For a few months, I was an adventuress.
I climbed mountains, fired guns and jumped chasms with ease and grace. I explored Peruvian tombs, rode a train in Kazakhstan, and took tea in Britain. I looked great in short-shorts.
Actually, for most of the time I had bedhead and didn’t move from the couch. But I still climbed cliffs, solved puzzles and fought villains, looking fabulous the entire time, courtesy of Lara Croft and “Tomb Raider: Legend.” Aren’t video games great?
For this issue, gadget adviser Eric Gwinn and I explored the virtual worlds of four cool games (one each for the Wii, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 2 systems) to show you how, even at home, you can experience distant galaxies, underwater cities and ancient and modern wonders. You can be someone else for a while — even a British hottie with a mean gun hand.
We selected games that were fairly easy to get, and a couple lean toward teen- or even kid-friendly. And we’re giving you a male and female viewpoint, just to mix things up.
So grab that controller and let’s play!
— Cheryl Bowles
Explore brave cool worlds
Eric Gwinn’s picks
BioShock
Console: Xbox 360 Get it: Best Buy, $59.99 Welcome to Rapture, an underwater utopia steeped in Art Deco sophistication.
Tubes carry you from building to building, each with a breathtaking interior resembling the gilded lobby of a 1940s movie palace.
But why is Rapture in decline? Water gushes through busted pipes; marble hallways are littered with glass and broken concrete.
And drug-crazed people in bunny masks are trying to kill you.
Fight back by injecting yourself with items that rewrite your genetic code, giving you otherworldly powers. You can send lightning bolts from your fingertips, or pick up and throw furniture with brainwaves.
Those aren’t your only weapons: You can solve maze puzzles in the game, and reprogram robot machine guns to kill your enemies instead of slaughtering you. Along the way, you’ll discover orphan waifs who hold the secret of why Rapture was built and why it is crumbling.
What to see
* Note the art and wording of hallway signs. Each convincingly conveys the “The sky’s the limit” optimism of the post-war 1940s.
* Make it to Chapter 6, and you can find the ode to Pac-Man. Look on the floor for a wheel of cheese that’s missing a slice.
More Top Picks Best Slide Guitars
Ratchet and Clank Future: Weapons of Destruction
Console: PlayStation 3 Get it: Buy.com, $58.99 Want to see a guy smile? Give him something that makes things go BOOM! “Ratchet and Clank Future: Weapons of Destruction” has a lot of guys smiling.
The game gives you all manner of weapons to wreak havoc as you try to fight off an invasion of robot aliens or something or other. By the way, you’re a ferret-looking creature named Ratchet toting the Swiss Army knife of a robot named Clank as a backpack. Good luck.
Using plasma guns, boomeranging swords, plasma grenades and tornado launchers to bring enemies to heel is just the beginning. As you barbecue the ‘bots, they explode into nuts and bolts that you can gather. Collect enough, and you can upgrade your weapons or buy new noisemakers.
All this plays out against a richly colored landscape so saturated and well-animated that you don’t know if you’re playing a video game or watching a feature- length animated movie.
Futuristic buildings stretch for miles and miles into the sky, inducing a giddy sense of vertigo. It’s an easy game that’s perfect for young boys and men who think like them.
What to see
* Don’t get caught watching the scenery. The colors and animation of the “Ratchet and Clank” universe are beautiful but can be deadly if you don’t focus on running over crumbling mile-high bridges. Don’t look down!
* The “Ratchet and Clank” series is known for its humor; you’ll laugh when the duo are flying a spaceship that decides to switch to automatic pilot.
* It’s tempting to battle every ‘bot, but it’s better to let them shoot at you while you scramble to complete your mission. Just become adept at dodging their fire.
– – –
Cheryl Bowles’ picks
Tomb Raider: Legend
Console: PlayStation 2 Get it: Amazon.com, $19.99 “Tomb Raider: Legend” came out for most platforms in late 2006. It’s shorter than some of the recent games in the franchise but covers a lot of ground–skyscrapers, jungles, an abandoned military facility, temples and more. So you really explore lots of different environments, plus you fight mercenaries, big cats and increasingly bizarre creatures.
The game opens with an event in Lara’s past.
There’s a mystery surrounding this event, which is slowly unraveled throughout the rest of the story. Traverse the world in search of the truth–plus plenty of loot–in Japan, Nepal, England, South America and Africa.
Weapons range from your basic pistols to grenade launchers. Use Lara’s handy grapple to reach high places and swing from branches, and keep in touch with her support team via your headset.
Collect secrets and beat time trials on the levels you’ve completed to unlock extras, such as outfits and superpowers like one-hit kills and “bulletproof Lara.” (You can find the unlock codes at www.ign.com and other gamer sites.)
What to see
* At the very beginning of the Peru level, if you look to the right you’ll see a soccer ball. Give it a boot past the dummy and listen carefully.
* Once you’ve completed the game, go back and beat the Nepal time trial. Then hold down the L2 button and press triangle, X, circle, R1, triangle and L1 in succession to wield King Arthur’s blade, Excalibur (reforged earlier in the game).
* The ending offers a mind-bending twist. It’s well-acted (for a game) and possibly gives a glimpse of what’s yet to come for our sassy, statuesque heroine.
Super Mario Galaxy
Console: Wii Get it: Gamestop.com, $49.99 Mario the plumber is back, and his latest adventure, released in November 2007, is a huge hit for Nintendo’s Wii platform, winning several “game of the year” designations.
It’s fun for Mario fans and newbies alike, and soon you’ll be spending hours zooming through space, collecting star bits and power stars, and unlocking new galaxies–42 in all–in your effort to save Princess Peach from Bowser.
Mario’s got some cool moves. He can stomp, sideflip, high-jump, long-ump and spin, and there are a few nifty power-ups that let him fly, jump like a spring, be a ghost, and be invincible for a short time. Among the fun places to visit: a desert galaxy, a water galaxy, a fire and ice galaxy, a toy galaxy and a haunted galaxy.
What to see
* The Buoy Base galaxy (accessed from the Cosmic Observatory’s kitchen) has a planet that looks like a Pokemon Pokeball.
* Get virtually unlimited star bits in the Sling Pod galaxy, using the launch star next to the observatory’s fountain. Collect all the star bits you can, then die to repeat the level.
More Top Picks Best Reading Pillows For Bed