1. The Seattle Times brings us a hefty PDF (12MB) of the “Incest Map”, a diagram showing the relations between scores of Seattle bands.

2. It’s official: Dead Space 2! The original was one of my favorite games of 2008.

3. Also from The Seattle Times, the infuriating story of how the IRS spent tens of thousands of dollars to audit an impoverished single mother of two in order to squeeze her for $1,400 in (questionable) unpaid taxes:

4. The Federal Trade Commission has issued its annual report on Marketing Violent Entertainment to Children:

“The Commission finds that the video game industry has made great strides in restricting the marketing of violent M-rated games to children. Although there remains room for improvement – particularly in the area of Internet advertising – the video game industry outpaces the movie and music industries in the three key areas that the Commission has been studying for the past decade.” (Hat tip to Dubious Quality)

5. Finally, here’s today’s examination of the Amazon Top 100 sellers in video games. Yet again, New Super Mario Bros. Wii took the top spot. Wii titles accounted for 34 spots on the list, up from 30 for most of last week. Xbox 360 had 11 titles while the PlayStation 3 had just seven. Interestingly, of the Wii games, eight of them, or nearly one-quarter, were music or rhythm games.

As for the hardware, the Wii was still the top-seller, coming in at No. 2, while the low-end PS3 was No. 18. However, the Xbox 360 Elite bundle saw a big jump, to No. 30, while the Modern Warfare 2-themed ”Super Elite” system was No. 84. At No. 91 was the 250-gigabyte PS3.

1. Chinese media are abuzz over the “mysterious beauty in black” seen behind President Obama during his visit to Shanghai. It turns out her name is Wang Zifei and she is a graduate student at Shanghai’s Jiaotong University.

2. Another cool China link: artist Liu Bolin becomes invisible by painting himself exactly like the background.

3. Finalists in National Geographic’s International Photography Contest. My favorite is the one of the New Zealand farmer.

4. Crispy Gamer’s Ten No-Bullshit Rules for buying video games for kids. Crispy Gamer is increasingly becoming one of my favorite gaming sites. These guys can write.

5. Lev Grossman picks the six greatest fantasy novels of all time.

1. Want to learn to taunt your enemies like a reclusive megalomaniac dictactor with bad hair? It’s the North Korea insult generator.

2. What kind of political system is suitable for colonists on an interstellar journey? Sci-fi author Charles Stross flags some interesting issues.

3. Think movie acting can be bad? Try the 50 Worst Video Game Voice Acting clips.

4.  ”Sometimes his loose-limbed shuffle and sibilant drawl suggest Jimmy Stewart as a crackhead.” That’s The New York Times reviewing Nicholas Cage in his new movie, “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans”.

5. Crack that whip! Pearl Jam does Devo.

1. Granite Falls, a small mining town near Seattle, has elected a Muslim mayor. It probably helps that he runs a popular bar in town.

2. CageWatch: Nicholas Cage stars in “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans”. Warner Herzog directed, so this has a shot at being decent, or at least fairly entertaining.

3. Remember the U.S. container ship that was hijacked by Somali pirates a few months ago, with a standoff that ended with SEAL snipers taking out the pirates? Well, pirates attacked it again. Only this time, the ship was ready, as a professional security crew repelled the assault with small arms and, awesomely, a sonic blaster.

4. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 raked in $550 million in its first week, topping the previous record-holder, Grand Theft Auto IV, by $50 million.

5. Malcolm Gladwell responds, partially, to Steven Pinker’s recent criticism in the New York Times Book Review.

1. Electronic Arts is rumored to be closing Pandemic Studios. Yes, this is the same Pandemic that, along with BioWare, EA paid more than $800 million for two years ago. Although Pandemic was behind Full Spectrum Warrior, one of my favorite games of all time, its recent efforts, like last year’s Mercenaries 2, were met with lukewarm critical reviews.

2. Stunning photograph of a crescent Earth shot by Rosetta, the European comet-chasing spacecraft. Oh yeah, and irregularities in Rosetta’s flight path may lead to a re-writing of the known laws of physics.

3. Fascinating profile of Jon Huntsman, Jr., Obama’s new (Republican) man in China. In an awesome historical twist, Huntsman as a child handed Henry Kissinger his briefcase as he departed with Nixon on the famous secret trip to China in 1971.

