Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii)

If you expected Metroid Prime 3: Corruption to be a high-quality continuation of the series, you'd be right. And yes, the Wii controls are terrific and intuitive, so if you hoped that controlling bounty hunter Samus Aran would be a dream, that wish has been granted, too. All told, even though Corruption's easier battles and conservative design sometimes seems like less of a sprawling Metroid adventure and more of a straightforward first-person shooter, it's still a great action game that does exactly what you expect it to do, no more and no less.

Of course, the five years that have elapsed between the original Metroid Prime and the trilogy's final hurrah is an eternity in gaming, so even with its smooth, Wii-specific controls, there is a strong sense of familiarity here. While Metroid Prime spectacularly ushered Metroid gameplay into a 3D vision, Corruption is content to be a solid successor. Yet you shouldn't let some spurts of predictability dissuade you from checking it out, particularly if you are a Metroid enthusiast. Corruption offers its own formula tweaks while staying true to its roots, and like the previous games in the Prime series, it sends you on an atmospheric journey of discovery and enjoyable boss fights.

This sequel is aptly named. Samus and her fellow bounty hunters are struggling to repair an organic computer that has been infected by a mysterious virus. As always, these things are never what they seem, but rather than risk spoiling any sensitive plot points, we would rather safely say that the ensuing adventure sends Samus across a number of lush alien worlds and bizarre landscapes. (Not that the Prime games have ever strived to set standards for gaming fiction.) There is a plot here, but it's never been about the destination: It's about the voyage. As before, there is a ton of written backstory to discover, all dispersed among strange, imaginative worlds. You'll also meet up with a number of old acquaintances, friend and foe alike.

But all that is part and parcel of a terrific series. The obvious change here is in the controls, and Corruption leaves behind the methodical maneuvering of its GameCube brethren with an intuitive and configurable scheme that sets the standard for first-person shooting controls on the Wii, despite Corruption's battles not being all that challenging. (More on that later.) All of your aiming and turning is done with the remote, while moving and strafing is handled by the Nunchuk. It's been done before, of course, but not to this degree of success. Almost any player will be at home with the "advanced" scheme, where moving the remote moves your targeting reticle but also turns your point of view as it approaches the edge of the screen. The other schemes require your reticle to hit the screen's edge before turning commences, which is more than a bit annoying. You aren't stuck free-aiming at your enemies, though, since the Z button allows you to lock on to your target.

Suffice it to say, Metroid Prime 3 takes on characteristics more akin to a standard first-person shooter than its predecessors did. The good news is that moving about is less frustrating and plodding than before. Your enemies fall faster, boss encounters require less controller fumbling, and there is an overall ease to travel and movement that the series lacked before. It's a double-edged sword, however, because while most Metroid Prime hallmarks--object scanning, careful exploration, complex puzzle-solving--remain, Corruption feels less like a probing adventure than a regular shooter.

But a highly enjoyable shooter nevertheless. When it comes to blasting stuff, Retro Studios kept things simple this time. Samus begins with the trusty arm cannon and soon gains the use of homing missiles. These are, more or less, the weapons you will keep for the duration, though not as you are given them. As you progress through Corruption's 20-hour campaign, you'll earn cumulative upgrades, so the standard fire becomes plasma fire, which evolves again come the next power-up, and so on. You never lose any abilities with a new upgrade, so once you've earned the ability to melt through ice, you aren't in danger of losing it later. But don't expect a barrage of constant enemies; nor should you expect much of a challenge from the standard foes. Yet even without a sense of challenge, shooting feels great in Corruption. A lot of this has to do with the smooth controls, but even more of it is due to the good variety of alien and mechanical monstrosities you do battle with.

The biggest addition to the shooting is that of the Phazon Enhancement Device. The PED allows you to enter hypermode by holding the plus button. In this mode, Samus' attacks do outrageous damage. But she has limited phazon in her reserves, so once it's all gone, all you can do is wait for it to replenish. You've got to pay attention, since entering hypermode depletes Samus' energy, and you also run the risk of overloading her with too much phazon and being forced to fire it all away lest she bite the dust. Another new element is the nova beam, which is a great cannon upgrade in and of itself, but is also used in conjunction with the x-ray visor to shoot at enemies and objects through solid walls.

But this is Metroid, so of course you'll need to use your wits as much as you use weapons that turn alien scum into goo. Environmental puzzles are generally as good in Corruption as they've ever been, and you'll need to survey your surroundings carefully to find the path to your next goal. Yes, the scanning visor is back, so be prepared to study objects frequently to best know their purpose and potential uses as puzzle solutions. It's easier to switch visors than ever--all you have to do is hold the minus button and flick the remote toward the visor you wish to switch to--so while it makes the scanning mechanic seem less central than before, it also makes it simpler to survey the objects in question and move on.

Corruption truly shines when these mechanics work in tandem, making for smooth, seamless puzzle-solving and occasionally bringing new dimensions into the combat as well. Samus still has a grappling hook, though this time, you'll grab objects (and occasionally, enemies or their shields) by flicking the Nunchuk forward, and rip the thing away by pulling it back. It works and feels great, both in puzzles and in combat, particularly when used in tandem with other activities. Samus can still transform into the morph ball, too, and it's fun to discover new places to squeeze her into, though morphing has its unique uses in battle as well. The context-sensitive actions aren't quite as successful. There are times when you need to push the remote forward and twist it to unlock doors or perform other tasks, and while you can always manage to make it happen, it's usually awkward and doesn't feel the way you think it should.

Undoubtedly, Corruption's finest moments are its boss battles, which may not be quite the challenge they've been in the previous Prime games, but will still manage to impress you by the sheer variety that goes into winning them. A single boss battle may involve using morph ball techniques, the screw attack, entering hypermode, and firing both missiles and beams--often requiring pinpoint precision. Most of these battles are an absolute blast, and most of them have real meaning in context of the story.

If this all sounds like a lot of fun, it's because it is. Yet Corruption's focus on refined FPS mechanics and general sense of familiarity keep it from being as special as the other Prime titles. Just like Resident Evil 4 would have felt different--and arguably worse--had its controls been stripped down to a simple FPS scheme, Corruption loses some of its sense of wonder and strangeness on the Wii. Rather than being a true action adventure, it's hard to lose the sense that it's merely an FPS with trimmings. Its core control scheme is a revelation, but the resulting tempo adjustment and streamlining is missing some of the careful pacing that made Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2 so superb. Still, any fan ought to enjoy this outing in spite of those quibbles, thanks to a good number of awesome, involved environmental puzzles and delightful (albeit fairly easy) boss fights.

The exotic worlds of Corruption will excite series fans, and for good reason. Like its predecessors, Corruption features superb art direction, so every level is even more incredible to explore than the last. While it isn't a huge step over Metroid Prime 2 in terms of sheer graphical quality, there are plenty of elements that will catch your eye, such as Samus' visor reflections, or the detailed, complex machinery that brings some of the environmental puzzles to brilliant life. The biggest surprise in the production values is the addition of a good deal of voice acting, at least toward the beginning of the game. You'll still spend most of your time exploring in relative silence, and the eerie, great soundtrack keeps you in just the right mood. But occasionally you'll interact with bounty hunters and other characters, and their lines are mostly spoken. The voice acting is fine, though its presence does reinforce just how effective the ghostly silence was in the first two Prime games.

If you're a Metroid fan, there's no need to convince you to play Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. It's got exactly what you would expect from the last in an acclaimed trilogy of titles: great boss battles, involved environmental puzzles, and a smooth control scheme that cements exactly how FPS controls should work on the platform. It'll also keep you busy for a while, since you can earn tokens for completing various tasks and use them to purchase unlockable goodies like concept art and bumper stickers for Samus' ship. While the lack of multiplayer is disappointing, the single-player campaign won't leave you wanting. In the end, you may not be able to shake the feeling that you've done all this before, but it will still make you grateful for how great it is at its core.

Madden NFL 08 (Wii)

It's safe to say that when Madden NFL 07 made its debut alongside the launch of the Wii last year, it was a real shot in the arm for the franchise. With development duties handed over to EA's Canada studio, the Wii version took the existing framework of the PlayStation 2, GameCube, and Xbox versions of the game and then turned the whole thing into a festival of gesture controls. Not only that, it did so well, transferring all the various motions and mechanics of football into a motion-based control scheme that made sense. In some respects, Madden NFL 08 manages to live up to being a sequel to such an innovative game, with some tweaks and additions to the various motion controls, as well as the addition of more minigames and an online multiplayer mode. By the same token, several aspects of this year's game also disappoint. The graphics have seen practically no noticeable improvement and the presentation is still lacking. Additionally, some irritating bugs and glitches rear their ugly head from time to time during gameplay. Still, 08 is great fun, especially when played with other people. If you liked last year's game, you'll certainly enjoy things this time around.

For the most part, Madden's much-vaunted control scheme has remained the same. However, there have been some tweaks to how a few of the mechanics work. Big hits and ball-carrier power moves are now mapped solely to the Wii Remote, instead of the remote and the Nunchuk in tandem. The power move has actually been rebalanced to depend on what kind of running back you've got. Power backs will bowl over defenders, while scat backs will use more nimble maneuvers to duck around their opponents. Defenders trying to rush the passer or get to the running back behind the line will now rip and spin past blockers when you move the remote back and forth in either direction. Also, certain actions, such as kicking and swatting at passes as a defender, feel a bit more responsive this year.

Some non-motion controls have been added as well, such as a strip-ball feature mapped to the 1 button, which will knock the ball from a carrier's hands when timed correctly. There's also a new mechanic that lets you focus in on specific receivers before the snap by zooming back and pressing a button that corresponds with a specific receiver. It's a neat move that has a bit of a risk-versus-reward feel to it because if you double up on one receiver, you potentially leave another open. Beyond these updates, the core controls are functionally identical to last year.

