Jeff Alexander

Tom: That would be grounds for divorce.

Jeff: I’m taking Ricky Craven in the Tide car. Go Tide.

Tom: I’m going with Jerry Nadeau in the U.S. Army car. So … now we’re racing.

Jeff: We’re racing.

Tom: How about that sound? The whine of the engines. It’s … it’s terrible. This is what hell must sound like. “NASCAR Thunder”? It should be called “NASCAR Overturned Beehive.”

Jeff: They’ve tried to sex it up with this “rivalry” option, whereby if you ding someone, their I.D. button turns red and they hate you and try to hurt you.

Tom: I’ve already managed to stir to anger an extraordinary number of drivers.

Jeff: I can sense there’s a lot of subtlety in this game, but I suspect most people who play it are not terribly interested in the delicate art of the tarmac duel. They want to run cars off the road and see things explode.

Tom: Which is clearly implied on the back of the game’s packaging. That screen shot right there is a car frozen in midflip.

Jeff: Whereas we’re having a hell of a time destroying any cars at all.

Tom: This game provides all the excitement of real NASCAR. Which is a big problem, to my mind.

Jeff: This is basically 3-D “Frogger.” You’re just moving and occupying space.

Tom: “Frogger” with sideburns and a Skoal sponsorship.

Jeff: It doesn’t even look that good. The graphics are really grainy.

Tom: Our inability to engage in drive-by shootings or drop oil slicks is a serious flaw.

Jeff: Not to mention the product placement. It’s everywhere these days in sports games, but “NASCAR Thunder” takes it to new lows. The back of the car I’m blocking right now says, “See your local Dodge dealer.”

Tom: Or don’t.

Jeff: I bet you could get really good at this. But who cares?

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004″ (Electronic Arts)

Jeff: I was skeptical when the elaborate intro began and showed a kilt-wearing, Roddy Piper simulacrum doing the splits to the commissioned “Tiger Woods PGA Tour” hip-hop soundtrack.

Tom: For some bizarre reason, one of the special “unlockable” players is Cedric the Entertainer.

Jeff: It’s strange. But I have to say, based on the create-a-player option alone, this game is amazing. For my character’s eyebrows, I can select “unibrow” as a trait. I can give him freckles, a Spanish nose, widen or slim his eyes. I can make his face wide and pasty. Look, I made Eric Stoltz from “Mask”!

Tom: Does the FBI have access to this technology?

Jeff: You can even program his “positive” and “negative” responses. My guy’s going to shoot the gallery a peace sign when he performs well.

Tom: You’ve created a player with no teeth. And dressed him like a junkie. I played a little with my character before you got here, and I’ll have you know he has already been approached by Nike to sign a sponsorship deal. You’re going to be lucky to get approached by St. Ides malt liquor, looking like that.

Jeff: Golf is in his blood. It doesn’t matter what he looks like.

Tom: We’re playing a skins game at Pebble Beach. Our computer-controlled opponent is the well-known pro Colin “Monty” Montgomery, who is nicely turned out in his Lloyd’s TSB visor.

Jeff: Who is dead, so dead. For such egregious product-placement alone, he’s finished.

Tom: I’ve just shanked my tee shot into the rough.

Jeff: You’ve got to keep your head down. You’re leaning back when you move the controller. Take your time.

Tom: Look at this! The tees have divot marks in them! And listen. Birds, waves. I can practically smell the grass. There’s a light mist creeping across the fairway. Unbelievably lovely graphics. And I don’t even like golf.

Jeff: The animations are fantastic. My junkie golfer just picked up some grass and threw it to test the wind speed. And you doubted him.

Tom: I have to take issue with these commentators and their Tory accents. “That one was just frighteningly bad.” Did you hear that?

Jeff: You need to get your head in this game. Notice how when you zoom in on the hole to figure out the lie, the soundtrack gets all ghostly and Matrix-y.

Tom: And on important shots, you hear a heartbeat, and the controller starts pulsing in your hand. Incredible.

Jeff: Despite the fact that Monty just walked away with the skin, the bastard. Did that commentator just say I sucked?

Tom: Monty’s second shot was just … well, it was devastating. He laid it up right next to the pin.

Jeff: In our lives we’ve waged battle against worthy opponents, from the fetus-shaped dragons of Atari’s “Adventure” to the dumb if persistent ghosts of “Pac-Man.”

Tom: We’ve single-handedly saved bubble-domed cities from nuclear incineration, and we’ve fought off Darths Vader and Maul.

Jeff: We’ve established drug empires in “Vice City” and taken them down in “The Getaway,” shotgunned zombies in a haunted mansion in “Resident Evil,” and gone head-to-head with Kobe and Shaq at Rucker Park.

Tom: I remember.

Jeff: But we have met our nemesis in Colin “Monty” Montgomery. Who just birdied, stealing yet another skin. Meanwhile I’m yards away from the hole, and you, despite your Nike sponsorship, are in the bunker. He’s exploiting our shaky short game and tour inexperience. Have you ever felt so humiliated, so humbled?

Tom: Still, I would pass up sex to play this game.

“Star Wars: Rebel Strike: Rogue Squadron III” (LucasArts)

Tom: I’ve stuck with LucasArts and its “Star Wars” games for a long time now.

Jeff: I pretty much topped off at the Atari version of “The Empire Strikes Back.”

Tom: You missed a lot of good stuff. You missed “Shadows of the Empire” on Nintendo 64, which was incredible, and “Rogue Squadron I,” which was even better. You missed “Obi-Wan” on the X-Box, and “Bounty Hunter” on PlayStation 2. And of course you missed GameCube’s “Rogue Squadron II,” which was a real mind-blower.

Jeff: And now we’ve got “Rogue Squadron III.”

Tom: I have been dying to play this. The previous “Rogue Squadrons” were all one-player games and mostly involved dog-fighting, but “Rogue Squadron III” gives you the chance to disembark and walk around. You can even ride Tauntauns against Imperial Walkers, ride your tow cable up to their bellies, toss in a grenade, and drop clear, just like in the movie. It’s also cooperative, which is fantastic.

Jeff: Great.

Tom: Well, I’m excited.

Jeff: Let’s go cooperative. How about the Death Star trench run?

Tom: I cannot believe this. The Death Star trench run is from “Rogue Squadron II.” The cooperative mode is just a fucking rehash of “Rogue Squadron II”! This is deception of Greedo-like proportions.

Jeff: Let’s just play.

Tom: I am not playing the Death Star trench run when I’ve already destroyed the Death Star in LucasArts games about 10 times. “Rashomon” had fewer permutations than this.

Jeff: Let’s race speeder bikes on Endor, then.

Tom: Fine. But this isn’t that fun, either. It’s all just … avoiding trees.

Jeff: The trees look pretty great.

Tom: The game is beautiful. I’m not slighting its graphics. But I’ve seen it before.

Jeff: The hell with this. I’m going solo, as Wedge Antilles. My mission: “Raid at Bakura” in a B-wing.

Tom: Good luck.

Jeff: I’m impressed by these three-dimensional space battles. I like how the Tie-Fighters catch fire from within and spin wildly and explode. All of it’s well done.