4. Intel’s Itanium chip finally turns a profit. After a decade. And billions of dollars of investment and promotion.

5. And from The Onion video files: Ultra-Realistic Modern Warfare Game Features Awaiting Orders, Repairing Trucks.

Gamasutra is one of the more interesting and professional video-game sites out there. Their writers consistently produce thoughtful, analytical pieces about the industry. So when one of them pens a column saying he is genuinely worried that games are evolving towards true murder simulators, you know you’re going to get a well-written, even-handed take on the issue.

However, the article ultimately shares something with every hysterical op-ed decrying video games as an amoral medium helping to twist a generation of kids into super-predators. And that is simply that the author stumbled across a game that disturbed him. For many parents and anti-game crusaders, that game was one of the Grand Theft Auto series. Or Manhunt. Or Counter-Strike. I don’t know why Bioshock did it for this particular author. Many of us who played the game all the way through didn’t find the enemies disturbingly realistic, though the game itself is disturbing (and excellent) due to its overall atmosphere and story rather than the realism of its character. In fact, the most disturbing part of the game for many players lies precisely in the moral choice you make, about whether to harm the innocent for personal profit (and pay the consequences later), or do the right thing now at the expense of short-term difficulty.

Personally, I have found scenes in the recent entries in the Call of Duty series more disturbing. Sometimes when you shoot an enemy soldier, he starts dragging himself across the ground, trying to get away. You have to walk up and finish him off. Otherwise, he will pull out a pistol or grenade and try to do you. Call of Duty 4 also had a segment, titled “Death from Above”, where you’re in an AC-130 gunship and you use that greyscale thermal targeting system to just grind up guerrilla fighters. The gunship’s crew talks to you in this matter-of-fact tone, like you’re taking out the trash instead of killing actual humans.

But to the article’s point, he got the willies and fears that we’re reaching a point where we all start sliding down a slippery slope towards callousness and inhumanity. Yet, there’s no evidence that the huge advances in realism we’ve seen so far have led to increased violence or disregard for human life. In fact, despite the hand-wringing of politicians and moralizers everywhere, youth violence has hit its lowest level in 40 years, even as “murder simulator” games like Grand Theft Auto IV, Bioshock, and Call of Duty sell tens of millions of copies.

Of course, it’s possible that we just haven’t reached the “tipping point” for this phenomenon. Perhaps there will come a time when games are so real and the act of playing them so visceral that it fires the right set of neural pathways that will turn our youth into cold-blooded killers. Based on the evidence so far, however, I’d say that’s unlikely. The simplest reason is that the vast majority of people, believe it or not, are actually capable of distinguishing fantasy from reality. People know when they are playing a game, and they know that bludgeoning someone with a wrench or lighting them up with a molotov is not socially acceptable behavior, and that they will suffer extremely unpleasant consequences for doing so.

For all their realism, video games really pale in comparison to the ultra-realistic violence portrayed in films. I remember being appalled and sickened by the brutality in Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. Now, of course, I love those movies as classics. Look at The Departed or the Saw series. Those are 10 times more graphic than anything you’ll see in a video game. Part of this is that the industry self-polices (or self censorships, depending on how you look at it) pretty well. The Entertainment Software Ratings Board has pretty exacting standards for the kind of violence that can be depicted and still get an M rating (equivalent to an R). Moreover, the console makers — Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo — won’t let unrated or AO (Adults Only) games get published on their systems.

Finally, video-game developers are actually pretty thoughtful about using realism judiciously. You get the few teams that push the edge, like Rockstar with the Manhunt series, but there aren’t many games that actually set out to disturb you with their realism or that make you torture characters or revel in the pain you cause. And here’s my prognostication: when the day comes when games are basically indistinguishable from film, virtually no one will make games that actually simulate murder and death in all its bloody, painful mess. The reason? That shit isn’t fun. It’s the reason Transformers makes hundreds of millions of dollars while Saw makes tens of millions.

Furthermore, I’d argue that the key to making things disturbing isn’t the photorealism. After all, the author of the Gamasutra piece admits to being disturbed by the original Wolfenstein, hardly what we would call a realistic experience today. Clearly, graphical fidelity isn’t everything. Things like the writing, dialogue, voice acting, and AI are much more essential to creating a desired emtional reaction. Having a victim crawl away from you, crying, and then beg for his life in a realistic manner will be much more effective at recreating a life-like scenario than having a photo-realistic victim who stands there passively while you hack him to bits.

