Jeff Alexander

Tom: This game looks really, really good — amazingly good, in fact — in these opening sequences. Some great water effects, the sound is phenomenal, every Lost Heavenite has a different gait, the buildings look nicely grimy, and the clouds and sun are rendered with crystalline care. I’m told the PC incarnation of this game is even better, but it looks pretty great on the Playstation. Everywhere you look is graphical singularity and differentiation. Already I’m impressed.

Jeff: Are you noticing all the Czech names in “Mafia’s” credits? Look at this: Pavel Cizek, Tomas Hrebicek, Vaclav Kral.

Tom: We inflicted on Eastern Bloc gamers the indignity of “Rush’N Attack.” I don’t believe we have much right to complain if these Czech programmers feel like making sport of U.S. mobster iconography.

Jeff: And this game has an epigraph! It uses Romans 15:1 as an epigraph! Not even “Hitman 2,” the most operatically bombastic game we’ve ever played, had the audacity to use an epigraph.

Tom: And now we’ve got a 10-minute-long intro sequence.

Jeff: I hate this. I just hate it. Video games are not movies. Not yet. The faces are nicely rendered but their mouths and bodies move like animatronic robots. I’d rather hear a well-written voice-over narration with some nice stills than see these clumsily animated “dramatic” sequences.

Tom: Looks like our character, Tommy, is a snitch. He’s talking to a cop about dropping a dime on his boss Salieri.

Jeff: Salieri.

Tom: Whose voice, sadly, is not provided by F. Murray Abraham.

Jeff: It looks like at least a sizeable part of this game takes place as Tommy narrates to this cop his accidental life in the mob, which means you’re playing levels that are flashbacks.

Tom: That’s … kind of odd, isn’t it? If it’s a flashback, and you’re telling someone what happened, how, then, do you die? I confess the narrative implications of this are kind of blowing my mind.

Jeff: And yet you seem to have come to terms with the millions of resurrections you’ve experienced in your life as a gamer. All right. Finally. Here we go. Tommy’s story begins. It turns out he’s a humble cab driver who first crosses paths with the mob when they jump into his cab as they’re running from a rival gang. Go, man! Get them out of there!

Tom: I’m trying. My car is kind of … slow.

Jeff: Are you in a Brubaker or something? A Brubaker’s a car, right?

Tom: I’m not sure. I’m going 30 miles an hour, though.

Jeff: This just now occurred to me: Is it a good idea to create a car-chase game set in a time when going to South Hampton was a three-day journey?

Tom: Lost Heaven certainly looks pretty, though. It’s sort of a greatest-hits cityscape: San Francisco’s bridges, Boston’s row houses, Chicago’s street-hovering Ls.

Jeff: Please speed up. I can’t take this. If I wanted a documentary experience of 1930 I’d rent a Ken Burns movie.

Tom: Be patient — though I have to admit I’m not crazy about “Mafia’s” clarinet-reliant jazz soundtrack. It sounds like a Woody Allen movie’s opening-credit sequence.

Jeff: It says in the instructions here that you have the option of a “speed limiter” to prevent you from speeding. It also says that if you’re ticketed by the cops you have to get out of the car and pay the fine they give you. Is this a driver’s-ed game? Did the highway patrol put this out?

Tom: These games never really reveal their true quality until you’re gunning people down. You know that.

Jeff: This game needs a new slogan. “Go back to a time when cars were slow and crime sucked! Strap yourself into a Model T and turn on your speed limiter: ‘Mafia’ will take you on the ride of your life!”

Tom: Look, we gave them the slip. So now I guess I’m in the mob. Next board is yours.

Jeff: You’re sorely mistaken. We’re not in the mob yet. Before we can join the mob we have to drive around Lost Heaven as a law-abiding taxi driver for an hour. “Mafia” is developing video-game muscles I didn’t even know I had: how to drive 24 miles an hour; how to get from point A to point B without breaking any laws; how to respect life and property.

Tom: I think in the next mission you get to do mob-type stuff.

Jeff: Yeah, maybe we’ll get to load crates of moonshine onto a truck or something. Or toilet-paper a rival gangster’s house. Or go around sticking bananas in people’s tailpipes.

Tom: I’m still willing to give “Mafia” a chance.

Jeff: Sorry, but in my admittedly idealized video-game universe it should not take more than 70 minutes of play to get to the Good Parts.

Tom: Maybe “Mafia” means “boring” in Czech.

“WWE Wrestling: Smackdown! Here Comes the Pain” (THQ)

Tom: I’m so going to smack you down.

Jeff: When did the WWF become the WWE anyway?

Tom: Actually, I don’t know. The WWE lost a legal battle with the World Wildlife Fund or something. I haven’t watched wrestling since I was in junior high. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say any pro-wrestling fan older than 15 should probably be sterilized.

Jeff: Happily, “Smackdown! Here Comes the Pain” gives you plenty of opportunities to play not only as Triple H, the Rock, Vince McMahon, Kurt Angle and other current superstars, but also as WWE “legends” like George “The Animal” Steele, Ric Flair, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Nikolai Volkoff and the Iron Sheik. There’s really no choice. I’m taking George Steele.

Tom: And my word, they’ve really done a loving job rendering the back and chest hair of George Steele, haven’t they? What a weird cultural moment that was, when thousands of people were cheering for a guy on the other end of middle age pretending to be a turnbuckle-eating, semi-retarded ape-man. I’m going with Ric Flair. The figure-four leglock!

