The top 10 video games of the holiday season

1. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (Sony PlayStation 3. Mature) Naughty Dog/Sony. This game could have been a tired sequel in the tired action adventure category, as with ethical treasure hunter Nathan Drake returning and two women contending to be his main sidekick. But Naughty Dog raised the bar with great cinematics, outstanding 3-D art that fully exploited the power of the PlayStation 3, and combat scenes that were executed well. You feel like you’re taking part inside a Hollywood blockbuster, scaling dizzying heights, dueling with helicopters, taking out enemies while atop a moving train, and solving a series of puzzles related to finding the lost city of Shambhala in the Himalaya mountains. The game has breathtaking landscapes, a decent story with fleshed out characters and great execution on the details. It’s also a long experience with 26 different chapters, and it has a decent multiplayer experience. This game is consistent from beginning to end, pulling together great elements from good music to awesome sound. That’s why this game is one of the best video games of all time. If Sony can keep on making games like this one, it will make itself into a real contender in this generation of video game consoles.

2. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 (PS 3, Xbox 360, and PC. Mature). Infinity Ward/Activision Blizzard. The single-player campaign comes with a controversial civilian-shooting scene and a plot that has some mighty strange twists. The plot was such a stinker I decided not to name this as the best game of the year. But the action is truly riveting as no one delivers a feel for the experience of modern warfare as Infinity Ward. You can participate in a wide array of tactical combat scenes and choose from all sorts of weapons. That includes Predator drones, Stinger missiles, and sniper rifles with thermal sites. The game really shines with multiplayer combat, where the action is intense as you fight it out in street battles among the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, caves in Afghanistan, and the White House itself. Modern Warfare 2’s multiplayer gaming is addictive because there are so many rewards built into the game, even for those who aren’t playing good. I live for the kill streak rewards in multiplayer that allow you to rain down Predator strikes on the rest of the players.

3. Halo 3: ODST (Xbox 360, Mature). Bungie/Microsoft. This game was just supposed to be an expansion pack, but in 14 months, Bungie managed to create a cool new game in the Halo universe that has enthralled nearly 30 million gamers since 2001. You play an “orbital drop shock trooper” who drops into the African city of New Mumbasa to save it from a nasty Covenant surprise attack. These soldiers aren’t as powerful as Master Chief, who isn’t in the game, and that makes you play in a different way as you take on the aliens. Your efforts are just a kind of rear-guard action in a doomed defensive effort. The game comes with Fourth Wall Studios’ Sadie’s Story, a game within the game that is a audio play which reconstructs the story of the city’s fall through the eyes of a civilian. It’s a creative addition to the game. The multiplayer combat is fun, but not that much different from the experience in Halo 3.

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4. Assassin’s Creed II (Xbox 360, PS 3, Mature) Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft. This stealth-oriented title was one of the most successful original games in 2007, and now in the first week of sales the title is up 32 percent over the 2007 performancein the same period. This title has a new lead character in a new time. The previous game was set in the Crusades, but now Assassin’s Creed II has moved into the Renaissance, in the time of Leonardo and the Medici. You play a nobleman-turned-assassin, Ezio Auditore da Firenze. The game features outstanding art direction that really makes you feel like you’re amidst the canals of Venice, Florence and the Italian countryside. The assassin is armed with knives that pop out of his sleeves, but you can also disarm foes and use their weapons against them. The object remains to sneak undetected through a crowd, pounce on your victim, and then make your escape. This game is Ubisoft at its best, executing on the stealth combat genre.

5. Brutal Legend (Xbox 360, PS 3, Mature). Double Fine Productions/Electronic Arts. This is probably the most creative and unique titles of the season, or maybe in the history of gaming. It springs from the brain of star developer Tim Schafer, one of the funniest people in games. The game is a sci-fi combat game that is a heavy metal fantasy. You play a Eddie Riggs, a rock band roadie modeled after actor Jack Black who gets hurt in an accident and wakes up in a supernatural world full of monsters, thugs, demons and rock and roll legends. As Riggs, you have a battle axe in one hand and a guitar in another, pursuing enemies in a 64 kilometer square open world. You drive around in a hot rod with flame decals and fight off enemies with your guitar tricks and recruit as your soldiers “headbanger” miners who crack rocks with their own heads. Schafer says the game originated from his fantasies about heavy metal rock album covers. The soundtrack brings back memories, and the game’s story includes animated characters based on metal rock stars such as Ozzy Osbourne, Lita Ford, and a host of others. Despite its sometimes horrific and blood-soaked scenes, this game is one of the funniest I’ve played.

