Category: Nintendo 3DS

Games 5/22/12: Max Payne 3, Mario Tennis Open, MotoHeroz

Max Payne 3
Reviewed for: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
Also available for: Windows PC
From: Rockstar Games
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, intense violence, partial nudity, strong language, strong sexual content, use of drugs and alcohol)
Price: $60

If there’s a story-driven third-person shooter checklist for “Max Payne 3,” rest assured every box is filled. In terms of gunplay and presentation, it’s bloody, beautiful, cinematic and all kinds of refined.

But for those who loved the first two “Max Payne” games because they dared to be weird and were proudly unrefined in exactly the right ways, the polished but mostly disposable “MP3” may ultimately amount to little more than a bloody, beautiful, cinematic and refined bucket of cold water.

As cover-based shooters go, what’s presented here — set mostly in Brazil, with some flashback missions in Max’s old New Jersey haunts — is mostly terrific. Enemies are numerous and relentless. The levels (favelas, two crumbling skyscrapers and seemingly every square inch of an airport, among other places) are magnificently detailed and built to accommodate shootouts that develop vertically as well as horizontally. The guns are diverse and powerful. And while the firefights are stiffly difficult even on normal difficulty, any failings on your part cannot be blamed on the aiming controls, which are precise regardless of whether you elect to use aiming assists or not.

The problem, of course, is that “Max Payne” isn’t supposed to be a cover shooter at all.

To the complete contrary, it was the original “Max Payne” that popularized the virtues of the “Matrix”-esque Bullet Time, which let you briefly slow time, dive right in front of a quintet of enemies and blast every one of them with prodigious precision before hitting the floor and resuming normal speed.

For all we know, Bullet Time was simply an easy fix for a genre that, back in 2001, was still finding its footing with regard to control, perspective and difficulty balance (and was still years away from embracing cover as the cure-all). But who cares? Bullet Time looked awesome and was extremely fun to use, and the first two “Payne” games designed its levels and enemy arrangements expressly to inspire players to run, gun and go absolutely nuts with the mechanic.

“MP3” brings Bullet Time back, and it’s as glorious as ever to harness. But its levels are designed to accommodate cover instead of blazing guns. Enemies stream out at a much higher rate, and the penalty for taking damage from their guns is significantly higher. Tally it up, and diving into the middle of it all becomes a recipe for disaster. You’ll still get your chances to go crazy, but they’re rare, and you’ll either have to accept that or repeatedly die in denial.

Additional signs of lost identity lie elsewhere. Though “MP3’s” story is thoroughly entertaining, it’s a mostly humorless action movie that only fleetingly evokes the wonderful thematic insanity that defined its predecessors. Full cutscenes replace the graphic novel motif, and while (again) they look and sound terrific, they (again) do so at the expense of the series’ cherished identity.

(Max, to his credit, still mutters film noir-isms to himself between shootouts, so all is not lost. While his world has become less interesting, he’s still the best tragic hero in the business.)

Interestingly, the place “MP3” most closely plays like traditional “Max Payne” is in the one frontier — multiplayer (online, 16 players) — that’s wholly new to the series.

Multiplayer offers plenty to like in terms of match types (solo/team deathmatch, a story-driven Gang Wars mode, a 2-on-14 co-op/competitive survival mode) and amenities (upgradable characters/loadouts, mini-achievements, the ability to form crews with friends).

But while the multiplayer maps are built for cover as well, having teammates and fewer enemies creates boundless opportunity to run and gun with abandon.

You can even activate Bullet Time (albeit sparingly, and only after accruing it through kills and assists). Doing so doesn’t necessarily affect other players’ ability to continue playing at normal speed, but anyone whose line of sight crosses with a slowed-down player will slow down as well. The clever implementation allows Bullet Time to be as effective and fun as ever without disrupting other players who are fighting their own battles elsewhere on the map.

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Mario Tennis Open
For: Nintendo 3DS
From: Camelot/Nintendo
ESRB Rating: Everyone
Price: $40

At its core and where it counts most, “Mario Tennis Open” has a whole lot in common with the preceding six games that had some variation of “Mario Tennis” in their titles, and for many, that’s probably all that matters. In terms of the finer gameplay details — control responsiveness, A.I. competency and the balance struck between pure tennis and the fantastical nature of the Super Mario universe — it’s the most polished game of tennis Nintendo has published since the Nintendo 64 got its version 12 years ago.

Or rather, it will be once you go into the options screen, select “Gyro Sensor” and, perhaps regretfully, disable it.

Along with the overdue addition of online play, “Open’s” neatest new trick might be the ability to dynamically change the camera angle by holding the 3DS differently. Holding the 3DS flat and looking down at it produces an overhead view of the court, while holding it upward and looking forward toward the screen switches, appropriately, to a behind-the-back perspective.

Problem is, “Open” degenerates into a mess when the behind-the-back view is active. The gyroscope allows you to tilt the 3DS to tweak the camera’s horizontal angle, but it also handles shot aim (which the circle pad capably handles by itself in the top-down view). The circle pad can still be used to control your player’s position on the court, but whenever you aren’t using it, the game automatically moves your player for you.

Compared to the top-down view’s classically simple controls, the weird mix of motion, auto and traditional controls is a clumsy mess. And because “Open’s” flimsy options screen makes the dynamic perspective a package deal with all those control conditions, you might be best off disabling the whole thing completely. There’s no way to have complete control while dynamic camera control is active.

Perhaps fortunately (though not really), “Open’s” use of stereoscopic 3D is so tepid during gameplay that you’re not missing much by disabling the feature. The 3D pops beautifully during menus and replays, so it’s clearly a conscious choice, but it’s a puzzling one given the obvious applications for 3D in a game where a ball flies at you at a fast speed.

The nullification of those features leaves us, for better or worse, in pretty much in the same place “Mario Tennis” always has been.

On the plus side, that means “Open” likely gives you what you came for in terms of how it plays. It’s polished per usual, and while the court designs are extremely festive, the emphasis on different shot types and court control makes this a sports game first and everything else second.

At the same time, It’s a shame “Open” sees no need to introduce new characters (besides your Mii) to a small roster that’s stagnated for a decade despite there being no shortage of characters in Mario’s universe. The modes are similarly thin, with the same old tournament cups instead of a season mode or the role-playing features that typically reside in Nintendo’s portable tennis games. The small handful of minigames is nice — a mode that lets you play World 1-1 of “Super Mario Bros.” by hitting enemies with tennis balls is especially clever — but their novelty is fleeting.

Per usual, “Open” shines brightest as a multiplayer game, and while the online offerings aren’t exhaustive, they provide some valuable versatility to the game’s biggest selling point.

Via either local single-card wireless or online, “Open” supports multiple combinations of four-player co-op/competitive/singles/doubles tennis among friends. Those with a competitive streak, meanwhile, can play random opponents online and accrue performance-based points that contribute to their ranking on a monthly regional leaderboard. The quality of play online will ultimately come down to the community, but “Open” does its part: Matches are low on lag, and finding opponents is fast and easy.

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MotoHeroz
For: iPhone/iPod Touch, iPad (separate versions)
From: RedLynx/Ubisoft
iTunes Store Rating: 4+
Price: Free

Maybe three years ago, the iOS debut of “MotoHeroz” — an off-road racing/stunt-driving game from the same studio behind “Trials HD” — would be nothing but good news. “MotoHeroz” operates almost identically to “Trials,” providing a large array of short stunt courses and tasking players with completing them either under a par time or (in the case of non-race events) over a par score. Because you’re driving a four-wheeled vehicle instead of a motorbike, “MotoHeroz” is a little more forgiving with regard to its physics — but only a little, and not so much that mastering those physics won’t spell the difference between getting a three-star score and coming away empty. Unfortunately, a fully-upgraded vehicle proves more important to your success than even your skill, to the point where achieving two- and three-star results isn’t necessarily even possible until you upgrade each level pack’s corresponding vehicle. You can, of course, accomplish this by replaying courses ad nauseam while you gradually accumulate the in-game currency needed to slowly upgrade each vehicle. Or you can watch some video ads and earn a handful of coins that way. Or, for the price of $4 per vehicle (that’s $32 for all eight vehicles), you can fully upgrade and cruise to a three-star score. And if you want the option to just drop $5 up front and play “MotoHeroz” like you would a fun, skill-based game instead of something that nickels and dimes your time and money and sabotages its own gameplay merits in the process? Sorry. “MotoHeroz,” the latest victim of the absolutely joyless freemium model, won’t allow it.

Games 4/3/12: Kid Icarus: Uprising, Ninja Gaiden 3, Closure

Kid Icarus: Uprising
For: Nintendo 3DS
From: Project Sora/Nintendo
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+ (comic mischief, fantasy violence, mild suggestive themes)
Price: $40

Are you willing to suffer for your hobby? Because “Kid Icarus: Uprising” may be the best game you’ll ever have to endure literal pain to enjoy.

It’s also the wildest reinvention of an inconic Nintendo character since Mario started talking and running around in three dimensions.

Though it resurrects the same characters and themes that have been in hibernation since the original “Kid Icarus” games came and went more than two decades ago, “Uprising” is otherwise a wholly different animal. Those older games were slightly methodical 2D platformers. “Uprising” arrives in full 3D — both dimensionally and stereoscopically — and is anything but meticulous.

When Pit (that’s you) is in flight, “Uprising” is a high-flying on-rails shooter. The circle pad controls Pit’s lateral and longitudinal movement, but he continually soars forward by himself. The stylus and touchscreen handle his targeting reticule, and the L button allows him to fire his weapon either rapidly (hold it down) or powerfully (lay off, let it charge, press L to unleash).

Having to balance those three disparate inputs is a bit dicey at any speed, and “Uprising’s” action doesn’t roll by at any speed. It’s fantastically fast and — depending on where you set the difficulty via a clever slider that pays more rewards and unlocks more secret areas the higher you set it — quite challenging.

Holding the 3DS and balancing those inputs is such a clumsy proposition, in fact, that Nintendo included a plastic stand that does the holding part for you. It’s an amusing solution that makes “Uprising” the most unportable portable game since Nintendo’s Virtual Boy days, but it’s an effective one.

Got all that? Good, because when Pit touches down on the ground during the second half of these levels, things get even harrier.

For the most part, the inputs remain the same. But when Pit has his feet on the ground, you exercise full, 360-degree control over them. L still fires and the touchscreen still aims. But having full range of motion also necessitates a need to control the camera independently of Pit. “Uprising” maps that to the touchscreen as well, only via brisk (and therefore imprecise) swipes instead of the drags used for aiming. The line between making Pit amble (slow push on the circle pad) and dash (quick push) forward is similarly imperfect, especially when an accidental dash sends him over an edge.

Harnessing this control scheme, even with the stand’s considerable help, is awkward in short bursts and very literally painful during extended plays. “Uprising’s” isn’t as fast on the ground as it is in the air, but it’s comparable, and it’s crying out for a second circle pad to balance the load. (Bafflingly, while “Uprising” supports Nintendo’s Circle Pad Pro attachment, it’s only for left-handed support and not to enable dual-stick controls.)

And yet, “Uprising’s” action is fast and exciting enough to make the pain worth it. The level design is insane, and the enemy and boss designs run the gamut from ginormous to comically weird. Pit’s story, which plays out with full voice acting in the second screen while you play uninterrupted, is engaging and sharply funny. It’s also lengthy and — thanks to a scoring system, the aforementioned slider and a massive array of discoverable weapons, gear and special powers — highly replayable.

Amazingly, “Uprising” even has a multiplayer option (six players, local wireless or online) with lone wolf deathmatch and a clever team deathmatch option in which teams share a single lifebar. You can bring any weapon you’ve discovered into multiplayer matches, but the better your weapon, the more damage your team’s lifebar suffers when you die. The action is, predictably, complete bedlam — imagine six people dealing with that control scheme and each other at once — but as an amusing throw-in for a content-loaded game, it suffices just fine.