Tom: Next mission: “Relics of Geonosis.” This is sort of interesting. You get to find the Jedi Starfighter Obi-Wan left on Geonosis in “Attack of the Clones” and fly it out of there.

Jeff: And yet you look disappointed.

Tom: I am disappointed. I feel like a Padawan learner who just lost his master. Look at the names of these missions: “Deception at Destrillion.” Followed immediately by “Guns of Debrillion.” What’s next? “The Ransacking of Gajillion”?

Jeff: Well, it’s more fun than watching “The Phantom Menace.”

“The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King” (Electronic Arts)

Jeff: This game’s prequel, for a brief time, changed my life. Or at least squandered a huge amount of it.

Tom: Playing as Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli, massacring huge numbers of Orcs and Uruk-Hai, using a staggering assortment of special “killing moves” with names like “Isildur’s Wrath” … it was great fun.

Jeff: The really amazing thing was how seamlessly E.A. blended the game with footage from the first two movies. It looked great, and the levels were just open-ended enough to create the illusion of being in the movie.

Tom: And now, in this game, you can be Frodo, Sam and Gandalf as well. It’s also cooperative. I’m taking Legolas.

Jeff: An interesting personality test, isn’t it? To see who picks who.

Tom: You just picked Aragorn.

Jeff: You’re damn right I did.

Tom: Apparently E.A. could only get Ian McKellen and Elijah Wood and Sean Astin to do voice-over for this one, whereas they had everyone for the first game. That was a huge deal, suspension-of-disbelief-wise.

Jeff: Though not even John Rhys-Davies could have pulled off lines like, “This magic mountain holds many surprises.”

Tom: So the writing this time out isn’t as nuanced. Look at this fighting! Listen to those swords! When you hit an Orc it sounds like a baseball bat whapping a side of beef.

Jeff: Great fighting. Incredible fighting. The moves have gotten even better. “Orc Hewer.” “The Final Judgment.” “Balrog’s Gambit.” I just cut that Orc’s throat — I think. I’m having a hard time, in the fray, figuring out who I am.

Tom: You’re the guy I’m saving from Orcs by filling them with arrows. I also note that your time-tested inability to follow a goddamned map remains as indestructible as Mithril.

Jeff: I’ve told you before, your TV’s too small.

Tom: It’s not small. That’s a ladder. You climb up it.

Jeff: We’re now fighting Tolkien’s oliphaunts on the Pelennor Fields.

Tom: This is spectacular. I may have an orgasm. I’m not kidding.

Jeff: Notice how much smoother the animation is. All I can think about is the poor guy with Ping-Pong balls all over his body running around a studio while they digitally mapped out his movements.

Tom: Which would explain my constant need to save you from Nazgul. Too bad you can’t pick Merry and Pippin. You’d be perfect as them.

Jeff: I’m abandoning you at the Black Gate.

“True Crime: Streets of L.A.” (Activision)

Tom: This is yet another of the rapidly multiplying “Grand Theft Auto” clones in which one cruises around a lavishly mapped city stealing cars and doing little missions, and for which name actors provide the voices. In “True Crime’s” case, Christopher Walken and Gary Oldman. Now, I had a basic moral problem with “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City” — until, that is, I finally played it. I realized how much goofy joy went into the game. The 1980s soundtrack was wonderful. It was hard to take drive-by shootings and assassinating cops too seriously when you’re doing it to a Flock of Seagulls song.

Jeff: “True Crime” looks better than “Vice City,” and the map of Los Angeles is huge and faithfully rendered. I just drove past my friend Annie’s house in West Hollywood!

Tom: The plot follows one Nick Kang, lately of the LAPD’s Elite Operation Division, now on indefinite suspension “due to repeated incidents of excessive force.”

Jeff: What I like about “True Crime” is the expansiveness of the story line. Your actions drive the story. If you behave like a “bad” cop and beat up innocent people and shoot criminals rather than arrest them, the story changes. If you manage to do your missions without hurting innocent people, the story changes again. This “good cop”-”bad cop” status is monitored by a clever yin-yang meter.

Tom: You’re a lot more into this game than I am.

Jeff: I am, but I have one big problem: You can’t change the radio stations, like you could in “GTA,” and it doesn’t have any of the well-written and often really funny radio bits. But the gameplay is fantastic, and the cinematic cut-scenes look much better than those of most of these games. I also like how the action alternates between a fairly intense one-on-one fighting mode — far better than “GTA’s” — and the more basic drive-around-solving-crimes mode. Los Angeles seems suspiciously light on traffic, however.

Tom: It still takes forever to drive anywhere. There are almost too many places to visit. The sheer number of missions is extraordinary.

Jeff: The little touches are nice. You can frisk random civilians looking for drugs, and an inordinate number of putatively law-abiding Los Angelenos seem to be packing heat. Frisk the wrong person, and you’re in a gun battle. And when you gun down a criminal, “Crime Fully Resolved” appears on the screen. I seem to be having a difficult time maintaining my “good cop” status, which raises the question: Has Activision really addressed the basic moral problem of “GTA” by allowing you to be a crooked cop instead of an honest thug?

Tom: Where’s Peter Singer when you need him?

“Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne” (Rockstar)

Jeff: I love Max Payne.

Tom: He of the stiff leather trench coat and Raymond Chandler-esque delivery.

Jeff: It’s hilariously bad writing, but it’s brilliant: “They were all dead. Love kills. Did I love her? Was there a choice? The past is a gaping hole.”

Tom: Max Payne is your basic renegade cop with a slaughtered family, a price on his head, and an alarming painkiller-addiction problem.

Jeff: That was the best thing about Max Payne. The way you got your health back was by finding painkillers. This made scenes of Max rummaging through criminals’ medicine cabinets especially poignant.

Tom: I actually attributed all of the first Max Payne to an extended, painkiller-induced hallucination. I don’t even believe he’s a cop. He’s just some mook from Great Neck.

Jeff: As I keep saying, the cut-scenes of these highly narrative-based games always have problems. The voice acting may be excellent, but they’re often clumsily animated and way, way too elaborate. Witness “The Getaway.” The creators of Max Payne have stepped around all this by making its intersticial sequences comic-book-panel-style art. Max, I am here to say, has a lot of style.

Tom: And this new “bullet-cam” gives it more head shots than a 17-year-old model.

Jeff: And, weirdly enough, dream sequences. Do you remember the nightmare from the first game where you had to follow a bloody trail to the scene of your family’s murder while your baby frantically screamed?

Tom: You had to talk me through that one, if I recall. The thing to point out is that Max Payne is so thoroughly grounded in story — even if it is an irreversibly dorky story — that its violence feels a lot less objectionable than that of, say, “True Crime.”

Jeff: I just love Max Payne. He’s not just a rogue cop like Nick Kang. He’s a massively tormented man plausibly dealing with real problems.

Tom: Plausibly?

Jeff: Don’t try to understand Max Payne. You’ll only embarrass yourself. Now, Part 2 is similar to the first game: creepy, interactive environments; tons of fun gunplay and excellent slo-mo; a clean, uncluttered screen; and a well-paced plot.

