'Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile'

If revisiting the '80s isn't enough of a time-travel trip, try rolling centuries off the clock with a excursion to ancient Egypt. Then settle in to design your own metropolis and oversee its growth in "Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile" (Tilted Mill; PC; $49.95; Rated Everyone), an absorbing city-building game that expands your experiment -- and your headaches -- by requiring you to supervise your city's inhabitants as well.

No mere bricks-and-mortar magnate are you in "Children of the Nile." As Pharaoh, you've got to look out for all of those farmers who feed your society and all of the other individuals who eat, shop, produce goods, acquire friends and families and attend to real-life tasks.

You'll be busy here, taking time away from important stuff like arranging cedar trades with Byblos or dealing with the aftermath of the Nile's annual flood to deal with folks' day-to-day quirks and beefs. Sometimes you'll feel benevolent toward your charges, and sometimes you'll just want to slap them silly. And all those hours spent overseeing at polytheistic society is likely to give you a new appreciation for the separation of church and state.

But be careful. As in politics today, you've also got to hone your sense of self-preservation because increasing your prestige with your populace is crucial to your success. You wouldn't want to be the first Pharaoh to end up without your own pyramid for a final resting place, now would you?

Graphics are very pretty, but we found it disconcerting to see people occasionally pass right through their neighbors while walking along a crowded path. Sound, too, is quite good, with tiny figures on screen exchanging dialogue that is sometimes funny, sometimes cranky, but quite realistic.

Particularly amusing is that poor guy who wanders around in search of a cure for the common cold. We feel for you, buddy.

-- By Cindi Lash, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

'Atari Flashback'

So there we were, thinking we'd pretty much wrapped up our holiday game coverage after checking out more than 100 titles for last week's expanded package. Then we peeked into our mailbox and found late-arriving treasures that lucky gamers of all ages would be tickled to unwrap.

A particular standout: 'Atari Flashback' (Atari Inc.; $59.95; Rated Everyone), a trim self-contained console packed with 20 of the game maker's Classic 7800 and 2600 titles and two toggle-style 7800 joysticks. This package simply plugs into your television's audio and video jacks, requires no other game system to play and is crammed with retro entertainment.

Go ahead, smash up those blocks with "Breakout" or take command of the skies with "Asteroids." Wiggle and wriggle with "Centipede" and "Millipede." Blast away at blocky little tanks in "Battlezone." Listen to children marvel at graphics that now seem incredibly primitive, then challenge them not to get addicted to a handful of these enduring standards.

Single- and two-player games all hark back to the early '80s, bringing back memories of plunking quarter after quarter into tabletop arcade machines instead of studying back in the dorm. Generations of consoles have come and gone since then, but for the most part the gameplay we craved so long ago still holds up.

"Atari Flashback" is reasonably priced, considering the number and variety of games it contains. It's also easy to hook up -- always a plus -- and it contains a title for gamers of all ages and abilities.

A couple of quibbles, though: We wish the console wasn't so sensitive to vibrations or voltage fluctuations in our entertainment system. Bumping the console, or even thumping the floor in glee after racking up a high score at "Asteroids," sometimes caused the screen to briefly go blank. More than once, we lost momentum or got killed in a game because we weren't able to see the screen for a crucial second.

The same thing also happened too often when we tested the console on a TV/DVD combination. Finally, we gave up and moved to our older-model basic TV, which worked perfectly. It figures. But hey, we're just glad we worked out the kinks. This is a flashback well worth having.