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Like skydiving and thrash-metal concerts, video games are among the rare pastimes that can put you one flawed reflex away from horrible, violent death- or so it seems, if the games are good. Here are three new titles guaranteed to give you that call-the-next-of-kin feeling gaming fans know so well. HYPER ZONE (Hal America, for Super Nintendo Entertainment System, $49.95) For the parents who make up a substantial portion of the Nintendo demographic, Hyper Zone might more appropriately be called ''Go Faster, Dear, They're Throwing Boulders at the Windshield.'' A futuristic piloting-shooting adventure, the game has players hurtling along in a spaceship, blasting away at approaching bad guys. With lots of practice, you can learn to forestall annihilation, but when you finally blow up (and believe me, you will finally blow up), it's like reliving every grisly driver's-ed film you saw in high school. A
PAC-MANIA (Tengen, for Sega Genesis, $49.95) For urban dwellers, the idea of three-dimensional Pac-Man, with malevolent ''ghosts'' chasing you around corners and ganging up on you at intersections, will have special resonance. Pac- Mania, however, disappoints for two reasons. First, the 3-D conceit allows you to see only a relatively small portion of the maze at a time, making it hard to tell how many ''power pills'' are left to be gobbled up or where your enemies are coming from. Second-and this is what really sabotages the game-the unresponsive control pad has Pac-Man slamming into walls at the exact moment he should be getting his little yellow heinie out of harm's way. B-
MEGA MAN: DR. WILY'S REVENGE (Capcom USA, for Nintendo Game Boy, $29.95) How can Capcom keep coming up with new atrocities to perpetrate on poor little Mega Man? In this latest installment in the popular series (the first for the Game Boy), the spunky superhero gets slashed by sentient buzz saws, impaled on plunging icicles, and pushed off ledges by evil, grinning beach balls. (Fortunately, the violence is more implied than real; whenever Mega Man buys it, he explodes in a nebulous poof.) What makes this game especially attractive to adults is that you can begin your quest on any one of four stages, thus avoiding that linear, start-over-again-from-scratch quality that only 12-year-olds find hypnotic. A-
