Phil Villarreal

Word has it that Nintendo only went with Kid Icarus: Uprising as the subtitle for its new Kid Icarus 3DS game only after ‘Wristbreaker,’ ‘Carpal Tunnel Provider’ and ‘What the Eff is Up With These Controls?’ options didn’t test well in focus groups.

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Like a grizzled veteran who rocks a shelf full of MVP trophies and is unthreatened by any up-and-comers on the farm system, ‘MLB 12: The Show‘ no longer has the eye of the tiger. Instead, it just coasts, does the awesome things you expect it to do and calls it a day.

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‘Street Fighter X Tekken’ reminds us of that bathtub scene in Billy Madison when Adam Sandler pits a bottle of shampoo and conditioner in a deathmatch. It’s nearly as ridiculous a proposition — and somehow just as fitting — to pit the two-dimensional, projectile-happy Street Fighters against the 3D shuffle-meisters from the world of Tekken.

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All those ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ books you read as a child have prepared you for ‘Mass Effect 3.’

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Last Man Standing are articles intended to help the average guy prepare for some of life’s oddest events. It’s just advice. It’s better than being clueless.

Unless you’re a multimillionaire suiting up for an American League

The new trend is for game publishers with just-crazy-enough-to-work sequel ideas to release the games as bite-sized, stand-alone downloads that look and feel just like the disc-based games. That’s how ‘Red Dead Redemption’s’ straight-shooting cowboy John Marston ended up tangling with zombies in ‘Undead Nightmare’ and superhuman rail-surfer Cole Phelps of Infamous infamy ended up becoming a vampire in Festival of Blood.

Now half-crazy pulp fiction author Al

When you’re pinned to the canvas with knuckles in your ribs, a knee in your kidney and hundreds of pounds of sweaty man-flesh urging you to tap out before you lose consciousness, it’s definitely time to re-evaluate what you’re doing.

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You met ‘The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim’ and fell in love at first dragon bite. You gazed into its eyes and started to spend all your time together, questing looting and slaying. It was true love.

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Playing ‘NeverDead‘ is like being granted the power of invulnerability, only to have to use it to take your mother-in-law to a dentist appointment.

The developers were onto something with the concept here — Playing as smart alec, centuries-old demon hunter Bryce Boltzmann, you ha

Part of the reason we limped out of college with a five-figure student loan debt were those hours spent at the student union arcade playing ‘NFL Blitz.’

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