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A fighter for the red team escapes with rescued royalty in the non-gore version of “Fat Princess.” The game also is available in more violent version.

Two princesses addicted to cake are the focus of the cute and comical (yet surprisingly bloody) game “Fat Princess.” “Fat Princess” plays like a hybrid of real-time strategy and hack-and-slash action mixed with zone control and capture-the-flag game play, with the princesses as the “flags.” The game is best played online with a group of up to 31 others – 16 to a side, with missing player positions filled by computer-controlled bots. Players can also set up a game against the computer.

There’s a story mode that serves as a primer for the various game types here and tells a cute story about why the princesses are fat (the cake they crave is magical) and why they’re imprisoned in opposing castles for the players to storm – but it’s more a bonus than a proper campaign.

In the main mode, “Rescue the Princess,” the blue princess is imprisoned in the red base, the red princess is in the blue base, and each side is trying to storm the enemy castle and haul its princess home. There are several battlegrounds, each with its own quirks, secrets and alternate routes to the enemy HQ.

The rescue plan is complicated by a few factors, among them the heavy doors and high walls of each fortress, the fighters streaming endlessly through their gates and the fact that, if given enough cake, the princesses will fatten up and become difficult to carry off. They’ll lose the extra bulk if they’re not kept well-fed.

Each base has several buildings that produce hats. Players start out as weakling Villagers, but when they pick up a hat, they become the class it represents – Worker, Ranger, Warrior, Mage or Priest. All buildings can be upgraded to produce better hats that grant a second ability to each class.

Workers are the most versatile. They can construct defenses and seize weapons, swing their axes as weapons, and when upgraded, they gain small bombs for ranged fighting.

All these features carry over to the second princess-centric game mode, Snatch N Grab, which doesn’t allow players to fatten up their captives. Instead, each side has its own princess and tries to kidnap the other team’s royalty a set number of times for victory.

There are two play modes the princesses don’t participate in. Team Deathmatch has each side trying to win a war of attrition while Invasion revolves around control of the towers scattered around each map.

Combat is chaotic but fun, and defeated fighters fall in a splash of blood (and tiny limbs, sometimes), though the gore can be toned down or turned off.

PICKS AND PANS

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood

3 stars

A prequel to 2007’s “Call of Juarez,” “Bound in Blood” has players guide Ray McCall and his brother Thomas through an Old West adventure. Most levels allow the player to choose between them.

After the McCall brothers desert their Confederate unit to protect their family home, they end up fleeing a vengeful colonel with their youngest brother, a priest in training, before becoming outlaws.

Ray is the tougher one, able to haul around heavy guns and hold a revolver in each hand, kick open doors and throw dynamite. Thomas is quicker – he only uses one gun, but he’s suited for ranged and silent attacks, carries knives and can use a lasso to climb to otherwise unreachable areas.

Each brother has his own method of targeting multiple enemies in slow motion for quick takedowns. And whichever sibling is chosen, the other will tag along under computer control (the lack of a cooperative mode is a missed opportunity).

“Bound in Blood” has a pretty robust online mode with a Western-style spread of game types and character classes. The graphics are quite nice, but the mostly brown and gray palette makes it hard to pick out foes against the environments, especially online.

Microsoft Xbox 360, also for Sony PlayStation 3, PC; $59.99 ($49.99 for PC) • Age rating: Mature

Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box

3 stars

Another set of fiendish puzzles is in store for the professor and his assistant Luke in “Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box.” This time around, the pair is trying to solve the death of one of the professor’s mentors, who believed he had found the near-mythical Elysian Box, a strange container said to bring death to whoever opens it.

The tale the game tells is interesting and charmingly done, with plenty of spoken lines and odd characters to meet. The bulk of the game is as it was in the first – Layton and Luke solve lots and lots of puzzles in the course of the story; new puzzles can be downloaded each week.

The puzzles range widely in type and difficulty, from trying to determine an apartment’s location through clues to figuring out which end of which key opens a lock, to arranging items in a suitcase. Special coins can purchase hints, but beware: Pick the wrong answer and the number of points (called Picarats) earned for solving the puzzle goes down.

