Last week you heard me on SiriusXM; this week I'll be on radio shows across the nation.  Here are some of the products I'll be talking about:

What separates one dance game from another?  I've looked at five new titles for the Kinect (supplied by their publishers) launched for the 2011 holiday season and found that while all had something to offer - none were complete bombs - many suffer from what I call Macromediocrity.

If you have a kid in your life, you need to know about Kidlandia's extensive line-up of personalizable gifts. Posters, puzzles, placemats, wall hangings and more are just some of the colorful products that you (and your child) can customize with Kidlandia either on line or in person at the world's toy store, FAO Schawrz in Manhattan.

The first six titles for Kinect demonstrate clearly that the new "controlerless" interface can work very well.  While some are better than others, as an opening salvo across the bow of the Wii and Move, these show that family gaming can still pack a lot of punch.  Here are our picks for the ones to get and the ones to skip.  You know how to skip on the Kinect, don't you?  Just jump, one leg in front of the next.

Grease is so bad it should come with Liquid Plumber.  Never before has a game that tried to do it all (Dancing, track, racing, singing) failed so completely to do anything worthwhile.  Love the movie?  You won't find the original voices here.  Nor the likenesses of the characters, either. 

If you're looking for a more-or-less harmless game to play with the family at the holidays, and you keep the remote control by your side at all times to keep the music under control, this game for kids and casual gamers might be what you're looking for.  On the other hand, you might want to ask yourself these questions before investing:

Do you need another party game full of mini-activities?  Do you have a taste for music that may make your ears bleed?  Do you not really care that you've played most of these ideas before in countless games.

Active Life Explorer is proof that not every exercise game has to look like gym class.  Like Microsoft Kinect's similarly named Adventure, this is a jump-duck-and-run game.  Since Konami can't rely on the Kinect's sophisticated body tracking features, they use a floor mat to register the action.  This game, designed for kids 8-12 is a hidden treasure trove of fun to get your kid moving.

That Kirby, a living pink marshmallow of a character, rates a very serious 4100 word article on Wikipedia is no accident.  The truth is Kirby's Epic Yarns is my favorite incarnation of this long-lived franchiseand, while it is mostly just another side scrolling adventure, its unique perspective, creative use of art, and gentle, good nature, make it one of the more appealing Wii titles of the Holiday 2010 season.

Macromediocrity's hallmark is the re-skinning of adult games with kid-friendly art and calling it children's software. The MySims line is a double mashup as it takes an adult brand ("The Sims") and blends it with other adult style fare, in this case "Airplane Arcade Action".  It is woefully lacking in humor and a surprisingly difficult game to play.

We've seen this type of game before, even sharing many of the same mechanics, in first party titles from Nintendo.

Mix one part classic board game "Clue" with a healthy dose of Mario Party, and a bit of animated Carmen Sandiego and, unfortunately, you get a game resulting in a hung jury. 

On the plus side, Disney's Guilty Party, is a game that does require players to find clues, and reason from those clues who committed the crime.  For instance, was it a man, a woman? Tall or short, Fat or thin?  Once you assemble the clues, you make an accusation and the game requires you to match clues to proof required to snag the perpetrator.  This requires reading and logic.