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.

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.

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.

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.

HOT SHOTS GOLF: WORLD INVITATIONAL
SONY (PS VITA)
Rating: 3 out of 3 stars

If you’re looking for a PS Vita launch game that shows off all the system’s bells and whistles, don’t bother teeing this up. Despite some token uses of the touch screen, multiplayer network, and tilt features, the game plays nearly the same as every previous console version in the series. In other words, you can practically tear through the well-designed courses with one hand. But that’s what makes Hot Shots such a great on-the-go golf experience. The one-finger stroke meter gets you right into the swing of things—pun intended—letting you challenge online opponents with virtually no learning curve. Unlockable gear and saucer-eyed golfers make it clear this game was made in Japan, but that’s all part of the charm.

Mold your own slugger from the minors to the World Series in this latest installment of the juggernaut baseball franchise. MLB 12 improves the Road to the Show career mode with new spring-training minigames that really do ramp up your skills, if you put in the time. Meanwhile, the entire on-field experience features more realistic physics, truer-to-broadcast presentation, better integration with online play, and enhanced control options (including swing support for the Move gadget). The PS Vita version is compatible with saves from the PS3 game. If you own both versions, you can start a game in your living room and then take The Show on the road.

Known for its titillating girl-on-alien-girl sex and intergalactic blasting, the Mass Effect series is more accessible for the average dude than your typical fantasy-flavored roleplaying game. This final installment is the most action-crammed yet, a grand space opera with Gears of War–style combat. (It even offers cooperative online missions.) Newbies can dive right into the game’s galaxy-spanning war to save Earth without feeling too lost, although series vets will enjoy seeing the consequences of moral choices made in previous installments. Xbox 360 gamers with a Kinect peripheral can issue voice commands during combat and dialogue scenes. Gimmicky? Sure. But it does free up the hands during those sex scenes.

This is a hard-charging snowboarding simulator for people who think ESPN’s X Games are for sissies. SSX plunges players down real-world mountain ranges re-formed with reality-defying tricks in mind. A new physics engine and a lack of boundaries let you grind any line and soar from any precipice in the Himalayas or the mountains of Africa, Alaska, and Antarctica (all rendered from NASA satellite data). And the developers have added a new goal to the Racing and Trick modes of previous SSX titles: survival. Players compete to see how far they can fly downhill before succumbing to avalanches, whiteouts, or exposure. New networking features even let you “like” your favorite drops and seek out global competitions.

You’d expect monster vehicles, inventive weapons, 16-player online matches, and sprawling battlegrounds in a reboot of the road-rage-fueled franchise that perfected offensive driving on the consoles, but Twisted Metal offers at least one surprise: cooperative gameplay, where teammates can combine their cars’ potential for vehicular manslaughter. Pull your hot rod into the trailer of your buddy’s 18-wheeler, for instance, and you can man its turret for extra drive-by destruction. A new helicopter gunship—the first airborne vehicle in the series—is equipped with a magnet that can pluck teammates to safety. Plus, new destructible environments make for satisfying collateral damage, especially during road trips through the malls.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
ELECTRONIC ARTS (XBOX 360, PS3, PC)

Ten millennia of high-fantasy history—penned by best-selling author R. A. Salvatore—set the backstory of this ambitious sword-and-sorcery epic. Unlike games that pigeonhole your abilities once you choose your warrior or thief or sorcerer, Reckoning lets you customize your character deep into the adventure. Spawn artist Todd McFarlane, who inspired the landscapes and creatures, and the role playing pioneers behind the Elder Scrolls titles complete Reckoning’s dream team of developers. Whether they’ve wrought a world worth exploring remains to be seen, but at least they didn’t skimp on loot: Millions of weapon and armor combinations await your discovery.