That's hardly a bad thing, given that last year's controls were incredibly fun to play around with, and they remain so here. If, for some reason, you find the Madden control scheme daunting, a new option has been included called family play. For all intents and purposes, this is literally a halving of the control scheme. You simply select the family-play control option and remove the Nunchuk plug from the remote. From here, the game becomes all motion controls. The computer takes over movement of the players, and all you have to do is manage the motion-based controls via the Wii Remote.

It's a really strange system for a couple of reasons. One, it's hard to believe most people would be so vexed by having to use an analog stick to move players that this option would be helpful to them. Two, the computer isn't really talented enough to move players for you. Quarterbacks on the verge of getting sacked sometimes don't even really try to move out of the pocket, and runners tend to have trouble moving past blockers when running between the tackles. Sure, you can stiff-arm and spin manually, but the artificial intelligence seems to have periodic issues with turning the corner to find the open holes. At the very least, the average player would likely do a much better job than the CPU does. While there might be some measure of appeal to this mode for people who have absolutely no idea what they're doing with the game, anyone who takes the time to learn the proper controls won't have much use for the family-play option. Considering the deluge of tutorials to be found in the game, it shouldn't take long to learn.

The gameplay is still a lot of fun on the field. The new "weapons" system from the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions is on hand in this version as well. You get all the same icons that depict whether a cornerback is a shutdown corner or a press corner, as well as whether your QB is a smart QB, a rocket arm, or an accurate passer. Interestingly, the differences in players and play styles don't seem quite as pronounced in this version.

Then again, the AI in this game has a rather antiquated feel all around, so maybe that's not entirely shocking. It's not that the AI is awful by any means; in fact, it's decent enough, save for the family play quirks. The main issues come from balancing problems. Specifically, the running game can be overpowered in Madden 08, but the passing game feels a little underpowered. Much as in the 360 and PS3 games, the defensive-back AI has a knack for gluing itself to receivers, so it can be difficult to get receivers open deep. Conversely, any team with a good running back should have no problems eating up huge chunks of yardage against would-be defenders. The defense sometimes seems powerless to stop running backs as they juke and power through the opposition. That isn't necessarily a huge knock against the game because it's still a lot of fun regardless of whether you run or throw, but it does make it decidedly less realistic than its counterparts on other platforms.

There are also some glitches to wrestle with from time to time. Sometimes snapping the ball too hard or fast will cause the QB to pass the ball instantaneously to the default receiver on the play, which often leads to an easy interception. Holdover issues still pop up again and again, such as the offensive line bunching up into a pile that looks like a mass of vibrating, electric football players. Likewise, defenders and wide receivers get hung up on one another when they cross into each other's routes (with no pass-interference calls, mind you). These are issues that have plagued the older iterations of Madden for quite some time and are really starting to stick out like a sore thumb by now.

But you can't really find much fault with the amount of content in Madden 08. With the franchise mode, superstar mode, minigames, and online play, it's unlikely you'll run out of things to do anytime soon. Though the franchise mode has gone basically untouched, it's still incredibly deep and has tons to do over the course of the 30 featured seasons. Superstar mode has seen a bit of adjustment, with the whole "randomization of your created player's parents" aspect of the mode cut altogether, as well as an added ability to pick from any of this year's rookie class in lieu of a created player. Do you want to experience the life of a superstar, such as Calvin Johnson? Or JaMarcus Russell? Or, god forbid, Brady Quinn? Now you can. The mode itself is still a little hackneyed in its concept of what the life of a superstar player would be like, but it's less silly than the last couple of attempts. If only EA would get rid of those stupid movie roles...

Minigames are as fun as ever, and now there's a whole party mode dedicated to them. You can play all four of the games from last year, including YAC Attack, Kicking Combine, and 2-on-2. There are actually 22 different minigames this year, though many of them are just the games featured in the minicamp drills, such as Precision Passing and Chase and Tackle. With these minicamp games, you simply take turns against other players. It's a little bit of a bummer that there's no new or unique minigames in this year's Madden, but the older games, combined with the minicamp challenges, are plenty of fun when played with a group of friends. The party mode also contains a couple of new modes, including a standard game of football that comes included with a telestrator feature, as well as a trivia game where you and your friends can test your knowledge of the sport. The trivia game in particular is awesome if you've got a room full of pigskin prodigies with you.

Of course, the big addition is the online action. It's only for one-on-one play, and you can't play any of the minigames online. But considering there wasn't any online play of any sort last year, this is a good start. Getting online and playing against others is a snap, especially given that Madden 08 doesn't use friend codes of any kind. You just hop on, sign up for EA's online service, log in, and start looking for games. You can keep a friends list, check out leaderboards, and hit up lobbies to chat with other players before diving into a game, although chat options are limited to canned text phrases. The online performance of the game seemed solid through most of our time with it. Every matchup with a good latency rating featured little to no lag and proved plenty of fun. Although if you do end up in a laggy match, then good luck getting much of anything done. Onscreen action tends to lag anywhere up to a second behind your control motions, which pretty much wrecks the whole experience. As long as you are wary of the player you match up with, you should have a good time online.

One area where this year's Madden feels like it's sorely lacking is in presentation. Mainly, everything feels tired and recycled in the audio and graphics departments. This game still uses the same aging graphics engine that the older console versions of Madden have been using for years, and it really feels like it's time for a change. It's simply inexcusable for there to be tons of players that look identical to one another or for the player models to still be squat and doughy-looking. It's also inexcusable that the animation is so haggard. Some of the improved branching animations from the 360 and PS3 versions of the game seem to have been added here, so you do get some of the awesome gang tackles and things of that nature. But, to return to the vibrating blockers and the bunched-up receivers or defensive backs, a lot of work still needs to be done. Additionally, there's actually a glitch in the game that sometimes blurs the entire screen after a cutscene for the next play, which makes it difficult to see what's going on. Menus don't even look especially good. In fact, some look like placeholder menus that somehow made it into the final game. At least the frame rate stays steady at nearly all times and never dips much, if at all. On the audio front, you get the same rehashed commentary from Al Michaels and John Madden, as well as the same on-field sound effects. You also get another batch of modern rock and rap songs on the soundtrack. At some point, someone is seriously going to have to inject some life into this game's presentation because it's getting majorly stale.

In the end, Madden NFL 08 has its share of flaws but ultimately is a great game because of the new features added and because of how much fun its predecessor was to play. Save for a few glitches here and there, little of what made last year's game so enjoyable has been lost here. The addition of the party mode and online play also gives you even more ways to enjoy it. You can't call Madden NFL 08 as impressive a game as its predecessor, but it would have been hard for it to improve without totally revamping the play experience again. As it is, it's a great follow-up with a few quirks that are mostly forgivable. For fans of last year's game, or those curious for the first time about football on the Wii, Madden 08 is worth checking out.

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 (PS2)

The PlayStation 2 may have reached its twilight years, but there is no shortage of great games being released for it. Enter Persona 3, the latest in the Shin Megami Tensei series to reach American shores. Luckily, you won't need any previous experience with the Persona franchise to appreciate its uniquely dark sensibilities, though series fans will find plenty of familiar references in which to revel. This is a quality role-playing experience that weaves distinctive gameplay elements into a fascinating story that unfolds slowly but keeps you constantly guessing. It's also atypically mature, but then again, any game that features your party members repeatedly shooting themselves in the head isn't for the squeamish. Indeed, the game's signature mechanic is this: To summon your inner self--or persona--you point a pistol at your head and pull the trigger.

At the outset of the game, you name your character, who has just transferred to Gekkoukan high school. But it's clear that not everything is kosher at the seemingly average campus. Mysterious creatures called shadows are threatening the locals, spreading an enigmatic disease called apathy syndrome that leaves their victims as listless as the name implies. However, their activity is generally confined to the dark hour: an hour sandwiched between midnight and 1 a.m. Most people are oblivious to this hour, while others are distinctly aware of the creepy dark hour in which the undulating gloom seals most of humanity in gothic coffins. Those unseemly heroes are in touch with their personas, which can be summoned to fight shadows in the realm of Tartarus, where most of them are restricted. At Gekkoukan, known persona users have created the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad and are determined to wipe the shadows off the face of the earth.

Saving humanity isn't a new concept, but you'd be wrong to assume that Persona 3 is limited to such a pat description. Instead, the gruesome nature of the dark hour is offset nicely by Persona 3's more traditional boarding school setup, in which your character attends classes, plays sports, and joins the student council. You have the opportunity to establish a good number of relationships with many of the inhabitants of the gameworld, from a love-struck classmate to the injured kendo team captain. Each of these inhabitants has a story of his or her own, and you will find yourself feeling involved with their struggles, no matter how seemingly insignificant. However, your school day meandering and extracurricular activities are more than just contrasting gameplay: How you spend your time here directly affects your combat performance during the dark hour.

This occurs in one of two ways. The more obvious way is to increase your stats by performing activities that directly affect them. For example, studying before bed or at the library will increase your academics, while watching chick flicks at the local theater increases your charm. The other aspect of your school day is your burgeoning relationships. The friendships and romances you build directly affect the personas that you summon in battle because each persona is strengthened by the associated social link. For example, a prospering friendship will earn you the blessing of the magician arcane, which means all personas associated with that arcana will benefit. But you have limited time each day to pursue those interests, so you need to spend your time wisely and concentrate on the activities that build a character that best suits your gameplay style.

Once you've finished tooling around school and town during the day, it's off to Tartarus for the dark hour, though you aren't forced to head there most nights, if you'd rather study or rest up instead. Tartarus is essentially a multistory skyscraper in which you climb from one floor to the next, defeating enemies as you gradually level up to handle the foes on floors above. You can take up to three other party members who have various strengths and weaknesses with you, yet unlike in most other role-playing games, you have no direct control over them. However, you can set up general tactics for each one if you like, such as support/healing. This may seem limiting at first, but as you earn more and more personas for your own character, you'll find that it's intimidating enough handling them all without adding three others to the mix.

