Once upon a time, there was a sitcom called Perfect Strangers that told of the adventures of Larry, a neurotic uptight American, and Balki, his distant cousin from an abstract European nation who moved in with him and weekly inflicted overly optimistic and somewhat mutilated views of American culture on Larry.

They had weekly adventures in which Balki proved time and time again that having no idea what the fuck he was talking about often made more sense than whatever it was that Larry thought he knew.

To paraphrase country singer Alan Jackson: Together, they learned a lot about livin' and a little 'bout love.

Now you can relive that experience as a video game. Sort of.

Just type in the dream you want to achieve and then control Balki as he runs through a land of rainbows and magic trying to help Larry achieve it by mangling the letters of the dream into something unpronounceable.

If there is a better time-waster out there this week, we doesn't know about it.

Back in early December, we ran a story about the MMO Rift from Trion Worlds. The sheer magnitude of massively multiplayer online (MMO) gaming may seem a bit surreal but let's drop a bit deeper into that void, where the lines between virtual world and real world are blurred a bit more.

Trion Worlds sent out this press release and it certainly needs to be shared. The headline was pretty self-explanatory, but here is the release in its entirety:

The massively multiplayer online gaming industry—sometimes referred to as MMO or, if role playing is an active element, MMORPG—can be very big business, by any standard of the entertainment field.

Just how big? Take a look at the top dog in the industry at the moment: World of Warcraft. WOW launched in North America in November 2004, with a price on the box of around $50. There have been four expansions to the game, each costing (upon release) roughly $40 per expansion. Now, because players hop into the persistent world and play on a server run by the company (Blizzard, in this case), players pay a monthly subscription fee to play. For WOW, that runs $15 a month.

As is the case with most MMOs, the player community is transitory. Players have a tendency to hop from one game to the next new one, check it out and then either stay or return to another one where he or she has established a relationship with the server community and likely has acquired a lot of stuff (high-level armor, status, power—the general attributes of being "uber"). The WOW community of players has, like all MMOs, fluctuated, but as of Nov. 8, it had a subscription base of 10.3 million players. All paying $15 a month. Can you say "cash cow"?

File this under the "in case you were wondering" category of nearly useless information—or file it under the "Are you kidding me?" branch of information that will, one day, turn up as a question in a Trivial Pursuit game—in either case, it is a remarkable feat and just one more sign that the video-game industry is big, big, big.

Game publisher Activision Publishing Inc., (which is part of the entity also known as Activision Blizzard Inc.) made this announcement today:

"Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has shattered theatrical box office, book and video game sales records for five-day worldwide sell-through in dollars. The game established an all-new five-day worldwide sell-through record of more than $775 million, exceeding the record of $650 million set a year ago by Activision's Call of Duty: Black Ops and $550 million two years ago for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, according to Charttrack and retail customer sell-through information.

With $775 million of sales of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 in its first five days, Call of Duty has become the first entertainment property in history to set five-day launch records for three consecutive years across all forms of entertainment," said Robert Kotick, CEO, Activision Blizzard. "Life-to-date retail sales for the Call of Duty franchise have exceeded $6 billion worldwide, which makes Call of Duty one of the most valuable entertainment properties in the world."

It's shopping time. What are you going to get the gamer in your family?

BW asked a few of the folks who work for gaming companies (either as in-house public relations or with PR firms that handle gaming clients) for a list of the games on their wish lists for Christmas. And some of them chose games that were not being released by the companies they work for.

We'll publish the full list of the season's best gift games in Wednesday's edition of Boise Weekly, but here's a sneak peak at a few things on the list:

• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (PC/360/PS3, first-person shooter, released Nov. 8)

• Skyrim: The Elder Scrolls V (PC/360/PS3, role-playing fantasy game, released Nov. 11)

• Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning (PC/360/PS3, a massively multiplayer online game, launches Feb. 7, 2012)

... And we even have a suggestion made by the ladies of the gaming industry for the ladies.

