This week’s new video games are a good mix of the old and new. Oh, wait, no they’re not. It’s another round of sequels and licensed games. Not that game sequels are inherently problematic (technology tends to keep getting better, y’see), but it’s hard to get excited over the sixth Tekken if you’re not a huge fan of fighting games. Even if you like racing games, Forza Motorsports 3 will only be interesting if you really liked the first two.
There is one new and original title launching this week, and that’s DJ Hero. Activision might deck it out in Guitar Hero dress, but DJ Hero’s gameplay bears little resemblance to its big cousin or Rock Band. Sure, you still hit colored buttons at the right time, but scratching, crossfading, and rewinding have no analogue in either of the two big music games. DJ Hero isn’t just fresh and exciting, though; it’s also shockingly fun.
Find the full list of new releases after the jump.
This week belongs to Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. At least it does if you own a PlayStation 3. The PS3-exclusive third-person shooter deserves its deafening hype; it’s a fantastic combination of great storytelling, top-notch game design, and superb multiplayer options. The Jack Black-starring, Tim Schafer-designed Brutal Legend shouldn’t be overlooked, though, especially if you love heavy metal, hacking and slashing, or light Pikmin-style strategy. If you’re looking for a Wii game the whole family can enjoy, there’s always Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games or the beautifully animated remake of the NES classic A Boy and His Blob.
You should never underestimate any Nintendo game with the word Wii in the title (well, except for that one time…) Wii Fit Plus is the biggest release of the week, but the cross-section of people who’ll buy that and, say, the punishingly difficult Japanese dungeon-crawler Demon’s Souls is probably microscopic, if not downright non-existent. Which is a shame, as Demon’s Souls deserves Wii Fit’s justified success, and also because people who love punishingly difficult Japanese dungeon-crawlers could probably stand to exercise a little bit more.
Demon’s Souls highlights a strong week for PlayStation 3 exclusives. Afrika, a gorgeous camera safari in the vein of cult classic Pokemon Snap, finally gets a U.S. release over a year after coming out in Japan. Also coming out this week for the PS3 is the adorable puzzle game Critter Crunch, which will be downloadable exclusively through the PlayStation Network.
Remakes, ports and sequels abound this week. I keep that sentence on my computer’s clipboard, ready to be pasted in every single week. It’s more notable with this week’s lineup of new games, though. The most intriguing titles here — Dead Space Extraction, MySims Agents, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, Motorstorm: Arctic Edge, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days — are extensions or new installments of established franchises. These aren’t Halo-sized blockbuster properties, but never underestimate the value of familiarity and name recognition. We’re living in a world with a Land Before Time XIII, after all. My crippling Turbo-Grafx 16 nostalgia impels me to highlight the new Military Madness: Nectaris remake arriving this week on Xbox Live. It’s been far too long since I last waged war on the surface of the Moon.
NINTENDO WII
September 28 Arkanoid Plus! (WiiWare)
September 28 Drift Mania (WiiWare
September 29 Baseball Blast!
September 29 Bass Pro Shops: The Strike
September 29 Crazy Chicken Tales
September 29 Dead Space Extraction
September 29 Deca Sports 2
September 29 Doctor Fizzwhizzle’s Animal Rescue
September 29 Family Feud: 2010 Edition Continue reading “Player’s Club: Video game releases for the week of Sept. 28″ »
Halo 3: ODST
Rated M for Mature
Released Sept. 22
Xbox 360
Published by Microsoft
WHAT IT IS: Master Chief returns yet again with… oh wait, that’s right, he doesn’t. Like this spring’s Halo Wars, the newest Halo first-person shooter is entirely without the series’ iconic lead character. It’s like those Queen reunion shows without Freddie Mercury, although ODST’s Nathan Filion isn’t nearly as acceptable a stand-in as Paul Rodgers. Originally announced as a value-priced expansion of Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST arrives with two discs of content and the standard price tag for a new release. The second disc is entirely recycled, consisting of Halo 3’s multi-player mode and all the various map packs that have been subsequently released through Xbox Live. So ODST rests on the first disc, which offers up an original Master Chief-less solo campaign that should take you less than eight hours to play through and the new Firefight multi-player survival mode. There’s a lot happening with Halo 3: ODST, then, but is it enough to justify the price?
The annual summer gaming drought is over and the fall’s weekly flood of new video games has begun again. It’s dangerous to stroll through the video game aisle or (shudder) any of your 50 local neighborhood GameStops without knowledge and a plan. So please, let us educate you.