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Ninja Gaiden 3
For: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
From: Tecmo Koei
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, intense violence, strong language, suggestive themes)
Price: $60

The more credit you give “Ninja Gaiden 3” for respecting your ability to play it, the likelier it is to make you rue the thought.

That alone makes “NG3” — a beautiful, blazingly fast action game that’s also a descendent of one of the most perfect action games ever made — a crushing letdown.

Superficially, “NG3” looks a lot like 2004’s “Ninja Gaiden,” a game so cherished that Tecmo keeps reissuing it (most recently, for the Vita in February). Ryu Hayabusa (that’s you) remains one of gaming’s most agile action heroes. The places you’ll visit are beautiful and diverse, and while many of the enemies you face look like reskinned versions of enemies you saw already, the bosses — from a T-Rex to a giant witch whose body becomes a level unto itself — are satisfactorily outrageous.

In flashes, “NG3” also fights like the original “Gaiden,” which treated every single enemy as a significant danger and provided the ingredients — a healthy offensive and defensive arsenal for Ryu, some cunning intelligence for his enemies — to turn the most ordinary fight into a showdown more tense than many games’ boss encounters.

But those flashes — where you’re evading a pattern of attack in perfect time and countering to turn the tide — are fleeting. “NG3’s” tendency to crowd every encounter with roughly six to 10 mindless grunts leaves little room for showdowns, and respecting your enemies’ intelligence simply leads to cheap, frustrating barrages of knockdowns where the game effectively strips control from you. You’re better off just mashing the attack and evade buttons mindlessly and relentlessly — which is about as much fun as it sounds — because that’s all your enemies are doing to you.

The result looks spectacular, in part because “NG3” takes a page from other games and uses interactive cutscenes to add flair to Ryu’s kills. But the satisfaction of a grueling fight intelligently won — the main pillar of the original “Gaiden” and, to a dampened degree, its sequel — is just about gone this time around.

Boss fights, sadly, rarely fare better. There is a gem or two, and the one-on-one format certainly provides some badly-needed focus to the action, but sloppiness and repeat encounters abound all the same. More than not, the same rule of engagement still applies: Give a boss enemy’s attack pattern more credit than it deserves, and prepare to get burned and just mash away on the next (and likely successful) attempt.

Elsewhere, “NG3” takes steps forward and backward to ultimately settle comfortably into mediocrity. A surprising attempt to tell a more personal Ryu Hayabusa story results in the usual incoherence, but the presence of one character lets the story to fulfill its mission to partial effect. As bloodthirsty ninjas go, Ryu’s a pretty nice guy. Who knew?

The not-entirely-welcome infusion of interactive cutscenes and quick time events has a similarly mixed effect. “NG3” looks great when Ryu’s cutting a helicoptor to pieces while it’s in flight, but it screeches to a halt every time you have to laboriously press the triggers to climb a wall. When did simply pushing up on the joystick stop being enough?

“NG3” also marks the series’ first hand at online multiplayer, and the result likely matches your expectations for it. The solo or co-op Ninja Trials mode presents no-frills missions that load up the screen with enough enemies to bring down the framerate, while Clan Battle (eight players) lets you cut your friends to pieces via team deathmatch. “NG3” bakes in a leveling and upgrades system to encourage replayability, but the sloppy gameplay that ails the storyline also persists here. And without that story to pull it along, the novelty runs out pretty quickly.

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Closure
For: Playstation 3 (via Playstation Network)
From: Eyebrow Interactive
ESRB Rating: Everyone (mild fantasy violence)
Price: $15

If it’s in the dark, it doesn’t exist in “Closure,” a deviously clever 2D sidescroller that once again proves all the brilliant ideas for rethinking 2D games aren’t yet taken. In “Closure,” the vast majority of a level exists in complete blackness, and anything that exists in blackness doesn’t exist at all. The object is to employ the available light sources — some static, some maneuverable like adjustable floodlights, some you can push around or carry with you — to design a tenable path to the exit. If the path in front of you is entirely blackened, you need to illuminate it, lest you fall into a bottomless pit of nothingness. And if walls block the exit from all sides, you must suppress the light to make one of those walls disappear. Sounds easy, right? Sure. But “Closure’s” method of terrain manipulation represents an abstract new way to get from A to B, and success frequently entails disobeying age-old 2D gaming truths and forcing yourself to think along dramatically different new lines. Naturally, just as the new normal settles in, “Closure’s” 80-plus levels grow increasingly labyrinthine, with multi-level cause-and-effect puzzles, moving parts you can and cannot control, and keys and other objects you must protect from the abyss while also watching your own step. Fortunately, wicked though “Closure” can get, the process of conquering it is aggravation-free. There’s no timer rushing you along, and if you fall or have to reset the level, it restarts immediately without fuss. The pleasant demeanor extends to the visual presentation, which resembles a black-and-white woodcut illustration come charmingly alive. Monochromatic games are en vogue right now, but “Closure’s” stab at it is a fresh departure from its dour counterparts.

Games 3/20/12: Yakuza: Dead Souls, Crush3d, Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, Motorstorm RC

Yakuza: Dead Souls
For: Playstation 3
From: Sega
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, intense violence, partial nudity, sexual themes, strong language, use of alcohol)
Price: $60

It has always taken a special kind of person to truly appreciate the “Yakuza” series, which reengineers flaws into points of endearment like few (if any) other series can.

“Yakuza: Dead Souls” takes that bizarre two-way affection into a whole new arena, but it never loses itself in doing so. An already confluence of brawling and storytelling goes slightly nuts with the addition of zombies, firearms and more sustained action than has typically been present in these games, but everything that comprised those earlier games — including the weirdly wonderful tug-o-war between archaic and charming — remains intact.

“Souls,” perhaps obviously, isn’t central to the “Yakuza” canon, which up to now has crammed several television series’ worth of violence, drama, comedy, family feuds, criminal dynasties, troublemakers and complete weirdos into four numbered games and a spinoff that released only in Japan. “Souls” takes “Yakuza 4’s” setting and premise — once again dropping you into the shoes of four deeply unique main characters — and tells a what-if story in which the undead clog the streets and the usual friends and enemies enact a moratorium on their squabbles.

Along with the setting and characters, most everything else with which “Yakuza” is synonymous returns in “Souls.” In safe zones walled off (for now) from monsters, you’ll find a new assortment of strange people to meet and assist in side stories. Hilariously weird minigames and diversions abound. The random troublemakers who pick fights in the street have disappeared (perhaps a nod to your new shared enemy), but when you’re battling zombies, the full brunt of “Yazuka’s” brawling controls — from suplexing zombies to using everything from bats to bicycles as weapons — lay at your disposal. As always, it’s a fast and exciting 3D answer to the great 2D brawlers that thrived in the 1990s.

But while hitting a zombie in the face with a coffee table is effective in a pinch, you’ll need some real firepower when “Souls” drops you into an area crawling with several dozen undead.

Enter guns and grenades — and what a strange entrance it is. “Souls” crams three flavors of shooting controls into its existing gameplay with reckless disregard for elegance, and their respective effectiveness is inversely proportional to pretty much every third-person shooter made since roughly 2004.

Whereas holding the L2 trigger to aim down the sights of a gun increases precision in most shooters, it’s generally a nightmare here — sabotaged by a camera unfit to handle it, as well as Sega’s baffling decision to map aiming to the left instead of right stick. (You can’t move while aiming this way.) The method is handy when sniping from a distance, but laughably worthless otherwise.

A middle option, wherein you hold L1 to strafe and automatically fire at enemies in your line of sight, works a little better — except when pressing L1 causes you to strafe facing the wrong way, unable to turn around, even if you’re facing the right way when you press it. It happens randomly, but also regularly.

Ultimately, the best (and, by an factor of 10, most fun) way to mow down zombies is to not even aim at all. As you run through a room hammering on the shoot button, your character shoots whichever zombie is nearest by in his field of view. You can turn on a dime and clear a room in the blink of an eye, especially once you unlock a visually spectacular special ability that lets you use gas lines, circuit boxes and even loose steel girders as bullet-activated hazards.

Played this way, the shooting is fast, exciting, effortless and silly in exactly the right way — in other words, a perfect complement to everything else “Yakuza” has done so wonderfully for so long.

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Crush3d
For: Nintendo 3DS
From: Zoë Mode/Sega
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+ (animated blood, mild cartoon violence)
Price: $35

There’s been a lot of buzz lately about “Fez,” an upcoming, long-in-development puzzle/platforming game that literally turns the 2D platformer on its side.

But five years ago, an unheralded game named “Crush” did it first — and incredibly well — on the Playstation Portable. “Crush3d” takes steps forward and backward in remaking that game for a new system and (hopefully) new audience. But everything it did so brilliantly is preserved and, five years on, as clever and malevolent as ever.

(As a sidebar, the original “Crush” is available for $10 on the Playstation Network for the Vita and PSP. The more you know.)

The object of “Crush3d’s” 40 levels, as explained by a surprisingly chatty storyline, is to collect enough marbles to open a portal to the exit and then reach that exit. But accessing the marbles and the portal isn’t a simple matter of running and jumping over to them, because they typically sit impossibly out of reach.

Instead, you must rotate the level itself, turning it on its side or even vertically so that you’re viewing it from above. And after doing that, you have to “crush” it and flatten the 3D arrangement into a 2D one. Flattening the perspective connects platforms that exist nowhere near each other in the 3D space, and once they’re in close proximity according to your new perspective, you can hop from one to the next like they were next to each other the whole time. Uncrush the level, and suddenly you’re on a completely different plane.

All of that perspective manipulation transforms a completely pedestrian platformer into a beastly mental challenge, and “Crush3d” very quickly makes you work for it if you want to perfect a level (all marbles collected, the optional trophy and concept art piece discovered, and no hints used). Before long, the difficulty curve sharpens with the addition of pushable obstacles, moving platforms, giant cockroaches and blocks that behave differently based on color and dimension.

If that sounds intimidating, mission accomplished. But “Crush3d,” to its credit, doesn’t antagonize unnecessarily by throwing up a time limit or penalizing your score if you take your time solving a level. You might resort to some trial and error just for the sake of doing so when things really get elaborate and you reach your wits’ end, but unless that cockroach is giving chase, you’re free to take your time exploring a level without the nagging sensation that “Crush3d” is rushing you through the problem-solving process.

With that said, if time and crush limits appeal to your masochistic side, a 40-level Trophy Mode — wherein you must complete a level using only so many crushes, and within a par time — is available as a complement to the main story. Finding a trophy in the campaign unlocks the corresponding level in this mode, so keep your eyes peeled.)

“Crush3d’s” gameplay and puzzle design will look wholly familiar to those familiar with “Crush” on the PSP. Stylistically, though, it’s another story.

The game’s use of stereoscopic 3D is excellent — no surprise given the emphasis on perspective perception, but worth noting all the same. But “Crush’s” unique visual style — dystopian but also colorful and silly, with some likably weird graphic novel panels bringing a grouchy but whimsical story to life — has been shelved in favor of something a little less exciting. “Crush3d’s” presentation is pleasant, with brighter backdrops and a friendlier (though not saccharine) makeover for the characters, but it doesn’t stand out the way “Crush’s” look does even to this day.

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Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City
For: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
From: Slant Six/Capcom
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, intense violence, strong language)
Price: $60

If you assembled a focus group of people who’ve never played a “Resident Evil” game and tasked them with designing the next one, “Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City” very well might be what they conceive by day’s end.