You've got standard weaponry handily doled out by a sympathetic cop, but the bread and butter of your turn-based battles are the personas themselves. Each one brings with it any number of skills, and to use them, you first need to activate that particular persona. Once you have the right one in place, you select the spell to use, choose your enemy, and shoot yourself in the head. Granted, it's not a real pistol you use but an instrument called an evoker. Still, you can see shards of your soul flying from your head every time, and it's as macabre at the end of the game's 50 hours as it is the first time you do it. Most foes have a particular weakness that can be exploited with a particular persona skill or a critical hit from your standard weapon. Most of the time, hitting an enemy's weak point in this manner knocks it down and earns you an additional turn. If you manage to knock down every enemy, you can then activate an all-out attack, which sends your party into a hysterical-looking, cartoonlike skirmish, complete with comic book "thwaps" and "bams."

You will initially find new personas as loot, though after-battle goodies are handled differently than in most RPGs. In Persona 3, you choose from multiple potential rewards, which are shown onscreen as cards and then shuffled Three-card Monte style. This allows you to choose the one you want as long as you paid close attention to where the desired card ended up. But once you earn a couple personas, you are able to fuse them together by making a trip to the velvet room. The velvet room is presided over by a mysterious old man and friendly young woman; its existence is one of the game's many secrets. But once inside, you can combine two or three personas into a brand-new one of much higher level. There is a bit of mystery to this process because you don't necessarily know exactly what spells this new persona will brandish, but it will generally be a big improvement over the lost ones. Still, there is always a risk when fusing personas. For example, one of your personas may be your only source of an important healing spell, and you won't know exactly what abilities a persona brings to the table before fusing it.

Fusing personas and developing their linked relationships can be an intricate affair. However, Persona 3 is somewhat simple at its core, and you may find that the game's main structure a little tedious. You'll spend the day increasing skills and developing relationships, the pace of which is halted by frequent loading times, then return to the dorm to set up the night's foray into the dark hour. The hallways of Tartarus also get monotonous because each hallway ends up looking more or less the same. Thankfully, the occasional repetition is broken up by multiple story elements that get you into combat away from Tartarus. Yet there is a certain amount of grinding inherent to the game because each section of Tartarus is broken up by a boss character that must be defeated to move forward. If you aren't strong enough to handle it, you will need to revisit floors you've already explored countless times until you can manage. In fact, you'll need to backtrack a lot as it is because you cannot just enter on any floor but only on floors you've managed to climb to and activate a portal. This often means that you'll be running through the same floors multiple times until you've reached the next level with a portal to activate.

Most of the game's other annoyances are simple things that could have been avoided. You can gain the upper hand on the enemies that wander about by attacking them first to initiate the battle, which requires a well-timed button press. However, with your whole party squeezed together, it's easy to select one of them instead, which throws off the timing and tosses you into a battle in which the enemy has the upper hand. Additionally, you cannot cycle through your party's inventory very easily because you are required to walk up to each one and swap out any armor or weapons. It's made doubly silly by the fact that you are all clumped together, so it's easy to select the wrong party member. This would have been alleviated by the standard setup in which you can just enter your own inventory and cycle through the party from there.

Persona 3 looks fantastic and is dripping with flair, from character models to monster designs. Battles are the definite highlight here, from each member's personal manner of pointing the evoker to the imposing personas themselves. The school portions are equally nice to look out, thanks to subtle, expressive animation that brings you even closer to the characters that drive the narrative. Also of note are the incredible anime cutscenes that set the dark tone for the chilling events that inevitably follow. The sound is almost as equally well done, with plenty of loud, eerie sound effects and solid voice acting. The soundtrack is outstanding, with a mix of ghostly chords and Japanese pop tunes that feel just right in the moments they're used.

Persona 3 is a game you will remember, if not for the complex characters or intriguing story, then most certainly for the endlessly shocking pseudo suicides you're subjected to time and time again. Some of the initial intricacy gives way to tedium over time, but this is an undoubtedly great game that is both darkly envisioned and slickly executed. The fact that it manages to stand out in an overflowing crowd of RPGs on the PS2 is no mean feat, and if you appreciate a smart story, it will be an excellent addition to your library.

Heroes of Mana (Nintendo DS)

Heroes of Mana is not the first Nintendo DS game to employ PC-style real-time strategy mechanics, but it's the first one to do it so thoroughly. There's a solid basis for a game in here, wrapped up with a terrific and sensible interface that RTS newcomers will pick up quickly. Veterans will also appreciate its simplicity and versatility. However, it can be a frequent disaster, drowning its lofty aspirations in a deluge of appalling unit pathfinding. The bizarre and unbalanced multiplayer setup will also turn off anyone looking to experience it with a friend. You may find some fun here and there, but the game tries its best to hide it from you.

Of course, this is a Mana game, so even though the gameplay is nothing like previous games in the series, fans will still enjoy the references and familiar creatures. Rabites and the elemental spirits alike have a role to play, so if you were worried about the new gameplay direction, you can at least hold onto them. The story isn't particularly engaging, but it's pleasant enough. It sends your rebel adventurers down a bleak path, only to gradually restore hope to them when all seems lost. While the narrative is fine, the frequency with which it intrudes upon gameplay is annoying. You'll have to tap your way through dialogue multiple times in each mission, which is a reminder of the series' role-playing roots, but it's a frequent frustration and a blow to the game's already inconsistent pace.

As in most RTS games, you need to collect resources (in this instance, gaia stones and treant fruit) and create structures to churn out battle units. Your base is a mobile airship, so it can move about the battlefield, but it must be fastened to an anchor point on the map to produce units and collect resources. Rather than buildings placed on the map proper, structures are contained within your base itself. Once you have enough stone, you simply enter your ship and choose the structure you want to build. Once the upgrade is complete, all you have to do is select the structure and choose which units you want to create, and then they pop right out.

These traditional mechanics are held together nicely by an intuitive interface that makes it easy to create units and move about the map. Gameplay takes place on the touch screen, so giving an order is as simple as touching a unit and choosing a destination. You can also issue group orders, either by tapping an icon at the bottom of the screen that chooses all similar units or by drawing a circle around the units you want to command. Getting around the map is likewise a breeze. You can use the D pad for free-form scrolling, but Heroes' best feature is its screen flipping. Tapping an icon swaps the top screen's minimap with the touch screen's gameplay map. You can then choose a destination on the minimap and swap the main map back onto the touch screen to give orders. This system makes it simple to order units around and to move quickly to skirmishes in progress.

But if issuing commands is quick and easy, getting your units to go where you ask is almost impossible. Heroes of Mana features the worst, most broken system of unit pathfinding ever devised. The map is actually a grid that comprises invisible squares, so units don't move freely toward their destination; they take an insane route based on what squares are available at the time the command is issued. The resulting stupidity may induce tears. If you build enough units at once, they will all crowd around your base until you give them an order, which keeps your gatherer units from returning resources. If a nearby square is already occupied when you issue a command, the unit will brainlessly take a route that sends it to the far reaches of the map, directly into enemy territory. To make it even worse, many of the maps have ramps, walkways, and other features that ground units must traverse to reach their objective. On those maps, you'll watch in agony as groups of units scatter, get stuck, or simply go nowhere because the game is incapable of finding a way to get them there.

Other development miscalculations also take their toll. In each battle, you choose a number of hero units to lead the way. Yet even with the various loot and spells you can equip them with, they're incredibly vulnerable. More often than not, you'll simply keep them out of the action, lest you lose the one that ends your mission. Pace is also a major factor, because units move…so…slowly. Yet other design elements are obviously designed to keep things moving. Resource nodes have very little for you to gather, forcing you to spread out quickly, and missions can be completed within 20 minutes or so. Therefore, the tempo feels really off; it's as if developer Brownie Brown decided to extend the game's length by slowing the units down.

Nevertheless, as shoddy as these elements are, Heroes of Mana has some nice things going for it. The balance between ranged, ground, air, and heavy units is simple but solid, so you should always be able to counter any given attack with the right unit. Elemental spirits, which let you unleash imposing assaults on your unsuspecting foes, are nice supplements, as are the accompanying cutscenes. The production values are terrific too. Maps and units are colorful, while the touch screen is often overflowing with the explosions of battle, as well as the clockwork movement of gatherers. The sound effects are fine, if a bit tinny, but the soundtrack is lovely and the perfect complement to the fantasy visuals.

In addition to the campaign, you can take on a friend locally, provided that he or she has a copy of the game. This is your chance to play as the Peddan army, Heroes' second faction. As you can guess, playing against a buddy is more fun than playing against the artificial intelligence, but it's too bad that the basic multiplayer design is completely moronic. Both players are required to unlock heroes, units, structures, and maps in the campaign before they can be accessed in multiplayer. This ties your multiplayer tech tree to your progress in the single-player game, which means that unless both you and your opponent have completed the campaign, the match will be totally lopsided. Not only does it limit your map and unit choices, but it annihilates the most important element inherent to RTS multiplayer: balance.

You may occasionally find yourself enjoying Heroes of Mana in spite of its shortcomings. At the very least, it confirms that RTS works on the DS. Sadly, vital aspects of its strategy gameplay are deeply flawed, which leaves you wondering what could have been if these major issues had been corrected. It's a step in the right direction, but it's a tiny, tiny step.

Madden NFL 08 (Xbox360, PS3)

t's taken two and a half years and three releases, but Madden is finally back to form. In Madden NFL 08 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, EA Tiburon has put together the most complete version of Madden seen on either console to date. The gameplay is tight, practically every old feature that had been previously missing is back in some form or another, and new additions have been made that significantly change how you play the game--for the better. By no means is this year's Madden flawless; it's definitely got some quirks and underpolished aspects that will probably drive some people crazy. But taken as a whole, Madden 08 is easily the first great entry for the series on the 360 and PS3.

