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What if the American Civil War hadn’t ended?

Damnation

PC, PS3, Xbox 360

From Planet of the Apes to Mad Max to I am Legend, there’s something compelling about stories set in a post-apocalyptic future. Damnation, however, imagines a post-apocalyptic past.

In this “alternate history” third-person shooter, it’s the early 1900s and the American Civil War has been raging for 40 years with catastrophic effects on the young nation. Decades of conflict have also created a booming military-industrial complex that’s developed some pretty unfamiliar technology — steam-powered four-wheel motorbikes, great wooden airships, a railroad-spike gun — all set in a Wild West landscape of huge derelict factories and towering industrial spaces.

Now a shadowy billionaire arms maker plans to take over the ravaged continent with his own private army, and you, as leader of a ragtag rebel group, are all that stands in his way.

Damnation also brings another dimension to the shooting genre — literally. Abandoning the usual claustrophobic corridors, it’s billed as the “shooter gone vertical.” Gunplay is fully integrated with acrobatic Tomb Raider-style platforming, so you’ll climb, somersault and shoot your way through (and between) vertigo-inducing structures full of ladders, stairs and ziplines; with equally acrobatic and resourceful bad guys dogging your every move from above and below.

And just who is this guerilla leader? In the classic American tradition, Captain Hamilton Rourke is a laconic gun-toting loner tormented by his own personal wartime tragedy, who just happens to be fighting for the good guys. “It’s a world without justice,” he growls ominously, “but vengeance is alive and well.” Also, he has a wicked-cool hat.

Gardening Mama

DS

Put away the gun, and get out the Garden Weasel. Here’s a collection of mini-games starring the adorable (but exacting) anime “Mama” — lately of the hit Cooking Mama game series — who coaches you to plant, water, prune, fertilize and harvest various flowers, fruits and veggies. So get out of the house and, er, play your handheld videogame.

The Godfather II

PC, PS3, Xbox 360  

At the end of 2006’s The Godfather: The Game, Michael Corleone promotes you to Don of New York. In this sequel, which borrows the movie’s American settings, but changes up the story, you expand your import/extort business to other cites with your fists, arson and strategic hits. Just when you thought you were out...