Wii

Namco Bandai Games America, $29.99

When it comes to the new Wii balance-board controller, all roads seem to point to the highly hyped Wii Fit exercise game due to be released in a couple of weeks. In fact, Amazon.com is reporting that the pre-orders for that game have already eaten up its entire allotment of Wii Fit.

So, it makes plenty of sense for Namco Bandai to get out in front of that behemoth with We Ski, a toonish downhill skiing game that makes use of the newfangled contraption.

The game itself is fairly simple - take part in a number of slalom, mogul, and plain downhill races. There is a rich character customization component with hundreds of body types and cool threads to choose from, but that is just eye candy.

The real kicker here is the balance board. With the remote and nunchaku in hand, leaning to either side on the board turns it, while moving the handheld controls determines what your ski poles do. A couple of button presses makes your downhill racer perform enough tricks to be X-Games worthy as well.

While this game isn't deep and I would suggest the biggest TV possible to really get immersive, it is certainly better than one of the Wii's other releases this week, Major League Eating: The Game. I am not even sure, exactly, how that one serves your gaming palate.

Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Xbox 360, Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Wii, Nintendo DS

Disney Interactive, $29.99-$49.99

With another Narnia flick hitting theaters next Friday, the game tie-in arrives as well. One of the big things this game has going for it is the direct input of the film's director, Andrew Adamson. It seems obvious, but trust me, many games based on movies have only the most basic conversations with the film's production team, and it usually shows, in a bad way.

Along with hands-on support from Adamson, developer Traveller's Tales has used many genres of gaming here. Prince Caspian has several slice-'em-up levels, while the Pevensie kids do more puzzle-solving than anything else. Expect the DS to have a much more top-down game with point-and-click battles with puzzles that are more cerebral in nature. While the PS2 version loses a lot of the visual flair that has been packed into the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions, it is still a solid, if not necessarily an eye-appealing, affair.