Videogames

Activision Blizzard Inc. came out with guns blazing Friday in its legal battle with two former lead developers of Call of Duty, the video game publisher's multibillion-dollar franchise. In a lawsuit that read like a dramatic Hollywood script, Activision claimed it fired Jason West and Vincent Zampella in March because the two "morphed from valued, responsible executives into insubordinate and self-serving schemers who attempted to hijack Activision's assets for their own personal gain."

With 125 million viewers watching more than 1 billion of its videos a month, Machinima may be the most-watched channel that's not on TV. The specialty channel devoted to video-game aficionados — which offers game walk-throughs, gaming news, exclusive trailers and original series — is the channel with the fourth most subscribers on YouTube, itself the world's third most popular website, according to online measurement firm ComScore Inc. ...

With 2009 drawing to a close, we thought it was important to put down our PS3 controller -- and stop playing Modern Warfare 2's brilliant online multi-player mode -- just long enough to reflect on the best games we played over the year. Though it's probably physically impossible to play every game that came out, of the titles we tried, here are our top 10: No. 10: Assassin's Creed II Renaissance Italy is the star of Assassin's Creed II, complete with ornate structures full of ledges, railings, windowsills and protruding bricks.

At Next-Gen Video Games in the Mid-Wilshire district, it has been two months since a customer bought a Nintendo Wii, the console that became a sensation for letting players swing a virtual tennis racket or steer a virtual car with a flick of the wrist. Owner Jeff Bryson has three on hand for the holiday season, significantly fewer than last year, and he's not even sure he'll find buyers for those. "The Wii has really slowed down," Bryson said on a recent evening in his store.

Even though Army of Two: The 40th Day improves on its predecessor in nearly every way, this action war game won't make anyone put down Modern Warfare 2 any time soon. In the first outing, released in 2008, the great concept of playing as part of a tandem of mercenaries out to get rich by killing enemies was ruined by the lousy artificial intelligence your partner had. Any place you wanted to be, he would stand, ratcheting up the frustration levels. Add that to a forgettable story and mediocre controls and you wonder why the game was such a success and a sequel was even considered.

The future of the video game business is playing out very differently on two sides of Los Angeles. In Westwood, nearly 200 people recently lost their jobs when Pandemic Studios, the maker of Saboteur and other gritty video games, shut its doors. But 12 miles east, at Nexon Corp.'s U.S. division, bustling staffers are upbeat as they prepare to double the size of their workforce. The South Korean publisher best known for its lighthearted game MapleStory saw sales climb 12% in 2009.

If you're a hard-core fan of the God of War series but just can't wait until the next installment is released in March, then you're in luck, my friend. Rush out today and buy Dante's Inferno . God of War rip-offs don't get any more blatant than this one. Everything about it is like GOW, in a nearly comical way: the red and white accents on the god-like main character, the giant shiny weapons he swings around, the epic boss battles, the blatant nudity, the third-person view with woeful lack of camera control, even the button tapping cut-screen final-kill moves.

The video game industry eked out a 4% sales gain in the U.S. last month, rising to $5.32 billion as shoppers snapped up nearly 2.8 million copies each of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and New Super Mario Bros. Wii. But the uptick in the crucial holiday shopping month couldn't counter an otherwise bleak 2009, which saw sales of video games, consoles and accessories total $19.66 billion, down 8% from 2008, market research firm NPD Group said. December capped a stomach-churning year for the game industry, during which retail sales fell in eight of the 12 months, leading several major publishers to cut costs and workers.

'Po Boy Tango' Where: David Henry Hwang Theater, Union Center for the Arts, 120 Judge John Aiso St., Los Angeles When: 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays. Ends Dec. 6. Price: $25 to $35 Contact: (213) 625-7000 or www.eastwestplayers.org Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes

Shadow Tag A Novel Louise Erdrich Harper: 258 pp., $25.99

"Prince of Persia" didn't exactly get a royal reception overseas this weekend. Walt Disney Studios' big-budget video game adaptation starring Jake Gyllenhaal opened in 19 foreign markets, including every major European country except France, one week ahead of its Memorial Day weekend debut in the U.S. and the rest of the world. The film sold a studio-estimated $18 million worth of tickets. That's 5% more than the opening of "National Treasure" in the same countries in 2004, but 13% less than the original "Iron Man" in 2008 and 24% less than 2005's historical epic "Kingdom of Heaven."

Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. is starting a new act. The video game publisher best known for the bestselling Grand Theft Auto series is poised for a high-level shake-up Thursday when shareholders are expected to elect representatives of activist investor Carl Icahn to three of its eight board seats. It was only three years ago that a team led by Chairman Strauss Zelnick, the former president of record label BMG Entertainment and movie studio 20th Century Fox, took over a company that was being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Internal Revenue Service and the New York district attorney's office.

Activision Blizzard Inc. came out with guns blazing Friday in its legal battle with two former lead developers of Call of Duty, the video game publisher's multibillion-dollar franchise. In a lawsuit that read like a dramatic Hollywood script, Activision claimed it fired Jason West and Vincent Zampella in March because the two "morphed from valued, responsible executives into insubordinate and self-serving schemers who attempted to hijack Activision's assets for their own personal gain."

Impatient With Desire A Novel Gabrielle Burton Voice: 248 pp., $22.99

When a video game captures an award, does anybody really notice? The answer was made painfully obvious last month at the game industry's equivalent of the Oscars. "A lot of big names," the show host Jay Mohr said as he scanned the room, "are not here tonight." The line, thrown out at the opening of the Interactive Achievement Awards, got a chuckle from a crowd of several hundred of the industry's top game developers, who were used to toiling in relative obscurity. Game sales, at more than $45 billion a year globally, have far eclipsed movie box office receipts, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.

If you're a hard-core fan of the God of War series but just can't wait until the next installment is released in March, then you're in luck, my friend. Rush out today and buy Dante's Inferno . God of War rip-offs don't get any more blatant than this one. Everything about it is like GOW, in a nearly comical way: the red and white accents on the god-like main character, the giant shiny weapons he swings around, the epic boss battles, the blatant nudity, the third-person view with woeful lack of camera control, even the button tapping cut-screen final-kill moves.

Impatient With Desire A Novel Gabrielle Burton Voice: 248 pp., $22.99

The World War II-era action-adventure game The Saboteur may feature plenty of curvy burlesque dancers, but it doesn't quite measure up. Its open-world gameplay and "go anywhere on a nice big map" features aren't as well done as in Grand Theft Auto. The wall climbing and "free-running" across rooftops aren't nearly as good as in the Assassin's Creed series (see the review below). Even the plot, cut screens and controls aren't as good as in most games. But despite its lack of originality, The Saboteur includes a couple of key elements that make an effort to set it apart from its predecessors.

Shares of Electronic Arts Inc. plunged more than 8% in after-hours trading Monday following the video game company's release of its third-quarter results and lowering of earnings projections as the game industry continues to struggle with the economic downturn. The Redwood City, Calif., publisher of Madden NFL, Mass Effect and the Sims titles posted a 25% revenue drop to $1.2 billion in the quarter that ended Dec. 31, down from $1.7 billion a year earlier. Its net loss for the quarter narrowed to $82 million, or 25 cents a share, compared with a $654-million loss, or $2 a share, a year earlier.