Jeff: Very good gameplay. The graphics are excellent. When you punch people, a constellation of sweat explodes off their faces. The moves are fluid and nicely varied — and there are a lot of them.

Tom: While you’re admiring the game, I’m beating you with a foldout chair. I have to say, I rather like this “taunting” button. I taunt you, George Steele!

Jeff: People bleed in this game. You’ve just made the Animal George Steele bleed! I’m fleeing the ring. And somehow I’ve wound up in a parking lot.

Tom: You’ve got a fine wrestling game when you can chase your opponent out of the ring, into the backstage area, into the stadium’s bowels, into the dressing room, out into the garage and finally across the parking lot.

Jeff: Not to mention the fact that you can hop into a forklift and use it as a weapon.

Tom: Or throw manhole covers at each other.

Jeff: Or spray each other with fire extinguishers.

Tom: It really is the little touches, isn’t it?

Jeff: The character-creation options are mind-boggling, and a bit complicated. You can create a wrestler and give him or her everything from a “feminine” style to a “groove” style. And you can customize their movements right down to the angle at which they tauntingly cock their heads.

Tom: OK, knock it off. You could have probably become a WWE wrestler in the time you’ve wasted designing your stupid character.

Jeff: They’ve given us lots of different rings and match options, too. Cage matches, ladder matches, something called “Hell in a Cell”–

Tom: What is this “Bra & Panties” match?

Jeff: I have no idea.

Tom: I believe it’s our duty as professional video game reviewers to find out what a “Bra & Panties” match is all about. I am playing as Torrie Wilson and Jeff is playing as the comely Sable. It’s diva vs. diva in the “Bra & Panties” match.

Jeff: Gosh. I’m going to admit here that I thought “Bra & Panties” was mostly metaphorical.

Tom: Yeah, I know. But the object really is to strip your opponent to her undies.

Jeff: They certainly honor their constituency over at WWE headquarters, don’t they? Do they really have these types of matches? Like, could I catch them on Thursday nights?

Tom: I’m aghast. And strangely titillated.

Jeff: I just tore off your halter top and threw it into the crowd!

Tom: I’m still strangely titillated. Are you getting the feeling that the whole of “Smackdown! Here Comes the Pain” was merely a pretext for these programmers to work out their sexual kinks by animating women savagely tearing off each other’s clothes?

Jeff: I think it’s in everyone’s interests to keep Freud out of these discussions. It’s incredibly fun, though. You have to give the “Bra & Panties” match credit for that.

Tom: I will make a confession, and I don’t know what it means, and I’m not sure I want to know, but we could spend the next six hours tearing the clothes off each other’s wrestlers and I wouldn’t mind.

Jeff: Um, right.

“Winning Eleven Soccer 7″(Konami)

Jeff: Yea, truly this is the Game of all soccer games.

Tom: That’s a bit like saying Home Depot’s Midnight Blue is the best paint to watch dry.

Jeff: Your dislike of soccer, and soccer games, is noted.

Tom: I cite Jonathan Chait’s New Republic piece from July 2002: Soccer is the sport of “shaggy athletic misfits.” Chait reminded us that A) no non-soccer-playing country has ever lost a war to a soccer-playing country, and B) people have been saying soccer is the American sport of the future for going on 25 years. Face it, man: You love a slow, boring, pinko sport.

Jeff: However, sophisticated lovers of sport — true aficionados of what Pelé called “the beautiful game” — will be happy to know that “WE 7″ remains, for sheer gameplay, the best title available. As far as we know. I say that having not yet played Electronic Arts’ “FIFA 2004,” so it’s kind of hard to compare them. But if “FIFA 2004″ is anything like last year’s version, it will be superior to “WE 7″ only in superficial ways: better commentary, music, presentation and what have you. And because EA has better licensing agreements, when you’re playing the Dutch national team, instead of hearing the announcer say “Von Mistelroum,” as he does in “WE 7,” he’ll properly say “Van Nistelrooy.” But if you can look beyond the cosmetics, this game is great.

Tom: Van Nistel-what?

Jeff: The great Dutch striker. He plays for Manchester United.

Tom: Oh. All I remember is that “WE 6′s” commentary was so laughably bad that we had to change the language to Spanish or German so it would sound better.

Jeff: That feature, alas, is missing in this incarnation. But check out the improvements in the way the players move, the way the ball bounces around. It’s really astonishing — these programmers have had to recreate physical laws from the ground up, and in this game, unlike any other sports title I’ve played, I feel like all the Newtonian laws are at work. The referee is bit quick to pull out the cards, though.

Tom: “Gallaraga passes to Garralaga. Rallagera passes to Gallaraga.” Remember that “Simpsons” bit? Hilarious. That episode was just savage on soccer: “Fast-kicking! Low-scoring!” And we all know “The Simpsons” is never wrong.

Jeff: Look at this. Just enjoy the ballet of soccer. It feels just like a real game. The subtleties of midfield passing, the slow build up until you can exploit the defense’s weaknesses …

Tom: Feels like a real soccer game to me. We’ve now played three games. Total number of goals scored: two.

Jeff: That’s because they’ve made it so lifelike. All of these AI opponents behave with such plausibility that I can’t just dribble up the entire field and shoot. At the difficult level, the game forces you to play soccer. Except for the fact that you can smoke cigarettes while you do it.

Tom: You know, everyone complains about American culture poisoning the world. Does anyone ever complain about European culture and its lame-ass soccer manifestations poisoning our culture? I resent soccer and everything it stands for.

Jeff: We’re going into golden goal overtime!

Tom: God help you.

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.