Wii can have its chortling plumbers and waggle-activated bowling; serious console gamers own an Xbox 360 or PlayStation3. The gift of serious games will make those gamers seriously happy, especially if you wrap up one or all three of these.


Assassins Creed II (PS3, Xbox 360; $60)
The setting is Italy during the renaissance and all the glorious art and architecture that entails, stretching as far as the eye can see and crammed with detail up close. And that's just the environment; Assassin's Creed II is also a brilliantly conceived and executed game that has you skulking around alleys and roof tops as an assassin - which is a good guy in videogame parlayance, because you're on a righteous mission of vengeance, family being wrongfully executed and all. But it's not all scampering and skullduggery, double-wristed backstabbing and looting as the only guy in a hoodie that no one seems to notice. The people that people those huge, Parkour-ready environments are also fully interactive, from street walkers to Leonardo da Vinci himself, all on hand to aid and abet or sell you a nice vial of poison. A truly lush and extravagant game of nefarious deeds made heroic.


Tekken 6 (PS3, Xbox 360, $60)
A mainstay in the fighting game genre, Tekken 6 is a beautiful game of outlandish pummeling that can offer a lot of intense entertainment as a mere button-mash among friends and loved ones, but the serious gamers will also appreciated the freakishly complicated, fast and exacting multi-button combinations required so as to better pummel opponents who won't get a fist in edgewise.


IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey (PS3, Xbox 360, $60)
No game library is complete without a combat flight simulator, and this year IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey is the one to get. Pretty as all get-out and pretty hard, too (though "easy" is a gracious option), it features a variety of plausible if not authentic WWII-era scenarios in some 40-odd fighters of the day. When that's done, you can take it online for some seriously dizzying dogfights with up to 16 real/remote opponents.
 
 

It's true: Quality kids games are hard to find. Sure, there's lots out there, but few that are both good and genuinely kid-friendly. Fortunately, GamersGate online games portal has an entire section dedicated to quality family fare. Go ahead, check it out!