It's a mediocre spring for videogames. Shrek the Third (Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, DS, rated E 10+) isn't so bad but isn't so great. You play as the big green ogre, his donkey and so on, and the game squanders its sweet-looking adventure land with the repetitive punching and kicking of villains.
More promising is the nicely drawn comedic-horror tale of Death, Jr. and the Science Fair of Doom (DS, rated E 10+), in which you sickle bad people into their graves as Death Jr. (son of Death). Like Shrek, though, Death, Jr. bogs down in redundant killing.
Konami Classics Series: Arcade Hits (DS, rated E 10+) gathers a bunch of arcade throwbacks from the 1980s, like "Track and Field" and "Yie-Ar Kung Fu." It can be fun, but these games were designed to end quickly, in order to make gamers drop handfuls of quarters into arcade consoles. The games are still too short to hold your attention.
And so I settled into Pogo Island (DS, rated E). It's a fun little nothing in which you play a handful of different mini brain games involving solitaire, anagrams and such. It's mildly diverting, which is just enough to make it the game of the week.