Tom: This game, which does look and play terrifically well, is called “The Fall of Max Payne.” Let’s see, the first game ended with Max’s family dead, his career in ruins, his painkiller addiction ruinously untreated, and his tendency to throw Molotov cocktails at unarmed junkies unchecked. How much further can this guy fall?

Jeff: I’m playing until I find out.

“NBA Live 2004″ (Electronic Arts)

Tom: Best sports video-game commentary I’ve ever heard — and I’ve had a lot of well-known sports commentators judge my video-game performance.

Jeff: You really can’t improve on Marv Albert and Mike Fratello. They’ve set the standard here, constantly leavening the action with trivia. If you want to know where Steve Nash grew up in Canada, or by how much Mike Bibby’s three-point shooting has improved since 2002 — and who doesn’t? — “NBA Live 2004″ is your game.

Tom: Great, sneaky little bonuses here. For instance, old uniforms, like the Mavs’ classic green jerseys from the late 1980s or Washington’s pre-Wizards Bullets jerseys, and an all-star team from the 1950s. Bob Cousy, for two!

Jeff: The shot-block sound effect is something E.A. has been trying to get right for several generations now. It’s gone from a thud to an explosion to hardly any sound at all. But listen to that thock as I stuff you. Perfect, beautiful and utterly humiliating.

Tom: The free-throw interface is much improved, play calling is better, there’s a lot more controllable, off-the-ball movement, you can knock away lazy passes, and you don’t have to squint as hard to make it look like an actual NBA basketball game.

Jeff: I would feel remiss and dishonest if we didn’t mention another little game here, called “Street Ball,” which may be my favorite sports game of all time.

Tom: Alas, we should. And this is no “Street Ball,” which is also an E.A. game.

Jeff: It’s really hard to get excited about these expert renderings of hoop realism when, in “Street Ball,” you can go off the forehead of Dominique Wilkins, cross over, jump, bounce a pass off the backboard to street legend Stretch Monroe, and watch him do a Honey Dip dunk.

Tom: “Street Ball” has basically devastated my ability to enjoy this game. Once you’ve gone off the heezay of Isaiah Thomas and dunked on James Worthy, you can never go back.

Jeff: Yes indeed. Strangely, having the actual abilities of Stephon Marbury and Rick Fox pales.

Tom: And it’s a little sad, because I can see a lot of love and effort went into this.

Jeff: In the ongoing battle between video-game realism and cartoonish fun, realism is once again routed.

Manhunt (Rockstar)

Jeff: I’ve just played the first board of “Manhunt.” I feel about how I did when I walked out of Harmony Korine’s film “Gummo.”

Tom: From the makers of “Grand Theft Auto” comes what is quite possibly the biggest fuck-you to the protective parents and concerned educators of America ever. Here’s what the intro screen says: “To best experience Manhunt you should … Turn off the lights … Close the drapes … Lock the door … Then get ready to kill!” I’ll say this: “Manhunt,” at the absolute least, is honest.

Jeff: Delightfully, the difficulty levels are called “Fetish” and “Hardcore.” Let me give everyone a little Manhunt gameplay clue: Pick up a shard of glass, a sickle, a plastic bag, or any number of blunt and/or hideous instruments, find some shadows, hide in them, wait for someone to happen by, and press the X button.

Tom: Whereupon, if you’re really lucky, you’ll see an execution cut-scene.

Jeff: Which as often as not will involve the game’s “camera” being sprayed with arterial blood.

Tom: All of it somehow narrated by the great actor Brian Cox, who is, unsurprisingly, the best thing about this game.

Jeff: Would I feel better about “Manhunt” if its hero were not a convicted murderer? If its milieu were not the undiscovered country of the snuff film? If the slickness of presentation were not equaled only by the pointlessness of its provocation? It manages to be both shocking and boring. It’s the video-game equivalent of a Bret Easton Ellis novel.

Tom: As the old critic said, there is much in “Manhunt” that is good and new, but the stuff that’s good is not new and the stuff that’s new is not good. And I finally fear that playing too much “Manhunt” could well cost someone his or her eternal soul.

Tom: Man, I don’t know, but it’s up there. Why don’t you clue everyone in on old 47?

Jeff: He’s a trained killer with the sense of duty of a British soldier circa 1841 and the sense of mercy of Lucifer. He’s bald, wears a black suit, and has a bar code on the back of his head.

Tom: This is because 47 is a clone.

Jeff: Yes. But most of his line is dead now. He’s one of the last cloned hitmen left. The last game saw him trying to abandon his assassin past and living as the groundskeeper for a quiet church in Italy. That didn’t work out too well for our 47, or ultimately for the fools who kidnapped his church’s priest.

Tom: The last game took 47 from Afghanistan to Kuala Lumpur to St. Petersburg to India on assassin missions, all of which were just phenomenal. The graphics! The action! The options!

Jeff: That’s the great thing about the “Hitman” games. There’s never any one way to do a mission. You can go stealth and try to poison your targets, or strangle them in dark corners, or stab them silently with a knife, or poison their sushi, and not hurt any innocents in the process, or you can be, well, less subtle about it — neither of which the game implicitly rewards. It lets you listen to your dark, sclerotic heart.

Tom: I love how the “Hitman” games rank your performance. “Professional” if you do it really quietly, for instance, and “Psychopath” or “Mass Murderer” if you go guns-blazingly nuts.

Jeff: We should point out that we always try to go for the stealth option…

Tom: But, you know, things fall apart. It’s damned hard! Which brings us to the singular aspect of the “Hitman” games: the dead bodies and costume changes.

Jeff: Unlike most video games, the dead people in “Hitman” don’t simply disappear. You kill someone, and the body just lies there. So you have to hide the bodies — in closets, behind boxes, in shadowy corners. And the bodies are so realistically rendered that while you’re dragging them they flop around unsettlingly and leave a big bloody smear.

Tom: After you knock someone off, you can take his clothes and disguise yourself and walk around. Unless you do something stupid like strangle someone in full view of the guards, your disguise allows you to pass through levels more or less unimpeded. And there’s this awesome little “suspicion monitor” that keeps track of how suspicious you look. How your heart starts pounding when you’re out of ammo, just finished stashing a body in an elevator, and are strolling past a heavily armed guard would be hard to describe for someone who hasn’t played the “Hitman” games.

Jeff: The weapons you can use! Kitchen knives, meat cleavers, pool cues, poison, strangulation cord, sniper rifles, Kalashnikovs. A game for the whole family.

Tom: You know, we should talk about this, since we’re on the record despising a game of similarly violent amorality.

Jeff: Yeah. I know. But the bad guys in “Hitman” really have it coming to them. They kidnap priests! “Hitman: Contracts” opens with Agent 47 waking up in a Romanian bedlam. There are dead bodies and lakes of blood everywhere, people are hung up on cables, and wandering the halls are all these utterly insane guys in asylum-style nightgowns. And then the Romanian SWAT team breaks in looking for you. Speaking Romanian, I hasten to add.

