Contributor: Bob Hoose

After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.

Hitman: Absolution

Agent 47 is sneaking back around with a killer of a story. But we wouldn’t advise letting him take you by surprise.

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Nintendo Land

Here’s a variety-pack game that’s designed to show off the future of gaming while making you earn your graduate degree from the new Wii U.

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Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two

The mouse teams up with the rabbit in this return to the world of Wasteland.

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The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2

Bella finally has her fangs and bloodlust. She has her vampire husband and her half-vampire child. So what’s at the beating heart of this final Twilight?

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A Game Economy

If you’re the type to worry about an American economy that continues to hobble along like an octogenarian centipede and chew your nails over that looming fiscal cliff that we keep hearing about, well, I have two words to calm your nerves … at least for …

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LEGO The Lord of the Rings

A land of trolls, wizards, heroes and, uh, cheery plastic! Welcome to The Lord of the Rings, LEGO style.

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Call of Duty: Black Ops II

It’s not surprising that in the edgiest of all the war games, Call of Duty, the good and bad of armed conflict is a twisting, hard-to-pin-down thing. What is surprising is how many gamers don’t seem to care.

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Lotus

Lotus is supposed to be about fresh “new beginnings.” But there’s quite a lot of “nasty endings” here too.

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The Skinny on Horror

So you’ve tossed your diet overboard like a rusty anchor, huh? I understand. Cutting back on favorite foods and snacks can be doggone tough. (Unless you’ve broken your jaw and had your mouth wired shut. But no such luck for me.) And then there’s the ex …

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Halo 4

You thought Master Chief was finished? Nah. He’s got something (someone?) close to his heart to fight for this time.

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Wreck-It Ralph

The level-ups in this animated arcade game send-up are messages encouraging friendship, love and self-sacrifice. But there are a few in-game “extras” that serve as obstacles along the way.

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Elmo Says It’s OK

Sesame Street’s little, giggly Elmo may just seem like a furry friend of the letters A and Q to you. But to me, he’s the tops. We have all, of course, been watching the impact that Frankenstorm Sandy had on the Atlantic coast—following its stories of d …

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Assassin’s Creed III

The video game world’s most famous and most popular assassin trades in castles and old-world mystique for a New World Revolutionary War frontier.

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Fun Size

If your kids scream for this Halloween romp, you may want to dress them up as … smarter kids.

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A Brave New Password

Ah, passwords. They’re our protectors. Our safety blankets. They’re good and we love them. Sorta. As we all know, nearly everything we do nowadays—from playing games to checking our office desktops to downloading cellphone apps to paying bills to tweet …

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