No matter what their malady—major or minor—Victorian-era women frequently received a medical diagnosis of “hysterical” (usually followed by a curt wave out the door). We’re not betting that you’ll find this period comedy even close to that, but it does concern a real-life breakthrough of no small interest: the invention of the vibrator. Everett and Dancy perfect their device, designed to treat the aforementioned diagnosis, behind discreet curtains while patients Felicity Jones and Gyllenhaal enjoy the cure. But don’t go in expecting hard-core action—unless you’re a time traveler from the Victorian era.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier
UBISOFT (XBOX 360, PS3, PC)

If the nonstop firefights of Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3 have left you with post-traumatic stress disorder, consider this latest Tom Clancy–stamped shooter a sort of smart-weapon therapy. The war zones here—scattered from South America to the Middle East—are no less treacherous, but victory depends on more than having the reflexes of a 12-year-old smart-ass assassin. You’ll need to master strategic leadership of your four-man squad and careful use of tomorrow’s weapons.

Future Soldier’s developers recruited the help of Navy SEALs to arm the game with gadgets fit for duty in the next few years. Your arsenal includes remote-control surveillance drones, targeting grenades that mark enemies on your map, and optical camouflage that cloaks your body armor in a see-through shimmer (like the dreadlocked alien from the movie Predator). Commanding your three squad mates is a simple matter of pointing and clicking. (Real-life players assume their roles in coop er ative multiplayer missions.) You can order them to scout ahead, con centrate their shots on a single enemy, or target multiple enemies for one synchronized surgical strike when you pull the trigger. Real-time satellite surveillance provides the lay of the land before you dash into the next area.

Most firefights here are fought from behind cover. You lead your guys from obstacle to obstacle, automatically crouching behind cars and flattening against buildings at the touch of a button. Of course, you can just ignore
all these tactical advantages and send in your squad with guns set to full-auto, but that seems like an oldfashioned
way to play a game called Future Soldier.

Has Baron Cohen’s shtick jumped the shark? His latest “outrageous” character looks, at first glance, like his weakest: a decades-in-power Arab despot with a skanky beard who rules with an iron fist. This minor-league Hussein comes to America, parades down Fifth Avenue, and antagonizes New Yorkers—expect many terrorism jokes, possibly of the boundary-pushing variety. We have doubts about the comic potential here, but very few misgivings about the supporting cast: The sultry Fox plays a high-priced hooker, and the underrated Faris has a sizable role, too. Crucially, Baron Cohen isn’t duping unwitting civilians into fake interviews this time out. Can he make a scripted story fly?

The Young are a practically un-Googleable fourpiece from Austin, and Dub Egg, their second fulllength, is sweet, heavy, and sticky—like barbecue sauce under a hot Texas sun. They mix front dude Hans Zimmerman’s insouciant punk-rock snarl with the chunky guitars of long-haired, seventies-style rock. The crunchy “Plunging Rollers” wouldn’t sound out of place at a particularly smoky planetarium show, and the noodly “Numb” meanders toward a truly trippy bridge. Occasionally, moments of heart-racing beauty soar above the purple haze (“Don’t Hustle for Love”), providing peaks for this addictive, psychotropic disc.

Dragon’s Dogma
CAPCOM (XBOX 360, PS3)

If this game’s initials don’t give you a clue about its theme and setting, then either you’ve suffered a battle-ax blow to the head or you’ve never chucked a 20-sided Dungeons & Dragons die. Yep, Dragon’s Dogma is an epic hack-and-slash ode to serious high-fantasy, rife with dungeons to spelunk, scaly beasts to slay, and perilous quests to check off ye olde to-do list. It’s sort of a gateway adventure for players too shy to sojourn online, and it lets you recruit a party of computer controlled “pawn” cohorts created by other Dragon’s Dogma players. These sidekick sorcerers, warriors, and archers back you up—and even chat you up—just like real-world players, except they never take White Castle breaks or give you lip about loot-splitting.

All those sneak-peak trailers at the end of the Iron Man movies and Captain America: The First Avenger ? Frankly, they’ve meant bubkes to us. We don’t want to incur the wrath of comic-book fans worldwide, but this elite club of superheroes they’ve been touting is strictly for higher-level geeks, not casual fans of the genre. But The Avengers is finally here, and some of these characters have grown on us: Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark is wittier than most action heroes, while Chris Hemsworth’s Thor turned out to be unexpectedly likable for a Nordic lunkhead. But all eyes will be on Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner (he’s the third actor to fill the role in nine years), Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye, and Johansson’s sultry Black Widow. The studio is hoping they’ll help draw the nongeek vote, and put this blockbuster combo-platter over the top at the box office.

Jack White is nothing if not considerate. On this, the former White Stripes frontman’s first solo album since dissolving his dynamic duo, he acclimates listeners slowly, trackby- track, to his more stately status quo. On the opener, “Missing Pieces,” White wakes up with a nosebleed in the shower while a Hammond organ toots and grooves. “Sixteen Saltines” is a familiar icky thump, spiked with some sexy Stratocaster onsense about Magic Markers and licking fingers. But eventually White’s piano slides toward center stage. The ballroom bliss of the title track and the ivory-tickling “Trash Tongue Talker” make it plain that the 36-year-old has changed his bright stripes for more age-appropriate, understated tones.

You don’t need to have played 2010’s cinematic adventure Alan Wake to dive into this downloadable pseudo sequel. A stand-alone game (meaning you don’t need the original to play it), American Nightmare opens with the titular flashlight-wielding writer transported to one of his own creations—the campy, creepy, made-for-TV town of Night Springs. Here, story takes a backseat to action as Wake takes on waves of Taken, the psychotic desert dwellers that go bump in the game’s perpetual night. Manuscript pages scattered around town fill in the backstory for newbies, but they’re more worthwhile for the weapons they unlock, including sawedoff shotguns and power tools. Bonus arcade modes flesh out the package, making the $15 game a killer deal.

Unlikely source aside, spirits are high for this action-thriller based (extremely loosely) on the final days of Edgar Allan Poe’s life in Baltimore. A serial killer is on the loose, committing atrocities inspired by the fictional works of the famed author, who is enlisted by the local constable to help track him down. As the unwitting impetus for the murders, and the inventor of the detective novel, Poe is uniquely suited to the task. Director James McTeigue (V for Vendetta) is due for a smart breakthrough, and the casting of Cusack as the hyper-verbal hero is spot-on.

Everything about Lissy Trullie screams rock ’n’ roll chic: She’s a former model and Manhattan party fixture whose foxy androgyny is tailor-made for the cover of an album. The only thing that doesn’t live up to Trullie’s alluring image, unfortunately … is her album. The self-titled disc, produced by a downtown-hipster dream team of John Hill (Santigold) and Dave Sitek (TV on the Radio), aims for the detached swagger of Chrissie Hynde, but winds up a wan pretender. Opener “Rules We Obey” stumbles when it should swagger, and the somber single “Madeleine” would put Nico to sleep. The fizzy “X Red” livens things up a bit, but the rest is simply too chilly to be cool.

A different sort of futuristic shooter, this first-person update to a classic PC strategy game pits its hero—a trench-coat-clad company man-against evil corporate drones instead of the usual alien armadas. Your arsenal of upgradable energy weapons is straight out of 2069, but you’ll never climb the corporate ladder without using your head. More specifically, a chip in your skull augments your senses and lets you assume control of enemy agents. This hacking ability adds a layer of strategy to each firefight, although single-player missions and the cyberpunk scenery become slightly repetitive after a while. The four-player coop er ative mode is more fun, focusing on action and tactics. Building synergy with online colleagues is the best way to play Syndicate.