Tom: In the Afghanistan levels of “Hitman 2,” they were actually speaking Dari. The “Hitman” games may be unbelievably brutal, but they’re culturally aware.

Jeff: Are you noticing how much bloodier “Contracts” is compared to “Hitman 2″?

Tom: I am. The programmers have paid unseemly attention to the physics of gunshot wounds in this one. Blood sprays in mists, squirts from wounds, splatters walls and doors. It’s kind of sickening.

Jeff: And notice how differently people react when you shoot them in the leg as opposed to the shoulder or head.

Tom: They must have consulted a trauma surgeon or something. That’s how goddamned creepy it is.

Jeff: Another great thing about “Hitman” is the innovative option menu, which allows you to do multiple things at once, like drag a body, open a door, and open fire on innocent bystanders all at the same time.

Tom: You’re going for the “Mass Murderer” ranking, I see.

Jeff: Might as well. My cover’s already blown.

Tom: I like the way 47 moves. Whether he’s leaning around a corner, sneaking around, garroting someone, reloading his weapon, or running backwards, he looks cooler than any action star.

Jeff: Do you have a thing for 47?

Tom: I think 47 could use a guy like me as a moderating influence in his life. Maybe he wouldn’t be so angry if he had someone to love.

Jeff: I don’t know if I’m disappointed or relieved that they didn’t mess with the “Hitman” formula too much here. It’s not a major leap forward for the franchise in any discernible way, though “Contracts” is much, much, much darker than anything we saw in the previous game.

Tom: Considering that the previous game allowed you to chop up a fat guy in a whirlpool with a bunch of bikini-clad models, that’s saying something.

Jeff: On this second mission, you have to find a kidnapped girl. I just found her. My mission handler, the ever-trusty Diana, just asked, “Can you get her out?”

Tom: And 47 answers, “Some of her.” She’s hanging upside down by a meat hook! There’s blood everywhere. It looks like Leatherface’s kitchen in here.

Jeff: I’ll be executing my mission with extreme prejudice from here on out.

Jeff: I can think of much better reasons not to sleep with you than that. You should calm down. Role-playing is not evil devil-worship. It’s a small, pleasant escape nook for social rejects and the overly imaginative the world over. And really, who are we to judge?

Tom: You’ve reformed quite well, you know. I’ve always admired that.

Jeff: What do you mean?

Tom: I mean I can barely tell you’re a recovering role-player. The only thing that gave it away was how your eyes sparkled when I suggested we review “Champions of Norrath.”

Jeff: They didn’t … sparkle.

Tom: A little. They did a little bit.

Jeff: We’ve taken two hours to read the instruction booklet and here we go: The difficulty levels you can select from are Adventurous, Courageous and Champion.

Tom: I’m definitely feeling only Adventurous. Hey. You know what I always like about Dungeons & Dragons?

Jeff: What’s that?

Tom: The complicated gradations of good and evil. You could make your character good, neutral or evil, but then you could shade it with “chaotic good” or “neutral evil” or “lawful evil.”

Jeff: If only our leaders recognized such careful gradations. The Axis of Chaotic Evil is a much better way of looking at things.

Tom: Bin Laden is very much a chaotic evil figure. Lots of charisma points, though.

Jeff: How about Donald Rumsfeld?

Tom: I’m going to say lawful evil. How about John Kerry?

Jeff: Neutral good.

Tom: Ralph Nader?

Jeff: Definitely chaotic good. The bastard.

Tom: What’s the plot of “Champions of Norrath”?

Jeff: I quote from the instruction booklet: “Kelethin, the treetop city of the Faydwer wood elves, is under siege! … Your auspicious arrival in Kelethin during its darkest hour gives the wood king elf himself, Liethkorias, the glimmer of hope he’s been seeking.” We’re fighting orcs and picking up treasure, in other words.

Tom: OK. I have to say here that the needle of my inner seventh-grader’s gay-o-meter just went crazy.

Jeff: You can play as a Barbarian, a Wood Elf Ranger, a High Elf Cleric, an Erudite Wizard or a Dark Elf Shadowknight.

Tom: Erudite wizard?

Jeff: That’s what it says.

Tom: Huh. They went a little heavy on the elves, didn’t they?

Jeff: That’s the funny thing about the fantasy genre. It promises unlimited imaginative scope, but it’s always the same gallery of elves and rangers fighting some pointy-eared, blue-skinned humanoids by torchlight for gold and funny-named weapons.

Tom: It’s sub-Tolkien humbuggery, I say. Although I do love how when you name your character they give you all these asinine runic letters. Just in case you want your character to be called Ömñösêláákk. Hey, come to think of it, that’s not a bad name.

Jeff: So now we’re walking around. We’ve got a nice God’s-eye view of the action, we’ve armed and armored ourselves, and we’re out in a forest fighting whatever goblins or monsters that come along. Make sure to use your spells.

Tom: I’m not at a high-enough level to use any spells yet.

Jeff: So we kill monsters for a while, garner experience points, then head back to Kelethin to buy better weapons and armor.

Tom: So it’s mostly just hacking monsters and then shopping.

Jeff: They used to call these games “hack-and-slash.” It’s more like “chopping-and-shopping.”

Tom: We’re basically Candace Bushnell with broadswords.

Jeff: I’ll give this to “Champions of Norrath”: Each time you play, the maps are randomly generated. So you never visit the same dungeon twice. And the music is pretty good, too, if a little “Peter and the Wolf”-y.

Tom: We’ve now spent 45 minutes killing things and finding gold and gone back to Kelethin, the shopkeeper of which is called Nenmar.

Jeff: We don’t like Nenmar.

Tom: No. Because the brother gives you jack for your old stuff and charges you up to your eyes for new stuff. Ömñösêláákk has been risking life and limb for this kingdom, and he’s ripping us off. There’s no way these “well built padded leggings” of Nenmar’s are worth 3,000 gold pieces. Though they would go awfully well with my helmet.

Jeff: I see you’re getting into the shopping.

Tom: The fighting is so tedious that the shopping is all I have to look forward to.

Jeff: Look at the names of some of this stuff: “Choker of Embers,” “Masterwork Circlet,” “Earrings of Warding,” “Reinforced Short Pick.” I just picked up “The Ring of Tainting.”

Tom: Sorry about that. I think antibiotics clears it right up. I myself just purchased the “Long Staff of Impairing.” That must be what you get when you hang out with someone with “The Ring of Tainting.”

Jeff: Let’s go fight some more monsters.

Tom: I like walking around talking to people, if only to hear lines such as, “Tunare willing, things will get back to normal before too long.” Tunare willing, whoever wrote that will be hit by a bread truck.

Jeff: We’re back in the forest of Lesser Faydark now.

Tom: Jesus Christ. This game is perilously underfunded imagination-wise. These orcs we’re fighting have wargs!

Jeff: They’re not wargs. They’re called “dire badgers.”

Tom: “Champions of Norrath” is “Beowulf” meets “Lord of the Rings” gets a lobotomy.

Jeff: How’s your gay-o-meter doing now?

Tom: Off the charts. But I want to keep playing if only to get that “Summon Skeleton” spell.