Nintendo DS; $29.99 • Age rating: 10-plus

– Justin Hoeger

Call of Juarez

A fighter for the red team escapes with rescued royalty in the non-gore version of “Fat Princess.” The game also is available in more violent version.

Two princesses addicted to cake are the focus of the cute and comical (yet surprisingly bloody) game “Fat Princess.” “Fat Princess” plays like a hybrid of real-time strategy and hack-and-slash action mixed with zone control and capture-the-flag game play, with the princesses as the “flags.” The game is best played online with a group of up to 31 others – 16 to a side, with missing player positions filled by computer-controlled bots. Players can also set up a game against the computer.

There’s a story mode that serves as a primer for the various game types here and tells a cute story about why the princesses are fat (the cake they crave is magical) and why they’re imprisoned in opposing castles for the players to storm – but it’s more a bonus than a proper campaign.

In the main mode, “Rescue the Princess,” the blue princess is imprisoned in the red base, the red princess is in the blue base, and each side is trying to storm the enemy castle and haul its princess home. There are several battlegrounds, each with its own quirks, secrets and alternate routes to the enemy HQ.

The rescue plan is complicated by a few factors, among them the heavy doors and high walls of each fortress, the fighters streaming endlessly through their gates and the fact that, if given enough cake, the princesses will fatten up and become difficult to carry off. They’ll lose the extra bulk if they’re not kept well-fed.

Each base has several buildings that produce hats. Players start out as weakling Villagers, but when they pick up a hat, they become the class it represents – Worker, Ranger, Warrior, Mage or Priest. All buildings can be upgraded to produce better hats that grant a second ability to each class.

Workers are the most versatile. They can construct defenses and seize weapons, swing their axes as weapons, and when upgraded, they gain small bombs for ranged fighting.

All these features carry over to the second princess-centric game mode, Snatch N Grab, which doesn’t allow players to fatten up their captives. Instead, each side has its own princess and tries to kidnap the other team’s royalty a set number of times for victory.

There are two play modes the princesses don’t participate in. Team Deathmatch has each side trying to win a war of attrition while Invasion revolves around control of the towers scattered around each map.

Combat is chaotic but fun, and defeated fighters fall in a splash of blood (and tiny limbs, sometimes), though the gore can be toned down or turned off.

PICKS AND PANS

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood

3 stars

A prequel to 2007’s “Call of Juarez,” “Bound in Blood” has players guide Ray McCall and his brother Thomas through an Old West adventure. Most levels allow the player to choose between them.

After the McCall brothers desert their Confederate unit to protect their family home, they end up fleeing a vengeful colonel with their youngest brother, a priest in training, before becoming outlaws.

Ray is the tougher one, able to haul around heavy guns and hold a revolver in each hand, kick open doors and throw dynamite. Thomas is quicker – he only uses one gun, but he’s suited for ranged and silent attacks, carries knives and can use a lasso to climb to otherwise unreachable areas.

Each brother has his own method of targeting multiple enemies in slow motion for quick takedowns. And whichever sibling is chosen, the other will tag along under computer control (the lack of a cooperative mode is a missed opportunity).

“Bound in Blood” has a pretty robust online mode with a Western-style spread of game types and character classes. The graphics are quite nice, but the mostly brown and gray palette makes it hard to pick out foes against the environments, especially online.

Microsoft Xbox 360, also for Sony PlayStation 3, PC; $59.99 ($49.99 for PC) • Age rating: Mature

Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box

3 stars

Another set of fiendish puzzles is in store for the professor and his assistant Luke in “Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box.” This time around, the pair is trying to solve the death of one of the professor’s mentors, who believed he had found the near-mythical Elysian Box, a strange container said to bring death to whoever opens it.

The tale the game tells is interesting and charmingly done, with plenty of spoken lines and odd characters to meet. The bulk of the game is as it was in the first – Layton and Luke solve lots and lots of puzzles in the course of the story; new puzzles can be downloaded each week.

The puzzles range widely in type and difficulty, from trying to determine an apartment’s location through clues to figuring out which end of which key opens a lock, to arranging items in a suitcase. Special coins can purchase hints, but beware: Pick the wrong answer and the number of points (called Picarats) earned for solving the puzzle goes down.

