS 2 (basketball, E)

"Resident Evil 4" for Wii (horror, M)

"Shadowrun" (shooting, awesome only in online gaming, M)

"Major League Baseball 2K7" for Xbox 360, PS 3, PS 2, PSP, DS (baseball, E)

"MotorStorm" for PS 3 (off-road racing, online especially, T)

"Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2" for Xbox 360, PS 3, PSP (shooter, T)

"Super Paper Mario" for Wii (action-adventure, E)

"Halo 3" for Xbox 360 (action-adventure, M)

"BioShock" for Xbox 360 (horror action, M)

"Medal of Honor: Airborne" for Xbox 360 (war, T)

"Tiger Woods PGA Tour '08" (golf, E)

"Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow" for PSP (shooter, T)

"Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas" (shooter, especially online, M)

"The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion" for PS 3 (fantasy action, M)

"Skate" for Xbox 360, PS 3 (skateboarding, T)

"Crackdown" for Xbox 360 (shooter, M)

"SSX Blur" for Wii (snowboarding, E)

"New York Times Crossword" for DS (puzzles, T)

"MLB '07 The Show" for Xbox 360, PS 3 (baseball, E)

"Nervous Brickdown" for DS (puzzles, E)

By Doug Elfman
The Game Dork
Nov. 23, 2007

As harmless small stars fell, like candy from a pocket in the sky, onto Mario's idyllic town, his longtime love, Princess Peach, waited joyfully for him in her castle. But like so many tragedies that befell Peach before, Bowser the brute swooped in and kidnapped her.

And so, nothing short of Mario's saving the universe will lead to her emotional rescue. That's how Mario tales wag. The damsel in distress is most in peril whenever her mustachioed hero is away.

But in Wii's "Super Mario Galaxy," Nintendo's crafty gamesmanship once again makes a familiar-looking Mario game seem like one of the best kids' titles of its year.

Mario (in your hands) explores fiery and watery planets in distant galaxies. There's nothing special about that. But the way you travel the universe is cool and new.

Planets are little things, appearing in the center of your TV screen as if they're just large globes. They're merely the sizes of an Earth house or an Earth neighborhood.

This keeps you on your toes. It's harder to avoid death when you're walking and jumping upside-down, sideways and diagonally around a violent orb.

The usual cutesy Nintendo villains try to snuff you out: Mushrooms squint cruel eyes at you; toothy giant flowers attempt to smash you with heavy heads.

I have to disclose I didn't finish "Galaxy" before writing this review. I ran out of time while playing it and two other great new releases -- each of which could take 20 hours just to speed through -- so I can give you impressions of all three titles, in time for holiday shopping.

The other two superb games will appeal to hard-core gamers who love to shoot things to death.

"Mass Effect" is an action-role playing game from BioWare, the maker of fun "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic" and "Jade Empire."

The look of "Mass Effect" is a cinematic feat. Like cinema, you watch the game's graphic films just about as often as you play the game. Sci-fi soldiers and aliens from the 22nd century chat gravely about a complex political and military struggle. You pick your responses during these conversations, issuing snippets of curt dialogue such as "What did you find?" and "Why is Williams here?"

Yeah, that's odd, but fans of role-playing games eat this stuff up. The fun comes from saving the universe by shooting evil robot-looking aliens, or whatever, across space stations, foreign planets and finely detailed capitols.

As shooting goes, though, my favorite war game in a while (especially online) is "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare" on Xbox 360 and PS 3. Bad guys are terrorists (a little heavy on the Arabic, if you ask me). And the game play and illustrations are excellent, seamless and rich.

I just shot two guys in the back, in a dingy makeshift war zone littered with blown-up buses and fences, after I sniper-rifled a loser in his torso. I have to say I feel pretty good about that.

So there you go. You can save the universe from terrorists in "Modern Warfare," or from aliens in "Mass Effect" or from mean mushrooms in "Galaxy." God bless America and its violent choices.



("Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare" retails for $60 for Xbox 360 and PS 3; $30 for DS -- Plays very fun, especially online. Looks great. Moderately challenging. Rated "M" for blood, gore, intense violence, strong language. Four stars out of four.)

("Mass Effect" retails for $60 for Xbox 360 -- Plays fun. Looks stellar. Moderately challenging. Rated "M" for blood, language, partial nudity, sexual themes, violence. Four stars.)