That isn’t damning criticism so much as faint praise, because “City” at least fulfills its unimaginative ideals with competency. It holds no candle to a traditional “RE” game. But as a cover-based, co-op-capable third-person squad shooter that hits every bullet point an online, experience points-driven, competitive/cooperative shooter needs to hit? Sure, why not.

With that said, the best thing about “City’s” cover shooter ambitions might be how it largely abandons them early in the campaign, which you can play alone with three A.I. partners, online with three human partners, or some mix therein. (Sadly, there’s no local co-op option.)

“City” drops you into the shoes of an Umbrella Corporation-appointed cleanup squad, tasked with removing all traces of its involvement in sparking the Raccoon City zombie apocalypse. In other words, you finally get to play out the saga’s formative episodes from the bad guy’s side.

Without spoiling specifics, the first leg of this PR campaign pits you against government soldiers who are armed both with guns and intelligence. (Hence, the need to fight from cover.)

The results are passable but sloppy. There’s no button to stick to cover: “City” does it automatically, which means it sometimes doesn’t when you need it to and does when you don’t. That, and the occasional unresponsiveness that happens when you try swapping weapons, detract from a control scheme that otherwise covers the basics adequately.

Fortunately — and inevitably, because they’re “RE’s” reason for being — the zombies indeed rush in. And once they do, “City” becomes 10 percent cover shooter and 90 percent run and gun.

The change in tempo doesn’t fully nullify “City’s” shortcomings, especially when it descends into chaos during mission-ending objectives that cram levels with zombies and soldiers galore. But the action is lively, and it’s fun to take on the zombie horde with degrees of weaponry and dexterity that wouldn’t make sense in a more traditional “RE” game.

As co-op experiences go, “City” is once again satisfactory. Setting up foursomes is easy, and teams that protect (and, in the event of a bad zombie fight, disinfect) each other will find those aforementioned descents into chaos much easier to bear.

If, however, you play alone, be prepared to fight alone. A.I. partners can kill a zombie or two, but they provide shoddy protection and can’t revive you like you can them. (If you turn zombie or become incapacitated, the game halts and whisks you back to the nearest checkpoint.) Cold though it sounds, your A.I. partners are best used as bait while you flank enemies from behind.

Other bullet points abound. The campaign is roughly six hours long, but with six very different (and separately upgradable) character classes to play as, there’s incentive to go play it again. Stats persist across the whole game, so you can apply your unlocked perks to “City’s” competitive multiplayer suite as well.

The competitive multiplayer (eight players, online only) features “RE”-flavored variants of team deathmatch, capture the flag and territory control. A Heroes Mode, meanwhile, lets you play as famous faces from games’ past and take sides in the standoff between Umbrella and the government.

Again, the action is fun but customary — albeit with a wrinkle. The multiplayer arenas are crawling with zombies, and once again, they’re the common enemy of both opposing forces. Having to manage boatloads of A.I. enemies while also outwitting more formidable human opponents — who are dealing with the same zombies while taking you on — adds some serious (and, unlike the chaos mentioned earlier, welcome) bedlam to what otherwise is pretty standard four-on-four action.

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Motorstorm RC
For: Playstation 3 and Playstation Vita
From: Evolution Studios/Sony
ESRB Rating: Everyone
Price: $10 on PS3, free on Vita for a limited time

If you ever imagined how amusing it might be to see “Motorstorm’s” hulking off-road vehicles shrunk down to RC car form, just wait until you see one of them flip over and land haplessly on its plastic back. To an arguable fault — at least, if you come in expecting a normal racing game — “Motorstorm RC” takes the gimmick and runs wild with it. The tracks — which “RC” displays from an overhead perspective a la “Super Off Road” or “R.C. Pro-Am” — are miniaturized, toy-car replicas of courses from all four previous “Motorstorm” games, and the vehicles’ handling physics are appropriately light but (like an RC car) just a little bit stubborn in the handling department. “RC’s” default controls mimic those of a remote control, with one stick (or R2 trigger on the PS3) handling the gas and brake while the other stick handles steering. You can customize these settings to use buttons if you wish. But if you want to beat your friends’ ghost times and get gold medal scores across all 48 events — a mix of races, time trials, overtake challenges and drift competitions — you’re advised to master the analog acceleration in order to tame that stubborn handling. Drive these vehicles like they’re regular video game cars, and you’ll pay dearly and regularly. Outside of four-player splitscreen on the PS3 version, “RC” lacks any kind of head-to-head multiplayer component. But its terrific integration of friends’ scores across all modes means you’re constantly competing with them anyway. Your scores and progress sync across both versions if you own both, and while the Vita version is free for a limited time thanks to Toyota, buying either version gets you the other version for free when it returns to regular price. How cool is that?

Games 3/13/12: MLB 12 The Show, Nicktoons MLB 3D, SSX, Jak and Daxter Collection, Journey

MLB 12 The Show
For: Playstation 3 and Playstation Vita
From: San Diego Studio/Sony
ESRB Rating: Everyone
Price: $60 for PS3, $40 for Vita, $80 for bundle (through April 10)

Nicktoons MLB 3D
For: Nintendo 3DS
From: Black Lantern Studios/2K Play
ESRB Rating: Everyone
Price: $30

“MLB The Show” has been the undisputed king of baseball sims for at least five years running, and even though the 2012 edition’s additions rank on the weak side, this remains the case.

For the second straight year, a new pitching mechanic leads off the roster of changes. But in contrast to last year’s excellent Pure Analog system, the Pulse Pitching method relies too much on a gimmicky (and counterproductively touchy) timing mechanic that doesn’t really replicate the sensation of making a perfect pitch. With practice, it can be mastered, but “MLB12’s” other delivery methods — Pure Analog, Meter and Classic — are more fun. Fortunately, all remain available to use and tweak as needed via an extensive options screen.

“MLB12’s” flashiest new feature — Diamond Dynasty, available only in the PS3 version — attempts to replicate the success of EA Sports’ Ultimate Team modes, in which you assemble teams of players from virtual packs of cards you buy with in-game (or, of course, real) money. But while the seeds of compulsion are there if you’re willing to look for them, Diamond Dynasty clearly is a rookie effort — all over the place in terms of confusing interfaces, and spotty with how it facilitates team management and rewards.

The better modes — Season/Franchise, the role-playing Road to the Show — are available on both Vita and PS3, and those who purchase both versions can share the same cloud save file between both. If you love the game but never have time to play an entire season on your couch, the flexibility this entails may be the best news there is about this year’s game.

As per annual tradition, there’s more good news in between the lines. A brand-new baseball physics engine should quickly make its presence known to longtime players, and Road to the Show finally lets you begin your minor league career as a starter instead of on the bench. Tweaks have been made to the way A.I. managers and general managers handle lineups and trades, respectively, and every detail of the Marlins’ hideous new uniforms and home run structure has been recreated in exquisitely ugly detail.

Most importantly, none of the core fundamentals that have made this series the best in the business have been broken.

2K Sports’ simulation counterpart continues to lag behind and spin its glitchy, unrefined wheels. But 2K Play engineered a pleasant surprise last season with “NickToons MLB,” which took MLB players and teams, sprinkled in Nickelodeon characters and stadiums, and powered it with the terrifically fast (and surprisingly deep) engine that originally powered its outstanding “The Bigs” arcade baseball games.

Sadly, “Nicktoons MLB 3D” arrives on the Nintendo 3DS in alarmingly bad shape. The personality and players are there, as are the modes (season, tournament, minigames) and intricacies that made last year’s game more sophisticated than your typical arcade baseball game.

But where it matters most — gameplay — is where “3D” falls completely on its face. Instead of fast, it’s unflatteringly slow and prone to framerate stutters. And while the console version’s responsive controls made every facet of the game fun to play, “3D” can’t even get the basics right. The half-second lag between button press and the moment a batter actually swings the bat is impossible to forgive in a sport where timing is king. “3D” updates the rosters for 2012 and adds a few new ballparks and modes not found in the console versions, but the shoddy foundation completely invalidates whatever upside it has to offer.

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SSX
For: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
From: EA Sports
ESRB Rating: Everyone (mild lyrics, mild violence)
Price: $60

When EA Sports first unveiled its rebooted “SSX” — complete with gritty, humorless overtones and “Call of Duty”-esque cutscenes to complement the otherwise familiar snowboarding action — the groans that met it halfway were fierce enough to send the studio into retool mode. Many months later, what we ultimately get — colorful, cheerful, loaded with impossible tricks and exaggerated physics — is a good approximation of how the first proper “SSX” game in nearly seven years should look, play and even innovate.

Except, of course, when it isn’t. Don’t holster that groan just yet.

Under the right conditions — on a wide mountain with room to trick creatively and in an event centered purely around racing or accumulating large trick scores — “SSX” sings as beautifully as ever. It’s blazing fast, stringing tricks (either with the new, stick-centric method or a scheme that approximates classic controls) is extremely easy, and exploiting the mountain for one incredible combo after another is blissfully fun.

But for every time “SSX” gets it perfectly right, there’s an instance where it inexplicably flubs it.

Some runs, including a handful that lead off the single-player campaign, take place in tight runs overcrowded with ramps and grindable lines. Botch one jump, and it’s too easy to ignite a chain where your rider is haplessly missing opportunity after opportunity while you simply wait for a clear patch of snow on which to rebuild the deck.

Much worse, however, is when “SSX” throws you down a mountain that’s plagued by bottomless drops around and even within it. Annoying though the chains of missed opportunities can be, they pale in comparison to the non-thrill of pulling a spectacular big-air trick, only to land on a ridge that slides you into a pit you couldn’t foresee when originally taking off. “SSX” includes a limited-use rewind feature, perhaps as penance for the cheapness of such turns of fortune. But even then, your momentum is disrupted and your score dinged.

Though the race and trick events are occasionally undermined by some unreasonably inhuman A.I. Opponents, “SSX” frustrates most during the new survival events, where the goal simply is to complete the run. Your rewinds are severely limited here, and the mountains tend to be severely broken. That means lots of cheap falls, which means lots of trial and error. Surviving these runs is a simple matter of memorizing the layout and riding sensibly instead of tricking out, but when was the last time you played “SSX” with a desire to ride sensibly and predictably?

Fortunately, should you be so inclined, you can enjoy most of “SSX’s” highlights without engaging its lowlights.

With respect to its story track, “SSX’s” showcase features are the Explore and Global events, both of which provide non-linear access to every mountain range and let you hop around the globe as you please. The in-game currency and experience points systems, which allow you to upgrade every playable rider and his or her gear, apply across all modes, so you aren’t missing anything (except some annoying cutscenes and chatter) by outright skipping the story.

The Explore and Global events also comprise “SSX’s” clever asynchronous multiplayer, which functions like a social network for “SSX” fans. You can challenge other players’ scores (which appear persistently in the menus or in ghost form), create Global Events that thousands of players can enter, form and track rivalries, and even drop geotags on a course and challenge other players to find a way to reach the spot where you left it. The longer it stays untouched, the bigger the payout.

The downside of asynchronous multiplayer? It comes at the expense of the traditional stuff. You might spot friends on the slopes if you’re playing the same Global Event at the same time, but if you’re hoping to race friends directly online — or even offline via splitscreen, as was an “SSX” staple once upon a time — you’re out of luck.

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Jak and Daxter Collection
For: Playstation 3
From: Naughty Dog/Mass Media Inc./Sony
ESRB Rating: Everyone/Teen (comic mischief, language, suggestive themes, violence)
Price: $40 (games also available separately for $15 each via Playstation Network)

The advent of a “Jak and Daxter” HD collection was patently inevitable as soon as Sony began unleashing these terrific (and terrifically-priced) two- and three-packs of remastered Playstation 2 classics.

