Washington ? A gun-wielding creature called Sniper and a video game that allows players to hijack police cars and shoot pedestrians are among the most violent toys and games for sale this holiday season, a national parents’ group said Tuesday.

Released just before the holiday shopping rush, this year’s “Dirty Dozen” list includes toys that, according to The Lion & Lamb Project, promote violence and aggression as fun and harmless. The group is urging parents to steer clear of these toys and instead buy those that made their top 20 nonviolent toy list.

“We’ve lived through the horror of Sept. 11, the war in Afghanistan, the anthrax scare, the sniper shootings and just recently the string of unrelated killings in L.A.,” said Daphne White, a parent and executive director of the group. “So the question is: what kind of toys do we want to give our children during a season of peace on Earth? Do we give them toys that remind them of terrorism and violence … or toys that will make them laugh and make them think and have fun?”

At the news conference held by the Lion & Lamb Project, a parent-based initiative that aims to halt the marketing of violence to children, the toys on display included Hasbro’s “Zoids: Gun Sniper,” a toy figure equipped with “missile-launching side cannons.” Also displayed was “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City,” the sequel to the best-selling video game of 2002. A complete list of toys the group found violent – as well as toys it recommends – is available at www.lionlamb.org.

Hasbro, the manufacturer of the Zoids game with the sniper figure, called the Lion & Lamb findings “off-base.”

In a statement Tuesday, the company maintained that the sniper toy and another toy that the U.S. Public Interest Research Group deemed a choking hazard in its report are both “appropriate” for children age 4 and older.