Jeff: G.I. Joe fought against Cobra, right?

Tom: Yeah. And what the heck was the deal with Cobra’s command structure? You had a supreme neo-pagan king in Serpentor, and in Cobra Commander you had a commander-in-chief-type figure who may or may not have had authority over Serpentor, but then you had all these secondary leaders like Destro and Major Blood and the Baroness and Zartan and Storm Shadow.

Jeff: Zartan was…?

Tom: Zartan was the swamp guy. He changed colors in the sun.

Jeff: Right.

Tom: I mean, can you figure out, logistically speaking, how Cobra managed to accomplish anything? How did they delegate power? It’s no wonder an army with only one pilot always managed to beat them. May I ask who was your favorite Joe? Mine was Mutt. Followed by Wild Bill.

Jeff: Actually, I didn’t have G.I. Joe. We were more of a Lincoln Log kind of family. And this Gen X nostalgia is pretty insidious, you know. For one, we’re not that old, and for two, imagine what your little flowchart of Cobra’s command structure has displaced in your brain.

Tom: I used to have Wallace Stevens’ “A Rabbit as King of the Ghosts” memorized. Yeats’ “Easter 1916,” too. Not anymore. But I can tell you the original names of the whole introductory line of Transformers Hasbro introduced in 1984 — and what they transformed into.

Jeff: Maybe we should get to the game “Transformers.”

Tom: You’re just jealous because you can’t name very many original Transformers.

Jeff: No, I can’t. I didn’t have Transformers either.

Tom: Were you home-schooled?

Jeff: No. But could you please answer a question for me?

Tom: Proceed.

Jeff: Why, if the Transformers are from planet Cybertron in another galaxy, do they transform into things found on this planet? Why would robot aliens even know what semitrucks and helicopters look like? And why would Megatron, leader of the evil Decepticons, transform into a pistol perfectly sized for a 10-year-old’s hand? I would think it’s kind of hard to justify that if you’re attempting to stage a realistic Autobot-Decepticon battle.

Tom: You know, it’s not like I have an MFA in transforming or anything.

Jeff: And why do some Decepticons transform into a giant cassette recorder and complementary cassette?

Tom: You mean Frenzy and Lazerbeak.

Jeff: What use is a boombox in robot battle? Was that for psy-op warfare against the Autobots?

Tom: Another good question. I don’t have answers, unfortunately. Neither does Atari’s “Transformers.” This game has one of the most skeletal plots we’ve ever come across in a contemporary video game.

Jeff: It’s true. I’ll try to sum up: Autobots and Decepticons, locked in unending battle. Both want something called “minibots.” These minibots go to Earth. Autobots have to find them before Decepticons. Bang, you’re in the Amazon basin looking for minibots.

Tom: Nota bene: Minibots give you weapons upgrades such as shields, sensors, heat-seeking missiles, and so on. So what’s the game like?

Jeff: I’m told it’s reminiscent of “Halo,” which we haven’t played. Frankly, I’m not so into the whole robots-in-combat thing, a genre whose pleasures seem to me pretty demographically specific.

Tom: You’re suggesting that mostly 10-year-olds like this kind of game.

Jeff: Ten-year-olds, and perhaps those weirdos who build robots for that absolutely bizarre robot-demolition-derby show on USA.

Tom: A message to the world’s Islamists here: Gentlemen, sometimes even we hate our way of life.

Jeff: It’s superfluous to say, really, because these PS2 games are backed by so much graphical firepower, but “Transformers” looks spectacular.

Tom: We’re in the Amazon, driving around as Optimus Prime. It’s big and green and stunning.

Jeff: It’s really disappointing that you can only be three Autobots: Optimus Prime, Red Alert and Hot Shot.

Tom: Optimus Prime, who was once given voice by Orson Welles in the animated “Transformers” movie.

Jeff: Ouch. [Editor's note: Actually, Welles was the voice of Unicron.]

Tom: No, he was really good. After “Citizen Kane,” “A Touch of Evil,” “The Magnificent Ambersons” and that Nostradamus special, I think it was his best project.

Jeff: The really cool thing about “Transformers” is how it’s a really ambitious driving game when you’re transformed and a decent first-person shooter when you’re untransformed. And both are done with an impressive amount of detail, the driving especially. The terrain is so varied that you actually have to do things like find the highest ground so you can look around and figure out where to go next. There are rivers and caves and mountains and they’re all there for you to explore. Plus, when you’re running around as a robot, you leave big robot footprints.

Tom: I like the fighting. When you blow up a Decepticon, the smoking parts go flying everywhere, and a tire from its annihilated body will go bouncing past you. I also like how the load boards are this “warp screen,” which makes waiting for the levels to come up less irritating. They’ve made it seem like you’re actually doing something — that is, traveling through a warp — while you wait.

Jeff: You’re very gullible, then. What is most interesting to me in “Transformers” is how good the enemy’s artificial intelligence is. Look at this: they see you, encircle you, hide, dive for cover … they fight like Viet Cong! But this game’s amazing three-dimensionality gives you plenty of options too.

Tom: Problems for me: Too much of “Transformers” relies on jumping puzzles. Like trying to get across this frozen river in Antarctica. If you don’t perfectly time your jumps from one island of ice to the other, you fall in the water and have to go back to the beginning. I hate this stuff. It drives me crazy. I’m not a laboratory rat. I’m just a guy who wants to blow up Decepticons and find some minibots.

Jeff: The boards are also way too big. It’s a weird complaint to make, because the game gives you so much to do, but the fact is, I’ve got a life to lead, and “Transformers” looks like one of those games you could spend days playing making little to no headway.

Tom: Take a game like “Desert Storm II,” or “Return of the King.” They both seem like they have big worlds, but they don’t in actuality. You’re very subtly guided as to where you need to go. Their hugeness is an illusion, a beautiful one. Games like “Transformers” or those new “Legend of Zelda” games … well, I travel quite a lot in real life. Tell me: Why do I find the prospect of taking Optimus Prime across the unknown tundra more disheartening than actually doing so in real life?

Jeff: I don’t know. But if you were 15 I bet you would love this game.

Tom: That’s quite possible.

Jeff: Maybe if Atari did a “Voltron” game…

Jeff: Only you would regard rumors of an appearance in George Lucas’ diminished franchise as a high point in someone’s career, particularly a performer as cool as Jet Li. Anyway, he’s still huge in Asia.

Tom: So that’s a billion fans right there. And this game, I think, was explicitly made for the Chinese market, seeing that all of it is actually in Cantonese. A brave choice not to redub it for the American audience, I would say.

Jeff: Not so brave is your refusal to buy a new television, you self-styled literary intellectual, which is so small we can’t read the subtitles.

Tom: Yeah, I really think we’re missing out on all the Shakespearean cadences of the dialogue between scenes of Jet Li spin-kicking guys in the face.

Jeff: The big innovation of “Jet Li: Rise to Honor” is the fighting controls. Unlike most fighting games, which rely on the manipulation of the baseball diamond of buttons above the right joystick, “Rise to Honor” relies on the joysticks and only two “action buttons.” Which means you have less control over what kind of moves you’re doing. It’s all just timing and watching the automated moves come to ass-kicking fruition.