("Super Mario Galaxy" retails for $50 for Wii -- Plays fun. Looks very good. Easy to moderately challenging. Rated "E" for mild cartoon violence. Four stars.)

By Doug Elfman
The Game Dork
Nov. 16, 2007

In the video game world (just like in films and TV), story lines offer heroes Six Justifications for Murder, so protagonists can kill people with moral rationalization. You see these killing excuses in "Manhunt 2," a game so gruesome Britain banned it.

Britain banned a fun game.

The plot is simple: You portray a bespectacled scientist named Danny who was institutionalized by a nefarious group conducting secret experiments. You escape by slaying people in dark alleys and grungy buildings.

The Six Justifications for Murder come in handy.

1. Self-defense: After hacking several villains with axes and shovels, the narrator says to you/Danny in a voice-over, "It was either them or you. Remember that!"

2. Vigilantism: After you stab a guy in the back of the head with a syringe, the narrator says, "You stopped him from harming others!"

3. Revenge: I don't want to give too much away on this plot point.

4. Obedience to authority: The insistent narrator urges at times, "Kill him!"

5. Collateral damage: If you desire, you can let certain people escape alive, but more likely you will kill them accidentally or on purpose, because they get in your way.

6. Body control: Someone uses drugs, the paranormal or mind control to cause you to kill.

For the entire nation of England to put the kibosh on "Manhunt 2" is, of course, an exercise in selective enforcement of anti-violence in art. "Manhunt 2" ranks about as violent as a collection of killing clips from "The Sopranos," which played on public TV in Britain.

"Manhunt 2" starts with Danny's sneaking behind an evil henchman and slipping a suffocating plastic bag over his head. Danny's vision blurs red.

"I killed him," Danny says. "I feel sick." Then he pukes.

From there on out, you creep behind bad guys, terminate them (sometimes by putting a gun in their mouths and pulling the trigger) and move on.

The ever-escalating panoply of weaponry at your fingertips begins with a syringe and the plastic bag, and advances to knives, meat hooks, baseball bats, crowbars, bricks, a pistol and a gun whose bullets set men on fire. Sometimes, you chop off heads with a fireman's axe, then carry the head around on your belt loop.

Yet for an adult hard-core gamer such as myself, "Manhunt 2" doesn't make me blink at its graphically interfaced "blood" and "guts." The only thing that surprised me was watching my pistol ammo blow red brains on a wall.

As in almost every violent game ever made, you are a good guy, or an antihero. Here, the killing can feel a bit like a one-trick pony: hide in a shadow, sneak, kill, repeat. But in Rockstar Games fashion, it's entertaining for those of us not offended by what others call crass.

What is crass? That's a subjective determination, you know. I didn't flinch at the possibly crass joke where, when you're offing a guy, he pleads, "Who'll feed my cats?" That just made logical sense, but I have cats.

("Manhunt 2" retails for $40 for Wii; $30 for PS 2, PSP -- Plays fun. Looks good. Moderately challenging. Rated "M" for blood, gore, intense violence, strong language, strong sexual content, use of drugs. Three stars out of four.)

By Doug Elfman
The Game Dork
Nov. 09, 2007


Our government is taking flak not just in film, TV and music. Now it's being satirized to great effect in "BlackSite: Area 51." This fun shooting adventure mocks the unpopularity of the president and the Iraq war. It hints a draft lurks around the corner.

"BlackSite," being released Monday, is so subversive in a lighthearted way, the story line suggests government doctors are fusing space alien DNA with that of soldiers to turn them into super disgusting killers, who accidentally go on the loose.

It's up to you, the player, to portray an elite American soldier, trying to save our great land from ... us. You shoot machine guns, rocket launchers and plasma rifles to take down DNA-corrupted U.S. soldiers and big, ugly aliens running amok around Area 51.

But first, we begin with a back story in Iraq, where you shoot at people who are shooting at you on a makeshift battlefield at an oil refinery.

"Is everyone in this place armed?" So asks a soldier buddy of yours. "Who gives assault weapons to refinery workers?"

"Um," a fellow U.S. soldier responds. "I think they bought this (weaponry) from us," meaning the United States. "I hope they got some good money."

On and on, the statements roll. There's even a nod to the political tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, an allusion to how people in New Orleans thought the government would help them.