For those who have been around the gaming block a time or two, the franchise of Diablo is certainly familiar. For those who don't know it: Diablo was an isometric (which means the view was from the top but from a bit of an angle), dungeon-crawling, hack 'n' slash bit of gaming that was addicting as well as challenging.

Monsters were hacked up in a most satisfying manner, there were plenty of drops and treasures to find, and Blizzard (the company behind the title) even set up its battle.net online servers for cooperative gaming. Truly, those were some golden days in gaming.

After Diablo II, there was a host of wannabe games that sought to recapture the joy and glory (maybe gory glory) of the title but few came close. Well, coming to a PC (maybe a Mac) near you, purportedly in 2012, is the next attempt, but this time, there are some serious wrinkles that all but guarantee that this Diablo clone is the real deal. In fact, it has to be—simply because it is Diablo III, from Blizzard.

Before you know it, the valley will be lit up with Christmas decorations and retailers will be trying to entice consumers to spend, spend, spend. It would seem odd if the video-game industry didn't follow suit and, typically, some of the bigger titles of the year are saved and then released in the countdown to the biggest gift-giving day of the year.

Rather than try to take this month-by-month, I thought it might be easier to just fire off a list of some of the major titles releasing leading up to Dec. 25, since some times may slide by a week, some titles still have a soft (or fuzzy) release date, and some titles are precipitating their release with the death knell of other games (OK, this is one game, which we shall get to in a moment, and it has the Star Wars license stamped all over it).

On to the games:

Getting a little bored with Farmville?

Tea Party Zombies Must Die is a new waste of time entertainment outlet that will let you channel your political ire.

This controversial online-only first-person shooter game from Starving Eyes Advergaming equips players with an "arsenal of weapons” including a crowbar, various guns and even a machete for wreaking havoc on Tea Party zombies like Fox News Newt Gingrich Zombie, Sarah Palin Zombie and Express Racist Views Anonymously On The Internet Modern Klan Zombie.

The month may have gotten off to a bit of a slow start, but consoles and gaming PCs should warm up considerably as the month rolls toward September. There are some major franchises getting another go-round during the month, some of the more recent favorites, as well as some old familiar friends getting a reboot.

The preliminaries are over, and now it’s time to get down to the nitty-gritty.

Summer is in full bloom, and as the temperatures start to rise outside, the video-game industry is supplying some interesting indoor diversions, even if the pickings are a bit slim.

There are a pair of games that are bargaining on success at the box office to propel sales. Of course, there is a Harry Potter title: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II. It's available today, Tuesday, July 12, on the PS3, 360, Wii, NDS and PC. Part I was a critical disaster, but maybe Electronic Arts' development team learned from that.

SEGA has not done really well with Marvel titles in conjunction with movies, but tries again on Tuesday, July 19, with Captain America: Super Soldier on the 360, PS3, NDS, Wii and PSP. This is a third-person action game set during World War II.

Other titles releasing in July include:

NCAA Football 12
Tuesday, July 12
PS3 and 360

EA Sports says this title will take the franchise to new levels of depth and authenticity, and that includes a new enhanced in-game presentation, new traditions and school-specific crowd celebrations. The franchise has been one of the better sports titles in the past, and unless EA Sports has totally messed with that formula, this could be the same. For Bronco fans, this is your chance to take Boise State to the Blue before things get going in Georgia in about a month.

From Dust
Tuesday, July 27
360, PS3 and PC

This is a bargain-priced title at $15 suggested retail but could be innovative and a hidden gem. The press release tells players they will be “commanding the world as a child in a sandbox.” Players will “help their people resist, expand and migrate so they can accomplish their quest to find a safe place in a land ravaged by the violent and catastrophic ways of Nature.” The player interacts with the world dynamically, and the screenshots look quite tasty.

And for the karaoke crowd.

Sing4: The Hits Edition (with a microphone)
Tuesday, July 19
Exclusive for Wii
The music genre has waned a bit in recent years, but there is a still a demand for party-style games and this offers another option in that regard.