You'll notice the big difference in this year's title the second you hop into a game. Marquee players have been given icons to specifically represent what type of "weapon" they are on the field. There are a ton of these different designations, separating out multiple types of players at each position. Wide receivers, for instance, come in a wide variety of forms. There are quick receivers who are able to nimbly duck and dodge around defenders to get open; possession receivers are good at catching the ball in traffic; hands receivers can grab onto just about any ball thrown their way; and big play receivers will leap up to make those really spectacular catches. Every position has at least a couple of these different designations, though not every player is truly a weapon. In addition, each weapon type has an opposite, a player on the other side of the field who can, in a sense, cancel out their abilities. Big play receivers, for instance, are vulnerable to big hitters, finesse move defensive linemen have a tougher time getting by top pass blockers, and so on.

The system itself works beautifully within the context of the game. Sure, you'll certainly note the differences between QBs like Brett Favre and Vince Young, but that would have been the case in any Madden game of the last few years. Here, you'll notice the differences in just about every position. Power running backs and speedier running backs are more individually defined than ever before, as are the differences between run blockers and pass blockers. On the defensive side of the ball, you see more in the technical differences in play between a shutdown corner that guards against the deep threat, and the press coverage corners who prefer to jam up receivers at the line. And the big hitters? Yes, they hit big.

These new weapon designations even go beyond basic techniques--they can actually give you insight into what the other team is doing. Specifically, the "smart" QB and defender designations come with a meter that fills up as individual plays on the other side of the ball are called throughout a game. After a single play or coverage scheme has been called four times, a quarterback like Peyton Manning or Tom Brady can actually see exactly what the defense is going to do, whereas a smart defender can get a glimpse of where the offensive play is going to go. Obviously the counterattack to something like this is to vary up your playbook as much as possible, which is in itself a great thing, since that's what real offensive and defensive coordinators are forced to do in the real game.

The excellent new weapons feature isn't the only way the on-field action has changed. Madden's control scheme is more complex than ever before, with more presnap controls than you'll probably ever know what to do with. Once you get the hang of it, the controls become like second nature, but it's likely that players not extremely well versed in the ways of Madden will get a little confused at first as they fumble around with the controls, especially since practically every button on the controller does at least something presnap. This is especially true on defense. The defensive playmaker controls are back, letting you assign coverage changes to individual players before the ball is snapped. You can also now focus coverage on a specific receiver with a quick button press, though doing so will draw defensive resources away from other receivers. When laying in big hits via the right analog stick, you can hit a player high by pressing up, and low by pressing down. Doing this has different effects on different types of players. Hitting high might cause a less cautious ball carrier to cough up the rock, while going low on a power back is probably the best way to take him down as he pushes past the line. There's also a button that will make your controlled defender attempt to strip the ball from a carrier, provided you time the button press right.

Between that function and the big hits, you'll actually be seeing quite a few fumbles throughout Madden 08. We're not talking NCAA 08 numbers of turnovers here, nor is the number of fumbles per game outlandish or unrealistic, but fumbling is far more regular an occurrence now than it's ever been in a Madden game to date. It's definitely noticeable enough that it will probably frustrate some players. More than anything else, it simply pays to be extra careful with the ball.

Between the new weapons feature and all the various control adjustments to this year's game, Madden 08 provides an extremely deep and challenging experience on the field, possibly even a bit too challenging, depending on your tastes. One of the complaints about last year's game was that the defensive back artificial intelligence was too much of a pushover, allowing too many easy completions. That's definitely not the case this year. DBs are quite tough to get out of position, especially on the higher difficulty settings. It's maybe a little overblown in terms of challenge there, as DBs seem to just magnetize themselves to receivers and always find a way to get an arm up to swat a pass away, however unlikely the situation. Even linebackers are tough to get the ball by a lot of times. But that's really the worst thing you can say about the AI on any level. Otherwise, it plays a very realistic game of football across practically every position.

nother big complaint about the last couple of iterations of Madden was the distinct lack of features. Madden 06 had only a barren franchise mode and basic online play to its name, and while 07 cranked out a new version of superstar mode and a couple of minigames, franchise and online went basically untouched. In Madden 08, many of these modes have seen at least slight upgrades. The biggest and best differences are to be found in the franchise mode, which, while still not as rich with features as previous installments on older consoles, still has a fair amount to offer. During the season, you can now train individual players before each week's game to try to boost up their stats in certain categories. These stat boosts are tied into point totals you earn during drills. So, say you've got a receiver that's got a high, but not quite high enough rating in the "hands" category; what you'd then do is look at how many points you'd need in order to get him to the next level (points earned are determined by the difficulty level of the drill), and put him through his reps. These stat bonuses stay put, too, so you won't lose them the next week.

In terms of offseason features, the owner mode is back in a relatively new form. During the season, you can keep track of your finances via a series of menus that tell you everything from how your revenues and costs stack up against other teams in the league, to which players are currently in a contract year. You'll also hire a scouting agency at some point, and during the season you can task them with keeping tabs on up to 20 rookies from the upcoming draft class. The reports they give you aren't necessarily much more detailed than the ones you get by default on every player, but they tend to be more accurate in judging potential. Rookie potential is actually a new feature in and of itself, in that now, rookies with different expectation levels can become gems or busts over time. These icons don't pop up until a player has been in the league for a little while, but it's all about what a player's potential is. If a player turns out to be greater than his draft position would initially suggest, he'll get a gem icon and actually perform above his stats. Busts are, as you'd imagine, the polar opposite. Even a bust can still be a useful player if you find a way to get him to make plays, but it's far more challenging a prospect than with any other player.

Lastly, franchise owners can now maintain their team finances by buying upgrades for their stadiums, gaining sponsorship deals, and even opting to move the whole bloody thing to another town if so inclined. Of course, doing so is a tricky process. You have to find a city interested in a team, and on top of that, the costs of doing so are prohibitive. There's a neat system in place that shows how interested a city is in having you in relation to how much money they'll have to spend in order to do it. You basically have to find ways to cut the city's costs down if you want to move there, and if you submit an offer that isn't up to the city's liking, you lose your chance to move until the following year. Once you do move, you'll build a stadium, edit your squad as you please, and finally have that team in Winnipeg that we're sure you've always dreamed of.

The superstar mode is much as it was last year, but considering how good the mode was last year, that's not a bad thing. You still create your player, use your influence on the field to boost up your teammates, talk to your agent, sign contracts, and generally go through the motions to try to get yourself into the Hall of Fame. One neat addition is that you can actually choose players from this year's rookie pool, so if you want to live the life as Calvin Johnson or live in a fantasy world where Jamarcus Russell actually signs a contract with the Raiders and gets to start, you can do so. There has also been a slight alteration made to the camera system in this mode. The camera is now a bit more zoomed out, making it easier for you to actually see the field. Granted, the camera is still pretty tight on your player, so it's only a minor improvement.

Online play is functionally unchanged from the last couple of iterations of Madden. You can go head-to-head against only one other player in ranked and unranked matches. The online matches are certainly solid. Lag popped up here and there, and when it did, it had a palpably negative effect on gameplay--specifically, it made completing passes nearly impossible in the worst instances. But the bulk of the matches we played weren't very laggy at all. As always, your mileage online may vary. There are some online bells and whistles, like the ability to glance at ESPN-licensed news videos, audio clips, and stories, but nothing you couldn't easily get faster directly from the ESPN Web site. There's still no league play of any kind, which is extra-sad when you consider that EA's NHL franchise plans to debut this exact feature in just a few short weeks.

Other ancillary features include the same basic minigames from last year, such as the 40-yard dash and bench press, the same functional create-a-player mode, and, finally, a create-a-team mode, which had been missing. There's a decent amount of customization available for jerseys, stadiums, and whatnot, though you can't actually customize the roster of a created team with actual players unless you bring that team into franchise mode and do a fantasy draft. By default, the game populates the team with generic players that are rated depending on how you set your team up (run heavy, pass heavy, balanced, and the like). You also can't import a created team into franchise mode without replacing another team, though that's not exactly a new issue.

The core graphics engine hasn't evolved much from last year, with maybe a touch more detail in the various player models, and not much else. However, animation is decidedly more impressive than ever before. Essentially, a gaggle of new branching animations have been thrown into the mix. Receivers who catch the ball on the sidelines will drag their toe while falling out of bounds or carefully angle their steps to stay in bounds. Running backs look decidedly more fluid as they juke and spin past defenders. And on defense, gang tackles are finally on board and look fantastic. Watching as two big defenders wrap up a running back, or two defensive backs simultaneously go high and low on a ball carrier, effectively flipping that poor schmuck head over heels, is quite a sight to behold. There are a few slightly off-looking animations, like the way that every single player on a field goal defense or an onside kick return team will simultaneously stand up and then crouch down into proper position, and a few catches we saw looked a little buggy and off-kilter. But by and large, the animation in this year's Madden is the best it's ever been.

One of the big points of contention about this year's Madden has been the difference in performance between the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions. It was announced some time ago that the 360 version would run at 60 frames a second, versus 30 on the PS3. When you compare the two games side by side, yes, there is a noticeable difference. The PS3 version is certainly choppier and slightly more prone to hitching up in-game than the 360 one. However, simply taken on its own merits, the PS3 version isn't suddenly awful because of this one issue. The choppiness rarely ever distracts you from the gameplay, and for the most part, the 30 frames a second number holds pretty steady. If you have a choice between the two, certainly the 360 version is the preferable one from a visual standpoint, but the PS3 version isn't unplayable by any means.

