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What’s Playing in The Computer Gaming World

Turn on every television, radio, stereo, and other media device in your home, then crank up the volume and try to listen—that’s what the real-time strategy genre gets like every year at this time, a deafening cacophony of disparate entertainment channels all desperately competing for your attention. Which channel should you tune to? Relax, gentle reader, it’ll be OK.

TiVo the History Channel? Then you need Rome: Total War, an epically sweeping historical game that has you managing the biggest battles on any platform, letting you command thousands of units in glorious 3D. This game has incredible replayability, thanks to a strategic campaign map that adds a big-picture aspect to the nitty-gritty of the battles.

More into PBS? Check out Kohan II: Kings of War, the art snob’s real-time-strategy (cool kids say it “RTS”) game. This fantasy-themed title rethinks the whole genre paradigm, alleviating the micromanagement and churning unit production of standard RTS games with an elegant, unique focus on the big strategic picture. Don’t worry, you still get to destroy lots of stuff.

And there’s nothing wrong with blowing stuff up—Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War does it in a delicious, delirious fashion. Dressing up fantasy fare in over-the-top militaristic drag, Dawn of War might have the most satisfying action of any RTS this year.

Just stay away from the test pattern that is Evil Genius. The only inspiration in this game lies in its premise: You’re a Dr. Evil–style villain working toward world domination. But any supervillain game that has you building and managing a hotel when you should be holding the globe hostage, well, it doesn’t matter how many nefarious traps you set in your base now, does it?