And the upside is that as technology improves, so does the scope for making games into a more impactful art form. Think about a military game that actually puts you in the moral dilemma of having to decide whether the guy on his knees begging for his life is really an innocent civilian or an insurgent desperately trying to get out of a jam so he can continue planting roadside bombs. Think about having an AI partner, girlfriend or pet that responds to your choices and actions. I get excited thinking about this stuff, and think it’s much more likely than Xbox, Nintendo and PlayStation suddenly turning generations of kids into killers, something that would completely defy the last 40 years of video-game evolution.

Biggest Gaping Hole in My Library: LittleBigPlanet

It was hard for the hype to be any bigger for Media Molecule’s impossibly cute platformer. Although the adventures of the game’s knitted hero, Sackboy, didn’t get Sony back in the console race, LittleBigPlanet was unquestionably one of the most original — did I mention cute? — titles in 2008.

LittleBigPlanet’s hyper-realistic environments differed from other A-list titles in one dramatic fashion: instead of lush forests or gritty urban landscapes, the game is set among structures built from every day materials such as cardboard, cloth and paper. Resembling nothing so much as a grade-school art project, the game nonetheless sported sophisticated level design that challenges and rewards.

I almost can’t believe I haven’t picked this one up yet. It’s simply because I still (still!) haven’t finished games like Fallout 3 or Dead Space, so how can I justify dropping another $60 on this? I did see, however, that Amazon had LBP on sale for about $46. A great bargain for consumers, but probably a blow to Sony’s expectations that they could maintain premium pricing for longer.

Best Game That I Will Almost Certainly Never Finish: Grand Theft Auto IV

I have a problem finishing games. Most games I will top out at about 20 hours before moving on to other diversions. Games like Halo 3, Gears of War, Fable 2, Call of Duty 4 and Mirror’s Edge all fall comfortably within that range. I prefer quality over quantity. Give me 10 amazing hours and I will consider my money better spent than if you give me 30 or 40 good hours. The biggest exception to this rule was Oblivion, which I played for more than 40 hours and still didn’t finish.

So right away, the sheer size of Grand Theft Auto IV, which is said to take about 40 hours to complete the main storyline, stacks the odds against me ever completing the game. But apart from that, GTA IV has one flaw that is crippling for modestly talented gamers like me. That flaw is the lack of a mid-mission save system.

You see, some of the missions in GTA IV are quite long, requiring significant set up and travel before you get to the action parts. If you’re not completely prepared, pretty skilled, and a bit lucky, you will die. And when you die, you start that mission all over again. I’ve recently picked up the game again and completed a couple missions that had vexed me months ago, but if I was bent on completing it, I wouldn’t play anything else for months.

Best Game of 2008

And here it is. The moment you’ve been waiting two months for. What was the best game of 2008? Was it Fallout 3, with its deep character-building system infused with a Road Warrior vibe? Was it Fable 2, with its open-armed world that combined an expansive fantasy world with the charming social nuances of The Sims? Was it LittleBigPlanet, with all its cuteness and inventiveness and creative tools for users? All of these are worthy titles, to be sure. But one game stood above everything else, wowing everyone with its breathtaking detail, sparkling writing and sheer variety. That game, of course, was Grand Theft Auto IV.

Despite its flaws, and there are several, Grand Theft Auto IV represented the best of gaming. The stunning visuals took the soul of New York and reincarnated it in the body of Liberty City. Even now, almost a year later, one of my favorite things to do in the game is stop and watch the sun set. In keeping with its noir inspiration, the character of Niko Bellic at once fascinates and repulses. We revel in his aptitude for violence while sympathizing with his desire to find more in life. You see this in a hundred little moments and contrasts throughout the game. One moment you’ll be making shy chit-chat with a potential girlfriend or e-mailing mom back in the old country, the next you’ll be pushing some poor guy off a ledge or helping a junkie score her next hit.

Here was what I wrote about the game when it launched last April:

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Video gamers geared up on Monday for the midnight launch of “Grand Theft Auto 4,” as early reviews hailed the criminal action title as a brutal and satirical “masterpiece” equal to films like “The Godfather.”

For a time, Grand Theft Auto IV was the only game to score a perfect 100 on Metacritic. Even today, it boasts an incredible 98, the highest-rated game since The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time came out in 1998 and received a 99.

The GTA series has of course been the target of serious controversy. But audiences have longed lived the criminal life vicariously through movies like novels like The Godfather, movies like The Killing, and now games like GTA. As I read somewhere recently, books let us imagine the impossible, movies let us see the impossible, games let us do the impossible. Few of can imagine doing the dirty deeds committed by Niko and his associates. The success of the GTA series has hinged on letting people break the rules. You can’t believe this game is letting you get away with this stuff! GTA IV took that simple idea and slathered on a rich layer of storytelling, wit, and social commentary. It’s an artistic achievement that was unrivaled in the industry last year, and it’s why Grand Theft Auto IV was game of the year.  