Madden 08's audio is the one area that really feels like it lacks. The on-the-field sound effects are still great, and the soundtrack consists of the usual roster of modern rock and rap acts, combined with the NFL Films music. Commentary, however, is a sticking point. The EA Sports radio announcer who's been around since Madden 06 sounds like he's still spouting the same lines from two years ago, and he still can't seem to get the correct yardage numbers at the end of each play. John Madden still provides voice work for any plays where you choose to "Ask Madden" for a suggestion, but this dialogue is also largely recycled, and sometimes incorrect. There are times when he'll go off about running a screen play when the play being suggested is a four wide receiver set with nothing but deep routes, or a quick pass play when the suggestion is a run up the middle. Finally, Marshall Faulk tries to provide a bit of preshow and postgame commentary, talking about the matchup, key players, and the like. The problem is that he's terrible. The commentary is flat, monotone, and completely uninteresting, not to mention that he practically never uses a player's name.

Sadly enough, ESPN commentators Merril Hodge and Mark Schlereth pop up to do tutorials for some of the minigames, but that's it. You've got actual broadcasters in the game, and they're not even broadcasting. This speaks to a larger issue with Madden, which is that it still hasn't found a way to do broadcast presentation right. The EA Sports radio guy felt like a placeholder when he first debuted, and while he was good, isn't it time to get a real broadcast team? EA has the ESPN license, so there's not much excuse not to get the Monday Night Football crew for games. And why no ESPN integration into the franchise mode? No commentary or week-in-review from Schlereth, Hodge, or the multitude of other NFL experts floating around the network? Heck, even the Super Bowl feels low-rent. There's practically nothing in the game to separate it from any other game during the regular season. Considering it's the biggest sporting event out there, that just strikes as lazy.

It's issues like these that hold Madden NFL 08 back from being a truly stellar effort. Make no mistake, this is a great game of football through and through, especially on the field, where the new weapons feature has a fantastic effect on how you play the game. The new additions to the control scheme, the new animation system, and the franchise upgrades also can't be counted out. If anything, Madden 08 seems to represent a tipping point of sorts for the series. You feel like the game is right on the brink of getting back to where it was four or five years ago in terms of stature and innovation. Still, while it might not be quite there yet, Madden NFL 08 offers more than enough quality content to make it worth your while, and features the best football gameplay you'll find on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Galaga '90 (Wii)

Now that the TurboGrafx-16 version of Galaga '90 has been added to the Virtual Console shop, you may be wondering what relationship the game shares with the NES version of Galaga that has been available in the shop for a while now. In a nutshell, the NES rendition of Galaga was a port of the original 1981 arcade game, whereas Galaga '90 is a sequel that modestly builds on the original formula with a larger menagerie of enemies, the ability to warp to new dimensions, and all-around snazzier visuals.

Galaga '90, like Galaga, is a fixed shooter-style game. You move your ship left or right on a little strip at the bottom of the screen while numerous enemies fly in from all directions, collect in a mass up at the top, and then swoop down to attack your ship in various formations. You earn points for shooting enemy ships, you lose a ship if you get hit by bullets or enemies, and you move on to the next stage once you shoot down all of the enemies in the current stage. Enemies attack in predictable formations, just like they did in Galaga, but this game features a wider range of enemy ships that are more likely to launch a cluster of missiles or split into multiple tiny ships during their attack runs.

Namco didn't make any major changes to the classic Galaga formula. Instead, they incorporated a slew of minor variations that make this sequel more intense than the original, while still retaining the first game's spirit. Along with expanding the list of enemies, they included 29 brand-new stages to beat. As in the original, most are fixed screens. However, some are scrolling stages that culminate in a boss battle. Interstellar obstacles such as asteroids and attack satellites also occasionally come into play. You can still create a double-ship by letting your ship get captured and then rescuing it, but now you can also do the same with your double-ship to create a giant ship with triple the firepower. If you want, you can begin the game with the double-ship formation, though you'll immediately sacrifice a life to do so. Lastly, you can now collect stones that give you the chance to warp to new dimensions after completing bonus stages. In this fashion, there are five different dimensions to see and five different final bosses to challenge.

The game also retains the look and feel of the original Galaga, but there are now planets and space stations decorating the star fields, and different musical fanfares play in every stage. There are more enemies to see, they're more colorful, and they unleash a wider variety of bullets and missiles. Quite often, enemies will explode in a dazzling display of fireworks. Of course, since the game tries hard to maintain the classic Galaga feel, the ships are still generally tiny and the backdrops are still primarily static scenes.

Starting out with a double-ship right from the beginning lets you tear into enemies from the get-go. The original Galaga was at times conservative in its bluster, whereas the exchange of gunfire between you and the multitude of enemy ships in this game is nearly constant. The frequent explosions of fireworks also ratchet up the excitement level. However, Galaga '90 is still Galaga at heart, and all of the modest improvements probably won't be enough to make you like the game if you didn't find the original enjoyable. The game is also far behind the curve compared to the majority of shoot-'em-ups that came out in the late 1980s. Other games introduced things like massive boss ships, cluster bombs, and realistic scrolling backdrops. Galaga '90 retained the fixed backgrounds, lifeless star fields, and mundane machine guns that its predecessors had.

For better or for worse, Galaga '90 is a souped-up Galaga. It's a space shooter with early-1980s sensibilities and some late-1980s flair. If you're into that sort of juxtaposition, you'll consider the 600 Wii points ($6) it'll cost you to play the TurboGrafx-16 rendition of the game a bargain.

Wave Race 64 (Wii)

Various companies have produced Jet Ski racing games over the years, but few of those games have made as big of an impact as Nintendo's Wave Race 64. Ever since the game was originally published for the fledgling Nintendo 64 in the fall of 1996, person after person has been captivated by its blazing sense of speed, gorgeous wave modeling, and realistic "bouncy" physics. Now, you can download this wet wonder from the Wii's Virtual Console shop for 1,000 Wii points, which is a reasonable cost considering that time has done little to tarnish the game's beauty or fun.

The nuts and bolts of Wave Race 64 aren't much different from any other arcade-style racing game. In the championship mode, you race Jet Skis around circuits on a variety of water courses. Staying within the buoys will give you a speed boost and keep you from being disqualified, you can use jump ramps to leap over obstacles and to discover secret shortcuts, and the controls make it easy to glide through a turn or spin 180 on a dime with a simple yank on the analog stick. You can also perform a small selection of tricks, which are mainly useful for setting high scores in the stunt mode. Other play modes include the standard time-trial mode, as well as a two-player mode that splits the screen in half and lets you compete against another human opponent.

What makes the game so much fun, and the main reason why it still holds up today, is that it conveys the exhilaration of being out there on the water in a manner that's both visceral and accessible. Sharp turns and experienced CPU opponents keep you on your toes, ramps will send you flying through the air, and, because you're racing on water, you're constantly bouncing around. Waves rise and fall like they do in the real world, and that motion causes floating obstacles to shift, occasionally exposing sunken posts and shipwrecks that were safely underwater on previous laps. All the while, the controls make it easy to steer, perform sharp turns, lean forward and backward, and execute tricks, usually just by yanking or twirling the analog stick. The physics and wave modeling are very realistic, to the extent that you'll soon find yourself instinctively tilting the analog stick to land quicker and hit waves at a good angle.

A decent number of polygons went into the riders and their Jet Skis, and they react to every bounce and jolt in realistic fashion. The 3D island courses generally look nice. Some of the textures look blocky up close (mainly large rocks), but the shorelines, ramps, and course obstacles are crisp and well defined. The tropical color schemes are appropriate and appealing, as are the periodic appearances of dolphins and orcas in the water. Speaking of water, the waves in Wave Race 64 are still some of the nicest ever modeled in a video game. Thanks to the lifelike physics and splashy sound effects, you actually get a good sense of what it would be like to take a Jet Ski for a joyride around a tropical island.

For the most part, the game looks just like it originally did on the Nintendo 64. However, the frame rate is steadier, and the Kawasaki advertising banners have been replaced by ads for the Nintendo 64, Wii, and DS Lite. Thankfully, the new banners aren't distracting at all. Practically speaking, the only change of negative consequence to afflict the Wii's version of the game is that you can't race against your time-trial ghosts anymore. The original game required an add-on memory pak for that feature, and the Virtual Console doesn't emulate that functionality. All things considered, being able to follow the action easier thanks to the improved frame rate more than makes up for the ability to see your ghost during time-trial runs.

Wave Race 64 is a testament to what happens when developers come up with a solid design and pour their hearts and souls into making their creation a reality. The game's brand of bouncy Jet Ski racing is just as fun today as it was a decade ago, and its gorgeous wet visuals still pack quite a punch.

Glory Days 2 (Nintendo DS)

Glory Days 2, the sequel to a Game Boy Advance game that was released here in the US as Super Army War, whips together a light blend of 2D side-scrolling shooter action, tactical combat, and modern real-time strategy convention into something that feels simultaneously unique and familiar. For the most part, the action and the strategy are never terribly taxing, but the constant juggle between deploying units, capturing bunkers, rescuing civilians, and raining death from above onto enemy forces keeps the game constantly engaging.

The loose narrative, which sees you fighting as a procession of pilots fighting different wars during different eras, is driven by written correspondence between your soldier and his loved ones back home. There's a natural quality to the writing in the letters, which see the characters go through a range of emotions as they progress from mission to mission. They share feelings of dread, longing for home, a steeled determination to do what's right, and anecdotes about their day-to-day lives and their comrades. There are occasions of overly politicized heavy-handedness over the cost of war and the relative value of the opinions of those who aren't on the frontlines, but for the most part it's a disarmingly effective device.

Though you'll fight across sandy beaches, snowy mountains, the sun-bleached desert, lush plains, and city streets, the battlefield in Glory Days 2 is invariably a long, flat, horizontal stretch of road. At either end, you'll find your base, as well as your enemy's base. In between you'll find bunkers, gunner positions, and civilians caught in the middle of your military quagmire. Depending on the mission, you have direct control over either a plane or a helicopter, and which one you're given has a significant impact on the feel of the mission. Both have air-to-air artillery and air-to-ground payloads. The planes benefit from speed and a certain maneuverability, while the choppers can change direction more easily, can be landed in the middle of the battlefield to rescue civilians, and can be used to pick up soldiers at your base and deploy them in the field. Their relative flexibility end up making the chopper missions inherently more fun.

