Re-Mission (Windows, Mac)

You'd probably expect a game designed to educate young cancer patients about their disease to be plodding and dull, but that's hardly the case with Re-Mission. In fact, the fast-paced three-dimensional combat is better than that of many action games developed by for-profit companies. The notion of frying cancerous cells even as they metastasize and spread works perfectly within the context of a game focused on shooting, and the spectrum of enemy cells we face requires players to learn which weapon (chemo, radiation, or antibiotics) to use in different situations. What's more, smart and imaginative environments -- such as one in which players must avoid electrical discharges from nerves in a patient's spinal column -- help keep the scenery from growing monotonous.

The only place the game begins to falter is in its story and dialogue. Roaming across the country and being injected into patient after patient gets a little repetitive, and a few of the game's humorous scenarios -- like one sequence in which our tiny heroine tries to tune in lame rock music through a receiver in a host's body -- feel as though they were written by an adult struggling to understand what kids find funny (which, of course, was probably the case). Still, it's a niggling complaint. Re-Mission is a great game with a noble objective, and worth playing regardless of whether or not you yourself are fighting the disease -- especially since the $20 donation asked of non-cancer patient players who download the software will go straight toward distributing the game to kids who need it.