COVER STORY : Video Legions : Boys, avid fans of the games, crave the fast action, snappy graphics--and blood.

Video game junkies call it “graphic candy.” Computerized artwork and photographic realism. Three-dimensional figures who punch and shoot their way across the screen with pinpoint brutality.

That’s what Kelly Mower craves. A slight young boy from Encino, he owns a Sega Genesis and two different Nintendo systems.

“The best game?” he asked. “Mortal Kombat II. There’s fighting. There’s blood.”

There is technology. Technology sweetens the graphic candy. The new breed of video games pack high-speed microprocessors, graphic engines and digital sound, all of which put the gleam in a gamer’s eye.

“Graphics are going to suck you in,” explained David Winding, an editor at Diehard GameFan magazine. “Then, how is the experience once you’re brought in?”

Donkey Kong Country, arriving in stores on Monday, blankets you in a dazzling snowstorm. Sonic & Knuckles gives you the agility to climb walls. And Mortal Kombat II blesses you with the strength to rip your opponent asunder and watch the blood spurt.

“Finishing moves,” little Mower chirped. “You cut off their heads.”

That is what the gamers, the hard-core players, want.

Imagine them, millions of glassy-eyed boys crouched in the glow of their television sets and computer screens, madly fingering plastic game paddles. The image is not far from true--most players are boys ages 8 to 18. They spend hours each day honing their skills, scratching toward the top level. And they are legion.

Americans spend an estimated $6 billion a year on video games, which is more than they spend to go to the movies. Sega and Nintendo, the undisputed champs of the industry, occupy an estimated four of 10 United States households. Meanwhile, upstart multimedia machines such as Atari’s Jaguar and Panasonic’s REAL 3DO have arrived on a wave of hype. And personal computers, a category unto themselves, spin games into millions more living rooms and dens.

As a result, shoppers will have thousands of game titles and dozens of game-playing systems to choose from this holiday season.

For most adults, navigating this scene will be as bewildering as piloting heavy cruisers on a deep recon mission toward the Zeeman-Vela star cluster. Gamers say that Super Nintendo gives good graphics while Sega Genesis plays more smoothly. Panasonic’s REAL packs custom graphics and sound processors for even better look and play, but doesn’t offer as many games. With computers, technical matters of random-access memory and monitor quality must be considered.

As for all those games, it’s a jungle out there.

“Too many games,” said Harry Myerson, owner of Who’s On First, a Canoga Park shop. Myerson warned: If you make the wrong decision, you get stuck with a dud. He pointed to the recently released NHL ’95. “It’s actually a step backward from NHL ’94.”

Blood is the only sure bet.

A 1993 survey published in the Clinical Pediatrics journal asked a group of Midwestern children and teens to list their favorite games. Martial arts and shoot-’em-ups predominated, accounting for more than half of the preferred titles. Educational games accounted for less than 2%.

More recently, Diehard GameFan polled its readers and found similar preferences. Fighting games such as Mortal Kombat II and Final Fantasy III lead the pack, followed by sports and role-playing titles. A recent issue of Computer Gaming World magazine listed Doom, with its “Knee-Deep in the Dead” difficulty level, as the most popular choice for personal computers.

“Everybody plays it,” said Terry Coleman, an assistant editor. “We named it our game of the year.”

Even a new tongue-in-cheek video game release, Earthworm Jim, features a battling genus Lumbricus. But gore is not the whole story. Gamers also crave action. While the rest of us struggle with the first level of Columns, the true players have tapped into a shared logic that allows them to decipher a game’s intricacies and secret maneuvers.

On a recent afternoon, Greg Kindred tested the new Beavis and Butt-head at the Game Dude shop in North Hollywood. Within minutes, the Sun Valley teen had mastered various skateboard tricks and offensive yet high-scoring bodily functions. Nearby, Wayne Sanford browsed through racks of new titles.

“It has got to be a long game and it has got to be challenging,” said Sanford, 12, of North Hollywood. Ecco the Dolphin is his current favorite. “It is not something you can get through the first day.”

Ferreting out worthwhile games becomes a contest in itself. With new titles costing up to $70, it entails no small gamble. Jordan Brandt, 7, of Woodland Hills listens for word of mouth or waits for someone else to make the first move. “You can play them at a friend’s house to see if you like them,” he said. Kevin Syre, 12, of Sherman Oaks reads Electronic Gaming Monthly and other trade magazines for reviews and announcements. And, like others, he visits arcades to sacrifice a few quarters in the name of research.

“A game that does well in the arcades will come out as a video game later on,” said Alex Mortazavi, owner of Game City in Sherman Oaks. “The kids come here asking for it, so I know in advance which games I should stock.”

Jason Weingarten, 6, of West Hills has his eye on the new Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. “I’m saving up my allowance,” he said.

Those who are less determined can wait up to three months for the goods to reach rental stores where the going rate is $1 a night. They come into Mortazavi’s shop each afternoon to pore over the racks, asking wistfully for popular titles that haven’t yet arrived or are already rented.

But not all of the customers are kids. Adults--mostly men--rent sports games like Bill Walsh College Football and NBA Jam. Men in their 20s and 30s represent a growing portion of the video game market.

“There are a lot of guys like myself who are in their early 30s and grew up with these games,” Winding said.

While older players eschew the violence and cartoon heroes of such hits as Wolfenstein and Sonic the Hedgehog, they are not entirely different from teens. They want the new technology.

“Now we can take batting practice in Fenway Park,” Winding explained, referring to a computer game called Front Page Sports Baseball. “We have the technology to watch the ball as it starts fair and curves foul and bounces off the wall.”

But the sweeter the candy, the greater the cost. Sega and Nintendo, with their relatively simple 16-bit processors, retail for about $100. Panasonic’s 32-bit REAL lists at nearly four times that price. Computers equipped with the desired CD-ROM drives and Super VGA monitors cost even more. Manufacturers hope that adults, with adult-sized discretionary income, will support the high-end market.

“Adults have a real difficulty admitting that they do anything for fun,” explained Coleman, of Computer Gaming World. “But a computer is a serious machine. They buy it for business or for their kids. Then they find out they can play ‘Star Trek’ games.”

Given the capacity of computers and improving video game systems, software developers are producing impressive games that offer live-action sequences featuring actors such as Sylvester Stallone, Brian Keith and Margot Kidder. These games are paving the way for an era of “full-motion video,” when gamers can trade their cartoonish action for motion-picture scenes in which they control every move the characters make.

This and other breakthroughs should begin to arrive late next year, as even Sega and Nintendo advance toward 64-bit power. At the same time, telecommunications companies will continue work on announced cable channels that would allow subscribers to select from a menu of games on their television sets and compete with other players nationwide.

Graphic candy for the masses. Gamers can barely contain themselves.

“If people have a home computer or a decent home entertainment system, they aren’t going to leave the house,” Winding said. “We’re looking at a ‘pod’-ization of the world.”