Required playing from the week in video games.

Kratos -- the ripped hero who looks like what would happen if a 13-year-old MMA fan designed a Greek warrior-- returns in "God of War III." The fact that this final trilogy piece is pretty much identical to the previous two is sort of moot. Fans of this franchise know what they want: gratuitous beheadings and pixelated (NSFW) boobies. For better or worse, this franchise is going to run forever.

Also in stores:
-- "Dragon Age: Origins Awakening" is the first expansion pack for last year's hit RPG "Dragon Age: Origins."
-- In the survival-horror RPG "Metro 2033," you battle horrifying beasts called "The Dark Ones" in an underground post-apocalyptic Moscow. As Yakov Smirnoff would say, "In post-apocalyptic Russia, game plays you!"
-- "Resonance of Fate," an RPG that looks an awful lot like "Final Fantasy," also takes place on an Earth overrun by poisonous gases. That doesn't explain why the title sounds like a late-period Cure album.