6. Borderlands (Xbox 360, PC, PS 3, Mature). Gearbox Software/Take-Two Interactive. This game managed to garner good sales in between major releases, and that’s because this brand new property was a lot of fun. It’s a first-person sci-fi shooter game with role-playing elements, not unlike last year’s Fallout 3 game, set in a wasteland society on a desert planet. But the style of animation is unique; it has a non-realistic, comic-book style “cel shading” art that seems both realistic and far out at the same time. You play a scavenger, fulfilling missions so that you can earn more currency to spend on weapons and possessions. You can pick one of four combat types and kill foes to earn bounties, a la the Wild West. Since every bullet costs you money, you have to think about exactly how you’re going to dispatch foes without spending your entire hoard replenishing your ammo or weapons. It makes you feel like a miser, but you’re rewarded if you’re a sure shot. I was glad to see Take-Two make a bet on an original shooting game.

7. Batman Arkham Asylum (Xbox 360, PS 3, PC, Mature) Rocksteady Studios/Eidos/Warner Bros. Interactive. This game came out in August, but it has a lot of lasting power. And surprise, surprise. It is possible to make a superhero game that doesn’t suck. I was ready to dislike this from the beginning, but I was mesmerized by it instead. The beginning of the game is haunting as a captured Joker — always Batman’s most unpredictable enemy — is escorted by Batman into Arkham Asylum. The foreshadowing of something going wrong builds a lot of anticipation. The interior of the insane asylum is menacing, making you feel like you’re descending into Dante’s Inferno. Then the Joker springs his trap, taking over the entire asylum and setting up ambush after ambush for the caped crusader. The Joker lets loose all of the asylum’s baddies, forcing Batman to fight some of the most well-known figures in the Batman pantheon. Batman can fight enemies with his brute strength, glide with his cape from one part of the asylum to another, and use his grappling hook to spirit himself out of troubles on the ground. The combat system is cool and the fighting animations are quite fluid and realistic.

8. New Super Mario Bros. (Wii, Everyone). Nintendo. I was ready to give this game a thumbs down, as I’ve been there, done that with Super Mario Bros. But this game is a hoot to play with four players at the same time. And it is the latest Wii game to prove that the interesting thing that happens with Nintendo games is not the action on the screen, but the effect it has on the players in the living room. You can get four characters such as Mario or Luigi on screen at the same time. You can work together, bouncing on someone else’s head to jump higher to snag a reward at the top of the screen. It’s riotous fun when you fight with other players for the limited resources in the scenes, such as a little Yoshi creature that you can ride upon. The laughing and screaming that ensue will bring the house down. I have to give my hats off to Nintendo for re-imagining this old game and figuring out how to make it relevant and cognizant of the social gaming craze that is sweeping through the industry.

9. Left4Dead 2 (Xbox 360, PC, Mature). Valve/Electronic Arts. This is a sequel to last year’s shoot-the-zombie game where four civilians have to fight off horde after horde of fast-moving zombies who constantly trap or encircle you. Your comrades are smart computer-controlled characters or, in the case of multiplayer, humans. You have to depend on each other to cover each other while reloading and to always have your back covered. This game takes place in a post-apocalyptic New Orleans and it has an actual story to the single player campaign. Right off the bat, you have to deal with zombies charging through a burning hotel. The game adjusts the smarts of the zombies to suit your own skill in fighting back. You’re always praying that you won’t run out of ammo as the fast-moving zombies are always ready to eat you alive.

10. Scribblenauts (Nintendo DS, Everyone). 5th Cell/Warner Bros. Interactive. The developers of this game started with a cool idea and managed to pull it off. You use the stylus of the DS to write a word for something that can solve the puzzle on the screen. The object that the word describes materializes in the game and you use it to get out of a fix. For instance, you can write the word “shovel” to make a shovel appear and then you use it to dig a tunnel. The game is simple and the art is hand drawn. But the array of words included in the game’s dictionary is big and means the player has to use both his or her noggin and imagination to get through the puzzles.