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Too dimensional

“Attack of the Movies 3-D” is a perfectly acceptable little game, as long as your expectations are under control and you’re not looking for an immersive, outside-world obliterating experience such as “Grand Theft Auto IV.”

But you should know that its main selling point, the “3-D,” is the worst thing about it.

“Attack” is different from what we typically review — it’s the first Wii game I’ve reviewed, I think, although a version also is available for Xbox 360, and it’s not a standard, military-themed violence simulation.

But it’s instructive to take a look at this arcade-style shooter to get an early take on 3-D games, which could be the next big thing for video consoles.

In “Attack of the Movies,” you’ve got your Wii remote or your Wii Zapper, and you blast away at non-copyrighted versions of iconic movie monsters. There are alien space ants, for example, weird zombie Incans (or maybe they’re Mayans), and giant sharks, among other bad guys.

Game-play couldn’t be simpler: As you automatically move through the levels, you shoot as many monsters as possible. You can get upgrades by shooting boxes with more powerful guns, or double points, or more health. That’s it. Easy and diverting, just like an earlier era of video games.

The experience will take many players back to their youths misspent in movie theater lobbies, pouring quarters into arcade versions of “Time Crisis” or “Area 51,” which used this same format. Both of those light-gun classics were much better than “Attack of the Movies,” but with a price tag of only about $30 for “Attack,” you can’t deny it’s a bargain.

The new twist is that you can opt to play “Attack” in 3-D, using one of four pairs of cardboard blue-lens/red-lens glasses included in the box. It’s possible that on today’s high-speed, wham-o-dyne, flat-screen televisions, the 3-D produces a spellbinding experience.

But on my conventional CRT TV, it looked terrible. I took the glasses off soon after starting because I couldn’t see what was happening and returned to the menu to set it back to normal 2-D mode.

Here’s where “Attack of the Movies,” although just a trifle of a game, could be a prophecy of things to come. Game publishers, especially the electronics behemoth Sony, are readying to roll out a new generation of 3-D titles in the coming months. Users of Sony’s PlayStation 3 reportedly will get a software update soon enabling their consoles to handle 3-D images, and the company says the next installment of its “Killzone” series will be in 3-D.

This could be a troubling development.

Will it mean interminable cut-scenes in which characters point straight at us, or in which we fly through canyons, just to create an excuse for some 3-D effects? Hollywood may like 3-D, in part because it makes movies tougher to bootleg, but its revival has proved a curse for pacing and storytelling, requiring creators to come up with eye-candy filler to make it seem worthwhile.

With video games — whose scripts and storylines usually make summer blockbusters seem like masterpieces of wit and economy — you can only imagine the horrible bloat 3-D could create.

Video games don’t need gimmicks to engage players. First-person shooters, especially, already have the greatest gimmick in history: Enabling hot-blooded young men to pretend they’re committing acts of horrible violence with absolutely no real-world consequences.

When you finally pick off the player all the way across the map who’s been sniping your guys the whole game — or, even better, you sneak up and dispatch him with a knife — that feeling of satisfaction cannot be improved by 3-D, 4-D or any other D.

I look forward to being proven wrong. Maybe tomorrow’s top-tier new games, high-powered TVs and next-generation consoles will make 3-D as much a part of video gaming as swearing impotently in frustration when your character “dies” yet again.

But having seen what 3-D has done to movies and its failure in an otherwise fun little game like “Attack of the Movies,” I think it may be a long time before anyone gets it right.

In the meantime, the same old two dimensions will be just fine, thanks. Ë