Let Warhammer Begin
DateTime:7/8/2009 5:21:12 PM

In these challenging economic times, it may come as a surprise that a well-chosen video game can be one of the most cost-effective gifts possible. Sure, the $60 price tag on some top games can be daunting, but when you realize that the right one can wrangle dozens or even hundreds of hours out of the right player, games can start to look like the smart entertainment investments they are.Go to Gift Guide ? But nongamers can get it totally wrong when buying for friends and family. Bad gift-giving usually stems from one basic misconception: If it’s a video game, it must be for children.

Every year, parents who would never dream of buying their children a DVD of “Scarface,” “Platoon” or one of the “Saw” torture movies blithely buy them violent gangster games, bloody war games and gross-out horror games. Then they’re horrified when little Johnny or Jenny ends up spending Saturday afternoon trading expletives with drug dealers and discussing the relative merits of shotguns and flamethrowers. So please, if you would not allow your children to watch R-rated films without supervision, do not buy them M-rated games. Federal studies have shown that the game industry is at least as vigilant as Hollywood in labeling products that are inappropriate for children. But the system breaks down when parents ignore it.

Warhammer Online Ideal audience: massively multiplayer online gamers who cannot satisfy their bloodlust in World of Warcraft. Don’t get me wrong; like more than 10 million other people. But great games can stand some competition, and Warhammer Online, the new online version of the decades-old British fantasy universe, provides it. Warhammer employs many conventions from Warcraft but gives them a new twist in a game that focuses largely on player-versus-player combat, rather than on battling computer-controlled foes. For PC. Rating: T for Teen.