Contributor: Bob Hoose

This old-school strategy contest packs engaging, turn-by-turn challenges without any of the modern war-game mess.

If you’re as, um, mature as me, when you see the brand Warner Bros. you probably think of a Saturday morning Bugs Bunny cartoon. If you’re my son’s age, you might think of the LEGO Batman game. But, surprise! The big WB isn’t just making games about ca …

Director Joe Penna’s snowbound story of calamity and heroic survival is intense, immersive and emotionally exausting.

A meteor from some unknown point in space crashes to the surface of a small planet and scatters bits and pieces of red-hot space rock over the landscape and oceans. As the quickly cooling rocks sink into the depths they break open releasing tiny microb …

There was a time, not all that long ago, when local schools ran bomb drills just in case a heartless enemy decided to drop “the big one” on us. Kids were instructed to huddle together and hide their heads in the hallway. Or protect themselves from that …

Full disclosure: I have a tendency to happily dig into real-time strategy games like a drooling bulldog into a bowl of Purina. I tell you that because I recognize that this particular genre isn’t everybody’s favorite gaming chew toy—slow-moving, strate …

You’ll find Disney charm and color here, to be sure … as well as some darker things.

The first Devil May Cry game was actually intended as a sequel in the Resident Evil video game series, but it was so uniquely scripted and feverishly active that the decision makers at Capcom determined it should have its own title. So they reworked th …

I was 19 when I stepped off a Port Authority ferry and saw the Big Apple in person for the first time. I had seen big cities before, but nothing even remotely like this. This was New York City, a metropolis with a capital M. There were so many places t …

When the game-designing guys and gals behind Velvet Assassin hit on the idea for their new title, they surely must have slapped each other on the back with collective enthusiasm. I mean, a Lara Croft-type heroine (complete with crisp English accent and …

It’s no wonder that Mario is still strutting his stuff in this E-rated amalgamation of the pipe fitter’s previous adventures.

Laser blasts & whirling blades part of this game’s future. But mostly it’s about things like disco-dancing bombs & laugh-out-loud one-liners.

The never-aging teen sleuth Nancy Drew is bringing more than just her trusty magnifying glass on this adventure. She’s tossing sunscreen and a pair of flip-flops in her bag of essentials, too, as she heads off to a tropical resort. The result is a frie …

This kids pic stands strong, trumpeting solid lessons about unity, friendship and courage in the face of wicked malice.

I don’t want to say they’re ho-hum, but superheroes are everywhere nowadays. And that means that game and movie audiences need more than a run-of-the-mill meta-human crashing through walls and jumping over tall buildings to keep them interested. They l …