Tom: The moves are cool.

Jeff: They’re very cool. The graphics are stunning, the gameplay is smooth, the combos are wonderful. But it’s a little unkinetic. It’s kind of like an extremely sophisticated version of “Dragon’s Lair.” Though this is the first fighting game I’ve ever seen where you can use other people as a melee weapon. You can also throw chairs, aquariums. You can even pummel opponents with a frozen duck.

Tom: Nice move there, knocking that guy down and crushing his chest cavity with a swift and carefully placed heel stomp.

Jeff: Thank you. I wish I could say I meant to do it, but I’m just flailing this joystick around.

Tom: Let’s talk about the other stuff Jet Li can do. He’s like a little Asian Spider-Man.

Jeff: The motion-capture animation really re-creates the violent grace of the best Hong Kong action films. He flips over cars, jumps up buildings, runs along walls. And not a few of his kicks resemble a positively lethal form of break dancing.

Tom: The plot of this, so far as I can tell, is a bunch of Chinese mafia hooey.

Jeff: They’re called the Triads.

Tom: So what do we like here?

Jeff: The game definitely gets better the more you play. It’s fun to watch. There are a lot of save points, which helps, because some of the fights are impossibly difficult.

Tom: Mostly you’re fighting a bunch of sweat-shirt-hooded, somersault-tumbling Adidas ninjas. The levels are good, but they’re a little repetitive. An awful lot of the game involves chasing people to some rooftop and then having a final showdown-type battle, complete with dialogue along the lines of “Let’s see who’s better!”

Jeff: Here’s a question: You’re being chased. Where’s the last place you’d think to run, the one place with zero chance to escape?

Tom: Uh, a rooftop?

Jeff: You’d think so, wouldn’t you?

Tom: I just like the style. Whether outrunning a volley of machine gun fire or staying a step ahead of an assault chopper’s Gatling guns, “Rise to Honor” has a ton of zazz.

Jeff: Zazz?

Tom: Zazz!

EA SPORTS MVP BASEBALL 2004 (EA SPORTS)

Tom: It’s the top of the ninth, and your Boston Red Sox trail the fearsome New York Yankees 2 to 5. Two outs, runners on second and third, one strike, two balls, and Jason Giambi steps to the plate. Tim Wakefield looks in.

Jeff: Hey, Bob Costas, shut the hell up. It’d be a lot closer if I could figure out the defense. I can’t believe you’ve hit two inside-the-park home runs on me during this game!

Tom: Three. I’m always amazed by how much fun these baseball games are to play. There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot to them, yet they’re always terrific fun — almost as much fun as real baseball, except without all the pesky sunlight and distracting fresh air.

Jeff: How do you warm up pitchers again? The setups are really complicated.

Tom: Figure it out yourself. Better yet, send your manager to the mound for a check-in. Great touch, that, even if it is totally pointless. It’s almost as great as the “charge the mound” option after you get beaned.

Jeff: I like the “happiness meter” each player gets. If you visit the mound and destroy the pitcher’s confidence, his happiness decreases and he plays worse. Same with if you put them on the trading block between games.

Tom: What I like most about “MVP Baseball” is the pitching control, which feels really new to me. The whole process requires a fairly delicate touch to achieve the velocity and accuracy needed to four-hit this struggling Red Sox team.

Jeff: Let’s see how you handle Wakefield’s fluttering knuckler. Strike 2!

Tom: To be honest, baseball games haven’t achieved any kind of paradigm shift in recent years as far as gameplay goes, but they do keep improving visually. They’ve nicely rendered Giambi’s batting stance, and Fenway looks good enough to eat a hot dog. Hear that peanut vendor in the stand? They’ve even got the new seats on top of the Green Monster. Although they’d need to stamp the game with a “Mature Audiences” warning to truly capture the atmosphere of a typically disgruntled Fenway crowd.

Jeff: Strike 3! Sit down, steroid freak! OK, Nomar, Ortiz and Manny are up.

Tom: You’re a little bit overinvested in this, don’t you think?

Jeff: Look, I’m a Mets fan, but you chose the Yankees and I wasn’t about to feed the Mets’ anemic lineup to them, even if the game doesn’t reflect the A-Rod trade.

Tom: Mo Rivera deals. It’s a long fly ball to the gap … Matsui dives and makes the spectacular diving catch!

Jeff: Have you noticed how every fielding play in this game is a spectacular diving catch? Thank god there’s no EA Sportscenter. The highlight reel would never end. All right. David Ortiz is up. And he singles!

Tom: Nice hit.

Jeff: Manny Ramirez up.

Tom: It would be nice if you could play with classic teams.

Jeff: They have all the double- and triple-A minor league teams. That’s pretty great.

Tom: Yeah, but wouldn’t it be fun to have Cobb hitting against Gibson? If I were playing Gibson I’d plunk him.

Jeff: Double! And the tying run comes to the plate. Here’s Millar.

Tom: We should probably point out the other unusual thing about this game, which we discovered earlier in the evening. This is the rather odd presence in the San Francisco Giants left field of the rather conspicuously white “J. Dowd” rather than Barry Bonds.

Jeff: Yeah, Bonds dropped out of the MLB licensing deal this year, so we’re stuck with “J. Dowd.” Michael Jordan pulled this crap in a few of EA’s “NBA Live” games and earned the enmity of any number of gamers and basketball fans. Damn again! Ground out.

Tom: And the Yanks are just one out from avenging the real-world sweep at home last weekend. And Jason Varitek steps to the plate. Runners on second and third. Strike 1!

Jeff: I dare you to throw that pitch again.

Tom: Strike 2!

Jeff: This time I mean it. Throw that pitch again.

Tom: Str–

Jeff: It’s a long fly ball. It could be out of there. It’s going, it’s going, it might be, it could be …

Tom: Gee, that’s original. Maybe you should call games for a living.

Jeff: The Red Sox tie it up! The Red Sox tie it up!

Tom: Looks like extra innings. It’s a good thing I’m drunk.

RESIDENT EVIL: OUTBREAK (CAPCOM)

Jeff: You should begin by telling the now classic Tom-playing-”Resident Evil” story.

Tom: I’d actually really prefer not to.

Jeff: Should I tell it, then?

Tom: I would really appreciate it if you didn’t.

Jeff: So Tom is playing “Resident Evil 3″ alone. It’s 3 o’clock in the morning.

Tom: I’m going to jump in here to point out that the “Resident Evil” games are incredibly scary.

Jeff: So I get a call. From Tom. At 3 o’clock in the morning.

Tom: It was more like 1 o’clock in the morning.

Jeff: No, it was 3. I remember it very well.

Tom: It was 2:30 at the absolute latest.

Jeff: As I recall, you were upset.

Tom: Look. It’s a scary game.

Jeff: Quite upset.

Tom: I don’t know why you’re getting into all this.

Jeff: You asked me to come over. You offered to pause the game until I got to your apartment because you were about to enter a room you hadn’t been in before and you only had three shotgun shells left.