Rescuing civilians--be it by chopper or ambulance--and deploying troops on the battlefield are important, because civilians that you're able to pluck from the field and shepherd to safety translate directly into cash, and troops can take up position inside empty bunkers, which provide a regular revenue stream. All of this cash is then used to deploy troops, tanks, antiaircraft jeeps, and ambulances, and your ground forces are key to victory. While you're flying overhead, bombing enemy-held bunkers and the never-ending procession of enemy vehicles, your ground forces are marching along, engaging whatever enemy forces happen to be coming from the opposite direction. You're essentially fighting a huge, militarized game of tug-of-war, and victory is invariably had by pushing enemy forces all the way back to their base on the other side of the field, and destroying it.

Though you'll be focusing on the air unit that you have direct control over on the top screen, you've got several good tools to keep you abreast of the situation elsewhere on the battlefield. A distilled map of the battlefield makes it easy to figure out, at a glance, your forces' progress on the battlefield, your current position, and which bunkers are controlled by which army, while the lower screen tracks whatever units are on your frontlines. It's easy to deploy units on the fly, and once they're on the ground, you don't really need to worry about them again. They'll just truck along, doing what they're programmed to do. The game will also deploy troops and vehicles for you automatically, should you get too caught up in the action, though if you neglect any one part of the game for too long, you will invariably find yourself overwhelmed. When you know the strengths and weaknesses of your units, you'll find specific deployment patters that help increase their survival rates. Even then, a huge percentage of your units invariably end up as cannon fodder, and it's not uncommon to deploy several hundred units over the course of a mission.

As you progress through the game, you'll gain access to special attacks like air strikes, as well as more advanced military hardware. At the same time, your enemy's units will get stronger, faster, and smarter, and while it can be a challenge, it never really becomes unmanageable. The biggest shortcoming in Glory Days 2 is the relative brevity of the campaign, which can be torn through in a few hours. There are other ways to play, including a skirmish mode where you can define an incredible number of variables, and a local multiplayer mode that supports up to eight players at once, but it's hard not to wish the campaign would keep going for at least a little while longer.

There are shades of Advance Wars to the presentation in Glory Days 2, specifically in the way it depicts anime-style soldiers fighting in a violent but oddly bloodless war, but the overall tone here is much more somber and serious. The soundtrack consists of just a few huge, sweepingly righteous orchestral compositions that bring an unflinching grandeur to your constant march toward victory. The look of the units errs toward realistic, though the generally zoomed-out camera perspective keeps you from seeing too much detail. Where the visuals really shine are in the environments, which are packed with detail and a number of scrolling background layers that provide a level of depth that almost rivals actual 3D graphics. Touches like the way you can see wind whipping past you as you speed across the battlefield, nice-looking weather effects, and the odd scan-line flicker of night vision when you're fighting in the dark bring a sense of heightened realism to the visuals.

As commonplace as the components are, Glory Days 2 adroitly assembles them into something pretty rare. It's lamentable that the campaign is as short as it is, but it's not enough to keep the rest of the game's unique charms from shining through.

Picross DS (DS)

Picross, short for picture crossword, is a puzzle not entirely unlike Sudoku, in that it forces you to use logic to deduce the particulars of the puzzle. But rather than focusing solely on numbers, Picross has you using numbers to determine which boxes in a grid get punched out to eventually form a picture or a pattern. With a ton of puzzles to keep veterans busy and a helpful tutorial mode to get new players up to speed, Picross DS is the sort of game that will keep you staring at your Nintendo DS long into the night.

The grids vary in size, starting with very simple 5x5 grids. Numbers mark each row and column, and they tell you how many blocks, in a row, are part of the puzzle. So in the starting small grid, seeing a "5" next to a row or column would mean that each block needs to be punched. Seeing a "3" means only three, and seeing something like "1 3" would mean that there's one block, followed by one or more blank spaces, then three more connected blocks. By seeing how the numbers form up and deducing which spots must absolutely be punched for the hints to make sense, you eventually work your way around the grid and complete the puzzle. Those small grids get larger as you play, eventually leading you to huge 25x20 grids. The game's normal mode runs on a timer, giving you 60 minutes to complete each puzzle. That's usually more than enough time, but as you make mistakes, penalty minutes are packed onto your time. There's also a free mode, which runs without a time limit, but it also doesn't let you know when you've made a mistake, only when you've completed the entire puzzle. These, as you might expect, get tricky fast.

The game's a natural fit for the DS touch-screen controls, but unfortunately they start to become very cumbersome as the grid size increases. You'll eventually have to deal with zooming in and out to better see parts of the larger grids, which isn't ideal. For the later, larger puzzles, playing with the control pad and buttons might actually be faster.

In addition to playing the single-player mode, you can go in and create your own puzzles, which can be sent to other players locally. There's also an online mode where you can download additional puzzles (though none are available as of this writing), and a head-to-head mode where two players try to solve two 10x10 grids. The fastest player wins, and if you can't finish two 10x10 puzzles in two or three minutes, chances are you're going to lose. It takes what can be a very casual puzzle experience and makes it totally hectic, and also a great deal of fun. There aren't any leaderboards, but your own personal win/loss record is kept, and you earn different ranks as you play. Locally, you can play with up to five players using only one cart. You can also send demo puzzles to other nearby players without a copy of the game.

By offering a ton of puzzles to play alone and the constant challenge of online play, Picross DS is a long-lasting puzzle game and an awesome value at $19.99. If you're already a fan of logic puzzles like Sudoku, this might just be your next brain-teasing habit.

Marathon: Durandal (Xbox360)

A lot of people have never heard of Marathon, and there's a reason for that. Long described as the Mac's answer to Doom, Marathon was released in 1994 and featured excellent single-player and multiplayer gameplay. Not many noticed, though, since the series was almost exclusive to Apple's Macintosh platform. But the release of Marathon: Durandal for Xbox Live Arcade is sure to be of interest to more than just a few middle-aged Marathon fans, because arguably, without Marathon there would have never been a Halo. That's because Marathon was the breakout game that put a tiny Mac developer called Bungie on the map.

It's a bit strange that Durandal was the Marathon game ported to Xbox Live Arcade. Its original title was Marathon 2: Durandal, as it was the middle chapter of Bungie's trilogy, so you'll jump into the middle of the overarching story, though some text-only narrative will get you up to speed quickly. While the series has no official ties to the Halo universe, it's hard not to play Durandal without seeing the kernel of many of the ideas that would later go into Bungie's most famous franchise. For instance, you play as a lone human security officer who, aided by an artificial intelligence construct, must battle an incredibly powerful alien menace that's looking to invade Earth.

If you jump into Durandal, keep in mind that it was originally released in 1995, and it is a first-person shooter that is very much a product of its times. This is a game from the cusp of the shooter era, so it uses a blend of 3D environments and 2D bitmaps for enemies and objects. Be careful, though, as the motion and swaying while you're running around the game might make you nauseous. The Xbox Live Arcade version of Durandal at least offers high-resolution textures, which is good news if you've tried to play the original game on a modern system and got migraines from the incredibly pixelated look. At the same time, though, the new art has boosted the size of the game to 135MB, which is absolutely huge for an Xbox Live Arcade game, and a magnitude larger than the original Mac version.

The gameplay itself hasn't changed a bit, which is both good and bad. If you're an old-school Marathon fan looking for a nostalgic ride, then you'll probably feel quickly at home. But if you've never played an early first-person shooter, you might be turned off by the relative crudeness of the graphics and the gameplay. Sure, Durandal was a good game when it was released in 1995, but the standard for shooters has evolved considerably since then. The story is also more than a bit dense. It's told mainly through cryptic computer-terminal entries, and in many ways it's hard to figure out what you're doing. For instance, there's not a lot of handholding or structure to the levels, so you'll run around trying to figure out what to do. It gets a bit more confusing when you realize that some doors won't activate until you step on the right spot, so a seemingly dead end will have you running around in circles, and then, suddenly, the way is open. The controls are also a bit clumsy, as actions such as swimming involve the clicking of the joysticks, and there's no way to jump or reload.

Durandal had some of the best multiplayer for its era, but it feels small and constrained today. The levels aren't very large, and the level design itself is fairly rudimentary. At least there's no shortage of modes, including cooperative and competitive ones. "Kill the guy with the ball" features a skull for the ball, which is a forebear of the Halo mode oddball. You can do up to four-player split-screen on a single Xbox 360, as well as System Link and Xbox Live, with support for up to eight players. Unfortunately, we couldn't find a single public or ranked match over the course of two days, which seems to indicate that there isn't a large multiplayer following.

Marathon: Durandal's value is mainly that of a cultural artifact of an earlier age--one that comes in at 800 points ($10). At the same time, it's also a bit startling to realize just how little the genre has evolved since the days of the original Marathon. The advancements introduced by Marathon are numerous. It was the first shooter to feature dual-wielding weapons as well as a real-time map; and, of course, it was the spiritual predecessor to Halo. As a game, though, it really shows its age, and it proves to be an interesting, though not exactly engaging, experience.

Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s (PS2)

You knew this day would come, the day when Guitar Hero went the way of other popular rhythm game franchises, releasing pseudo-sequels and expansions that are really just batches of new songs with little to nothing in the way of gameplay or feature upgrades. Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s is the first for the series, an expansion of sorts to Guitar Hero II that offers up 30 new tracks with a decidedly 1980s bent. Everything else is basically how you remember it from GHII, including most of the same characters, venues, and modes, but now everything's been tinted neon to indicate that, yes, this is very much the '80s. In theory, such an expansion could be an extremely welcome addition to any Guitar Hero fan's library, but Rocks the 80s doesn't quite deliver on its promise. There's a good chunk of significant '80s hits on here, as well as a few inspired, lesser-known choices, but at a price tag of $50, 30 mostly solid songs doesn't sound like such a great deal.

