Also this issue:

Shiny & New
-Nancy Armstrong, Debra Auspitz, Deborah Bolling, Daniel Brook, Juliet Fletcher, Lori Hill, Frank Lewis, Ted Mann, Patrick Rapa and David Warner

Birthday Presents
The gift-giving big leagues are on display at the Art Museum.
-Debra Auspitz

Home on the Range

Discs for Your List
DVDs that won't disappoint.
-Sam Adams

Wrappers Delight
It's all about the presentation.
-Juliet Fletcher

Box It Up
Why buy one cd when you can have a whole set?
-A.D. Amorosi, Nate Chinen, Jesse Delaney and Patrick Rapa

Technically Speaking
-Ted Mann, Chris Newborg and Patrick Rapa

November 21-27, 2002

cover story

Get Game

Five picks for video game gift-giving.

Living in the '80s

Anyone who misspent his or her youth in arcades in the '80s will remember Dragon’s Lair. Unlike any game of its time, it featured cartoon-style animation delivered via laserdisc. If I remember correctly, it was also the first to break the quarter barrier by charging 50 cents per play. Because the control scheme was so simplistic in design, all three games in the 20th Anniversary DVD box set (Digital Leisure, $59.95) are playable not only on the PS2 and Xbox, but on any DVD player with a remote. The set includes the original Dragon’s Lair, Space Ace and Dragon’s Lair II: Time Warp.

Then there’s the game parents love to hate and the media loves to bash. Equal parts Scarface and Miami Vice, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (PS2, $49.99), Rockstar Games’ successor to megahit Grand Theft Auto 3 has flown off the shelves, selling four million copies in its first two weeks. Vice City transports the main character back to the ’80s for some free-wheelin’, drug-runnin’ fun. Complementing the on-screen action is the most extensive soundtrack ever included in a game. Boasting over 100 songs from the decade of excess (and its own seven-CD soundtrack box set) Vice City is truly a groundbreaking game -- and further proof that however offensive it is to some, virtual violence is a hell of a lot of fun. Chris Newborg

Maximum Exposure

Major retailers including Wal-Mart, Circuit City and Best Buy have all declined to carry BMX XXX(Acclaim, for GameCube, PS2, Xbox, $49.99) -- so you know its good. Sony has even requested that Acclaim remove topless female images from the PS2 version, stating that the nudity posed a threat to the brand. Oddly, however, Sony has only demanded such censoring for the North American version, not the European. If that bastion of kiddie games, Nintendo, doesnt have a problem with it, why does Sony? Anyway, because youve been nice this year, Xbox and GameCube owners, Santa will have lots of boobies for you. Chris Newborg

One Rings Rules Them All

Not all Dungeons & Dragons players are the same. I played a lot as a kid, and my friends and I bent the game's many rules with abandon; we were far less concerned with minutiae like how much slower a dwarf with 16 strength would run if he upgraded his armor to plate mail than we were with slaughtering as many creatures and stealing as much loot as demi-humanly possible. Other D&D players, however, take the minutiae very seriously. I had a few one-knight stands with groups that would spend hours outfitting their characters, learning new languages and walking around town talking to people. Always, for some reason, in British accents. The designers of The Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of The Ring video game (Universal Interactive, for PS2, Xbox, PC, $49.99, Gameboy Advance, $29.99) probably were D&D players of the latter sort. The game begins, appropriately enough, with Frodo Baggins (who looks and sounds like Davy Jones of The Monkees) learning from the wizard Gandalf the disturbing truth about the cool ring Uncle Bilbo left behind. But before you can get on with the adventure, you have to find the key and deed to Bilbo's house and sell it. Thrilling, no? After an hour of such nonsense, punctuated by numerous pointless conversations with other hobbits, I was disgusted. And the real action that followed (over the course of the game, you alternate between Frodo, Aragorn and Gandalf) wasn't nearly engaging enough to make up for the bad first impression.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (EA Games, for PS2, $49.95), on the other hand, benefits not only from access to footage from director Peter Jackson's stunning adaptations of Tolkien's books, but from the same delight in hand-to-hand combat with monsters that kept my friends and me interested in D&D for years. The action begins suddenly -- one minute you're watching the opening sequence of Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring, the next minute you're controlling Isilidur in the battle at the foot of Mount Doom. More battles follow -- no real estate transactions here -- and the fighting is bloody and furious (after each melee my whole body was tense). Here you can choose between Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli, and I, being of elvish descent (shut up), chose Legolas. He's a badass, but even on the easy setting, every level is challenging.

Just as Jackson's adaptation was respectful of Tolkien's work but also mindful of the differences between literature and film, the Two Towers game is true to the movie without getting bogged down in plot points that don't matter to players most interested in body count. If I didn't need my remaining vacation time for the holidays, I'd take a couple days off just to get in touch with my inner elven warrior. Frank Lewis