To the game room!

What to give when your gamer is
Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed-ed out

by ERIK LEIJON

So your copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Assassin’s Creed 2 are worn out and you need something new? Or perhaps you’re simply a lost soul looking to make amends this holiday season by giving the gift of gaming? With such a daunting selection of games lining the shelves of your nearest retailer, this year will be an especially tough one on holiday shoppers in search of that perfect present, the one that screams, “I love you but can you please leave me alone to my glögg and almonds?”

Many people are still stuck on the starting block, but luckily buying a video game console has never been easier on the wallet. The Sony Playstation 3 now comes in a new, slimmer format with a 120 GB hard drive and a $300 price tag (a 250 GB slim version retails for a heftier $350). The Nintendo Wii is still the spendthrift gamer’s choice, at $210. Although it comes in multiple variations, the best Microsoft XBox 360 package is the Elite console, which is usually bundled with a couple of games (depending on where you shop) and costs $300.

Pocket playas

For those who take public transportation, especially when everything slows to a crawl during the coldest months, a portable console could be considered a sanity-saver. There’s a new, slide phone-inspired Playstation Portable called the PSP Go ($250) and it has ditched the UMD disc format for flash memory. It’s more convenient, but the downside is old UMD games don’t work on the Go, forcing gamers re-buy them from the online store. The Nintendo DSi ($180) is the latest version of the DS system, armed with a couple of digital cameras and its own online store.

In terms of stuffing your stockings with games, the aforementioned MW2 and AC2 are the biggest yuletide logs of the bunch, and can be purchased in snazzy collector’s packages. Modern Warfare 2 Prestige Edition ($170 for the Xbox 360 and PS3) comes with an art book and metal case, but the kicker is a set of actual, honest-to-goodness night vision goggles. The XBox 360 and PS3 limited editions of Assassin’s Creed 2 ($90) comes with an Ezio figurine, artwork and bonus discs with the soundtrack and behind the scenes footage. Finding either in stores is unlikely at this point I’m afraid—they’re called limited for a reason. To eBay hunters, I bid thee good luck.

Be your own Partridge family!

Nothing brings the family closer than strumming plastic instruments and playing the latest music rhythm games. Everyone knows the Guitar Heroes, Rock Bands, SingStars and Dance Dance Revolutions, but this year the Guitar Hero brand is switching from fake guitars to fake turntables in DJ Hero ($130) for the X360, PS3, Wii and PS2. The turntable controller features three note buttons on the faux spinning record, as well as sound effect knobs and a crossfader. All the songs in the game are brand new mash-ups, with plenty of old school hip hop classics.

If this Xmas is a make-it-or-break-it one for family unity, there are plenty of all-ages affairs. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are still kicking butt into their 20s, and TMNT: Smash Up ($50) for the Wii finds our four half-shelled heroes in a Super Smash Bros. clone. Local studio Ubisoft Montreal returns to the slopes in the Wii-exclusive Shaun White Snowboarding: World Stage ($50). It uses the Wii balance board ($100) as a makeshift snowboard. On every conceivable game-playing device, FIFA Soccer 10 ($35) should fill that pre-World Cup void—although there’s no way to recreate the thrilling Algeria-Egypt qualifying match (sorry, Little Maghreb).

For young ’uns and seasoned puzzle gamers alike, DS game Scribblenauts ($30) will both improve your vocabulary and revive your love of brainteasers. Presented with tricky missions, players can write down the name of an object using the stylus pad, and poof! it will appear on screen to assist your little problem solver.

STILL KICKING BUTT: TMNT Smash Up

For the pro

Hardcore gamers are perhaps the hardest people to shop for given their tendency to pick up the holiday season’s biggest hits the nanosecond they hit stores. There are some games that weren’t preceded by midnight madness retail hijinx, so demonstrate your gaming IQ with a couple of addictive-as-crack role-playing games new to shelves. Developer BioWare’s spiritual follow-up to Baldur’s Gate, Dragon Age: Origins ($50 for PC, XBox 360 and PS3), and the Diablo-esque PC-exclusive dungeon crawler Torchlight ($50) are every bit the quality of their forefathers.

A few familiar faces are returning to spread some Xmas cheer. Wii owners can now traverse the Mushroom Kingdom with four players in New Super Mario Bros ($50). A new Zelda, entitled Spirit Tracks ($35), is available for the DS. PS3’s best game in 2008, LittleBigPlanet ($40), can now be enjoyed in portable form on the PSP.

Grand Theft Auto 4 has a couple of side quests, The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony, now available on one Xbox 360 disc ($50). With God of War III ready to crack skulls in 2010, PS3 owners can revisit the two PS2 originals on one PS3 greatest hits disc. And because some people are obsessed with zombies 365 days a year, Left 4 Dead 2 ($50) is the PC/360 sequel to last year’s epic undead kill-fest.