Here’s another shocker: “Jak and Daxter Collection” does excellent justice to the three games — originally released between 2001 and 2004 — that comprise it. The remastered games play perfectly, and though the original games’ colorful, Pixar-esque graphics have aged better than those of most PS2 titles, the benefits of a high-definition upgrade are obvious and considerable. The addition of stereoscopic 3D is sufficient for those with the technology to support it, and Playstation Network Trophy hunters will delight at the presence of lengthy trophy lists (each topped with a Platinum trophy) for each game.

If you lost track of “Jak and Daxter” back in the day, “Collection’s” biggest surprise may be just how much variety lies within — and not simply because Naughty Dog (best known today as the developer responsible for the “Uncharted” PS3 games) knew how to stuff a whole lot of creative level designs and ideas into these games. Though the level of variety certainly is copious, it’s the series’ gradual shift in tone and even genre that’s most striking.

The series’ debut, “Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy,” was a 3D platformer from the “Super Mario 64” school of colorful characters, collectables and levels that were open to discovery but still pretty self-contained. A voice cast and slight taste for vehicles set it somewhat apart, but it certainly felt right at home in its chosen genre.

“Jak II,” on the other hand, played as much like “Grand Theft Auto” as it did the original “Jak and Daxter.” Though not gratingly or humorlessly so, the tone was measurably darker, and the difficulty spiked accordingly. The open-world Haven City served as a massive hub at the heart of the game, and guns and vehicles (which, yes, you could hijack) played a major role. The addition of hoverboards even brought with it a “Tony Hawk”-style minigame. “Jak II” never outright abandoned the ingredients that comprised the first game, but platforming definitely takes a reduced role.

“Jak 3,” appropriately, feels like a culmination of all that preceded it. It somewhat jettisons the bustling city design in favor of something more wide-open, and its gameplay accommodates the shift with an epic adventure flavor that very capably makes room for nearly every gameplay element that found its way into the first two games.

Remarkably, the series never really loses its way during the course of this evolution. For all the different ideas each edition throws at the wall, the franchise as a whole is a model of consistency when quality is the sole metric. It’s also aged extremely well, especially with a new coat of graphical paint applied. These games were easy to recommend back when they cost $50 each, and at $40 for all three, it’s one of the better gaming values of 2012 thus far.

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Journey
For: Playstation 3 (via Playstation Network)
From: thatgamecompany/Sony
ESRB Rating: Everyone (mild fantasy violence)
Price: $15

If your jaw isn’t on the floor following a trip through “Journey,” call your doctor, because you probably don’t have a jaw. As best a video game can be expected to do, “Journey” replicates the sensation of being lost and alone in a wholly unknown land. It drops you in a vacant desert, offers a couple prompts to show you which buttons on your controller are in play, and that’s it. The rest of the way, you’re left to your own devices, free to venture through the desert, under the sea, and up a snowy mountain toward an oasis that waits faintly in the distance. “Journey” offers traditional resistance by way of riddles to solve and secrets to find along the way, but there’s no health bar or even enemies in the traditional sense. More than a game to beat, it’s a literal journey that wants you simply to explore its staggeringly pretty scenery rather than survive it. (Outside of the real thing, these might be the most stunning sand and snow physics you’ve ever seen.) Alone and in though, the trip is a treat without equal. But “Journey” truly sparkles when you come upon other players making their own pilgrimages in the same world. You won’t know who they are — “Journey” doesn’t reveal their PSN usernames until past the closing credits — and your only means of communication is a single button that emits a musical tone of variable length. With that, you’re free to blissfully ignore each other or find a way, like two birds chirping at each other, to share the road and complete the journey together. If you elect to try the latter option, prepare for an organic co-op gaming experience that’s wholly unlike any you’ve experienced before.

Games 1/31/12: Resident Evil: Revelations, Final Fantasy XIII-2, Quarrel

Resident Evil: Revelations
For: Nintendo 3DS
From: Capcom
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, intense violence, language)
Price: $40

After Capcom insulted 3DS owners last year with the laughably shallow and overpriced “Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D,” you’d be forgiven for dismissing “Resident Evil: Revelations” as yet another thoughtless cash-in.

You’d be wrong, but you’d be forgiven.

To the contrary, and staggeringly so, “Revelations” is the real deal — a console-quality “Resident Evil” game that arguably surpasses the series’ excellent recent console efforts, and a showcase piece for a system that may be more powerful than you’d figured.

“Revelations” illuminates the murky timeline leading into the events of 2009’s “Resident Evil 5,” and the approach it takes — pieced into episodes like a television show, and fronted by multiple playable protagonists at different points in the timeline — is a novel venture for the series.

The obvious benefits apply, with the episodic approach (and complementary save/checkpoint system) giving “Revelations” some welcome portable-friendly breaks in the action. The structure also keeps the story on point: Every episode, even when ending on a cliffhanger, contains its own satisfying story arc, and the multiple characters and timelines keep developments cropping up at an engrossing pace.

In a more surprising benefit, the episodic structure also lets “Revelations” be all things “Resident Evil” at once.

Jill Valentine returns to carry the bulk of “Revelations'” playable character weight, and her scenes — set almost exclusively aboard a gargantuan cruise liner crawling with secrets — are a callback to the original “Resident Evil’s” sprawling mansion. The enemy count is sparse, but so is Jill’s ammo, and the threat of significant peril around any given corner — even when tracing old steps to access previously inaccessible corridors — provides the best blend yet of the franchise’s contemporary gameplay and original ethos.

By contrast — and without spoiling the who or where — the segments starring other characters unfold in a variety of environments that favor heavier action and a more linear progression.

Impressively, “Revelations” can handle both styles even if you pass on the $20 Circle Pad Pro attachment, which gives the 3DS a second analog pad. The attachment wasn’t available for testing with “Revelations,” but it wasn’t needed.

Hypothetically, “Revelations” — which adopts “RE5’s” third-person perspective but offers an optional first-person view when guns are drawn — is better without it. With only one pad, combat becomes a tense compromise between positioning and firing instead of mindless running and gunning, and during those moments where big trouble breaks loose in small spaces and death can come quick, being just a little purposefully hamstrung by the controls adds to the excitement. The controls are responsive, the touchscreen adds a second layer of intuitive access, and it’s almost fun to fight the game when it’s by design and the design is this sharp.

“Revelations” adds a weird new wrinkle with a scanning device that lets Jill and others analyze the environment for hidden items and enemy data. Initially, its implementation feels clumsy, because you have to stash your weapon to use the scanner. But that, of course, is the point: If you want the rewards, you have holster your gun and assume the risks of doing so. Yet again, “Revelations” mixes intuitive design with deliberate inconvenience to turn a quirky mechanic into a tense gamble.

Presentationally, “Revelations” is a testament to the 3DS’ surprising power, with console-quality graphics that pop beautifully with the 3D maxed out. The sound design is stellar, and you’d do very well to play this one with headphones on.

Amusingly, “Revelations” also includes a mode — playable solo or wirelessly/online with another player — that basically mimics the sole mode that comprised “Mercenaries.” It might be the first time a $40 game has included a $50 game as a bonus feature, but regardless, it’s a welcome (and fitting) concession from a studio that got it all the way right this time.

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Final Fantasy XIII-2
For: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
From: Square-Enix
ESRB Rating: Teen (drug reference, mild language, mild suggestive themes, simulated gambling, violence)
Price: $60

Did you play “Final Fantasy XIII?” Because if you didn’t, this welcome mat is not for you.

“Final Fantasy XIII-2” easily is the most direct sequel Square-Enix has ever made for a “Final Fantasy” game. Neither a spinoff nor a quirky offshoot (like “Final Fantasy X-2” famously was), “XIII-2” directly follows the events of its predecessor’s story and keeps that game’s battle system — a cool mix of turn-based gameplay set to real-time rules in which you devise multiple roles for your characters and set them in furious motion — pretty much intact. The primary cast has changed, with story-mandated events putting “XIII’s” Serah at the forefront of a search for her sister (and “XIII” protagonist) Lightning, but skeletally, “XIII-2” has far more in common than not with “XIII.”

More than anything, “XIII-2” feels like a second draft that might not even exist if “XIII” didn’t attract the harsh criticism it got.

For that crowd, the changes are welcome. Where “XIII” was shockingly linear for a role-playing game, “XIII” offers towns, dungeons with branching paths and side quests to complement the main storyline. Even that main storyline fractures, hinging on an incorporation of time travel that (while narratively uninspired) often lets you jump tracks when you’re ready instead of when the story dictates. (As a welcome — albeit almost certainly unintentional — result, many of “XIII-2’s” most tedious fetch quests and mini-games can be skipped entirely if you wish to ignore them.)

“XIII-2’s” most inspired new twist comes from its unusual party arrangement, which gives you two human characters and “Pokemon”-esque monster to complement them in battle. The game is crawling with monsters to capture, customize and upgrade, and while the exercise is mostly optional, it’s where most of “XIII-2’s” most enjoyable character customization lies.

But “XIII-2’s” inarguable blessing is its willingness to let you commandeer its battle system quickly. “XIII” held players’ hands for nearly 20 hours — that’s 20, not a typo — before completely relinquishing control. “XIII-2” offers a comprehensive tutorial for new and rusty players, but you can skip it if you wish, and without spoiling the narrative hows or whens, you’re off and running in pretty short order.

Along with the battle tutorial, “XIII-2” also offers a chapter-by-chapter story primer for those who wish to understand the events of “XIII” but skip straight to playing “XIII-2.”

But as many who played it will attest, “XIII’s” story was a needless and often incomprehensibly dense climb up a shallow hill, and there’s only so much the primer can do to clean it up. Even if you read the whole thing, jumping straight into “XIII-2” is like skipping the first three seasons of “Lost” and expecting to enjoy the remaining three as much as those who have been watching all along.

Storytelling, sadly, remains the one place where “XIII-2” stumbles as much as (if not more than) “XIII.” It’s opaque almost from the start. The main characters are bland, the supporting characters often obnoxious. And once again, a simple story gets weighed down by its mythology and character dialogue instead of enriched by them. (Given what a kick to the face the primary ending is, though, that may be blessing in disguise.)

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Quarrel
For: Xbox 360 (via Xbox Live Arcade)
From: Indiagames Limited/Denki/UTV Ignition
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+ (fantasy violence)
Price: $5

The conceptually brilliant and rambunctiously cheerful “Quarrel” is what happens when Boggle and RISK join forces. Up to four armies share adjacent territories with one another, and dominating a “Quarrel” match comes down to wiping out opposing armies before they decimate yours. This time, though, a battle comes down to eight random letters and one chance to build a better word than your enemy. The more troops you have occupying the conflicted square, the more letters you can use to build your word, and the winning army can (depending on circumstance) take the square completely, whittle it down to one opposing troop, or turn enemies into turncoats. “Quarrel’s” cheerful presentation is dangerously caffeinated, but the actual game takes a great idea and gets it absolutely right. All of this was already the case with “Quarrel’s” iOS iteration, which included lots of well-tuned single-player content (campaign, customizable match play, daily challenges) but no multiplayer of any kind. With the move to Xbox Live, “Quarrel” finally fixes that: There’s no local multiplayer (which makes sense given the game’s setup), but you can play online with up to three others. This, along with all the iOS version’s single-player content and some new scenario wrinkles for those playing alone, makes this the best version available (and makes the exclusion of multiplayer on iOS even more annoying than it already was). The only downside: Playing “Quarrel” with a controller isn’t as graceful as it is on a touch screen. Fortunately, it’s a slight rather than significant inconvenience, and if you have a Chat Pad, you’ll be happy to know it’s supported.

Games 1/3/12: Pushmo, Wind-up Knight

Pushmo
For: Nintendo 3DS (via Nintendo eShop)
From: Intelligent Systems/Nintendo
ESRB Rating: Everyone
Price: $7

Though it took its sweet time, a stream of exciting original games is trickling onto Nintendo’s new handheld. Elsewhere, and following an even longer wait, Nintendo’s downloadable portable games channel is finally finding a groove.