Getting right into the soundtrack, Rocks the 80s deserves credit for not just going the easy route and churning out nothing but cheesy hair metal tracks. Certainly there's plenty of that on there, with big-time hits like Ratt's "Round and Round," Poison's "Nothin' But a Good Time," Winger's "Seventeen," and Twisted Sister's "I Wanna Rock" all on hand. But then you also get lighter rock tracks, like Asia's "Heat of the Moment", pop rock tunes like The Romantics' "What I Like About You," and new wave classics like The Vapors' "Turning Japanese" and Flock of Seagulls' "I Ran." You'll even get some neat choices from the underbelly of '80s rockitude that might not be immediately familiar but are a lot of fun to play, like Oingo Boingo's "Only a Lad," The Police's "Synchronicity II," and .38 Special's "Hold On Loosely."

Of course, it's not all good stuff. Roughly two-thirds of the tracklist could be considered fun either because it's a cool song to play, or just because it's a big hit with a memorable riff. The rest scrapes the bottom of the '80s barrel like a fourth run of I Love the '80s. Does anyone besides those who spent the entirety of the decade inside seedy metal bars even remember who Faster Pussycat is, let alone the song "Bathroom Wall"? "Radar Love" is a heck of a song, but seriously, the White Lion version of it? Not the one you really want to be playing. And while the inclusion of a faux-80s song from joke-band Limozeen is mildly amusing, it's the sort of thing that would have just been a throwaway bonus song in another Guitar Hero game.

At least most of the covers are quite good, and there are even several original master tracks, including "Round and Round" and "I Ran." "I Wanna Rock" is also a master, though it's from a much later Twisted Sister release. It sounds a little like Dee Snyder at the front of a Twisted Sister cover band, and it sticks out like a sore thumb.

Those flaws aside, the tracklist is ultimately pretty solid. It's as eclectic a mix of songs as you'll find in any of the Guitar Hero games. The real trouble is that there's just a lot less to it. Thirty songs for what basically amounts to an expansion sounds about right, but $50 for those 30 songs is pretty much a rip-off, especially when you consider that both the original Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero II (sans included guitar) had way more songs, and cost just as much. It doesn't help that there's no new supplementary content in this version, and in fact, some of the content from Guitar Hero II has been out-and-out removed. There are fewer characters to choose from, the Stonehenge stage has been cut, and there are no bonus songs of any kind to unlock past the core 30 tracks. On the plus side, you do still get all the same multiplayer modes for the new songs, as well as the excellent practice mode.

Presentation has been altered a bit as well. The characters and venues, as well as all the menu systems, are holdovers from Guitar Hero II, but everything's been tinted with neon and pastel colors, and the playable characters (the other guys on stage are completely unaltered) have been dressed up to look definitively '80s. But no amount of Flava Flav clocks, sweatbands, and pink tank tops can change the fact that this stuff all belongs to Guitar Hero II, and is just being recycled here.

Ultimately, Rocks the 80s is for Guitar Hero diehards only. There are some excellent songs in here, to be sure, and the gameplay is as fun as ever. But with such a decisive lack of content compared with other GH releases, not to mention the slightly insane price tag, Rocks the 80s feels like a quick-and-dirty cash-in. It's one you'll probably still have a good time with, but it's dirty all the same.

NASCAR 08 (Xbox360)

NASCAR 08's box touts the fact that EA's NASCAR series is the number one selling NASCAR franchise. Nowhere on the packaging does it tell you that it's the top-selling franchise because it's the only NASCAR franchise. However, the fact that there's no competition is made apparent as soon as you play. It's extremely light on features, online play is lacking, and its visuals do little to take advantage of the power of the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3. NASCAR 08 is a competent racing game, but you can't shake the feeling that it would have been a whole lot better if there had been a competing NASCAR game out there.

NASCAR 08 features a solid number of tracks and almost every driver you'd want. The only major driver who's missing is Carl Edwards, but there are some notable track omissions, including Mexico City and Montreal. You can race a full, half, short, or custom season in the Nextel, National (Busch), or Craftsman truck series. You can race a season in the Car Of Tomorrow--but it's just one and done--there's no career mode.

Instead, there's a new mode called the chase. You start the chase as an unknown driver and your goal is to earn a contract by completing license tests. Each license is separated by track type. There's a license for super speedway, speedway, Car Of Tomorrow short track, Car Of Tomorrow speedway, Car Of Tomorrow road course, and Car Of Tomorrow super speedway. To earn a license you must complete 10 tasks, which teach you the basics of NASCAR racing. You'll learn how to draft, slingshot, and avoid wrecks, follow racing lines, as well as how to maintain your speed through difficult turns. The game uses some handy visual aids that show a car's draft and the optimal line around the track, so it feels very friendly to beginners. Once you've completed a license, you'll be offered a two-race contract with a racing team, and if you fulfill that contract, you can then race a season with that team's car. The chase is certainly a good way to introduce the sport to newcomers, and it's nice not to have to race through all of the lower-tier circuits as in previous years, but it's still no substitute for a proper career mode.

It's a good thing the chase is such a good teaching tool because actual races can be quite challenging--for both good and bad reasons. One area where NASCAR video games differ from most racing games is that one small mistake can mean the difference between finishing first and finishing last, even if you have damage turned off. This makes every lap important and maintains the intensity of the races. Never has the ability to be perfect been more important than in NASCAR 08. The game is best played with a steering wheel because the default controls are extremely touchy, making it nearly impossible to race in a pack. If you don't have a steering wheel, you can adjust the linearity and responsiveness of the controls to make them more forgiving. This makes the game much more playable. You can also use the Sixaxis' motion controls to steer. This works OK, but isn't a substitute for a wheel.

Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do about the game's artificial intelligence, which is quite poor. Drivers don't seem to have personality as they did in previous games, but they do all seem hell bent on wrecking you. Depending on which course you're on, opposing drivers will just as soon run into the back of your car as they will pass you. This isn't bump drafting either. They'll do it when they're clearly the faster car, they'll do it in turns, and they'll do it when you're racing three wide. They say "rubbing is racing," but when it routinely costs you the race, it gets pretty frustrating, especially when the CPU doesn't seem to wreck very often.

Once you've come to grips with the controls and have gotten used to the CPU's "love taps," there's a solid racing game to be found. Races are generally close and though some may dismiss NASCAR as "just turning left," you can really feel the difference from one track to the next, so it pays to practice. If you do make it into victory lane, you can choose to celebrate by tearing up the infield and doing doughnuts on the track. That never gets old. There's also a fair amount of tweaking you can do to squeeze the most performance out of your ride. You can even share setups online, but these adjustments are mostly optional, though they are beneficial against tough competition. It's too bad that the ability to customize your car's looks isn't as deep as your ability to customize its performance. You can choose from a handful of different paint schemes and colors, but once again, you can't pick a number under 100 or create custom designs.

One area that really should have benefited from the move of one generation of consoles to the next is online play, but that didn't happen. There are leaderboards, but there are no leagues. You can race against up to 11 other players on the Xbox 360, but we were unable to connect with another player on the PlayStation 3. Should you connect with another player on either system, you'll find that it's rare to find a full field and that it seems to take a very long time to start a race. Eventually you'll get to actually race, which is a good thing, because the racing is solid and lag isn't a huge problem. One small issue from the offline mode, which is exacerbated during multiplayer because of the tendency to wreck more often, occurs when the game waves the yellow flag before wrecks are actually finished. This means that unless a wreck occurs right in front of you, you won't have to deal with trying to weave in and out of it, which is kind of fun. More importantly, it means that you never get to pass the wreck, and as a result, you'll be behind the people who just wrecked during the following restart.

The other area where you'd expect NASCAR 08 to really take advantage of the Xbox 360 and PS3 hardware is its visuals. But that didn't really happen either. The frame rate is nice and smooth, with day turning to night during some races. The smoke and dirt effects are also pretty good, but mostly everything else is underwhelming. The tracks look decent but come off as rather bland, and they don't look much better than they did on the last generation. There's quite a bit of aliasing on both the tracks and cars. Cars look OK, especially when you can check out all 43 of them in line during a restart, but you rarely get to enjoy them much. Car damage looks nice during replays where you can really watch the cars fall to pieces, but because every little bump causes your car to suddenly show damage, it doesn't look very realistic when you're racing. The audio isn't much different from before. The cars sound great, while your crew chief does an adequate job, even if he sounds bored and routinely falls behind the action.

NASCAR 08 isn't a bad game; in fact, it's fun once you get the hang of it. Its biggest problem is that it's not noticeably better than last year's game and there aren't any compelling new features. If really want a NASCAR game and it has to be on the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360, then NASCAR 08 is worth a look because, quite frankly, it's your only choice. But if you own any NASCAR game from the past few years, you might as well stick with that one.

Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword (PC)

There's a reason why the Civilization series is one of the oldest and most beloved strategy game dynasties you can find on computers today. The addictive turn-based games draw on real-world history and offer open-ended gameplay that lets you conquer the world as a warlord, diplomat, or scientist. They also have a disturbing tendency to keep you up late into the night taking "just one more turn." Civilization IV was an award-winning new chapter in the series in 2005, and last year's Warlords expansion pack helped make a good thing even better. And now, the Beyond the Sword expansion brings even more improvements to a solid foundation. The new game adds plenty of features that breathe new life into the core Civilization gameplay, and also tosses in lots of new content in the form of new modifications ("mods") and custom scenarios to play through. Not all of the expansion's additions are clear-cut improvements, but if you're a Civ fan, you'll find that Beyond the Sword will give you plenty of reasons to get hooked all over again.

