Fall Video Games: Hard-Core Gamers vs. Everyone Else

HARD-CORE GAMES GAMES FOR THE REST OF US Must-Have In Halo 3, the Xbox 360’s killer app returns with vastly expanded sci-fi battlefields, state-of-the-art online frag-fests, and an auteur function: You can direct HD videos of your latest conquests—then broadcast them all over the Internet. Air guitar can’t compete with the new Les Paul wireless guitar designed for Guitar Hero III—or the suite of instruments that allow you to jam (online or off) with your friends in Rock Band. Fight! Fight! Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is the best-looking game of the fall—but who wants to be on a contemporary battlefield? Instead, escape into the horrific underwater dystopia of BioShock. Games are usually humorless, but Raving Rabbids 2 goofs off with Looney Tunes–ish mayhem. Fight insane, evil rabbits by flailing around the room with your Wii in nonsensical mini-games, like spit-into-the-rabbits’-beer-mugs. Brave New Worlds Slip into the vast immersive space of Assassin’s Creed to kill off the leaders who launched the Crusades, or galaxy-hop in the wildly sophisticated intergalactic adventure Mass Effect. Nintendo’s Super Mario Galaxy reboots gaming’s favorite stout Italian in a slick, silly space-age fantasy, complete with a nonsensical Bee Movie–style bumblebee costume.

Fall Video Games: Hard-Core Gamers vs. Everyone Else