No game embodies the light at the end both tunnels quite so perfectly as “Pushmo,” a $7 gem that also ranks among the best puzzle games to appear on any platform this past year.

In “Pushmo,” the goal of each level is to rescue a kid who’s stuck atop a structure and has no safe way to get down. You play as Mallo, and you have complete control of his running and jumping prowess.

Were the structures arranged accessibly, Mallo could simply climb them and rescue the kid. Of course, they aren’t. Each structure is comprised of multiple blocks of different shapes, and your task is to push and pull each piece (toward or away from you, but not side to side) until they’re arranged in such a way that Mallo can navigate upward and save the kid.

As Mallo’s mentor, Papa Blox, reveals different methods for arranging pieces, “Pushmo” offers some disconcertingly elementary levels on which to practice. It’s enough to wonder if the entire game will be entirely too easy to enjoy.

But around level 20, the tricks learned in those insultingly easy early levels start to manifest in more intricate ways.

At around level 55, “Pushmo” starts revealing its true self. The structures — sometimes formed in the shape of objects, animals or Nintendo characters — grow increasingly intricate and require layers of manipulation before a clear solution takes shape. A few additional wrinkles — manholes that warp Mallo around a level, switches that dictate which pieces can be manipulated at a given moment — eventually join the fray to complicate things further.

“Pushmo” comes with a staggering 250 levels baked in, and as the level count rises, it mixes patterns, switches and warp spots to create arrangements that are deviously clever and often look impossible to solve at first glance.

The fun, naturally, comes from the realization that a solution really does exist in there somewhere, and “Pushmo” takes wonderful measures to never let that fun degenerate into frustration.

There are, for instance, no unnecessary limitations in place. No time limit means you’re free to approach a puzzle as methodically as you please, and the lack of a move limit means you can engage in reckless trial and error without penalty. If you become hopelessly tangled, a reset switch at the far end of the level instantly resets everything. And a rewind button literally rewinds your progress if you make a mistake or two and want to hit the undo button without starting over. Finally, the option to skip levels and return later avails itself if you get stuck for a while.

None of these assists dumbs “Pushmo” down in any way whatsoever, but all of them combine to make even the most deviously difficult level a total pleasure to slowly pick apart and solve.

Also a pleasure: “Pushmo’s” presentation. Mallo and friends are the most delightful characters to debut in a Nintendo-branded game in years, and every facet of the game — from polished controls to vibrant level designs to an excellent utilization of stereoscopic 3D — would look first-rate in a $50 retail game.

Also? For your $7, “Pushmo” also throws in a shockingly robust level editor, complete with a means to trade created levels with other players. It’s easy to use, it works, and if “Pushmo” develops an active online community, the best value on the 3DS will only get better.

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Wind-up Knight
Reviewed for: iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad (universal app)
Also available for: Android
From: Robot Invader
iTunes Store Rating: 9+ (infrequent/mild cartoon or fantasy violence)
Price: $1

If you play your share of mobile games, you’ve likely played “Wind-up Knight’s” opening level before. As the Wind-up Knight, you’re automatically and continually running forward, and your only means of control is to jump over trouble when trouble draws near. Yes, another running game. But “Knight’s” second level adds a wrinkle by giving you a sword and challenging you to thwack a few enemies while also leaping over trouble. Momentarily, you’ll also acquire the ability to roll underneath low-lying obstacles and block peril from above with a shield. Once you have a full arsenal, “Knight” truly comes into its own, throwing intricately perilous levels at you and demanding you juggle all four moves (sometimes two simultaneously) to survive the gauntlet. An upgrade system provides armor that affords some room for error (and, this being a mobile game, there naturally is the option to pay real money to unlock items without earning them). But until those slight comforts avail themselves, “Knight” is a make-one-mistake-and-try-again affair, making it one of the purest embodiments of NES-era console gaming to appear on mobile devices thus far. If that sounds like a recipe for aggravation, it’s worth noting “Knight” makes concessions to alleviate frustration: Challenging though its 52 levels become, they’re also manageably short. The controls are about as responsive as could be hoped for, collision detection is more generous in your favor than not, and when all else fails, the amusing visual and storytelling presentation make “Knight” too likable to stay mad at for long.

Games 12/6/11: Mario Kart 7, Carnival Island, Medieval Moves: Deadmund's Quest, Need for Speed: The Run, Age of Zombies: Anniversary

Mario Kart 7
For: Nintendo 3DS
From: Nintendo
ESRB Rating: Everyone (comic mischief)
Price: $40

“Mario Kart” is the only racing franchise in existence where the worst experience a player has is when he or she leads a race. That misery persists in “Mario Kart 7’s” single-player cups, where opposing racers routinely will pelt you with blue shells and other unavoidably cheap weapons any time you dare control the lead before the finish line comes into view.

Fortunately, “MK7” is — like each of its six predecessors — exponentially best enjoyed when playing against friends (eight players, local wireless or online). That same horror persists, and it’s doubly pronounced with friends whose need to terrorize one another is as paramount as any need to win a race. But when everyone’s tormenting everyone and having a laugh in the process, any pretense about “MK7’s” shortcomings as a pure racing game fall away.

In other words, the seventh “Mario Kart” game isn’t too fundamentally far removed from the first. If you’ve grown tired of the act and wish Nintendo would at least do away with items that require no skill to deploy effectively, you’ll have a bone to pick with this one before you even turn it on. And if you still love the formula, “MK7” finds the series at its prettiest, most versatile and — thanks to 16 new tracks that are all kinds of inspired in their design — most elaborate.

Though they range from cosmetic to curious, there are still changes to the formula worth noting. “MK7’s” courses — the new ones as well as the 16 remastered tracks Nintendo hand-picked from just about every previous game — include stretches set underwater and in the air. In terms of locomotion, neither is a game-changer: You glide in the air and drive with some drag underwater. But the extra surfaces add vertical alternate paths to courses that already have horizontal shortcuts to seek out. A single track can have racers simultaneously racing beneath the surface, atop it and high above on a rooftop.

Nintendo also takes a nudge in the right direction with a couple new items, the tanooki tail and fireball, that allow you some measure of defense against shells and other weapons. The blue shell and lightning bolt remain invincible as ever, but hey, baby steps. The truly lucky will get the new Lucky 7 item, which grants a seven-piece variety pack of items to deploy as needed.

In the “funny but probably useless” column, you can toggle a new first-person view that lets you steer by turning the 3DS like a steering wheel. The viewpoint puts you at a competitive disadvantage and negates “MK7’s” 3D effects, which are the most eye-pleasing of any 3DS game thus far. But it’s amusing, a little exciting and, in a multiplayer session where everyone agrees to drive that way, potentially riotous.

In terms of features, “MK7” delivers what’s expected of it. The Grand Prix has eight cups of four races each, and completing each difficulty tier unlocks new characters, including your Mii. Collecting coins across all modes unlocks new kart parts, which you can mix and match to create the kart of your speedy, weighty and stylish dreams. Time Trials and Balloon/Coin battle modes return, though the excellent Mission mode from “Mario Kart DS” does not.

“MK7’s” online component also comes through with lag-free racing and a polished interface that makes it easy to race against friends, recent opponents or random strangers. The Community mode is particularly nice, as it allows you to set up an always-open lobby for friends to access as they please, though you’ll have to create separate communities different race and battle modes.

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Carnival Island
For: Playstation 3 (Playstation Move required)
From: Magic Pixel Games/Sony
ESRB Rating: Everyone (comic mischief)
Price: $40

Medieval Moves: Deadmund’s Quest
For: Playstation 3 (Playstation Move required)
From: Zindagi Games/Sony
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+ (fantasy violence)
Price: $40

Every motion control system needs its own collection of carnival-themed minigames, and “Carnival Island” would appear to be the Playstation 3’s me-too equivalent. But the hand-drawn animation that opens the game’s story mode suggests there’s more to this collection than simple imitation, and while that isn’t all the way true, it bears out to an encouraging degree.

“Island” features seven carnival standbys — frog bog, skeeball, hoops, coin/ring/baseball toss and shooting gallery — in its base offerings, and because the Move controller is just plain more precise than the Wii remote or Kinect, the games work exactly as you’d expect and respond to your motions precisely as they should.

The responsive controls are, naturally, “Island’s” most important virtue. But the game’s best asset lies in the way it breaks from convention in designing 28 additional games simply by rearranging those seven base games.

While some of these variants are simple tweaks to the rules or the way the playing field is arranged, others — replacing the baseball with a swingable wrecking ball, turning the skeeball lane into a slot machine, providing frogs you can steer in the air after launching them with the frog bog — are considerably more clever. Many of them exercise enough creativity to feel like different games entirely instead of mere offshoots.

“Island’s” four-player multiplayer (offline only, sadly) very obviously positions it as a party game, but it bears repeating that the story campaign — about a dormant carnival you gradually return to life — is legitimately charming as a solo endeavor. If you like a challenge, all 35 games include a checklist of bonus objectives to complete, and many of them are certifiably tough. Naturally, because this is a carnival, you’ll win tickets from games that let you collect prizes for your character and unlock a few exhibits (a magic mirror, for instance) that are just for fun.

At first blush, “Medieval Moves: Deadmund’s Quest” appears to have nothing in common with “Island” past its controller. But like “Island,” its best asset is the way it adopts a genre (light gun shooter) that’s part and parcel with motion controls and takes it down a novel new road.

In “Quest,” Deadmund (a friendly skeleton fighting unfriendly skeletons, and the story explains all) handles the walking while you handle the rest — swordplay, arrows, throwing stars, dynamite, a grappling hook and a periodic jump, duck or gear turn. You can choose which path Deadmund should take when he reaches a fork in the road, but otherwise, he moves forward automatically.

The resemblance there to light gun shooters is unmistakable, as are “Quest’s” enemy formations and the way it scatters bonus items you can pick up if you’re quick enough to do so before Deadmund runs past them.

But Deadmund’s arsenal makes “Quest” a much more versatile and lively experience than your typical shooter, particularly because you can mix attacks as freely as you like. Swordplay is ideal for close-quarters combat, and how you wield the Move controller is how Deadmund will wield his sword and shield. Imitating a quill-pulling motion allows Deadmund to shoot arrows at faraway enemies, while a quick sideways fling of the controller lets him throw stars at advancing enemies.

“Quest” intuitively maps all these tasks to one controller, but if you have two, it’s best enjoyed that way. The sword and shield are assigned to separate wands, alleviating the need to hold a button to use the shield, and shooting arrows is more fun when you imitate the bow motion with two controllers instead of point the one at the screen like a gun.

Either way, though, “Quest” is terrific fun — more an arcade game than what typically constitutes a quest in video game terms, but a fast, active adventure that is too nimble and seamless to feel gimmicky.

“Quest’s” storyline is a solo endeavor, but a separate Battle mode — designed primarily around surviving formations of enemies in an arena you can zip through using the grappling hook — offers competitive and cooperative play for one or two players (online or splitscreen). It’s simple, but it’s fun for the same reasons the story is fun, and a persistent leveling system gives it legs by letting you upgrade weapons and unlock new characters as you accrue experience.

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Need for Speed: The Run
Reviewed for: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
Also available for: Wii, Nintendo 3DS, Windows
From: EA Black Box/EA
ESRB Rating: Teen (language, mild suggestive themes, violence)
Price: $60

If “Need for Speed: The Run” was a sitcom plot device instead of a game, it’d be that one where a character makes a list of pros and cons and fills out both sides of the paper doing so. Great mechanics and a cool premise — a coast-to-coast, “Cannonball Run”-esque race — do battle with some regrettable design choices, and while “The Run” ultimately comes out ahead, the final score is closer than it should’ve been.

