If Tom Cruise's recent foray into raving lunacy has made it difficult for you to root for humanity in War of the Worlds, then try cheering for the opposing team in Destroy All Humans! As Crypto, an alien with a grudge against mankind and a hint of Jack Nicholson in his voice, you can wage your own war of the worlds, focusing your attack on 1950s Middle America.
Like developer Pandemic's last hit, Mercenaries, Destroy gives you a series of objectives, but also allows lots of free time just to wreak havoc. And whether you're using telekinesis to toss cows at farmers or barbecuing G-men from your flying saucer, the game offers hours of hilarious fun. You can even use telepathy to find out what the locals pondered in the '50s. For example: "Would you get a load of this new brassiere? I could torpedo a U-boat with these things." And can you really pass up a game that lets you use an anal-probe gun? Didn't think so.
ARC THE LAD: END OF DARKNESS (T) (2.5 stars)
Namco
PlayStation 2
The Arc the Lad games have always offered good, turn-based RPG action with involving story lines, but End of Darkness makes a few alterations to the formula. It abandons the traditional RPG aspect for self-contained missions. It abandons turn-based combat for clunky, real-time controls. It abandons an involving story for yet another yarn about a bored, whiny, wannabe hero. And it pretty much abandons being good, as well.
STAR WARS EPISODE III: REVENGE OF THE SITH (E10+) (2.5 stars)
Ubisoft
Nintendo DS
No wonder Anakin couldn't avoid his destiny—he was on a linear, sidescrolling path straight toward it. Despite this game's colorful style (similar to Cartoon Network's Clone Wars) and a variety of lightsaber moves, you can only kill the same battle droids so many times before it grows tiresome, even if the developers have gone to all the trouble of making them different colors.
Matthew Scott Hunter has been known to mumble, "Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start" in his sleep. E-mail him at
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