Mountain Dew sales will skyrocket with the release of Halo 3: ODST, this week’s most anticipated new game. Despite the name, the first-person shooter is less an expansion pack than a brand new game set alongside the events of 2007’s Halo 3. The inscrutable Katamari Damacy franchise debuts on the PlayStation 3 with Katamari Forever. The Wii gets two new youth-skewing co-op beat ‘em-ups. The first, Spyborgs, is a side-scrolling action game for two. The other, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash-Up, is basically Super Smash Brothers with the Turtles replacing Nintendo characters. PSP players can waste the next 100 hours or so with Shin Megami Tensei: Persona, a remake of the first installment of the infamously lengthy role-playing series. Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection finally comes to the 360 and PS3, with three more classic pinball tables than last year’s Wii and PS2 release. Maybe I’m crippled with nostalgia, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be spending more time battling that asshole demon Gorgar with pinballs than I will rolling stuff up in Katamari or yahdoodin’ it up with ODST.
Follow the link for the full list of this week’s new releases.
I was talking to some people about this band Cold Cave. They make lo-fi electro-pop that sounds like old New Order four-track demos, but without almost any of New Order’s songwriting skills. It’s pretty dreadful stuff. One guy said he liked Cold Cave because it reminded him of old OMD records. Another guy asked why he didn’t just listen to old OMD records, if that’s what he wanted to hear. That’s not a great argument, normally, but in this case I kind of agreed with it. Why waste time on a vastly inferior rip-off when you have access to the original?
I thought of this conversation about Cold Cave a lot while playing Shadow Complex, a new Xbox Live Arcade exclusive that comes out this Wednesday. Both blatantly pay tribute to ’80s classics. Shadow Complex is basically just Metroid, straight-up, or more specifically the ’94 Super Nintendo sequel, Super Metroid. The game’s makers aren’t ashamed to admit it. That means it’s a 2-D side-scrolling action game that prioritizes exploration over blowing stuff up. Things do explode, and man does kill man (hundreds of men, actually), but the crux of the gameplay is unlocking all the game’s secret passages and power-ups.
Ghostbusters: The Video Game
Rated T for Teen
Released June 16
Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, PC
Published by Atari
What it is: Ghostbusters: The Video Game isn’t just a game. It’s an unofficial sequel to the ‘80’s classics. Like the movies, the third-person, Gears of War-style action game has a script by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, and many actors from the movies reprise their roles. Aykroyd, Ramis, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts, and even William Atherton (the dude who played Walter Peck) show up. Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis passed, unfortunately, so Alyssa Milano voices a new love interest for Murray. You can bet the cut-scenes will be long with all these folks on board.
Bustin’ makes you feel good when: Aykroyd, Ramis, and Murray start talking in the very first cut-scene. Fans of the movies will love hearing these characters again, especially with this script, which is packed full of Ghostbusters trivia and references. Those just looking for a good game will enjoy the generally solid action.
Although it looks like a shooter, Ghostbusters: The Video Game doesn’t quite play like one. Sure, you shoot ghosts with your proton stream, but the goal usually isn’t to destroy them but to wear them down and drag them into a trap. That can take some time, but it distinguishes the game from other shooters, treats the subject matter with respect, and also just feels good. The four-person multiplayer is also a nice change of pace for your Left 4 Dead foursome.
So I’m at this thing called E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, where most of the major video game publishers and developers show off upcoming titles to press, retail, and each other. It’s a massive trade show that fills up both halls of the Los Angeles Convention Center with an overwhelming assortment of video games and video game peripherals. Some might remember when E3 was held in Atlanta back in ’97 and ’98. It’s basically fun and business mingling awkwardly for three or four days out of the year, with a steady soundtrack of explosions, upbeat dance rock, and whatever music game happens to be nearby. And there’s always a music game nearby.
The biggest news of E3 thus far has probably been the new Wii-esque motion control systems from Sony and Microsoft. Sony’s motion control wand operates much like the Wii remote, interfacing with the Sony Eyetoy to bring one-to-one motion sensing to the PS3.
Microsoft’s Project Natal is something different, though. Natal is a camera that attaches to the Xbox 360 and that reads motions without need of a controller. To kick a ball, you swing your leg. To strike with a sword, swing your arm. You can even scroll through menu screens with a wave of your hand, and select options by pushing an invisible button. With a testimonial from Steven Spielberg, Project Natal made a huge debut.