The benefits of driving cross-country are obvious, even if the story that creates the opportunity is drab. (Happily, the much-maligned on-foot chase sequences — interactive cutscenes that look flashy and push the story but aren’t fun to play — are so short and infrequent as to not even factor.)

“The Run” takes place in the United States as we know them, and while it’s doled out in stages instead of as a single, uninterrupted cruise, the recreations of numerous locales are extremely visually impressive. The premise also provides some considerable terrain variety, with San Francisco’s hilly streets and Colorado’s slippery mountains demanding different disciplines than South Dakota’s straightaways, downtown Chicago’s sharp corners and New Jersey’s perilously tight alleys.

“The Run’s” breadth of vehicles and tuning options is narrower than the norm, but it offers a satisfactory array of cars built to handle different surfaces and weather. The tug of war that ensues between responsive handling and the perennial sense of being one twitch away from disaster will strike some simply as less-than-optimum handling controls, but it does make for an exciting (and visually impressive) time on the road. The opposing driver A.I. is similarly polarizing: It brazenly rubberbands at points where a close finish makes for good drama, but you may not appreciate driving a spotless race that still finds an opposing driver cutting a 10-second lead down to nothing in seemingly no time.

“The Run’s” boldest idea comes with its attempt to treating a racing game like an action game. You get a limited number of resets (lives, basically) per event, and each event has a handful of checkpoints that you’ll revert to if you wipe out. Considering every event is pass/fail — if you don’t outright win that stretch of the race or complete the event’s objective, you have to redo it — it’s a novel, sensible approach.

Occasionally, though, you’ll get pegged for a reset simply by driving a little bit too off-road at the wrong time. Other times, the same offense doesn’t trigger a reset. “The Run’s” definition of out of bounds is frustratingly arbitrary, especially considering most tracks have approved shortcuts that reward you for going off the track.

This wouldn’t be an issue if the reset process wasn’t so obnoxious. “The Run” has deflatingly long load times between events, but it also frequently takes forever to load your last checkpoint in the middle of a race. Couple that with a supremely annoying reset loading graphic that flashes like a strobe while you wait seemingly ages for a chance to try again, and the mechanic’s intentions of maintaining momentum completely backfire.

That seemingly innocuous issue is the spark that ignites the fire that will polarize those who find “The Run” exhilarating and those who find it antagonizing and frustrating.

“The Run’s” story is fairly brief, but the game complements it with a lot of challenge events that reward medals instead of impose pass/fail restrictions. Online multiplayer (eight players) is pretty straightforward, but the inclusion of the Autolog social network — a persistent interface that makes chasing friends’ times in single-player events as much fun as racing them directly online — gives the game plenty of legs for those who like its methods and wish to master them.

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Age of Zombies: Anniversary
For: iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch (universal app)
From: Halfbrick Studios
iTunes Store Rating: 9+ (frequent/intense cartoon or fantasy violence, infrequent/mild mature/suggestive themes)
Price: $3

With respect to the angry birds and that cute “Cut the Rope” monster, no character’s ascension through the App Store has been as fun to witness as that of the Bruce Campbell-esque Barry Steakfries. His personality, and the sense of humor that drives it, are what transformed “Age of Zombies” into something more than just another twin-stick shooter with zombies in it. If you played that game, you should know “Age of Zombies: Anniversary” isn’t a sequel, but rather a graphical remaster of the original game that’s designed to take advantage of iPad and Retina Display-equipped iPhone screens. You can decide yourself whether a pretty new wrapper is worth a second purchase. If, however, the whole experience is new to you, “Anniversary” is worth a look. As a (virtual) dual-stick shooter, it’s fundamentally faithful to genre conventions. But those other games don’t necessarily have this game’s personality, and “Anniversary’s” storyline — which finds Barry traveling to different time periods to conquer cowboy zombies, gangster zombies, future zombies and more — is pretty funny. The weapon variety is high, as is the opportunity to chain together considerable chaos for high scores, and the game’s polish — from control responsiveness to graphics to support for iCloud save data syncing — belies the price tag.

Games 11/15/11: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Super Mario 3D Land, Slam Dunk King

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Reviewed for: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
Also available for: Windows PC
From: Bethesda
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, intense violence, sexual themes, use of alcohol)
Price: $60

Bethesda’s massive open-world role-playing games have forever been an endearing battle between vision and technology, with the limitations of the latter always causing bugs and weird production value hiccups that keep the former in check.

Quirks like those still make appearances in “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim,” but a sparkling new engine makes these occurrences feel like occurrences instead of the norm. Technology finally appears ready to ride along with vision, and “Skyrim” takes it to the ends of its earth in what almost inarguably is the biggest game anyone has ever made.

Improvements make subtle introductions during an opener that spotlights two elements — voice acting and character design — that ranked among previous games’ biggest reality checks. They remain weak links here, but the days of faces even a mother wouldn’t love and one voice actor seemingly voicing half the cast appear to be over.

From there, ambition takes over. “Skyrim” quickly introduces you to your first dragon — the game’s star attraction, and the lynchpin in a big first-act reveal that won’t be spoiled here. The scope and individual pieces of that encounter — dragon artificial intelligence in particular — are immediately stunning.

Shortly thereafter, you’re fully loosed into Skyrim — with a quest and a burgeoning storyline, but with the freedom to ignore them indefinitely and explore the land’s 16 square miles as you please.

And what a world it is. That “Skyrim” is gargantuan isn’t a surprise, because these games always are. But when you experience the enormity and variety of terrain — mountains crawling with everything from blizzards to bears to wooly mammoths, elaborate caverns and towns that exist far off the storyline’s main road, lush forests and fields that house bandits, dragons, giants and more — that exists between two locations that appear so close to each other as dots on your map, it’s just staggering.

Best of all, everything is fair game. Dragon chasing you? Lead him into a giants den and watch giants, dragons and who knows who else duke it out (and come for you next if you make a play for the post-fight spoils). In an era of games growing obnoxiously reliant on cutscenes, “Skyrim’s” most memorable encounters just happen — organically, dynamically and differently for every player who plays it their own slightly unique way.

That stands to reason, because you can sink 100 hours into “Skyrim’s” optional quests, guilds and storylines before even setting another foot on the main road, which should be good for another 50 or so hours. If you want to get technical, “Skyrim” never completely ends, thanks to a system that generates random secondary quests into perpetuity. There’s a limit to the variety of those quests, of course, but that’s the price paid for endless adventure.

“Skyrim’s” first-person melee combat still feels clumsy and artless, though ranged and magic attacks work well, especially with the ability to map different spells to each hand. Happily, Bethesda has finally figured out how to make the third-person perspective something more than useless curiosity fulfillment. It looks good, and it feels good for melee combat. A button press swaps perspectives at will, so you can enjoy the benefits of both in tandem.

Much more roundly improved is “Skyrim’s” overall interface, which organizes your quests, maps, inventory and development with considerably more polish than in the past. Leveling up is exponentially more dynamic: As you flex certain skills — be it combat and defense or persuasion and lock-picking — those skills improve and contribute to your overall development, which you can augment with special perks that are neatly arranged across all 18 skill categories. The interface still presents a learning curve, but it’s Bethesda’s most accessible system by several orders of magnitude.

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Super Mario 3D Land
For: Nintendo 3DS
From: Nintendo
ESRB Rating: Everyone (mild cartoon violence)
Price: $40

It’s hard to believe there’s a dimension that has eluded the plumber who took platforming mainstream in two dimensions, reinvented it in three, and spent entire chunks of two recent adventures running upside down like it was a morning jog.

But “Super Mario 3D Land” takes place in a dimension that is neither exclusively two nor three dimensions, and the game’s willingness to present itself from semi-fixed angles that change from level to level makes it hard to pin this down with mere numbers or names.

Lest you worry, “SM3DL” plays at its core like any other Mario game. Mario can run, jump, punch blocks and kick turtle shells as naturally as ever, and the goal — reach the flagpole before time runs out — is a callback to the very first “Super Mario Bros.” A hall of fame’s worth of classic enemies (Goombas, Bullet Bills, Boos, Bowser and his kids) returns alongside some new enemies, and Mario complements some new power-ups (the boomerang suit being the most prominent addition) with a handful of perennial and returning favorites (fire flower, Tanooki suit, propeller box).

“SM3DL” moves at a very slightly slower speed than most contemporary Mario games do, particularly with regard to how quickly Mario can transition from a run to the kind of sprint needed to make longer jumps. But the difference is nearly negligible, and if you’re familiar with Mario’s repertoire, you need not even crack the manual to become almost instantly acclimated with “SM3DL’s” controls.

Rather, where “SM3DL” deviates is by filtering that time-tested action through a new perspective that borrows equally (and simultaneously) from Mario’s 2D and 3D adventures.

Though levels frequently look like 3D Mario levels, they’re presented from a fixed angle that prioritizes running through them linearly instead of exploring them from all angles. Every level hides three special coins off the main road, and collecting them often comprises the most satisfying and challenging aspects of “SM3DL’s” main quest, but that’s the extent of exploration.

Initially, and thanks to a crop of early levels that are fun but too short and entirely too easy to complete, the perspective shift feels like a compromise.

But once it gets comfortable, Nintendo does what it does best and mines the new angles for as much unique gold as it can. Some levels pull the camera sideway to start as old-fashioned 2D levels before rotating and zooming way out to reveal a massively vertical environment that still moves with the urgency of an old-fashioned sidescroller. Occasionally, the game shifts slightly diagonally to add layers behind layers (think “LittleBigPlanet,” only more intuitive). Sometimes it opts for a strict overhead view with scrolling rooms — essentially paying tribute to the original “Legend of Zelda’s” level design while infusing it with the full might of Mario’s athletic arsenal.

“SM3DL’s” original eight-world quest never becomes terribly difficult, but when these and numerous other ideas start flowing and Nintendo goes a little crazy with the level designs, the continual promise of surprises lurking around corners makes the tepid difficulty relatively easy to forgive.

Should you disagree, the revelation of a second quest (which avails itself upon completion of the first) should soothe your concerns. Nintendo has been protective of the knowledge that a second quest even exists in “SM3DL,” so without spoiling too much of what lies within, let’s just say this: It’s much tougher than the first quest, and its fearlessness with regard to difficulty lets it go that much crazier with the designs and special conditions it tosses around. If the “SM3DL” Nintendo advertises on the box isn’t doing it for you, the one hiding behind it almost certainly will.

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Slam Dunk King
For: iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad (universal app)
From: PikPok
iTunes Store rating: 4+
Price: Free

With respect to the big-budget masterpieces and sprawling epics crashing onto store shelves this fall, sometimes all you want to do is dunk a basketball. On that, the polished-in-its-own-right “Slam Dunk King” has the last word. In “King,” basketballs fly into the air as if fired by a clay shooter, and your objective is to grab them with your finger and dunk them with a powerful swiping motion. Where “Dunk” makes this fun is in its allowance for creativity. A no-nonsense dunk will get you a couple points, but mimicking a windmill, corkscrew, alley oop or double pump (among numerous others) will award you considerably more. (You even get bonus points for pulling down the rim post-dunk.) If you want to net a truly inspired score, a combo system lets you chain a massive score by juggling one basketball in the air and dunking others without letting that first ball drop, which kills the combo and could potentially end the game. “King’s” embrace of style and risk/reward makes it a ton of fun to play, and a leveling system and suite of unlockable power-ups and courts gives it surprising legs for such a simple idea. It’s responsive to your swipes, pretty to look at, and supports Game Center and OpenFeint (complete with cloud saves, so you can resume progress across different devices) as well.

