Eat Lead is perhaps the first third-person shooter to spoof the genre. © D3 Publisher.

Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard for the Sony PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360; Publisher: D3; Developer: Vicious Cycle; Release Date: Feb. 26; ESRB Rating: T for teen; Genre: third-person shooter; Players: 1; Support: N/A; Online: N/A

Games can be funny sometimes. I've giggled at a few jokes every now and then. Heck, I've even laughed out loud at some of the more humorous instances in games like Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe and Street Fighter IV. But for the most part, there are no game comedies; no one has ever really made a game to be seriously hilarious. That right there is an open invitation for some lucky game developer to blaze a trail into this area of game development. Vicious Cycle and D3 have come up with Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard which is a title that attempts to usher games into the comedic genre.

The story of Eat Lead follows Matt Hazard, a fictitious videogame hero who was really popular in the '80s but now is washed up and is attempting to make a comeback. OK, I know the phrase "fictitious videogame hero" makes no sense, but bear with me on this: it's a story about a guy who was popular in videogames had he really existed. It's a spoof, get it? Apparently, the 8-bit era is when the Matt Hazard games first started and became very popular very quickly. Eat Lead even shows footage and screenshots of fabricated Matt Hazard games. Matt Hazard became so popular that he decided to ask his publisher to take the Matt Hazard franchise in a different direction. After his publisher agreed, Matt Hazard began to make crappy spinoffs like a Matt Hazard kart racing game that ended up causing his publisher to tank. The publisher has now been bought out by a new executive named Wallace Wellesley III, who wants to breathe new life into the Matt Hazard franchise. Later you find out the Wellesley is actually out to destroy Matt by throwing all of his old bad guys at him at once and Matt's only help is his old game friends and a woman known as QA who has hacked into Matt's game to help him.

Voice work from comedic actors Will Arnett and Neil Patrick Harris and gameplay that winks and nods to gaming fans make this title pretty enjoyable.

On the surface, Eat Lead is a straight forward, 3PS with not a lot of frills. There are a good amount of weapons, some are awesome like the Magnum and the dual sub machine guns and some are just down right hilarious like the water pistols. Along the way you'll run into jokes such as when QA gives you a huge list of objectives and Matt asks her shorten the list. QA then gives you the objective to "Shoot everything that moves." Later, you run into spoof characters like a wizard who talks like William Shatner and a futuristic soldier/cook named Master Chef. I'm not making this up! You'll also run into pixilated Nazis who are flat when they turn to the side, which is a hilarious shot at the Wolfenstein games.

The only thing about Eat Lead is that sometimes the gameplay can get downright frustrating. You'll find yourself in some unapproachable circumstances with very little ammo and you're fighting off a tentacle monster that throws bombs at you while guys keep coming at you. This wouldn't be much of a problem if it didn't take so many shots to kill just one guy. Also there is no online play but the funny thing is that they actually spoof themselves for not having online play! The voice acting is hilarious with the voices of Will Arnett as Matt Hazard and Neil Patrick Harris as Wallace Wellesley III. The whole feel of the game is like you're playing something out of the '80s; even the Matt Hazard theme song that plays between fire fights sounds like something you would hear in a Beverly Hills Cop movie. Eat Lead is not exactly an epic title but that's not really the point. Think about it, do you really expect outstanding special effects and a poignant story from a movie like Robin Hood: Men in Tights? No. Eat Lead is the same thing; it's an enjoyable 3PS where the main idea is to make you laugh.

Tenchu: Shadow Assassins is a great ninja game and should help bolster the PSP. © Ubisoft.

Tenchu: Shadow Assassins for the Nintendo Wii and Sony PSP; Publisher: Ubisoft; Developer: Aquire; Release Date: Feb. 5; ESRB Rating: M for mature; Genre: action / adventure; Players: 1; Support: N/A; Online: N/A

Tenchu: Shadow Assassins is the latest addition to the Tenchu series since the release of Tenchu Z on the Xbox 360. However, Tenchu: Shadow Assassins has actually not been released on the more powerful Xbox 360 or PS3: it's actually showing love to the Wii and PSP. The original developers of the Tenchu series, Aquire, has made a return to put together this installment of Tenchu. Tenchu started off as a series of great games on the PS1 and then on the PS2. Later, the Tenchu series started to lose its luster with the release of a poorly put together Tenchu for the DS and Tenchu Z, which was actually an all right game but was not met well with the majority of gamers. So enters Tenchu: Shadow Assassins.

The story is that your boss, Lord Goda, is at war with rival Japanese territories and, on top of that, his daughter has been kidnapped. You play as either Rikimaru or Ayame. Rimikaru has always been the main character in all of the Tenchu games. In Tenchu Z, you played as your own created character, but even then, Rikimaru gave you your missions. Instantly, you will notice that the visuals of TSA are significantly above par for Wii games. The characters are very well designed and the whole TSA world retains a feudal Japanese feel to it. The music gives the game even more of that feeling with the exception of the weird opera piece that plays every time you start the game.

As in any stealthy ninja game, you are required to stick to the shadows and not be discovered. Sneaking up to enemies unnoticed will allow you to kill them instantly. However, the AI is smart; computer-controlled enemies can hear you if you make too much noise and will discover a dead body if you don't dispose of it properly. If enemies get a feeling that you are hiding somewhere, they will start looking for you. If they see you, then they'll pull out their swords and start a fight. The Wii version introduces new melee controls when you get into sword fights. The camera will switch to first-person and you will literally have to hold the Wii Remote like a sword and swing it to slash your opponent or twist it to defend against incoming slashes. This is a novel idea to include but it is damn near impossible to win a sword fight on Hard or Hell difficulty.