Action & Adventure Video Games

This sequel to 2007's on-rails offshoot of the Resident Evil franchise stars characters Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield for more "survival shooting" action from a first-person perspective. Once again the gameplay involves pointing your Wii Remote at the screen to gun down zombies and other ghastly creatures created by the nefarious Umbrella Corporation. Scenes will automatically advance at key points, allowing you to simply focus on aiming and firing. A new twist to the action is an evade system that involves using the Wii Remote to minimize damage received from the horrors lurking within each setting. Solo players can team up with a computer-controlled partner or join forces with a friend for simultaneous shooting. Weapons can also be upgraded and customized before each scenario. ~ Scott Alan Marriott, All Game Guide

Taking its story and setting from the concurrently released TriStar Pictures feature film, Planet 51: The Game is a mission-based driving adventure, set on an alien planet that is oddly familiar. In something of a role-reversal, players take control of Captain Chuck Baker, an astronaut explorer who lands on the strange planet, believing it to be uninhabited. Instead, he finds himself in the midst of picket-fenced suburbs, reminiscent of 1950s America -- except for the "little green men"-like inhabitants, who treat Chuck exactly like the alien invader that he is. The play of the game involves exploring the 3D suburban world from a behind-the-back, third-person perspective, sometimes on foot but usually in a vehicle, and accomplishing tasks such as reaching a distant location or escaping from pursuers. As in the computer-animated movie, the ultimate goal, ostensibly, is to recover Chuck's lost spaceship.

Chuck can commandeer essentially any vehicle he comes across in this travels, including family sedans and motorcycles, taxi cabs and cop cars, and even heavy-duty trucks or zippy riding lawn-mowers. Different cars and trucks have different power and handling, and although the vehicles on Planet 51 hover instead of roll on wheels, most rules of the road still apply. Rules are made to be broken, however, especially when you're a giant alien on the run from a frenzied mob. Chuck can also break from the main story, to interact with various characters from the film in side-quests and various mini-games. In some sequences, players can take control of Lem, the young alien boy who befriends Chuck, and his pet robot Rover, making use of their special skills and abilities to overcome game-world obstacles or beat special challenges. ~ T.J. Deci, All Game Guide

Players return to a virtual playroom re-creation of the iconic movie series in LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues. As in LEGO Indy's Original Adventures, gamers play through famous scenes from the films, with 3D characters and settings created completely from colorful LEGO building blocks. The 2009 sequel game features scenes from all four feature films, including the most recent Indiana Jones movie, The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Some characters have new moves since the first game, and new vehicles are available to re-create well-known movie scenes on boats, motorcycles, and mine carts. In a feature new to the LEGO movie game series, players can also create their own levels, using an almost unlimited supply of blocks. Custom levels can be built completely from scratch, or created by altering and adding to the pre-designed levels included in the game. As in the Indiana Jones original and other LEGO movie games (LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Harry Potter, LEGO Batman), players can collect objects hidden throughout the game world to unlock playable characters. More than 60 hidden artifacts in The Adventure Continues can be collected and used to unlock Crystal Skull characters such as Marion Ravenwood and Mutt Williams, as well as supporting characters and villains from throughout the film series, such as Short Round and Indy's father, Dr. Henry Jones Sr. ~ T.J. Deci, All Game Guide

Based on Walt Disney Pictures' 2009 animated film, The Princess and the Frog for Wii features 30 mini-games set within five New Orleans hub locations. Each mini-game supports up to four players for party-style competition. You'll participate in frog races, show off your rhythm in dance contests, play multiple instruments, and more. Eight playable characters are available from the movie, and you'll be able to earn collectible Mardis Gras beads to spend on fabrics, ingredients, and recipes. You can then use these items to create outfits for lead protagonist Tiana, cook Cajun food, and participate in various other lighthearted activities. Owners of the DS version will also be able to unlock bonus items by linking the two games together. ~ Scott Alan Marriott, All Game Guide