If you're familiar with video games, it's not terribly surprising to find one so anti-establishment. Game makers are a paranoid bunch. Two years ago, developers with a good sense of humor parodied the supposedly glorious 1950s by creating really repressed idiot Americans in "Destroy All Humans!" Also in 2005, the unrelated and awesome "Area 51" played on fears that the moon landing wasn't real.

Before the 2004 election, three Vietnam games reminded us of the parallels between Vietnam and Iraq, just when Vietnam vet John Kerry was failing in his bid for the White House.

Even "Call of Duty" World War II games flash forboding quotes on the screen, such as one by 15th century humanist Desiderius Erasmus in "Call of Duty 2": "War is delightful for those who have not experienced it."

Many war games are, by definition, implicitly pro-killing if not pro-establishment. Explicitly pro-establishment games are harder to come by. The big exceptions are "Tom Clancy" games, where villains are the liberal media and terrorists of various skin colors. "Clancy" titles are, by the way, quite fun.

Politics aside, Midway has delivered here an entertaining escapade. It's long and beautifully drawn, sending you scurrying to search and destroy through detailed trailer parks, Nevada neighborhoods and canals.

Online, you can tap into death matches, team death matches, capture the flags, and human vs. alien levels, where you try to slay alien-morphing humans before they corrupt you.

In offline solo missions, you save some civilians who refuse to leave their government-destroyed, alien-infested towns.

"Yeah, they told me to evacuate, but I'm up to my eyeballs in a mortgage for this place," a Nevada resident says.

A few seconds later, a two-story alien bursts from the ground and eats Mr. Mortgage. Regardless of politics, this is cool. Death is almost always cool in video games, no matter how wrong it's supposed to be, because killing is the nature of the beast.

("BlackSite: Area 51" retails for $60 for Xbox 360 -- Plays fun. Looks great. Challenging. Rated "T" for blood, language, violence. Four stars out of four.)
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By Doug Elfman
The Game Dork
Nov. 02, 2007

The Simpsons Game" is fun, cute and fairly funny. But just like "Simspons" games have done in the past, this one tries to have it both ways. It's a satire of clichés and gaming styles found in other games; yet it simultaneously profits from using those exact same clichés and styles.

Just for starters, "The Simpsons" parodies (and "borrows") from "Frogger," "Grand Theft Auto," "Medal of Honor," "Everquest" and "Guitar Hero." One of the only fresh ideas is that sloshy, burpy Homer collects Duff beer caps.

You might think this amalgamation of homages is unoriginal, so to combat this notion, "The Simpsons Game" goes out of its way to mock the very game challenges it borrows, such as breakable crates, and standing on pressure pads to make doors open.

When you first encounter giant blades trying to kill you, the game stops for a moment so the comic book guy can appear on the screen to say, "Worst video game cliché ever."

But enough with my gripe. "Simpsons" is mostly an entertaining, if short, exploration of the "Simpsons" universe. The only real issue is camera angles can be iffy and frustrating.

You play in various double-teams as Bart, Homer, Marge and Lisa. At times, you crawl through tight spaces as baby Maggie, just like mechanical spiders did in EA Games' awesome "James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing."

EA made the "Simpsons," and designers pulled off another remarkable little job, offering a zippy, easy-to-manage "Simpsons" game with 16 episodes that makes use of two decades of "Simpsons" sets and characters.

Each episode is a quest. As Homer and Bart, you eat and punch your way through an eating contest in an Epcot-like theme park of international "countries." As Marge, you convince townspeople to join your angry Frankenstein mob, to demand the mayor ban a "Grand Theft Auto"-ish video game.

Each character has little powers that are actually more fun than they are endearing. Homer turns into a giant, destructive ball. Lisa blows a sax that stuns enemies, and her music entrances them to fight each other.

And there's some great satire of Mario, "Donkey Kong," "Street Fighter" and other classics. I laughed the most at seeing, in one background, a representation of speedy Sonic the Hedgehog looking very haggard while stuck on a kind of hamster wheel.

While playing as Bart and Lisa, they try to stop environment-destroying loggers who call them not just "tree huggers" but "Gore girls."

Funny and left-leaning, yes, but it's notable this is the overly marketed cartoon's 22nd video game. "The Simpsons" complains about capitalism, while capitalizing off of it. To wit, there are six different box covers for this game. For "Simpsons" collectors to own them all, they'd shell out $280 plus tax.

Yet, Bart snipes, "The only Simpsons game I can think of is the one where we pretend Dad's not an alcoholic."