Tom: I needed … I was looking for support and friendship. I was going through a lot at that particular point in my life. Not all of it was about “Resident Evil 3.” And anyway, you refused to come over.

Jeff: It was a weeknight!

Tom: I was upset and in need of simple human support and friendship and you declined to help me. And I haven’t forgotten it. Again, “Resident Evil” is a frightening game. Playing it takes a lot out of a person.

Jeff: So that’s the classic Tom-playing-”Resident Evil” story.

Tom: Like you haven’t stayed up half the night playing soccer.

Jeff: I’ve never called you in tears at 3 in the morning, though.

Tom: I was not in tears!

Jeff: In Tom’s defense, the “Resident Evil” games are pretty intense. They are probably the most cinematic games I’ve ever seen, and with their constantly changing camera angles, real-time pacing, and relentlessly creepy and blood-spattered environments, they ushered in a whole new genre, that of “survival horror.”

Tom: Note the “horror” part.

Jeff: Do you want to give us a walk-through of the “Resident Evil” story line? It’s fairly complicated.

Tom: I’m no expert. There are whole Web sites and timelines dedicated to piecing together the story, which is more elaborate and features more dropped narrative threads than “Infinite Jest.”

Jeff: Let’s begin with the first “Resident Evil.”

Tom: Right. You’re a part of an elite force known as S.T.A.R.S., or “Special Tactics and Rescue Squad.” The characters you can control are Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, and you’re aided by Rebecca Chambers, Barry Burton and Albert Wesker. All of you flee some mutant dogs by running into an abandoned mansion. The nearby town of Raccoon City is experiencing a zombie crisis you’ve been called upon to investigate. But no one knows what’s going on. It’s chaos, urban warfare. As it happens, the zombies have spread to the mansion, and you have to go through killing them room by room while finding clues to piece together the conspiracy that created the zombie outbreak.

Jeff: The Umbrella Corporation.

Tom: I’m getting to that. Umbrella is this big multinational research company. Germ warfare, biochemicals, and what have you. So as it turns out, Wesker is a traitor, there’s this big monster called the Tyrant chasing after you, and there are also giant spiders and reptile-human creatures called “Hunters” that are very fast and deadly … and I’m getting upset again.

Jeff: It’s OK. I’m here now.

Tom: So you make it out of the mansion. But Wesker escapes, and the town of Raccoon City is pretty much taken over by zombies.

Jeff: I love that — Raccoon City.

Tom: This is a Japanese game. I think they were trying for some kind of all-American, idiomatic-sounding city name. But I agree, it’s weird. A lot of it is weird. In fact, much of “Resident Evil” gets filed in the little box I keep in my brain marked “Reasons Why the Japanese Are Weird.”

Jeff: And then there’s the elaborately bad dialogue and acting.

Tom: Which is classic. Some great, Japanese-scripted, woodenly acted lines from the first “Resident Evil”: “Lost your courage already?” “I’m sorry for my lack of manners, but I’m not used to escorting men.” “Well, I think I’ll go outside to get some fresh air for a change.”

Jeff: On to “Resident Evil 2.”

Tom: An amazing game. Here you’re Leon Kennedy, a rookie cop about to report for his first day of duty as a Raccoon City cop, and Claire Redfield, Chris’ sister, who’s searching for her brother. You fight your way out of Raccoon City, stumble into the bowels of the Umbrella lab, and again fight the Tyrant at terrifyingly random points. You also learn that something called the “T-virus” is responsible for the outbreak. The game is nonstop, zombie-shotgunning action. A masterpiece. You just haven’t experienced survival horror until you’ve taken a zombie’s head off at point-blank range with a .38.

Jeff: Many of the “Resident Evil” games offer this great concurrent story line, wherein you’re seeing the same boards and story lines from a slightly different angle or just moments after the characters from the last game visited them. It’s an interesting way to create a mythology. Or a zombie soap opera. So now “Resident Evil 3.”

Tom: Right. You’re Jill from the first one again. More zombies, more terror. This one took a lot out of me. I swore off “Resident Evil” after finishing it. I figure life is too short to get that upset.

Jeff: Which means you missed “Resident Evil: Code Veronica,” which I played and quite enjoyed. Wesker comes back in this one, and actually injects himself with the T-virus. Chris and Claire get reunited, and there’s a ve-he-he-ery creepy incest subplot involving blond twins.

Tom: I wouldn’t put incest past Umbrella. Bastards.

Jeff: So here we’ve got “Resident Evil: Outbreak,” which places you in Raccoon City in the midst of the first stages of the city’s zombie-infection. Looks very promising. You can be eight different characters, and rather than one straight story you get different snapshots of action that take place during all three “Resident Evil” games. You can also, to quote the promotional material, “enter the ranks” of the zombies when you die. You can play as a zombie!

Tom: Philosophically, I have to say, I’m opposed to this.

Jeff: “Outbreak” brings back all the classic “Resident Evil” motifs: the standard handgun, the shotgun, the weirdly antiquated typewriters you save your progress with, the even weirder diaries and newspaper clippings you find, the 8 million keys you need to find to open doors, the “green herbs” you eat to restore your health.

Tom: Green herbs! Love the green herbs. You can also find liquor bottles and make Molotov cocktails. But you need the lighter. Wait. I wonder if you can combine the lighter with the green herbs, if you know what I mean.

Jeff: How’s the gameplay?

Tom: Awesome. But unlike previous games, you can’t instantly reload on the inventory screen. You have to sit there and patiently reload while zombies are coming at you. Jesus Christ, hurry up! There’s also a lot more you can do and fight with: pipes, butcher knives, mop handles, flame throwers. Tons and tons of new stuff. You can hold doors shut to keep out zombies! The zombies are faster and more rapacious too.

Jeff: This game does manage the most faithful rendering of death-by-zombie I’ve ever seen.

Tom: Back too is the utter tedium. Waiting for the load screens, for instance, which are longer than ever. Trying to figure out all the “Myst”-like puzzles, for another instance.

Jeff: I like the tedium. It makes the terror that much more punctuated and upsetting. You do realize that a zombie’s eating you right now.

Tom: I’m not used to having to wait this long to reload!

Jeff: Also new in “Outbreak” is how you’re acting in tandem with your fellow survivors. You can give them stuff, take stuff from them, and when they’re hurt and knocked down, you have to help them up and carry them to safety.

Tom: Fuck that. They’re on their own. This is scary enough without having to worry about helping other people.

Jeff: Listen to yourself. You’re no better than the zombies, playing like that. Or Wesker, for that matter.

Tom: I’m running through a hallway and zombies are chasing me. I’m out of ammo. Jeff, I’m telling you: I really hate this game. I don’t like it. It makes me upset.

Jeff: You know, I sort of miss the pool of blood that used to spread out beneath a zombie when you finally, really kill it. Now their undead bodies simply disappear.

Tom: I’m glad you’re feeling relaxed enough to make such desultory observations. But I’m running for my fucking life, here.

Jeff: I also like how clumsy the controls are. Which is by design, I think. You’re not that fast, it’s hard to equip weapons, moving around is sometimes tricky with all the changing camera angles.

