NFL Head Coach Whets Appetite For Some Football

If you tend to spend more time in the "general manager" mode of sports games -- trading players, making coaching moves, adjusting the price of hot dogs -- you're going to like EA Sports' new "NFL Head Coach" videogame.

If you're into running plays and banging on your remote control, you'd better wait for Madden or some of the college football games.

This one is short on action and quite long on strategy and your moves have a real impact on your team. You create game-day strategies and how you deal with players in practice will affect their moods and performance.

Honestly, this could be a really cool addition to the upcoming Madden game, which would give it more depth, but as a stand alone game, Head Coach will probably have a limited audience (Rating: 2.5/5).

QUICK REVIEWS:

The Da Vinci Code: Based on the controversial Columbia pictures film, gamers will try to unlock the code on a 2,000-year-old mystery. I haven't seen the movie but this game is said to have levels that are not in the movie, expanding its storyline. At its heart, this is an adventure game and a puzzle game where you must beat a convert society which seeks to keep an ancient secret. Rated T for teen (Rating: 3.0/5).

Field Commander: If you like war games, you're going to love this. The old PS2 can still kick out some pretty stunning visuals and it's nice to see that in a game that also includes some good strategy.

You must use your mind as much as your hand-eye coordination to guide your division to victory over a terrorist organization, and the game is really all about strategy. The enemy AI (artificial intelligence) is high, so you'd better master all 15 army divisions at your disposal (Rating: 3.5/5).

Monster Hunter Freedom: You are a hunter battling some big ugly beasts, something like the old movie, "Van Helsing." The creatures on this PSP effort from Capcom are rendered pretty well, though they won't really scare you. You can play alone or with up to four friends (a feature I discovered while waiting for a haircut and a teenager sidled up to me with the same game). (Rating: 3.0/5).

New Super Mario Bros: You know the deal here. It's Mario for the Nintendo DS system. Nowadays, though, mushrooms make Mario really small or really big depending on which one you pounce on. Touch a blue shell and Mario will turn into a whirlwind shell that wipes out your opponents.

All your favorite bad guys are here, along with a few new baddies for Mario and Luigi to take out en route to saving Princess Peach who has (again) been kidnapped by Bowser and Bowser Jr. All day fun (Rating: 4.5/5).