BOOM BLOX

RATING: Everyone

Boom Blox could be called “Knocking Things Over: The Game.” It’s a physics-based puzzle game — the player must use the Wii Remote to throw baseballs, bowling balls, bombs and other items at stacks of blocks. The goal is different depending on the set of challenges selected.

Some task the player with knocking over a structure in as few throws as possible to gain points from gems sitting on top. Others ask the player to hit specific blocks in order to earn points or explode a block pile or send several towers careening into one another.

Another type of puzzle doesn’t require the blocks to be toppled, instead challenging the player to use a virtual hand to pick as many blocks out of a teetering structure as possible without letting it fall over.

It’s terrific fun and perfectly intuitive to play with physics like this — it’s even entertaining to watch a spectacular failure as blocks careen and tumble to the ground. There’s a multiplayer mode with several games, including a take on arcade classic Warlords, and players can create their own puzzle stages and share them with Wii friends.

Details: Electronic Arts, Nintendo Wii, $49.99.

ASSAULT HEROES 2

RATING: Teen

An overhead-view two-stick shooter, Assault Heroes 2 delivers solidly on a tried and tested arcade action formula. There’s nothing at all innovative about it, but that’s not the point here.

The controls are simple and responsive, the graphics are pretty, the sound is booming and the explosions are big — that’s all a game like this needs to be fun.

One or two players control armored vehicles and blast their way through everything with a variety of onboard weapons — chaingun, missiles, flamethrower and ice gun, plus limited grenades and area-effect blasts.

Details: Sierra Online, Microsoft Xbox 360, $10.