Favorite Xbox Exclusive: Fable 2

Although Gears of War 2was a strong contender in this space, ultimately it was Peter Molyneux’s redemptive masterpiece that offered a fresh, unique experience on Microsoft’s machine.

No, Fable 2 doesn’t have the best graphics or the best story, but it does offer an incredibly fun experience that genuinely gets richer and more rewarding the more you invest in it.

Fable 2 is a game that really does give you the leeway to play however you want, and doesn’t punish you for making “bad” choices. Want to play the morally upright hero? Go ahead, that’s what I did. But terrorizing the population with wanton killing and banditry is an equally valid way to play, though you can expect the world to have a markedly different feel should you turn to the dark side.

Fable 2 also offers a wealth of secondary activities. Buy a fish stall and get a steady income that lets you buy more properties, all the way up to a massive castle. Hammer away as a blacksmith, pull drinks at the local pub, or chop wood in the countryside to earn a few extra coins. Woo a local woman (or two, or three), or go nuts with prostitutes in the seedier hamlets. Buy a home and upgrade the furnishings. Win the town’s adulation with displays of heroism, or turn them off with fart jokes.

Fable 2 is an approachable, deep, and quite funny twist on the fantasy role-playing game. Its numerous innovations make it my favorite Xbox 360 exclusive ahead of more graphically rich and intense fare like Gears of War 2.

Reality check: Oddly, for a game that asks, “Who do you want to be?”, Fable 2 doesn’t give you much leeway with character creation. You can choose to be a boy or a girl at the start, and that’s about it. To be sure, your choice of diet influences your physique, and you can pay for hair styles, clothes and tattoos throughout. I also recommend reading up on how to use your repertoire of facial expressions and gestures, and, just as importantly, how to quickly gain new ones. These are essential to enjoying the in-game socializing and I only gained proficiency as I neared the end of the main quest.

Best Game I’m Most Eager to Play Once I Finish What I’m Currently Playing: Dead Space

EA’s creative resurgence continues with this critically acclaimedtake on the survival horror genre, with sci-fi spin. You play a mechanic sent to an orbital mining station that has lost communications, only to find that something has wiped out the thousand-strong crew.

Several things make Dead Space noteworthy. The exquisite pacing keeps you on the edge of the couch waiting for the next horrific moment to spring. Your character is just an engineer trying to defend himself with tools and objects, not some buff space marine bristling with high-tech weaponry. There’s also a great implementation of the HUD-less display. There’s no health bar, weapon icon showing how much ammo you have left, and no map screen that pauses the action. All the information you need as a player is visible right there as part of the environment.

I also look forward to what I hear is brilliantly implemented zero-G combat and a clever way to convey sound in the hard vacuum of space.

Dead Space reminds me of nothing more than Doom 3, and I say that as someone who loved Doom 3 and its creepily lit hallways, disturbingly twisted monsters, and captivating storyline that you uncovered through recordings and e-mails as you explored.

Reality check: One colleague complained to me that his biggest issue with Dead Space was that “You’re always just the engineer.” Meaning, I guess, that you don’t evolve much or grow more capable as the game progresses. I’m also half-expecting that the horror aspect of the game will translate into slow progress as I play it in easily digested chunks.

Best Unfinished Game: Fallout 3

Considered a Game of the Year contender by many outlets, Fallout 3 is in many ways “Oblivionwith guns”, a reskinning of Bethesda’s excellent fantasy-themed role-playing game from 2005. Oblivionis still one of my favorite Xbox 360 games and still ranks as one of the most evocative gaming experiences I’ve enjoyed.

Indeed, the basic Fallout 3 mechanics will be instantly familiar to Oblivion fans: the sense of movement, the placement of objects in the world, the basics of the inventory system have all essentially been carried over.

Fallout 3 makes two huge strides forward.

The first is the area of gameplay with the introduction of the VATS targeting system that lets you single out specific parts of an enemy’s body when attacking. It’s an immensely satisfying feature that never grows old.

The second improvement is in narrative. Oblivion, for all its considerable charm and intriguing side-quests, suffered mightily from a main story that forced players to go on cookie-cutter missions that quickly lost their appeal. That is the reason I never finished Oblivion despite falling in love with the broader world it took place in.

