THE DARKNESS (M)
Rating: ****1/2
2K Games
Xbox 360
Lovers of first-person shooters are going to eat their hearts out with this one. Well … more accurately, they’ll be eating a lot of bad guys’ hearts out, since devouring that vital organ is one of the key ways to restore your demon-induced Darkness powers. In “The Darkness,” you play as a mob lowlife who winds up being host to a malevolent tentacled creature. Before long, you’re wandering through the gritty cityscape, blasting away scumbags or eviscerating them with the serpent heads that grow out of your back. It’s unassailably cool.
Like developer Starbreeze’s previous work of art, “The Chronicles of Riddick,” “The Darkness” creates a vivid, atmospheric world with its fantastic lighting, top-notch voice acting and realistic physics. The increasingly awesome powers you acquire throughout the game eventually take much of the challenge away, but the satisfyingly long, twisty storyline will insure that you remain riveted from beginning to end.
HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX (E10+)
Rating: ***
Electronic Arts
Wii
Diehard fans of the bespectacled wizard-in-training will definitely want to play the Wii version of this game, where a careful wave of your magic Wii-mote will have you casting real spells. Unfortunately, most of your magic tricks are limited to performing mundane chores around the Hogwarts campus. The school is bigger and more realistic than it’s ever been before, but with its abundant fetch quests and sparse thrills, it feels disturbingly like a real school. If you’re not a huge Potter fan, you might want to consider ditching class.
THE BIGS (E)
Rating: ***1/2
2K Sports
Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation 2
For those of you who are tired of franchise modes, managing teams, recruiting players, negotiating salaries and performing all the other superfluous tasks that have been overwhelming recent sports sims, “The BIGS” takes baseball back to the basics. Like “MLB Slugfest,” this streamlined, arcade-style ballgame is perfect for players who wish only to push a single button to send that flame-engulfed ball smashing into an exploding scoreboard.
RATATOUILLE (E)
Rating: **
THQ
Wii, PlayStation 2, GameCube
If you think you can stomach it, here’s the recipe for yet another summer movie tie-in. First, take a pre-processed, generic platformer game, then sprinkle in a few kid-friendly mini-games for a hint of flavor (we don’t want more than a hint), and finally add a dash of the film’s plot because this is, after all, supposed to be served as a side dish with Pixar’s movie. Voila! The meal tastes just as bland as “Shrek the Third,” “Shark Tale,” and every other animated movie game. Bon appetit!
When Las Vegas Weekly contributor Matthew Scott Hunter realized his career as a lab technician was seriously interfering with his gaming, he pink-slipped himself into a successful career as a freelance writer. Bug the hell out of him at [email protected]