Maybe "Simpsons" game No. 23 can send dad to rehab. I haven't seen that in other games, though, so don't count on it.

("The Simpsons Game" retails for $60 for Xbox 360 and PS 3; $50 for Wii; $40 for PS 2 and PSP; $30 for DS -- Plays fun. Looks very good. Easy to moderately challenging. Rated "T" for alcohol and tobacco reference, animated blood, cartoon violence, crude humor, language, suggestive themes. Three and one-half stars out of four.)

By Doug Elfman
The Game Dork
Oct. 26, 2007

Nariko, the feisty fighter of "Heavenly Sword," is extra motivated to kill lots of nasties, while she's on her journey to punish their evil King Bohan. The king has kidnapped Nariko's father; there's nothing so wrathful as a warrior with daddy issues.

PlayStation 3's "Heavenly Sword" has piqued the interest of many male gamers because this heroine is a lovely young redhead whose dress seems to have made up its mind it will not cover the sides of her hips or the upper reaches of her chest plate.

Nariko is prophesied to save her kingdom. Here she is a female, and everyone in her village thought their savior was going be a dude.

"They said I was a portent of doom. Maybe they were right," she says in voice-over narration.

No, I bet "they" were wrong. Nariko slices and dices rival clan members of the king's allegiance. She bloodies them using a "Heavenly Sword" that must weigh what she weighs. It's enormous.

King Bohan wants to gain possession of that big bad blade, because it's magically powerful, like a "Lord of the Rings" ring. The point of the game: Can she defeat his majesty in all his jerky glory?

"Heavenly Sword" has been compared to the masterpiece "God of War" games, because it's a deliciously pretty action-adventure set in a grand, fantasy past of rope bridges and ornate castles.

But "Heavenly Sword" isn't nearly as fun as "God of War" titles. "God" games beg you to run quickly across vast lands, while sleekly slaughtering evil underlings, one or five at a time. However, "Heavenly's" journey is paced slower. Plus, she's constantly killing 20 people at a time, too quickly.

In other words, "Heavenly" blurs its beautiful action too much while standing still, and the hacking and slashing resembles "Ninja Gaiden" more than "God of War." "Ninja Gaiden" games are fun, but they suffer the same problem. Killing becomes routine button-mashing. Monster mashes are entertaining for a bit but they glaze the eyes.

Fantasy heroes in such games are always in search of a perfect sword, a doomed romance and a prophesy that proves they are The One.

Ergo, "Dragon Blade: Wrath of Fire" for the Wii also stars a prophesied hero of a guy who is poorly named Dal. His betrothed was killed by villains he seeks. (How romantically tragic.) He must slay six dragons and steal their powers, including their red fiery fists. Along the way, he beats up a forever-series of giant spiders, ram-headed bipeds wielding huge axes, and other nefarious scumbags.

The promise of "Dragon Blade" is in its Wii remote, not in the Wii's subpar visuals and sounds. You the gamer swing the wireless remote as you would a sword or fist, and Dag swings his weapons thusly.

But "Dragon Blade" settles into even more repetition than "Heavenly Sword" does. I sit passively on the couch, twirling the Wii remote in circles at all times to beat up devil dogs.

So, yes, I've slain dragons and laid waste to men whose faces resemble lizard skulls. But I haven't broken a sweat or felt an ounce of excitement. In gaming, that kind of redundancy is the real portent of doom.

("Heavenly Sword" retails for $60 for PS 3 -- Plays alternatively fun and repetitive. Looks great. Moderately challenging. Rated "T" for blood, language, suggestive themes, violence. Three stars out of four.)

("Dragon Blade: Wrath of Fire" retails for $40 for Wii -- Plays repetitive. Looks OK. Easy to moderately challenging. Rated "T" for fantasy violence. Two stars out of four.)

By Doug Elfman
The Game Dork
Oct. 19, 2007


If I were still poor and could afford to buy only one video game machine, I might go with Sony's hand-held PSP. It's an extraordinary little miracle on par with the PS 2, and now there's an even slimmer, lighter PSP on the market.

Sony just started selling a redesigned PSP. It doesn't weigh much more than my Blackberry. The excellent screen is still a 4.3-inch LCD, which beams movies and games with a crispness that beats iPod and other techy devices.

It's $170, though $200 bundles come with the fairly fun cartoon adventure "Daxter" and "Family Guy: The Freakin' Sweet Collection." Another new bundle comes with "Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron."

