Dead Man's Hand: Wacky Wild West

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Here's a look at some hardware and software that's available:

Dead Man's Hand from Atari, for Xbox, rated T: content suitable for ages 13 and older, $29.99. This first-person shooting adventure melds the spaghetti Western with Robert Rodriguez-inspired action as a heroic gunslinger named El Tejon travels across 19th-century America to exact revenge on a band of nasty outlaws.

The game tries hard to entertain through several features: A player's munitions and health are determined, in part, by enjoying rounds of poker before entering the missions; 25 types of authentic period weaponry can be chosen; an excellent soundtrack is offered; and the protagonist can take down enemies through a variety of means -- shooting off his hat, shooting a wooden platform from under him or picking off a powder keg to blast him into eternity.

Unfortunately, this hombre never could quite master the aiming system, which resulted in El Tejon's taking more damage than he dished out. Still, fans of the violent Wild West should give the title a try.

PL-957 Pro System Selector by Pelican, stand-alone unit for gaming and entertainment systems, $99.99. Serious video-game players and those who love on-screen entertainment but are befuddled by the yards of wire and various patch cords needed to plug all their components into the television can reduce their stress quickly with this handy patch bay that bundles all console choices into one-touch access.

The size of a slim briefcase, the magical black box offers eight input areas (seven from the rear of the unit and one accessible via a hidden front panel) for audio-video, S-video and component video along with three broadband (ethernet) inputs for the online gamer and three optical digital outputs to accommodate almost any entertainment device's configuration.

In non-tech terms, that means an Xbox, DVD player, PlayStation 2, VCR, computer and satellite dish all can be plugged directly and permanently into the PL-957 with only one set of wires left to be plugged into the viewing monitor. Then, using back-lighted select buttons, entertainment junkies can click on any of the labeled buttons, and their choice will come to life on the monitor.

The unit comes with an AC adapter, extra nameplates and a set of component video cords to get the multimedia festivities going.