Games 10/4/11: Rage, Tetris: Axis, Rochard, Mercury Hg

Rage
Reviewed for: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
Also available for: Windows PC
From: id/Bethesda
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, intense violence, strong language)
Price: $60

John Carmack is to game programming what Steve Jobs is to consumer electronics, so when a new game releases under his watch and brings with it a new game engine over which he also presided, it’s a bellwether moment for the future of game design and technology.

And if you don’t care about any of that, “Rage” is a pretty good time as well.

“Rage” will draw superficial comparisons to “Fallout” insofar that it’s a first-person, open-world shooter set primarily in a post-apocalyptic wasteland teeming with mutants, oppressive authority figures and some colorful settlers bent on fighting both groups back.

But where “Fallout” functioned as a role-playing game whose storytelling and scope compensated for shoddy shooting mechanics, “Rage” is a pure action game that borrows from but doesn’t lean on the wasteland motif. Ammo is copious, your inventory bottomless, and while you will gather materials for purposes of engineering some nice special items and weapons (drivable RC car bombs, for instance), scavenging never feels as central to the experience as it did in “Fallout.”

More to the point, though — and thanks to that shiny new engine — the action in “Rage” is polished in all the ways “Fallout’s” wasn’t. Beyond the occasional lengthy load screen, “Rage” feels supremely polished, looking great (artistically as well as technically, thanks to some inspired post-apocalyptic town designs) and purring at 60 frames per second without hiccup and regardless of how big the environment is or how many enemies are crowding it. Controls are similarly dexterous — a good thing, because while authority figures display some intelligence in their shootouts with you, the mutants have zero qualms about rushing you at top speed. “Rage’s” weapons and movement always feel crisp, and death never comes because the game’s technical limitations fail you.

That goes as well for the driving controls, which comprise a surprisingly large portion of the game. “Rage’s” open wasteland is significantly more perilous than its smaller environments, and while you’re welcome to traverse on foot whenever you wish, it’s much safer to grab a buggy, outfit it with missiles and take your chances with that. “Rage’s” vehicles are built to leap large gaps and withstand a beating on the way down, which lends itself well to some exhilarating chases and shootouts against teams of enemy vehicles across rocky terrain. All that’s polished about the shooting applies similarly to the driving: It’s fast, smooth and extremely responsive even when physics make you pay for driving too recklessly.

“Rage’s” driving controls are so good, in fact, they comprise the entirety of the game’s simple but enjoyably mindless competitive multiplayer (four players, online only), which plays like a cross between “Twisted Metal” and wasteland “Mario Kart.” The omission of any kind of competitive shooting component is bound to disappoint, but in its place is a suite of co-op missions (two players, online or splitscreen) that allow you to live out the tales of other characters you meet in the single-player campaign. Given how engaging “Rage’s” characters often are, that’s a worthy trade-off.

Either way, the campaign, at 15 to 30-plus hours long, is “Rage’s” centerpiece. Structurally, it’s flat, with pedestrian objectives and missions that introduce a constant need to backtrack between your current town and the wasteland. Taking on multiple side missions at any given time is highly recommended, as it allows you to complete multiple objectives before doubling back. But even in this instance, it’s pretty clear “Rage’s” story would get pretty old pretty fast if it didn’t have such a terrific game engine to keep it going.

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Tetris: Axis
For: Nintendo 3DS
From: Nintendo
ESRB Rating: Everyone
Price: $30

It’s pretty hard to screw up “Tetris” at this point, and no one has a better track record with the brand than Nintendo.

Sure enough, if all you desire is some traditional “Tetris,” you’ll find it in “Tetris: Axis” — same shapes, scoring system, objective and all.

And if you want a dozen-plus other variations of “Tetris,” ranging from tweaks on the original formula to bizarre experiments that go off the deep end, good news: You’ll find those here as well.

For its part, and via a really clumsy menu interface, “Axis” positions two modes — traditional Marathon and Fever — as its main pillars. Marathon needs no introduction, but Fever feels like the “Tetris” equivalent to what “Pac-Man Championship Edition” was to “Pac-Man.” There’s a time limit, and you’re mostly playing traditional “Tetris.” But configurable power-ups change the way the board behaves when you clear them as part of a line, and you’ll want to clear lines of a single color if you want to activate color mode and score some serious points.

Those factors, combined with the ticking clock, make Fever a vastly different game despite its resemblance to traditional “Tetris.” The short length of a typical game also makes it entirely too easy to try one more time for a higher score. That’s in stark contrast to Marathon mode, which can go on for more than an hour if you’re good, and if one alternative mode had to stand out above the rest, Nintendo picked exactly the right one.

(Incidentally, though “Axis” supports eight-player online competitive play, only a few modes — Fever among them — receive online leaderboard support, and you have to upload your score manually. Better than nothing, but hardly ideal.)

Like most modern “Tetris” games, “Axis” also supports battle play against the computer or friends (eight players, locally or online). Tweaked modes like Survival (smaller grid that’s filling from the bottom as well as top), Master (pieces fall at top speed right from the start) and Sprint (fill 40 lines as quickly as possible) also feature traditional “Tetris” play with small twists.

And then there’s the stuff that’s just weird. Stage Racer Plus stars you as a single piece and tasks you with falling through as much of an obstacle course as you can without getting caught. Fit, meanwhile, shifts to a top-down perspective and tasks you with filling square grids, Tanagrams style, before time expires. In Jigsaw, you’re dropping shapes in order to complete a jigsaw puzzle or match an arrangement on the second screen, while Shadow Wide asks you to assemble objects by quickly filling in their shadows with pieces and doing so with minimal spillage outside the shadow boundaries.

But “Axis” really lets the crazy flag fly when incorporating the 3DS’ augmented reality capabilities, which allow the system to project a “Tetris” grid on any flat surface in your real world. AR Marathon plays like traditional “Tetris,” except with a much smaller grid and a special block that, when part of a cleared line, clears the rest of the grid as well. The (literal) twist is that whenever this happens, the grid rotates its axis, which means you need to move the system’s camera in kind if you want to view the grid from the front.

The ingenuous AR Climber, meanwhile, tasks you with cobbling falling pieces into a continuous platform that allows a little running man to scale an endless circling staircase up a tower. As he circles the AR tower, so must you, so don’t even think of sitting down while playing this if you want to do well. Until someone dreams up a Kinect “Tetris” game, this is the best (if dizziest) “Tetris”-induced workout you’ll ever have.

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Rochard
For: Playstation 3 (via Playstation Network)
From: Sony Online Entertainment
ESRB Rating: Teen (suggestive themes, mild language, fantasy violence)
Price: $10

Sidescrolling puzzle-platformers have flooded the downloadable market over the last few years, but there’s no such thing as too much of a good thing when the quality bar is this high. “Rochard” gets its name from lead character John Rochard, a salt-of-the-universe astro-miner miner who turns superman when his crew comes under attack by space bandits. The game eventually outfits you with traditional firepower and explosives, but for a good while, your only means of defense are a device that changes gravity on the fly and a tractor beam that can push, pull and throw objects. “Rochard” presents combat applications for both, but the real treat comes from the clever ways you must use the beam and gravity (and, eventually, other gadgets) to safely traverse from room to room. Reliable controls, believable physics, sensible puzzle design and generous checkpoints make for a game that’s universally accessible. But “Rochard” isn’t afraid to make you work, filling levels with enemies and puzzles that require timing and controller finesse as well as brainpower to overcome. (That goes triple when, as occasionally happens, the gravity reverses and you must play upside down.) “Rochard’s” audiovisual presentation is terrific, with a funny voice cast and a great look that will remind many of “Team Fortress 2.” The lengthy adventure easily commands the $10 asking price, and if you’re up for it, the harder puzzles standing in the way of bonus collectables — along with a special trophy for speed runners — make it worth replaying once and possibly twice.

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Mercury Hg
For: Playstation 3 (via Playstation Network) and Xbox 360 (via Xbox Live Arcade)
From: Ignition Entertainment
ESRB Rating: Everyone
Price: $5

To get a quick picture of “Mercury Hg,” imagine the classic Labyrinth board game in which you rotate the game board to move a ball around and (ideally) keep it from peril while guiding it to the exit. Now replace the ball with a temperamental glob of mercury that’s prone to wobbling, shape-shifting, spilling and splitting into multiple smaller globs you must manage simultaneously. Then replace the square board with bizarrely-shaped boards teeming with numerous useful and dangerous gadgets that alter the glob or place it in peril, and set that board to bounce to the beat of the game’s music or your own custom soundtrack. At long last, you have “Mercury Hg,” a reboot of the awesome PSP and Wii puzzle series that feels right at home on PSN and Xbox Live. “Hg” receives a predictable graphical bump with the move to HD, but it’s the other amenities — a better analog stick (or, if you prefer, adjustable SIXAXIS support on the PS3), custom soundtrack support and two sets of online leaderboards (clear time and total score) per level — that benefit it most. At 60 deep, “Hg” doesn’t have as many levels as the last retail “Mercury” game, which had 160. But at $5, it also doesn’t cost nearly as much, and the leaderboard support — along with how easy “Hg” makes it to replay a level in hopes of shaving just a few seconds off that last clear time — means these 60 levels go a longer way than those 160 ever did.

Games 9/13/11: Nicktoons MLB, Resistance 3, Rise of Nightmares, Star Fox 64 3D, Bloodrayne: Betrayal

Nicktoons MLB
Reviewed for: Xbox 360
Also available for: Wii and Nintendo DS
From: High Voltage/2K Play
ESRB Rating: Everyone (comic mischief)
Price: $40

If you’ve been wondering what the awesome arcade baseball game “The Bigs” has been up to since 2009, here’s your answer. “Nicktoons MLB” isn’t as feature-complete as “The Bigs” was, but simply by borrowing its engine and keeping it intact, it leapfrogs most kids’ baseball games in terms of presenting a great game of baseball.

It also, by mixing semi-realistic major league players and stadiums with the likes of Spongebob Squarepants and Stimpy, is kind of hilarious without even trying.

Perhaps the best thing about “Nicktoons” is that if you want to play a straight-faced game of baseball, you mostly can. Full rosters aren’t available, but all 30 MLB teams’ starting lineups (and two pitchers each) are available. And while the arcade-style flavor and players’ exaggerated physiques make towering home runs and spectacular catches the headliners, everything you need for manufactured runs and pitchers’ duels is here. The pitching controls allow you to paint corners and toy with hitters’ sweet spots for extra turbo. That turbo — earned through plate discipline as well as pitching — can be applied to baserunning and fielding as well as pitching and hitting, allowing you to beat teams with defense and the hit-and-run as well as the long ball.

Though “Nicktoons” softens the difficulty curve — if you play “The Bigs” on medium difficulty, you’ll want to set this one to hard — it makes no concession with regard to how it plays.

The twist, instead, is the ability for Nickelodeon characters to share the same field and uniforms as the Major Leaguers. “Nicktoons” offers a pickup game-style format where you pick an MLB or fantasy team and take turns (either with the computer or a friend via local multiplayer) picking Nick characters to fill half the roster. A Showdown mode allows similar roster management, only with one team solely comprised of Nick characters taking on an all-MLB squad.

“Nicktoons” provides six Nick-themed fantasy stadiums, but the game is never more amusing than when it presents, with a reasonably straight face, the likes of Invader Zim belting a double off Yankee Stadium’s wall and sliding safely under a Derek Jeter tag. “Nicktoons'” visual presentation of this impossible mixture is a wonderfully seamless compromise between realism and cartoon, and while the game’s commentary is a bit repetitive, it’s hard not to laugh when GIR interrupts Perch Perkins’ play-by-play with some seriously nonsensical color commentary.

(Naturally, while “Nicktoons” includes a nice array of popular and obscure Nick characters, there’s bound to be an omission that bothers you. Your mileage, of course, will vary.)