So far, and I would guess I am halfway through the main storyline, the Fallout 3 narrative has suffered no such missteps. Every quest is unique and there appear to be multiple ways to complete them. For instance, it is possible to obliterate the first town you come across with an atomic blast. I opted to save the town, figuring correctly it would be an important home base for resting, healing and restocking of supplies. But the choice was mine to destroy it, and I can only imagine the impact it would have made on the story arc.

Reality check: Fallout 3 offers up more of the grey and brown color palate that has so imbued recent games. It requires constant inventory management — repair of gear, making sure you’re not over your weight limit, switching weapons, and taking medicine to ensure you survive your next fight and the radioactive environment itself.

Tomorrow: Favorite Xbox Exclusive, Best Game I’m Most Eager to Play Once I Finish What I’m Currently Playing, and Best Unfinished Game!)

Biggest Game That Failed to Capture My Imagination: Metal Gear Solid 4

Perhaps the last of the great third-party exclusives, this PlayStation 3 epic was a serious contender at many outlets for game of the year. I’d never played a Metal Gear game prior to this, so I tried to prepare by reading up on the back-story. It was a lot to digest, but when I played the game what really turned me off was just the weird control scheme.

For Xbox fans, the Splinter Cell series has really defined stealth-action, and the controls in that series were generally so well thought-out that Metal Gear Solid 4’s scheme is just clunky and odd in comparison. The game also does a horrible job of bringing you up to speed on the mechanics. Normally, tutorial levels step you through increasingly intricate moves until they’ve covered the basics you need to strike out on your own. But MGS4 gave you incredibly brief sequences where, say, you move around a vehicle, and then you get thrown in another lengthy cut scene until the next short sequence, which, in terms of teaching you how to play the game, bears little relation to the previous sequences.

Reality check: Given the accolades heaped on this game, creator Hideo Kojima obviously did something right. Just today, a coworker said MGS4 had some absolutely epic moments in it that are worth suffering through the crummy bits. This may be one to revisit later in 2009 during the midyear lull.

Favorite Downloadable Game: Braid

An evocatively melancholy story about lost love, Braid was one of the most critically acclaimed and innovative games of the year. Mechanically, it’s an homage to Super Mario Bros., but with the added element of time manipulation. Braid’s unique visuals are rendered as gorgeous Impressionist-style paintings, and the slow, cello-heavy soundtrack heightens the doleful mood. Each level is a polished gem of design, and your time-bending abilities get more intricate as the game progresses.

Reality check: Braid can be wickedly hard. In fact, it’s probably the hardest game I played last year. Of course you can go online if you need help, but the satori-like revelation that comes with cracking the puzzles unaided is its own reward.

Favorite Unsung Masterpiece: Mirror’s Edge

This was hands down one of the most original games of the year. Essentially a first-person 3D platformer, Mirror’s Edge is set in an authoritarian city-state of the near future that blends atmospheric and architectural elements of Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong, New York, LA and London. You play as a “runner”, or underground courier of illicit information, who eludes police by running, leaping and sliding through urban landscapes.

The first thing you’ll notice about Mirror’s Edge is the vibrant aesthetic. Absent are the grays and browns of (excellent) games like Gears of War 2, Fallout 3 and Call of Duty. From the sparkling blue sky to the bold primaries of many of the buildings you run on and through, Mirror’s Edge presents a world blossoming with color.

Of course you’ll also notice the unique perspective as a player. There’s nothing new about first-person games, but here, you’re not brandishing a gun and you frequently see your hands and feet. Mirror’s Edge is basically a parkour simulator, and the first-person viewpoint allows for some truly vertiginous moments, especially if you ignore your mother’s old advice and sit (or stand, which is even more immersive) too close to your television. One thing I loved is that you are encouraged to finish the game without firing a single shot at a human being. You can certainly obtain guns by disarming police that stand in your way, but I found it more believable and interesting to eschew weapons entirely and rely on speed and smarts to get me out of trouble.

The story in Mirror’s Edge deserves special mention as well. It’s not perfect, but this marked one of the few games that made me care about the main character. Electronic Arts’ DICE studio crafted a believable and sympathetic person in the character of Faith, and I found myself eager to see how the next chapter played out. There are some decent if clichéd twists, and although the ending is somewhat unsatisfactory in the sense that it doesn’t tie off all the loose ends, there is enough of a payoff emotionally and game-play-wise to deliver a sense of closure.

