The Game: Mario Tennis Open

Platform: 3DS

Developer: Camelot

Genre: Sports

Describe This Game in Three Words: Like Playing Simon

Plot Synopsis: The Mario crew gets together for a game of tennis. There's not really much to add so I'll just repeat that sentence to pad the paragraph. The Mario crew gets together for a game of tennis.

Up Up: Walk back through video game history and you'll find that something like 70 percent of it is really tennis. Pong is nothing but tennis, fighting games are tennis games where you hit each other with the rackets, every Zelda adventure has a part where you play tennis with Ganon, and the best part of BioShock was using telekinesis to catch and throw grenades. Mario Tennis Open has a lot of competition.

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In 2008 the NPD Group did a survey showing that 72 percent of Americans have played video games. It was up from 64 percent in 2006, and it's probably even higher now. Video games have gone from a novelty to being recognized as a legitimate art form, and their influence can be seen throughout the world.

And yet, to this day there are still wide swathes of people who simply do not understand anything about them. The medium is seen as having mystical powers of persuasion, voodoo technology capable of mind control, or even as weapons.

The result is that there have been some absolutely ridiculous moral panics centered around video games over the years, and here we expose the four stupidest ones.

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UPDATE: You can keep up to date on this project from Alex Zemke's new Twitter.

The geekier side of the Internet has been fair abuzz since test shots of Alex Zemke's upcoming animated short Companionship, based on the award-winning and impossibly excellent video game series Portal from Valve, were revealed. The shots bring the protagonist Chell to life, infusing the mute, determined queen of the portal gun with warmth and humanity.

"Well, of course, the game is phenomenal, and I was obsessed with the sequel the instant it was announced," said Zemke via e-mail.

Zemke, who's had a hand in projects like the latest Smurfs film and the Uncharted games, had been looking for ideas for test animation to add to his portfolio. At the time all he was working on was facial animation and cleanup duty on motion capture. Then he ran across this graphic. The initial idea was to do a simple animation of Chell tripping into a portal and ending up caught in a constant loop of movement between them.

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I was only five years old when Perfect Strangers debuted on ABC, but I remember absolutely loving the hell out of it. Part of the appeal was of course the funny voice that Bronson Pinchot used in his portrayal of Cousin Balki, since funny voices are all you really need to impress a five-year-old. That being said, I've always had a place in my heart for the show.

So imagine my joy when I found out that Jason Oda, a game designer who specializes in viral Webgames for marketing purposes, had put together a Perfect Strangers video game called Nothing's Gonna Stop Me Now in his spare time. While delightful, it does beg the question, "Why the hell would someone do such a thing?"

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The Game: Spirit Camera: the Cursed Memoir

Platform: 3DS

Developer: Tecmo Koei

Genre: Augmented Reality Experience

Describe This Game in Three Words: Gimmicky, Awkward, Terrifying

Plot Synopsis: After you receive a mysterious diary, you become the center of a paranormal battle being waged in a creepy old house and right in your own home using the 3DS camera. The price for failure is having your face stolen.

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Back in the '90s, after the success of Street Fighter there was a rush to put out 2D animated fighting games. It was exactly like how hair metal took off in the '80s. Products were rushed to market to capitalize on the trend, and it was kind of a two-edged sword. On one hand, a lot of these games weren't very good, but on the other hand it meant that they would throw literally anything in the games because who cared? World Heroes 2 is my personal favorite of these because for some reason, I have a fixation on playing a tribal stereotype called Mudman.

Konami's Skullgirls plays heavily to the nostalgic aspect of that time period. The plot, what there is of it, involves an artifact called the Skull Heart that grants wishes, but that can turn the user into a monster if he has a corrupt heart. You may recognize this as the plot of every single Legend of Zelda game ever. Well, that's not a fighting game...oh wait, it was also basically the plot of Soul Edge.

Okay, so the plot's weak. It's a fighting game; it doesn't need some kind of overblown back-story, though I think that the last two Mortal Kombats have proven that it helps. Let's turn to the characters.

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These days, all RPGs feel as if you're setting up a game of Dungeons and Dragons. I know I'm showing my age here by asking, "Whatever happened to games like Chrono Trigger where you spent a minute in exposition and then you're hurling fire spells at enemies as easy as pie?" What happened is that kids keep getting a lot smarter and I don't have time to keep up with them. So as I did with the last two Final Fantasies, I spent the first hour grumbling at the screen while walking through the assorted tutorials that make up Xenoblade Chronicles.

The game starts out strong, showing two titanic figures locked in eternal battle. One is Bionis, and the other Mechonis, and their war is the entirety of existence until one fatal cut by the Bionis locks them in stasis. Years later, civilizations grow up on the bodies of the gods and, like all good civilizations, they go to war.

On one side are the humans, and on the other are the machine-like Mechon. The only thing that has any effect on their armor is the Monado, an energy sword that is the titular xenoblade. A brave soldier named Dunbar manages to stop the Mechon's advance using it, but at the cost of losing the ability to use his right arm.

Later, we pick up with the party proper, a military researcher named Shulk and his friends. It's here, while Shulk is scavenging for Mechon scrap for weapons, that the game really gets going.

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NetherRealm Studios, who has given us two really amazing Mortal Kombat games recently in the form of the ninth entry in the series and the crossover involving the DC Universe, has been working on acquiring an old and beloved fighting franchise to add to their roster. Rumors that they were seeking to purchase the rights to the Rare game Killer Instinct began appearing late in 2011, and earlier this month Mortal Kombat creator Ed Boon tweeted...

RT @YoungNate19: @noobde Mortal Kombat vs. Killer Instinct. EB: We just got the OK to do it! Coming in 2013! Stay tuned!

Now, that tweet did appear on April Fools' Day, so let's not all start high-fiving each other just yet, but the quest by NetherRealm to secure Killer Instinct is pretty widely known. It's possible it may be legit.

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Art Attack remains committed to helping our increasing gamer readership find ways to spruce up their lives with the perfect game-inspired crafts, clothes and fixtures. Previously we've tackled lamps and real-world versions of Portal's long-fall boots. Now we've gone searching for the best way to outfit your living room with video game style.

The N64 doesn't get near enough credit as a system, even though without Ocarina of Time and Super Mario 64 a good half of all games wouldn't even exist. Floridian Keenan Bosworth has done justice to the console with his coffee table inspired by the N64 logo. He's built two of them as presents for friends and family, and while he's not selling them (as shipping the 60 lb. finished table would be prohibitive), his Reddit channel does offer helpful advice on constructing your own.

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We're a little late on reviewing the latest Kid Icarus title for the 3DS, the first game in the series in 19 years and only the third entry, not counting Smash Brothers appearances. Our hero Pit has always been something of a nostalgia character without any real history as a unit-selling commodity, but he acquits himself well in Uprising.

The game is fast and frantic, somewhere between a rail and a first-person shooter. You control Pit as he is guided by the goddess Palutena against the force of the underworld. Typically, play involves a fantastic flight through fantasy skies taking out enemies before descending to the ground in order to hunt the boss through various fortresses. You control Pit with the circular pad, aim with the stylus and fire with the L trigger.

We're going to get this out of the way real fast. Being forced to use the circular pad hurts. We gave up pretty quick on the Ocarina of Time re-release specifically because of it. Maybe it's the fact that the high placement of the pad throws off the weight of holding the system, or maybe we just have big hands not designed for using the pad, but if you power through the pain like we did and play for three hours straight (For the record: Nintendo does NOT recommend you do that), you are going to feel the pain.

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