Nintendo DS; $29.99 • Age rating: 10-plus

– Justin Hoeger

Call of Juarez

A fighter for the red team escapes with rescued royalty in the non-gore version of “Fat Princess.” The game also is available in more violent version.

Two princesses addicted to cake are the focus of the cute and comical (yet surprisingly bloody) game “Fat Princess.” “Fat Princess” plays like a hybrid of real-time strategy and hack-and-slash action mixed with zone control and capture-the-flag game play, with the princesses as the “flags.” The game is best played online with a group of up to 31 others – 16 to a side, with missing player positions filled by computer-controlled bots. Players can also set up a game against the computer.

There’s a story mode that serves as a primer for the various game types here and tells a cute story about why the princesses are fat (the cake they crave is magical) and why they’re imprisoned in opposing castles for the players to storm – but it’s more a bonus than a proper campaign.

In the main mode, “Rescue the Princess,” the blue princess is imprisoned in the red base, the red princess is in the blue base, and each side is trying to storm the enemy castle and haul its princess home. There are several battlegrounds, each with its own quirks, secrets and alternate routes to the enemy HQ.

The rescue plan is complicated by a few factors, among them the heavy doors and high walls of each fortress, the fighters streaming endlessly through their gates and the fact that, if given enough cake, the princesses will fatten up and become difficult to carry off. They’ll lose the extra bulk if they’re not kept well-fed.

Each base has several buildings that produce hats. Players start out as weakling Villagers, but when they pick up a hat, they become the class it represents – Worker, Ranger, Warrior, Mage or Priest. All buildings can be upgraded to produce better hats that grant a second ability to each class.

Workers are the most versatile. They can construct defenses and seize weapons, swing their axes as weapons, and when upgraded, they gain small bombs for ranged fighting.

All these features carry over to the second princess-centric game mode, Snatch N Grab, which doesn’t allow players to fatten up their captives. Instead, each side has its own princess and tries to kidnap the other team’s royalty a set number of times for victory.

There are two play modes the princesses don’t participate in. Team Deathmatch has each side trying to win a war of attrition while Invasion revolves around control of the towers scattered around each map.

Combat is chaotic but fun, and defeated fighters fall in a splash of blood (and tiny limbs, sometimes), though the gore can be toned down or turned off.

PICKS AND PANS

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood

3 stars

A prequel to 2007’s “Call of Juarez,” “Bound in Blood” has players guide Ray McCall and his brother Thomas through an Old West adventure. Most levels allow the player to choose between them.

After the McCall brothers desert their Confederate unit to protect their family home, they end up fleeing a vengeful colonel with their youngest brother, a priest in training, before becoming outlaws.

Ray is the tougher one, able to haul around heavy guns and hold a revolver in each hand, kick open doors and throw dynamite. Thomas is quicker – he only uses one gun, but he’s suited for ranged and silent attacks, carries knives and can use a lasso to climb to otherwise unreachable areas.

Each brother has his own method of targeting multiple enemies in slow motion for quick takedowns. And whichever sibling is chosen, the other will tag along under computer control (the lack of a cooperative mode is a missed opportunity).

“Bound in Blood” has a pretty robust online mode with a Western-style spread of game types and character classes. The graphics are quite nice, but the mostly brown and gray palette makes it hard to pick out foes against the environments, especially online.

Microsoft Xbox 360, also for Sony PlayStation 3, PC; $59.99 ($49.99 for PC) • Age rating: Mature

Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box

3 stars

Another set of fiendish puzzles is in store for the professor and his assistant Luke in “Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box.” This time around, the pair is trying to solve the death of one of the professor’s mentors, who believed he had found the near-mythical Elysian Box, a strange container said to bring death to whoever opens it.

The tale the game tells is interesting and charmingly done, with plenty of spoken lines and odd characters to meet. The bulk of the game is as it was in the first – Layton and Luke solve lots and lots of puzzles in the course of the story; new puzzles can be downloaded each week.

The puzzles range widely in type and difficulty, from trying to determine an apartment’s location through clues to figuring out which end of which key opens a lock, to arranging items in a suitcase. Special coins can purchase hints, but beware: Pick the wrong answer and the number of points (called Picarats) earned for solving the puzzle goes down.