The core game of Civilization IV starts you out with a national world leader who possesses a few advantageous "traits" in various specializations (military, scientific, economic, or cultural) and starts you off at a specific era in history to conquer the world through force, science, economy, or culture. Beyond the Sword adds new world leaders to play as, as well as new leader traits that help expand certain strategies, such as the "protective" trait, whose defensive properties aid players who seek to conquer the world using scientific research to win the space race, and the "imperialistic" trait, which greatly speeds the production of "settler" units that can be used to stake new claims in uncharted territory by building new cities.

The expansion also offers new options to create customized games to your liking, such as the handy "advanced game" mode, which starts you in a game about 10 turns in, unmolested. This helps get you into the game's truly interesting action (beyond just building your first city) faster. You can also opt to use the expansion's new events system, which randomly triggers various events that take place throughout the game. Many of these events aren't all that important, but some can have farther-reaching consequences, such as changing your standing with a rival nation. If nothing else, they add some welcome variety to the usual turn-based Civilization pace, and they can be toggled off if you don't care to use them in a custom game.

Beyond the Sword's more significant in-game features are espionage and corporations, which are interesting additions that bring even more variety to the game, though they aren't always practical or all that useful. Corporations essentially act like late-game religions; that is, just like with Civ IV's original religion system that let you spread religion from city to city, the expansion's corporations can spread around the world--though in this case, they focus on various economic specialties like cereal mills, mining companies, or even a chain of sushi restaurants. When used properly, they can provide powerful economic advantages, but they're balanced out by their substantial maintenance costs, even though these can only be accessed much later in the game.

Espionage, on the other hand, doesn't figure quite as prominently into the average game of Civ IV. This new feature was supposed to give you exciting new options with the new spy units, which can scout out other nations and perform undercover operations like gathering additional info on your rivals or stealing their technologies. Unfortunately, spies don't provide enough advantages to justify constantly pumping them out and sending them to the four corners of the world, since they frequently get discovered and captured before they can even get to enemy territory. In many cases, you may find yourself just skipping out on the turns it would take you to research espionage improvements to focus on your scientific research or military might. Fortunately, the expansion offers plenty of other accoutrements for the game's core strategies, including a fistful of new units, new combat tweaks to better balance siege combat, and an expanded space-race game for technophiles that makes a space-race victory not just a matter of who builds a shuttle first, but who builds the best and fastest one.

If that weren't enough, Beyond the Sword also packs in six new one-off scenarios plus five playable mods created by both in-house Firaxis developers and the fan community. Not all of the content is stellar--some, like the futuristic zombie-hunting scenario "Afterworld," don't quite hold up, though others, like the epic "Rhye's and Fall of Civilizations" fan-created mod, are excellent and provide a fresh new coat of paint to the core Civilization gameplay. Even though some of the mod content has been available publicly for some time, it's definitely convenient to have everything wrapped up in one place, and all the extra content will keep you busy for a good, long while--as you'd probably expect from the second expansion pack to a game that's infamous for stealing your free time.

Beyond the Sword's additions are primarily to Civ IV's core gameplay, so the expansion doesn't make a huge leap forward in terms of graphics or sound. But that's just fine, since the game's thematic, instrumental score continues to work well with the game, and the new graphics (in the form of new mod units and movies, as well as new leaders with new animations) fit into the game without a hitch. Unfortunately, Beyond the Sword doesn't address the somewhat cluttered interface that Civ IV had; in fact, it adds a bit more clutter with the event system, which pops up windows in the upper-right corner and logs them in a scrolling box at the top-center of your screen. Some of the clutter may still seem intimidating to beginners, but this expansion isn't necessarily for people who have never played Civ. And if you have, you shouldn't have many problems picking up the nuances of the interface, and you'll probably be too busy trying out all the new gameplay features that fundamentally change, and in some cases, revitalize, an already-classic game. Though not all of the additions in the expansion are perfect, there's plenty of new stuff in Beyond the Sword for Civ fans to play with, and plenty of reasons to dive back into the game and start taking "just one more turn" all over again.

Mario Strikers Charged (Wii)

Mario sports games are always crazy, but it could be said that the pudgy plumber's first foray into the world of traditional football in 2005's Super Mario Strikers for the GameCube wasn't quite crazy enough. As goofy a game as it was, the dearth of the true Mario brand of wacky was apparent, and the game suffered for it. Mario Strikers Charged for the Wii is essentially a sequel to that game, and its first and foremost goal seems to be to amp up the crazy factor. Developer Next Level Games has certainly succeeded in this area, though the final product ultimately resembles less the game of soccer and more some kind of psychotic episode of flaming balls, thunderous hits, and flying shells coming from every which way. Sometimes this chaotic gameplay gets a bit messy, and some of the gameplay elements, like tackles and the artificial intelligence in single-player, aren't perfect. Still, if you can get a grip on the action, you'll find Charged to be an addictive multiplayer game, especially if you plan to take it online.

Much like the original Strikers, players begin by selecting a team captain from primary Mario characters such as Luigi, Bowser, Peach, Daisy, Wario, and, of course, Mario himself. There are 12 captains in all, each with unique stats in movement, shooting, passing, and defense. Once you've got your captain, you then select three teammates from the lexicon of lesser Mario characters (Shy Guy, Monty Mole, Birdo, and the like). For those who played the original Mario Strikers, you'll note that this is different from the team selection in the last game, where you could only pick one type of teammate. Here, you get to choose three different ones, and they're every bit as varied as the team captains. They even get their own unique megastrike shots, the big power shots that goaltenders tend to have a difficult time with, which you can pull off by holding down the B button.

Of course, they're not quite as powerful as the captains' shots. While someone like, say, Boo can essentially go transparent and try to fly his way past the goaltender, and the Hammer Brothers can toss a gaggle of hammers at the goalie before eventually kicking the ball, these shots are not guaranteed to go in. But the captains' shots are a whole different ballgame. When you hold down the B button long enough with a captain, a golf-swing meter pops up that begins by counting up toward the number six. This actually determines how many balls you're going to fire at the goaltender in rapid succession. The meter then swings backward, and depending on how well you time the button press on that return swing, it'll be more or less difficult to stop the forthcoming shots. Once all meters are set, your captain leaps into the air and starts firing off shots like some kind of Dragon Ball Z castoff.

Against the artificial intelligence, you're practically guaranteed at least one goal out of the proceedings (though you often end up landing more), but when you're playing against another player, or you're forced to stop one of these shots yourself, a little goaltending minigame pops up. You simply point the Wii Remote at the screen, and as balls come flying, you aim the onscreen reticle at each one and press A to try to stop all the shots. It can get pretty hectic, but it's actually a fun and clever way to handle the perspective of the goaltender in these situations.

Of course, that pales in comparison to how hectic the action can get during normal gameplay. Knowing how to do a megastrike shot and actually pulling one out are two entirely different things. If it's not some random opponent running up behind you and shoulder-checking you into the pitch before you can pull out the shot, it's a gigantic red shell or a chain chomp running amok across the field, slamming into you and everything else. Weapon power-ups don't come constantly, thankfully, but many of the different fields have their own pitfalls that lend toward even more chaos, like electric bolts that move up and down the pitch, and huge balls of magma that lay waste to anything in their path. Frankly, the game would be crazy enough if all you could do was check your opponents. All you have to do to knock an opponent silly is quickly wag the remote back and forth while standing near an opponent. It's the only significant bit of motion control in the game, and it works well--perhaps too well. You can usually get shots off against the weaker AI settings, but on higher settings, and against live opponents, prepare to get checked, and checked often.

Even with that prospect in mind, Mario Strikers Charged is a game best played in multiplayer. The single-player modes don't extend beyond a standard versus mode, a challenge mode where you're presented with a series of different scenarios (making a comeback from a three-goal deficit, maintaining a shutout, and so on), and the road to the striker cup, where you choose a team and compete for a variety of different cups in round-robin-style tournaments. The mode selection is solid, but playing against the AI tends to be either too easy, or obnoxiously difficult, as catch-up AI tends to be a big factor on the higher settings.

Not so in multiplayer matches, which is a big part of why the multiplayer is just inherently more fun. Up to four players can play both offline and online. The online play is obviously the big draw here, and we're pleased to say that it's pretty much what makes the game worth owning. Though you still have to go through the silly song and dance of getting game-specific friend codes for all your buddies if you want to play against them specifically, you can play in ranked matches against random opponents and bypass all that nonsense. You can engage in four-player play online, but it's with a limit of two players per console. There are also leaderboards that track daily stats as well as cumulative records. Though lag popped up in spots during our time with the game, practically every match we played with a good latency rating worked seamlessly. It's a shame there's no communication options online, but that issue aside, the online works nicely.

The one area where Mario Strikers Charged still lacks is presentation. The in-game graphics are certainly a step up from the original, with better-looking character models, far more crazy crap happening onscreen, and a frame rate that stays steady throughout. But smaller details are decidedly lacking. The megastrike shots, while neat-looking, also feel kind of generic, specifically the captains' shots. Each captain has a unique personal flavor, but all the shots just kind of look like cheesy anime fighting-game posing. Interestingly, the new shots for the sidekick players are arguably a lot more interesting and unique than the captains' shots. Cutscenes are sharp looking, but not much goes on in them. You get the same shot of one of the captains skydiving into the arena before every match, and that whole sequence feels kind of silly and out of place to begin with. The menus and the soundtrack are also pretty dull, and while there's a bit of voice acting from the various on-field characters, as well as some amusing chants from the crowd, there's no announcer in this game, so you don't get the big "GOOOOAAAAAAL" exclamation whenever you score.

Presentational quibbles and single-player opposition issues notwithstanding, anyone who enjoyed the last Mario Strikers game will certainly find Strikers Charged to be an improvement, and those who took issue with the previous game will find some of their complaints properly addressed here. That this is the first Wii game to do online play and do it well is a huge bonus. Those looking for a deep and consistently entertaining single-player experience won't necessarily find it here, but anyone out for some good, solid multiplayer fun, either offline or online, would do well to check out Mario Strikers Charged.