The pros: For this PSP, you can buy an AV cable that hooks up to TVs, so you can put PSP images on a big screen. Games load a little faster. And the system comes with a nice, 1 gig memory stick.

The cons: If you already own peripherals for your old PSP, they probably won't work. My amazing, 15-hour Blue Raven battery booster ($80) doesn't fit my redesigned PSP. Neither does my Griffin iFM radio adapter ($30; to receive radio signals), nor my Griffin iTrip ($25; to send PSP audio to my car radio).

Plenty of gamers complain the PSP doesn't offer as many great titles as do the PS 2 and Xbox 360. This is true. But there are enough games, such as "Tiger Woods PGA Tour '08," to keep you busy for months

And a handful of new and recent games spin spectacularly.

"NBA '08" is just as fun as the slate of basketball games on Xbox 360 and PS 3.

This summer's "Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas" lets you zip through a huge and showy action-adventure, both as a solo mission and as an online shooter.

And perhaps the best of a new bunch is "Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow," a sequel shooting game that looks better than most PS 2 games. It allows you to shoot and stab bad guys with aplomb. You even scald a guy's face against a stove top. The online shooting is fairly fun, too, though it's nothing like a great Xbox 360 experience.

The hand-held system may get a boost next spring with the release of "God of War: Chains of Olympus." I haven't been able to play all of "Olympus," but Sony sent me a demo so I could flip through several completed levels. And "Chains of Olympus" looks like it may be the greatest PSP game of all time.

It's a filmlike beast of an action-adventure that moves, feels and plays every bit as exciting as previous PS 2 "God of Wars."

Once again, you play as antihero Kratos, the strongest, most vicious warrior in history. He's a Spartan who swings blades of fire attached at the arms, slaying soldiers, dragons, giant mythical beasts, and even bigger mythical beasts (the size of airliners) that go around eating the merely giant beasts in their way.

In essence, "Chains of Olympus" could do for the PSP what "Halo" titles did for the Xbox 360: give gamers a massive reason to invest a lot of money in a system just to play one title. Or you could jump onto the PSP now, and get ready for its serious gamesmanship.

(Redesigned Sony PSP retails for $170 -- Plays fun. Looks great. Easy to very challenging games. Four stars.)

("NBA '08" retails for $40 for PSP -- Plays very fun. Looks great. Challenging. Rated "E." Four stars out of four.)

("Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow" retails for $40 for PSP -- Plays addictively fun. Looks great. Challenging. Rated "T" for language, violence. Four stars.)

("Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas" retails for $40 for PSP -- Plays fun. Looks great. Challenging. Rated "T" for blood, mild language, violence. Three and one-half stars.)

By Doug Elfman
The Game Dork
Oct. 05, 2007

Yes, "Halo 3" is an instant classic in an otherwise mediocre year. But leave it to me to nitpick: When you play against other gamers online, it takes forever to get a game started, and occasionally you can't even get a game to start.

Granted, this is a minor complaint that mostly will be straightened out pretty soon, as these things do. But it is annoying that every online game for a console -- even oh-mighty "Halo 3" -- begins with sporadic kinks in its computer servers.

The delays keep me from playing even more of the awesomeness that is "Halo 3," with its rocket launchers, rifles and "Needler" guns (which shoot killer icicle thingies into enemies' bodies that then explode within them).

Winning is all about finding the best guns lying around randomly (battlefields are strewn with weapons). This "Halo" also comes with better energy-sword fights than before. You clash against a rival, and the swords stun you both. Good luck not dying.

If you're not a gamer, here's the deal. Thanks largely to the first "Halo," the Xbox became a big seller in 2001 and 2002, when no one was sure if Microsoft's first game machine could compete against Sony's humongo PlayStation 2. "Halo" did for Microsoft what "Donkey Kong" and "Mario" games did for Nintendo.

Flash forward to now, and the Xbox 360 clearly is outselling the PS 2 and PS 3 in the serious gaming market, partly because "Halo 3" is available only on Xbox. This spells trouble for the otherwise excellent PS 3.

Once again, the sci-fi adventure is fantastic. "Halo 3" had the artistic advantage of time (three years in the making) and development money (plus a $10 million marketing campaign).

When you play the solo game against the computer, you travel across space stations and planets -- deserts, snowdrifts and everything green in between -- to kill evil soldiers who answer to the nasty Prophet of Truth.