Reality check: There are a few really nasty difficulty spikes in the game that require you to pull off a series of complex moves with little or no margin for error. Expect a four to five places where you will die 20 to 40 times trying to execute one of these intricate sequences. I normally hate games that are so demanding, but in this case was so intrigued by the story and visuals that I kept plugging at it.

(Tomorrow: Favorite Xbox Exclusive, Best Game I’m Most Eager to Play Once I Finish What I’m Currently Playing, and Best Unfinished Game!)

Favorite Driving Game: Burnout Paradise

Why it’s a winner: Open world. Dozens of sweet cars. Spectacular crashes. Hundreds of challenges. Seamlessly integrated online play. Sure, Burnout Paradise isn’t the most realistic racer around, but when you’re smashing through a billboard 50 feet up in the air at 120 mph, who cares?

This is also a game I could pick up and play for just 15 minutes, or for hours on end. It’s also one I could share with Harlan. A benefit of the open-world, menu-less design is that it encourages exploration and lets you just cruise around checking stuff out. Perfect for a 7-year-old who doesn’t have the fine motor skills required to thread a speeding muscle car down a narrow alley or nudge an opponent just enough to send them careening into a concrete pillar without dooming yourself to the same fate.

Not only is there an incredibly variety of stuff to do in this game, but impressively, Electronic Arts and Criterion are keeping things fresh with new downloadable content such as new cars, new game modes, and even plans for an entire island that will be one giant playground for pulling outrageous stunts.

Reality check: If you like more authenticity and the chance to try out real-world cars and tracks, then driving simulators like Forza 2 and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue are probably more up your alley.

Favorite Online Game: Left 4 Dead

Less a shooter than your own personalized zombie survival movie, Left 4 Dead attains its fullest brilliance when you play online with three other people. Sure, there are only four levels, but each time it feels fresh due to the different strategies you and your cohorts come up with. In the weeks after Left 4 Dead came out, the halls at work each morning were filled with conversation about the previous night’s exploits. It’s one of those games that will have you asking in disbelief: “Did you see that?”

Left 4 Dead has delivered the most polished co-op experience to date. If you do not work with your teammates, you will die, and they will die, and the story will end. Yet you don’t have to rely on the goodwill of your friends, incentives to help out are built right into the game. Tight and taut, with the perfect mix of jump-out-of-your skin horror and campy humor, Left 4 Dead is a fresh and compelling online experience.

Reality check: Left 4 Dead might prove to be too limited, given that there are only four missions, only five firearms, and the same four characters to choose from. It remains to be seen how much staying power it has, but there are certainly hours of zombie-blasting fun to be had here nonetheless.

Biggest Time-Suck: Rock Band 2/Guitar Hero World Tour

It was clear more than a year ago that these competing franchises aimed to evolve into platforms offering a whole new way to enjoy your favorite music.While most people seem to gravitate to one or the other, I find my playing time split pretty evenly between them. Between Rock Band and Guitar Hero series, I’ve logged hundreds of hours of playing time, saving me the hassle and expense of constructing a real life or learning an actual instrument.

Rock Band 2 has so far shaped up as the critics’ choice as Harmonix and MTV fixed almost everything that was wrong with the already excellent first installment. The game does a great job of paying homage to rock music while not taking itself too seriously. Rock Band also offers the best selection of downloadable songs, with literally hundreds of tracks spanning classic rock, punk, country and metal.

Yet the wildly popular Guitar Hero has proven to be the sales king, and World Tour cuts into Rock Band’s turf in a big way by offering a new drum set and redesigned guitar that are best-in-class. Developer Neversoft also came up with a character creation tool that is superior to Rock Band’s. While their downloadable content isn’t as robust as their rival’s, they have some key acts like Jimi Hendrix, and they are doing cool things with bands like Aerosmith and Metallica.

Either way, whether it’s picking up an axe to relax by jamming through a few songs at the end of a long day, or breaking out the whole band kit for social fun when company is over, these music games deliver massive amounts of playing time and more than justify their expense.

Reality check: Selling at nearly $200 for the full band kits, these games cost almost as much as the console you play them on. While you’re sure to find many songs that please you, there will be quite a few that you hate but still have to slog through to proceed in career mode (yeah, I’m looking at you, PDA by Interpol). Getting four people up and playing is also still a bit of a chore.

(Tomorrow: Favorite Downloadable Game, Best Game That Failed to Capture My Imagination, Favorite Unsung Work of Art)