Nintendo's signature series returns to its side-scrolling roots with new levels, new power-ups, and a host of multiplayer modes in New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Players choose to guide Mario, Luigi, or two versions of Toad through a variety of colorful worlds on another quest to rescue Princess Peach from the clutches of Bowser. As always, the game worlds are filled with pitfalls and enemies, but players can fight back thanks to the new ice flower, which allows them to hurl snowballs, the new propeller mushroom, which lets gamers float through the air, and the new penguin suit, which provides surer footing in icy environments. The game makes use of a classic Super Mario Bros. control scheme, though propeller-suit actions and the spin jump incorporate the Wii Remote's motion sensitivity. Multiplayer action comes in both competitive and cooperative forms, letting up to four gamers interact with the environment and one another in a variety of helpful or hurtful ways. ~ Christopher Brown, All Game Guide

The developers of Carnival Games invite Wii gamers back for more mini-game madness with over 40 activities under the big top in Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Players can use their Wii Remote and Nunchuk to juggle, keep their balance in the high-wire act, or swing through the air on the trapeze, while the game also supports the Wii Balance Board for a number of mini-games. As many as four people can compete in eight multiplayer activities, and gamers can unlock more than 100 distinct prizes, including costumes, posters, and balloon animals. ~ Christopher Brown, All Game Guide

Rabbids Go Home finds Ubisoft's raving mascots growing tired of Earth and ready to return to their lunar home, but rather than take a spaceship, they decide to collect a massive pile of human junk and simply climb to the moon. To accomplish their task, the lunatic lagomorphs commandeer a shopping cart and speed through 15 different environments in a Katamari-like effort to collect as much stuff as possible. The materialistic humans won't let go of their precious junk without a fight, however, so they deploy hordes of "Verminators" who are intent on wiping out as many Rabbids as possible. Gamers can use a variety of high-powered upgrades to turn their shopping cart into a runaway wrecking ball, racing through more than 40 missions in a fast-paced symphony of havoc and destruction. ~ Christopher Brown, All Game Guide

Created in conjunction with the direct-to-video computer animated movie, the interactive edition of Barbie and the Three Musketeers follows the story of the teen-aged country girl Corinne, who realizes her dreams of following her father's life of swashbuckling adventure, through side-scrolling action, adventure, and puzzle-solving gameplay. As in the movie, Corinne is joined by her friends Viveca, Renee, or Aramina, the three new musketeers, each with different strengths and a unique special ability. Players can take the roles of any of these main characters, who can defeat onscreen opponents with moves such as ribbon whips, Chinese fans, and grapples, as the young women make their way across the countryside to the grand city of Paris. Sword-fighting skills will come in handy, but diplomacy and dancing are equally important, especially as the story comes to a head at the grand ball. ~ T.J. Deci, All Game Guide

Jurassic: The Hunted is a fast-paced first-person shooter that sends players back through time, to pit them against the monstrous creatures that ruled the title era. Survival itself is the greatest measure of success, as the player is challenged to outgun and outsmart aggressive oversized enemies such as raptors, Triceratops, and Tyrannosaurus. Various game modes have players scavenging the prehistoric environment for useful weapons and equipment, defending makeshift fortifications under siege, and in all-out boss battles and arena fights against giant, ferocious opponents. A bullet-time styled "adrenaline burst" feature allows players to slow the action down during key sequences, for a one-time chance to take careful aim at a dinosaur enemy's most vulnerable points. The budget-friendly game puts players in the role of expert survivalist Craig Dylan, who has been hired to help protect a team of researchers investigating a temporal distortion on a heretofore-unknown island. When Dylan is mysteriously pulled backward through time to the era of the dinosaurs, he has only his wits and his weapon skills to keep him from becoming some terrible lizard's lunch. ~ T.J. Deci, All Game Guide

Young gamers can join the pint-sized heroine Dora and her friends Boots and Allie as they head off to restore color to the Crystal Kingdom in this adventure game from 2K Play. A Greedy King has stolen all of the crystals that give the kingdom its wonderful color, and only players can help Dora and her friends jump, climb, and run through levels to recover the jewels and restore order to the land. Levels take place in such fanciful environments as a butterfly cave, a land of dragons, and a castle in the clouds, and the "Helper" feature lets parents use a second controller to jump in and assist their children. ~ Christopher Brown, All Game Guide