I won't go into all the dorky details in the end of this trilogy, but essentially you are Master Chief, the marine (wearing an iconic green spacesuit) who can save humankind. You kill thousands of space dudes who want to destroy humanity and, I suppose, the universe.

Regular gamers will be satisfied playing just the nine levels of solo missions, because they are extravagantly drawn. And shooting your way through baddies is fun. (It's easy, moderately hard or very hard, depending on which setting you choose). This could take between 10 and 20 hours, based on your skills.

But many fans are going right to the online multiplayers, where you compete on 11 huge battle maps. You can join a team to capture a flag, protect bases against attack, or merely kill everything in sight. Or you can play a teamless free-for-all.

Two big new features live up to the hype. You can capture video of any moment you want -- like taking down several enemies with a single blow -- and share these images with anyone on Xbox Live, to prove how super duper dorky cool you are. And on another level, you can design parts of maps, not the locations but where weapons are placed and where you spawn back to life.

This is all pretty crazy and wondrous, which is why I feel slightly bad about slagging the game for its opening-week server slowdowns. But whatever. I want to jump in online now, now, now. I'm already sick of hearing gamers, through my headphones, say, "Why does it take so long?"

Hang in there, "Halo" heads. Everything will be perfect, any minute now, I hope.

("Halo 3" retails for $60 for Xbox 360 -- Plays fun. Looks great. Easy to very challenging, depending on settings. Rated "M" for blood, gore, mild language, violence. Four stars out of four.)

By Doug Elfman
The Game Dork
Sep. 28, 2007

We live in such a weird world. One minute, you're watching a Miss Teen USA contestant on TV who fails to string together a run-on sentence about geography, and you weep for our nation.

The next, you're finding out that one of the most popular video game genres in our little country is logic games, which have nothing to do with shooting people and everything to do with testing the depth of your cerebral cortex.

Go figure.

No, seriously. You must go figure, in one "Brain Age 2" minigame, the descending numbers correlating downward by seven from the number 78. And you must do so in very rapid order.

"Brain Age 2: More Training in Minutes a Day!" also makes you beat a quick clock while reading sheet music and pressing corresponding musical notes on a one-octave piano. This is not easy-peasy for nonmusicians.

Some "Brain Age 2" tests are somewhat less intimidating, like playing "Rock, Paper, Scissors."

Among the more moderately difficult minigames, you decipher how many dollars and coins to give back to a customer during a transaction.

But even those minigames gauge how fast you spin your logical mind, including sudoku puzzles. If you succeed quickly, the game says you have a young brain on the level of, say, a 22-year-old. If you're slow at math, you might have the brain age of a 55-year-old, even if you're much younger than that in real life.

Such logic games are awesome on the interactive DS, with its penlike stylus. Two other big winners are the summer releases "Picross DS" and "Nervous Brickdown."

"Picross" is a fill-in-the-blank puzzle, like sudoku but simpler. The board resembles "Battleship." There's an "X" axis and a "Y" axis, and you put a certain number of dots on each axis in a way that they correspond. I can't describe it any better than that.

It's a bizarre game with bizarre rules, and each round can last just 49 seconds or a full hour.

But trust me, "Picross" is mildly addictive if you're a math nerd like I am. (Most of my electives in college were calculus and such.)

Then there's "Nervous Brickdown" for the DS, a very creative and fascinating reinvention of "Breakout," the paddle-and-ball game. It comes with a handful of minigames, but what's exciting is how artistic these variations of "Breakout" are.

In one side game, you draw your own paddle shape (a "U," a "V" or whatever form you desire), and you push the paddle up and down (like you would on an air hockey table), and your ball destroys pretty, two-dimensional art paintings.

All these games are pretty cute, yet quite challenging. "Brain Age 2" is kicking my rump. On a weekend drive, my fiancee watched me playing it constantly and said, "You're gonna be, like, 18 by the time we get there." Nope. I had a brain age of 56.

I don't even want to do the math on how much older that makes my brain than my body.



("Brain Age 2: More Training in Minutes a Day!" retails for $20 for DS -- Plays addictive. Looks fine. Very challenging. Rated "E." Four stars out of four.)

("Nervous Brickdown" retails for $30 for DS -- Plays fun and cool. Looks great. Challenging. Rated "E." Three and one-half stars.)

("Picross DS" retails for $20 for the DS -- Plays intriguing if you're a math dork. Looks workaday. Easy to challenging. Rated "E." Three stars.)