Nintendo DS; $29.99 • Age rating: 10-plus

– Justin Hoeger

Call of Juarez

One-on-one fighting games such as “Street Fighter IV” have always been the main focus of the genre, but tag teams can be fun, too. “Marvel vs. Capcom 2″ and “The King of Fighters” series have three-on-three matches a central feature, each in their own way.

“Marvel vs. Capcom 2,” which has been around in various incarnations since 2000, is now nice and cheap on the Xbox 360 and PS3’s download services. Players can select any of the game’s 56 characters from the start – earlier versions required some of the fighter roster to be unlocked through play, a feature that’s not missed this time around. Online play has been introduced in these new versions, a first for the series.

The fighters are culled from numerous Capcom properties – popular ones like “Street Fighter” and “Mega Man” and more obscure series such as “Darkstalkers” and “Captain Commando.” The Marvel half of the lineup includes a broad selection of heroes and villains – Spider-Man, Iron Man, Dr. Doom, Venom, Wolverine, Magneto, the Hulk and many more.

Players control one fighter at a time from their chosen team of three, and with the touch of a few buttons a player can call backup fighters in to take over or to assist with an attack.

The fighting is flashy and chaotic, and often hard to follow, but the controls and special attack motions are pretty much burned into the brains of fighting-game fans by this point. The game is simpler and less balanced than “Street Fighter IV” – some characters are way better than others – but there’s still room for strategy.

“King of Fighters XII” also has players choose a team of three, but they can’t be tagged in and out of the fight at will. Instead, players choose the order they’ll fight in – if one is defeated, another will fight in the next round.

The action is more measured and deliberate than that of “Marvel vs. Capcom 2.” The game has its own feel, with an emphasis on trying to put the enemy off-balance for a string of attacks, and neat features such as equal simultaneous attacks canceling each other out, but the basic mechanics are similar.

The cast is drawn from several previous installments in the series, and range from the familiar Ryo Sakazaki and the Bogard brothers, Terry and Andy, to newer fighters such as “The King of Fighters XI’s” Elisabeth Branctorche.

PICKS AND PANS

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

2 stars

“G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” is about what one would expect from a video-game companion to the new action film: brainless and loud.

Two “Joes” run and gun through various levels, facing soldiers of the terrorist group Cobra as well as turrets, tanks and other foes. It’s a game about blowing stuff up, and little else.

There are three classes of Joes: Commandos tend to be better up close, soldiers are good midrange fighters, and heavies lay down fire from range. The computer controls the second fighter in solo games, and a second player can drop in to take control at any time.

Each character has a weapon with unlimited ammo; a special weapon that can be used occasionally; and the Acceleration Suit, which grants invulnerability and increased attack power for a short time once charged up.

The arcade-style game play is easy to pick up, and the co-op emphasis is a plus, but its looks are below average, and any difficulty level above the default one has the potential to leave a defeated player cooling his or her heels until the next checkpoint – or the next level.

Microsoft Xbox 360, also for Sony PlayStation 3, PS2, PSP, Nintendo Wii, DS; $59.99 ($29.99 to $59.99 for other versions)• Age rating: Teen

The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask

3 1/2 stars

“The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask” is one of the very few direct sequels in the “Zelda” line, following up the Nintendo 64’s landmark “Ocarina of Time.” The game takes perennial hero Link on a bizarre journey through Termina, a land with only three days before an evil-looking moon crashes into its central location, Clock Town.

Link is cursed and loses his ocarina at the beginning of the game to the wicked Skull Kid (who wears the enchanted Majora’s Mask). But once he regains the instrument, he’s able to reset time to the beginning of the three-day timeline as he searches for a way to stop the moon, keeping any major items he’s collected to that point. (Money has to be left in the town bank to carry over.)

Link gains powers by wearing different masks. He can use them to turn into a plantlike Deku Scrub, a fishlike Zora and a hefty Goron, and other masks grant their own benefits.

The basic mechanics of the game are identical to the “Ocarina’s,” but the endlessly repeating cycle of time makes this a unique adventure.

