Fall video games conjure metal gods and cute ninjas

This fall isn’t quite as jammed with big video-game releases as the season has been in recent years, but what it lacks in numbers it more than makes up for in quality. Here are four recently released games that will have you hacking, jumping, sneaking, and falling your way to gaming bliss.

Brutal Legend (Electronic Arts; PS3, Xbox 360; rated mature)
Eddie Riggs is the world’s best roadie. He can fix anything and build anything, and he’s always ready with a tuned guitar and a new set of strings. After a stage collapses on him, Riggs, voiced by Jack Black, wakes up in a world that looks like it’s been pulled from a Judas Priest album cover. Armed with a battle-axe and an axe of another sort (an electric guitar named Clementine), he helps the humans who live in the wild world, including the aimless and thick-necked headbangers, by greasing the wheels of revolution.

You don’t have to be a fan of heavy metal to enjoy Brütal Legend, because the story is funny, the character designs are clever, and the acting is excellent. But fans of the musical genre will be able to better appreciate the metal stereotypes portrayed, as they’re both honoured and made fun of at the same time. A hilarious homage to the heavy metal of old, the game features the voice talents of metal gods including Lemmy, Rob Halford, Lita Ford, and Ozzy Osbourne, and includes 108 classic heavy-metal songs in its soundtrack.

From game designer Tim Schafer, who brought us the wonderful and subversive Psychonauts, Brí¼tal Legend exceeds expectations in every way.

Lucidity features constantly scrolling gameplay

Lucidity (LucasArts; PC, Xbox 360; rated everyone)
With echoes of Little Red Riding Hood and Where the Wild Things Are, Lucidity is about a young girl. Sofi dreams of adventure and awakes one night to find herself in a dream world. She moves through this world steadily, from left to right, and your objective is to make sure her path is safe.

The gameplay is reminiscent of that of Tetris and Lemmings. You place objects in Sofi’s path in order to direct her around obstacles and enemies. Sofi collects fireflies as she navigates the dreamscape; collect enough fireflies and more levels of the game are revealed.

As with so many recent independently developed delights—Braid and Flower among them—Lucidity is utterly compelling despite the simplicity of its concept and gameplay. Because so little of the experience is explained, there is a wealth of emotion and strategy to be discovered. It’s a sweet and charming game with a hint of danger and sadness. Maybe that’s the wolf lingering just out of view.

The kid-friendly campaigns of Mini Ninjas

Mini Ninjas (Eidos; DS, PC, PS3, Wii, Xbox 360; rated everyone 10+)
This action game is ideal for kids, but it’s fun for everyone. It has ninjas and swords, yes, but the ultimate objective is to restore the balance of nature. You see, the Evil Samurai Warlord has used Kuji magic to create an army of samurai, who are marching across the countryside. The Ninja Master has sent forth ninjas from the village, but none have returned. The only ones left? The two young friends Hiro and Futo.

The pair are all that remain to save the world from the ego of the Evil Samurai Warlord. They’ll do so by shaking fruit from trees in order to eat and heal, entering the Plane of Spirits to conduct sneak attacks and possess animals to move around stealthily, and turning the enemy samurai back into the forest animals they once were. Mini Ninjas is a cute and charming game, but it sorely needs a cooperative mode.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (Sony; PS3; rated teen)
Uncharted 2 starts off exactly how every action-adventure game should: with its protagonist facing certain doom. It’s the way such stories have been told since the days of movie serials. Nathan Drake has been in a train wreck, and the train car he’s in is hanging off an icy cliff. By the time you’ve helped Drake pull himself from the wreckage—and learned the game’s smooth and intuitive controls in the process—the stage has been set through a series of flashbacks.

The scoundrel Drake is searching for the Cintamani stone, said to be kept in the mythical city of Shambhala. But the path to the prize is not without obstacles, and Drake will fall from many of them. Taking a tumble from rooftops and massive statues is a recurring theme in this game, as the developers at Naughty Dog played up the punching-bag gag that made Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones such an empathetic character.

The narrative jumps back and forth in time. When you’re controlling Drake, the linear path through the levels isn’t so obvious you feel like you’re a rat in a maze, but obvious enough that you’re never left wondering where to turn next. The varied environments—ranging from snowy mountain peaks to underground caverns to jungles teeming with flora—are rendered with stunning vibrancy.

Make no mistake, this game is cinematic, and the action between the cut scenes is varied, well designed, and perfectly balanced. Drake survives, of course, as he always does. The fun with the Uncharted games is in seeing how close we’ll take him to the point of no return.