Tom: Would you shut your mouth for five minutes? I’m trying to think.

Jeff: You’re limping and leaving behind a blood trail. And the graphics depicting it are just beautiful, too.

Tom: I have so much hatred for you right now.

Jeff: If you’re thinking like that, then the zombies have already won.

Tom: Go to hell.

Jeff: So, in summation, should people buy this game?

Tom: Only if they don’t mind urine stains in their undies. And have better, more supportive friends than you.

Tom: Beatles. “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”?

Jeff: Oh, too easy! Beatles again. “The Man with The Golden Gun”?

Tom: Bond. “Happiness is a Warm Gun”?

Jeff: Beatles. “Goldfinger”?

Tom: Bond. Badfinger?

Jeff: Er–

Tom: Aha! Beatles-produced group! How about “Live and Let Die”?

Jeff: Very nearly both.

Tom: All right. The game is loaded and here we go: Electronic Arts’ feverishly anticipated new James Bond title, “Everything or Nothing.”

Jeff: You really loved the Nintendo 64′s “Goldeneye,” as I recall.

Tom: “Goldeneye” is kind of like the “Ulysses” of video games. It did everything a video game was capable of doing till that point, and it blasted open all these other avenues of possibility. It was just incredible. And it still boasts the finest two-player kill-each-other mode I’ve ever seen. The Bond games since then have been pretty fun, but they were no “Goldeneye.” Rumor is, EA has hit a “Goldeneye”-like milestone with “Everything or Nothing.” I’m moist with anticipation.

Jeff: And I can honestly say I haven’t been this excited to see James Bond in action since 1979′s “Moonraker.”

Tom: Roger Moore is a seriously underrated Bond, I’ve always thought.

Jeff: Well, we grew up with him. He’s the Bond of our youth.

Tom: I always viewed Roger Moore as a likable version of Ronald Reagan. They both had that gentle brown glow of geopolitical reassurance.

Jeff: This credit sequence is amazing.

Tom: Indeed. So far, complete Bond accuracy, right down to the PG-13 nude silhouettes gyrating to Mya’s titular theme song, written expressly for the game.

Jeff: Only in the world of James Bond can a silhouette of a woman brandishing a crossbow be sexy.

Tom: Man, look at this! We start out with Bond disguised as a mujahedin fighter in Tajikistan! Any game that starts out in Tajikistan — and pronounces Tajikistan correctly — is all right by me. Bond goes from Tajikistan to South America to Egypt and back again in this game. That motherfucker must get some serious frequent-flyer benefits.

Jeff: Give EA credit for production values, too. This might be the starriest voice cast ever assembled. It’s got bona fide movie stars like Pierce Brosnan, Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench and John Cleese. Also some actors less known for their shall we say vocal skills — namely, Shannon Elizabeth and Heidi Klum. Notice the care with which the programmers have expertly sculpted their behinds.

Tom: What’s the plot, J? I’m calling you “J” in the overriding spirit of James Bond.

Jeff: Is it OK if I don’t call you “T”?

Tom: Yes, J. It is.

Jeff: It seems that Willem Dafoe plays the evil Russian Nikolai Diavelo, who — and we need to concentrate here — is trying to take over the world. James Bond, though, is out to stop him. And there’s some baloney about nanobots turning the world into gray goo.

Tom: Fucking nanobots!

Jeff: As far as the acting goes, Brosnan really seems to be phoning it in here. He sounds hung over at best and bored at worst.

Tom: As “M,” though, Dame Judi Dench is really giving it her all. That woman is a professional. I wish I had been in the recording studio to hear the various takes of Judi Dench leaning over a microphone to say, “Find a rocket launcher, 007!” Bloody magnificent!

Jeff: Like previous Bond games, the action is pretty strictly structured. You don’t roam about in an open-ended world; nor does “Everything or Nothing” have different endings like, say, “True Crime: Streets of L.A.” But what you sacrifice in “free will”-type gaming you definitely gain in attention to detail — the guns all sound really different, for instance — and in dynamic, jungle-lush graphics. And unlike a lot of pretty games it doesn’t skimp on the quality of the gameplay.

Tom: Just when you think they’ve tapped all the computational power of a given generation of consoles, in this case the Playstation 2, they blow your doors off with something like this. So where are we now?

Jeff: Bond is rappelling down a burning building. I’ve got to set these bombs and …

Tom: Wait a second. James Bond’s secret code for detonating the bomb is “007″? Jesus Christ, I hope he never loses his ATM card.

Jeff: The great thing about “Everything or Nothing” is how well-done each type of board is. There are driving boards and stealth boards and shoot-’em-up boards — a little something for everyone, and they’re all amazingly fun. And I must say that while I’m not usually crazy about driving games, I’m loving the driving boards here.

Tom: It helps that among Bond’s arsenal is an SUV that is equipped with an invisibility cloak and several batteries of rocket launchers. Not the most environmentally friendly vehicle, I assay.

Jeff: His bike’s even better. Using James Bond’s motorcycle, equipped with flamethrowers and a shotgun, might be my favorite thing in this very great game. When you go really fast the horizon stretches away to the onset of an otherworldly sound, and you hurtle into the oncoming traffic at a dangerous, terrifyingly fun speed. Watch me jump to the other side of this bridge.

Tom: You just got a “Bond Moment.” What’s a “Bond Moment”?

Jeff: That’s when you find especially stylish and effective ways of solving a puzzle. Presto, a “Bond Moment.”

Tom: So when you were sneaking through that room earlier and paused to give that naked Russian woman a backrub, you performed a “Bond Moment”?

Jeff: Exactly. You usually get a “Bond Moment” for jumping things, or shooting barrels full of explosives. I’m happy to report to the uptight, humorless sorts of people who believe nothing useful is being taught by video games that the generous giving of a backrub to a half-naked Russian woman is appropriately rewarded.

Tom: I wish my own life had more “Bond Moments.”

Jeff: Sitting here playing video games: Bond Moment?

Tom: I’m not sure. Literally I suppose it would have to be.

Jeff: There’s also this very cool “Bond vision” function, which renders the world in a kind of bluish, Lexus-commercial slow-motion, and gives you the opportunity to scroll through your impressive array of gadgets and weapons. I’ll try my remote-controlled, detonating “Q Spider” here. Oh my God!

Tom: It’s Jaws! Jaws is in the game! And he’s beating the shit out of you.

Jeff: That’s it. It’s settled. Best Bond video game ever. What’s next?

Tom: We could play “Dig Dug” on your iBook. I like “Dig Dug.” It’s no “Tapper” or “Joust,” but it’s fun.

Jeff: “Dig Dug” is to “Everything or Nothing” what the stromatolite is to the sperm whale. Why don’t you want to keep playing “Everything or Nothing”?

Tom: Honestly? It’s that whole “Bond Moment” thing. It’s made me intensely resentful. I’m feeling slightly judged, truth be told. “Dig Dug” doesn’t judge you. And I’ve actually been to Tajikistan and seen mujahedin.

Jeff: But you’ve never given a half-naked Russian lady a backrub.

Tom: You win.