More conclusively bothersome is the drop in content from “The Bigs” to “Nicktoons.” Though all 30 teams have representation, only six MLB stadiums are available — a puzzling omission considering they’ve all been modeled for “The Bigs.” Offline multiplayer is limited to two players, down from four, and online multiplayer is non-existent. The game’s tournament mode — a ladder-style gauntlet in which you must take down every MLB and fantasy team to be crowned champion — is excellent, but it’s not as deep as the season/story mode hybrid that is “The Bigs'” centerpiece. The amazing Home Run Pinball is reincarnated as a fun but more subdued target challenge, and the skill challenge games are gone.

For its part, 2K Play at least prices “Nicktoons” $20 cheaper, so the feature downgrade stings less than it normally would.

A note about “Nicktoons'” optional Kinect controls: They aren’t very good. Pitch selection and placement is way too difficult, and some lag means competent contact hitting comes down to guesswork as well as timing.

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Resistance 3
For: Playstation 3
From: Insomniac/Sony
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, intense violence, strong language)
Price: $60

For all who thought “Resistance 2” was a case of a game losing its nerve and simply fitting in, “Resistance 3” has good news: It agrees.

That carry-two-weapon-at-a-time limit from “R2?” It’s gone. Outside of one story-mandated occurrence, when you find a weapon, it’s yours to keep — to the eventual tune of a 12-weapon cache that’s easy to manage and so much more fun to maneuver than the convenient but boring two-weapon maximum.

If you’re familiar with developer Insomniac — masterminds of “Ratchet and Clank” as well as “Resistance” — you also know weapon design is their forte. “R3’s” magnum isn’t just a pistol: Its bullets also explode when you pull a secondary trigger. The stock rifle can tag enemies and pelt them from around corners with homing bullets, and the already-dangerous Atomizer’s secondary function creates what is, by any other name, a black hole. Every firearm in “R3” has some bonus ingenuity in its standard or alternate fire modes, and you can upgrade each twice — simply by using them — to do even more outlandishly useful things.

That, to understate things, is why it’s nice not to have to choose only two. “R3” takes returning “R2” semi-hero Joseph Capelli from Oklahoma to New York, and the clashes that await veer seamlessly between close-quarters combat and immense shootouts in wide-open battlefields. “R3’s” gun selection runs a similar gamut, and the ability to freely swap between a sniper rifle and a shotgun means the game is similarly free to change scope whenever it pleases. You’ll always have the best weapon for the job.

But it’s another callback — a reliance on finding healthpacks instead of waiting for health to magically recharge after a period of inactivity — that gives these shootouts a real sense of danger.

“R3” isn’t stingy when it comes to distributing healthpacks. But their availability is limited, and when you’re pinned down in poor health and a school of Chimera is advancing on you, you have to find a way to outwit them instead of simply hide out, regenerate your health, shoot indiscriminately and repeat. This direction is so much more fun that it’s a wonder so many shooters went the regenerating health route over these last few years.

Those factors, in concert with the flexible scope and the Chimeran A.I. — slightly smart, mostly bullheaded but dangerous enough that being bullheaded works in their favor — make “R3” an exciting mix of tactical and run-and-gun gameplay that doesn’t sell either approach short. The preceding two games laid the foundation for a big blowout this time around, and this game delivers exactly that.

“R3’s” multiplayer ambitions, meanwhile, have taken a step back. Competitive multiplayer supports 16 players instead of 60, and instead of a separate eight-player co-op mode, you get the option to play the campaign with a second player in tow.

The co-op isn’t recommended due to the way it mitigates the aforementioned danger effect and awkwardly wedges into the storyline, but “R3’s” competitive multiplayer doesn’t suffer from the reduced player count. The gametypes are your standard match types with a tweak or two to accommodate the “Resistance” universe, but the ability to wield one-of-a-kind weapons on one side and Chimeran powers on the other is all the game needs to be a blast.

A note about “R3’s” Playstation Move compatibility: It works without incident. You’ll likely prefer the familiarity of the controller on harder difficulties and during multiplayer, but the fact that it’s debatable speaks volumes about the Move’s ability to accommodate first-person shooter controls.

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Rise of Nightmares
For: Xbox 360 (Kinect required)
From: Sega
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, intense violence, partial nudity, strong language, suggestive themes)
Price: $50

Give “Rise of Nightmares” an A for effort and an A+ for conviction. It marks a stark change of scenery (gruesome, story-driven horror instead of family-friendly minigames) for Kinect, it’s the first Kinect game to give players full range of motion, and it takes both breakthroughs and runs pretty wild with them.

Far more subjective is the grade it deserves for execution. It might impress you, it might bewilder or aggravate you. Or it might make perfect sense, because if there’s a genre where control inhibitions are an arguable asset, horror is it.

Though “Nightmares'” walking controls are predictably odd, the game — which plays out from a first-person perspective — at least makes them simple to understand. Standing still and facing forward keeps you still. Turning your torso left or right turns you onscreen, and putting a foot forward or backward and keeping it there sends you walking in that direction until you bring your foot back.

Simple or not, though, this still is bound to be the most trouble you’ve had walking since your toddler days. The Kinect will occasionally misread a motion and send you backpedaling when you mean to walk forward, and in tight spaces with odd geometry, it’s entirely easy (and dangerous) to bump into B, C and D when making a seemingly simple trek from A to E.

With some acclimation, though, it starts to feel somewhat (though never completely) natural. “Nightmares,” for its part, also assists by allowing you to automatically walk to interactive items in view — weapons, notes, doors and other usable objects — simply by extending a hand and reaching for them. Certain areas allow you to use a gesture to auto-walk, and when you’re close to enemies, raising your arms to fight also reorients you to face whomever is closest to you.

“Nightmares'” combat attains a similar level of clumsy immersion. You fight simply by mock-using whatever weapon you’re holding — swinging a knife, punching with brass knuckles, throwing projectiles and even using a hedge-clipping motion if you… yeah. A kicking motion also makes for a nice knockback attack.

You have a degree of control where your attacks land, and “Nightmares” factors limb damage into your enemies’ ability to fight back. But it’s never completely precise, and you’ll occasionally be reduced to flailing if things get dicey.

More than not, though, “Nightmares'” gesture recognition is on point, and the game takes advantage of its proficiency in some very clever ways. An enemy with an ear-piercing scream will destroy you unless you literally cover your ears. Deadly traps require you to run, duck, balance and dodge. A delicate piece of machinery needs a similarly delicate crank turn to work, and a hulking enemy who can hear but not see you will pummel you dead unless you remain still and completely silent. Put your real-life phone on vibrate, because if your Kinect’s microphone picks up any noise during these bits, your in-game character is toast. (How’s that for immersion?)

Moments like that are legitimately unsettling in “Nightmares,” which drops you into a mansion of “Saw”-like horrors and rarely puts you at ease once the lengthy story kicks into gear. The game establishes its setting and villains quickly, and the combination of clumsy controls and unstoppable enemies sniffing for you makes for an experience that’s extremely unique and very legitimately creepy. It’s every bit as inelegant as you’d expect a free-range Kinect game to be, but if you enjoy gaming’s experimental side and thirst for something different, this is bound to be one of the most unusual releases to surface during this very crowded holiday season.

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Star Fox 64 3D
For: Nintendo 3DS
From: Nintendo
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+ (fantasy violence)
Price: $40

Some point soon, Nintendo has to reposition the fledgling 3DS as a go-to spot for new Nintendo games instead of revamped versions of games that were new under the Clinton administration.

But while we wait for that to happen, there’s nothing wrong with being impressed by “Star Fox 64 3D,” which quite dramatically freshens up the Nintendo 64 original without abandoning what made it so good in its time.

That’s kind of a big deal, because for reasons only Nintendo knows, there hasn’t been a “Star Fox” game since that wasn’t accompanied by some catch that made it something other than a simple, proper dogfighting game. And if this revamp proves anything to those only interested in a new game with new missions, it’s that the formula still works when the production values stay current.

If you’re the rare person who never played “Star Fox” but has an interest in this new edition, there’s little you need to know. “SF643D” is a third-person space dogfighter, and while it occasionally lets you fly the ship freely in a confined space, most missions take place on rails and keep you moving forward while allowing you to control your X and Y axes.

It shouldn’t sound complicated because it isn’t complicated, but it’s fun due to a high concentration of enemies to shoot and obstacles to dodge at a relatively fast pace. Completing one of “SF643D’s” branching storyline trees isn’t wildly difficult, but it isn’t a cakewalk either, and achieving gold medal scores is a legitimate test of your ability to efficiently neutralize enemies, keep your allies alive and stay out of trouble yourself while also navigating a level’s trickier spots for rings and other pickups.

Treated well, that’s a formula that won’t age. And as remakes go, “SF643D” does its part to make an old game feel young again.

Most obvious is the visual makeover, which is significant. “SF643D” transforms an early N64 game into something that looks right at home on the 3DS. It isn’t just a case of new textures, either: Some sections — boss fights in particular — have received what look like ground-up rebuilds, featuring significant leaps forward in animation and composition as well as obvious things like textures and polygons.

Thanks to the 3DS’ second screen, the makeover extends to the interface, which also takes customary advantage of the touchscreen. When your allies and enemies speak to you, their faces comprise the entire bottom screen instead of a small widow, and they’ve received a night-and-day upgrade over their N64 counterparts. That may sound trivial, but it’s the tip of an iceberg’s worth of interface polishing, and if you’ve developed an attachment to the “Star Fox” universe, seeing these characters come alive this way in a proper game is a treat.

The 3DS-enabled enhancements produce mixed results. The 3D effect is a perfect fit for a game in this genre, and it makes “SF643D’s” visual upgrade pop even more. The best thing about the optional accelerometer aiming controls, though, is that they’re optional.

The most clever implementation comes via the inner camera, which snaps your picture and shares your dismayed reactions with friends who shoot your ship down in “SF643D’s” four-player wireless multiplayer. Unfortunately, you’ll already likely be in the same room as your enemies, because the game lacks online multiplayer. That’s a severe bummer, because while “SF643D’s” multiplayer is pretty bare-bones, it’s still fun, and the ability to play online would have done wonders for making this feel like a truly contemporary remake.

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BloodRayne: Betrayal
For: Playstation 3 (via Playstation Network) and Xbox 360 (via Xbox Live Arcade)
From: WayForward/Majesco
ESRB Rating: Teen (suggestive themes, mild language, violence, blood and gore)
Price: $15

Some shaky games and awful movies left little doubt that a change of scenery would be good for the half-human, half-vampiric Rayne. Whether it’s also good for you comes down to whether you tolerate punishment or embrace it. “BloodRayne: Betrayal” takes what formerly was a traditional action series and re-imagines it as a lavishly animated 2D sidescroller with cartoony but graphically violent (in a “How did this get a Teen rating” kind of way) look. That animation is elaborate to an arguable fault, particularly when you’re trying to dodge peril and one Rayne’s attack animations creates a slight but critical lag in control sensitivity. Responsiveness is at a premium, too, because “Betrayal” is stiffly difficult in a “Mega Man 9” kind of way and occasionally unreasonably hard when it asks you to make some very precise jumps with jump and dash controls that aren’t so precise themselves. Those who pride themselves on mastering cruelly challenging games will get their money’s worth several times over, thanks to a campaign that’s tough to beat and a scoring/ranking system that’s merciless and demoralizing. (Don’t be surprised if you never grade higher than an F, even if you finish the game.) Mere mortals, however, should be advised: “Betrayal” has no issue with crushing your spirit, be it by design or due to the aforementioned issues, and if you don’t go into it hungry for a beating — not simply tolerant of one, but hungry for it — you’re bound to get chewed up, spit out and left wanting your $15 back.