Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (E) (4 stars)
Nintendo for GameCube
Princess Toadstool has been kidnapped, and Mario must find seven special stars to rescue her. Sounds like any of the Nintendo mascot's adventures, right? The difference would be that Mario's a little thinner this time—paper thin.
Mario encounters countless equally anorexic, construction-paper characters on his memorable role-playing quest to open the Thousand-Year Door. Standard RPG conventions, like turn-based battles, meld with Mario conventions, like jumping on enemies' heads, all of which lead to a game concept so endearingly unique, it's surprising the concept ever made it past the drawing board. Then again ... it kind of didn't.
ATV Offroad Fury 3 (E) (4 stars)
Sony Computer Entertainment for PlayStation 2
Though ATV 3 doesn't quite re-invent the off-roading wheel, it does feature a few nice improvements in control and overall feel to make for a less bumpy ride—though not too much less. Now when your butt fails to return to your seat after a trick and you bail into the dirt, you have no one to blame but yourself.
Chessmaster (E) (4 stars)
Ubisoft for Xbox
This magnificent chess sim teaches you the game's intricacies with hundreds of move-by-move re-creations of historic matches. Those lessons come in handy when it's time to play, because when the AI gets tough, even Bobby Fischer would wonder if checkers was more his game.
Ape Escape: Pumped and Primed (T) (3 stars)
Ubisoft for PlayStation 2
The first two Ape Escapes were the 800-pound gorillas among PlayStation platformers, but this entry in the series is simply a collection of Mario Party-style mini-games. While the contests start out being more fun than a barrel of you-know, their short lengths and overall simplicity ultimately make them as much fun as hurling feces.
Under the Skin (T) (2 stars)
Capcom for PlayStation 2
Cosmi is an alien from Planet Mischief, where at the age of 3, citizens must enter a rite of passage by going to Earth, pulling off pranks, and irritating the locals. Despite some humorous moments, Under the Skin has too much collecting, drab levels, and no depth, so Cosmi's efforts to irritate reach far beyond the world within the game.
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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