Nintendo Wii (Virtual Console download); $10 (1,000 Nintendo points) • Age rating: Everyone

– Justin Hoeger

One-on-one fighting games such as “Street Fighter IV” have always been the main focus of the genre, but tag teams can be fun, too. “Marvel vs. Capcom 2″ and “The King of Fighters” series have three-on-three matches a central feature, each in their own way.

“Marvel vs. Capcom 2,” which has been around in various incarnations since 2000, is now nice and cheap on the Xbox 360 and PS3’s download services. Players can select any of the game’s 56 characters from the start – earlier versions required some of the fighter roster to be unlocked through play, a feature that’s not missed this time around. Online play has been introduced in these new versions, a first for the series.

The fighters are culled from numerous Capcom properties – popular ones like “Street Fighter” and “Mega Man” and more obscure series such as “Darkstalkers” and “Captain Commando.” The Marvel half of the lineup includes a broad selection of heroes and villains – Spider-Man, Iron Man, Dr. Doom, Venom, Wolverine, Magneto, the Hulk and many more.

Players control one fighter at a time from their chosen team of three, and with the touch of a few buttons a player can call backup fighters in to take over or to assist with an attack.

The fighting is flashy and chaotic, and often hard to follow, but the controls and special attack motions are pretty much burned into the brains of fighting-game fans by this point. The game is simpler and less balanced than “Street Fighter IV” – some characters are way better than others – but there’s still room for strategy.

“King of Fighters XII” also has players choose a team of three, but they can’t be tagged in and out of the fight at will. Instead, players choose the order they’ll fight in – if one is defeated, another will fight in the next round.

The action is more measured and deliberate than that of “Marvel vs. Capcom 2.” The game has its own feel, with an emphasis on trying to put the enemy off-balance for a string of attacks, and neat features such as equal simultaneous attacks canceling each other out, but the basic mechanics are similar.

The cast is drawn from several previous installments in the series, and range from the familiar Ryo Sakazaki and the Bogard brothers, Terry and Andy, to newer fighters such as “The King of Fighters XI’s” Elisabeth Branctorche.

PICKS AND PANS

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

2 stars

“G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” is about what one would expect from a video-game companion to the new action film: brainless and loud.

Two “Joes” run and gun through various levels, facing soldiers of the terrorist group Cobra as well as turrets, tanks and other foes. It’s a game about blowing stuff up, and little else.

There are three classes of Joes: Commandos tend to be better up close, soldiers are good midrange fighters, and heavies lay down fire from range. The computer controls the second fighter in solo games, and a second player can drop in to take control at any time.

Each character has a weapon with unlimited ammo; a special weapon that can be used occasionally; and the Acceleration Suit, which grants invulnerability and increased attack power for a short time once charged up.

The arcade-style game play is easy to pick up, and the co-op emphasis is a plus, but its looks are below average, and any difficulty level above the default one has the potential to leave a defeated player cooling his or her heels until the next checkpoint – or the next level.

Microsoft Xbox 360, also for Sony PlayStation 3, PS2, PSP, Nintendo Wii, DS; $59.99 ($29.99 to $59.99 for other versions)• Age rating: Teen

The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask

3 1/2 stars

“The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask” is one of the very few direct sequels in the “Zelda” line, following up the Nintendo 64’s landmark “Ocarina of Time.” The game takes perennial hero Link on a bizarre journey through Termina, a land with only three days before an evil-looking moon crashes into its central location, Clock Town.

Link is cursed and loses his ocarina at the beginning of the game to the wicked Skull Kid (who wears the enchanted Majora’s Mask). But once he regains the instrument, he’s able to reset time to the beginning of the three-day timeline as he searches for a way to stop the moon, keeping any major items he’s collected to that point. (Money has to be left in the town bank to carry over.)

Link gains powers by wearing different masks. He can use them to turn into a plantlike Deku Scrub, a fishlike Zora and a hefty Goron, and other masks grant their own benefits.

The basic mechanics of the game are identical to the “Ocarina’s,” but the endlessly repeating cycle of time makes this a unique adventure.

Nintendo Wii (Virtual Console download); $10 (1,000 Nintendo points) • Age rating: Everyone

– Justin Hoeger