Microsoft also impressed with a video demo of Lionhead Studios’ Milo project. Milo is a computer generated boy who reacts with you through the Natal camera. In the video Milo recognized a Lionhead employee and carried on a surprisingly realistic conversation. Of course demos exist to make products look amazing; it’s too early to assume Milo works as well as this video showed.
Sony officially announced the new PSP Go, coming this fall for $249.99. That’s a steep price to pay for a minor revision of a 5-year-old handheld. The most notable thing about the Go is its lack of a UMD drive. Gaming on the Go will be download only.
Other than those announcements, E3’s memorable moments have been mostly software related. More on those later.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Rated M for Mature (360, PS3, PC)
Rated T for Teen (PS2, PSP, Wii)
Released May 1
Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 2, PSP, DS
Published by Activision
What It Is: X-Men Origins: Wolverine is the video game tie-in to the movie spin-off of the series of film adaptations of the X-Men comics. That sentence alone contains about four reasons why this game should be awful. It’s not just low expectations that make Wolverine shockingly fun, though. This here is one finely tuned and calibrated piece of total junkcorn escapism.
You’ll pop your claws over: The game’s smooth implementation of Wolverine’s skills. Superpowers can be hard to do in a game, but Wolverine’s powers (razor-sharp claws, a powerful healing factor, an uncanny ability to appear in 20 comics a month) lend themselves well to video games. Automatic health regeneration pops up in most action games these days, but what makes no narrative sense with a litany of FPS soldiers works perfectly with a comic-book mutant.
It’s also surprisingly satisfying to slice and dice your way through entire platoons of bad guys. It’s even more surprising that the game doesn’t shy away from depicting the carnage caused by a dude with knife-hands. Wolverine paints the walls with blood and viscera, and the game celebrates dismemberment and decapitation. A light RPG sheen adds a modicum of depth, as each kill and secret discovery earns experience points that eventually help boost character stats and attacks. The graphics are also more polished than expected from a movie tie-in.
Bionic Commando multiplayer demo
Rated M for Mature
Released April 29
Xbox Live Arcade
Published by Capcom
What It Is: Bionic Commando’s pretty simple: You’re an army man, you’ve got a retractable grappling hook arm, now go kill some dudes. That basic formula led to one of the greatest NES games ever back in the ’80s, at least when combined with novel gameplay (no jump button!), fantastic level design, and confidence-shattering difficulty. Last year’s remake, Bionic Commando Rearmed, proved the original holds up just fine today, while the upcoming full-blown current-gen update aims to make the franchise palatable to those unfortunate souls too young to cherish 8-bit-era genius. The new game doesn’t come out until the middle of May, but Capcom released a demo of its online multiplayer mode on Xbox Live last week. So let’s download this baby and get to swingin’.
Wolverine’s the best at what he does, and I guess that means starring in games for every system ever made. Marvel’s furry little killing machine is everywhere this week, as versions of X-Men Origins: Wolverine will come out for every single active system. Most games based on either comics or movies are awful; is this game doubly cursed? Find out on Friday. Also of note this week: the WW2-set stealth action title Velvet Assassin finally comes out for the Xbox 360. The demo of Assassin at the New York Comic Con back in February wasn’t spectacular, but perhaps the developers have spiffed things up a bit. There’s a full list of new releases after the jump. Continue reading “Player’s Club: New releases for week of 4/27″ »
I didn’t do one of these last week. Sorry about that. But man, we are smack dab in the most listless of doldrums. April’s a dead zone for video game releases, or at least this particular April is. There’s not a single boxed retail release for the PS3 or 360, and absolutely nothing for the PSP. There are a couple of intriguing Atlus RPGs for the DS (Dark Spire and Dokapon Journey), and Samurai Shodown was always my favorite SNK fighter, but otherwise not much of note this week.
DS
April 13 Mixed Messages (DSiWare)
April 13 Master of Illusion Express: Shuffle Games (DSiWare)
April 14 Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiled
April 14 C.O.R.E.
April 14 The Dark Spire
April 14 Dokapon Journey
PlayStation 3
April 16 Puzzle Quest Galactrix (PlayStation Network)
PlayStation 2
April 13 Guitar Hero: Metallica
Wii
April 13 Party Fun Pirate (WiiWare)
April 13 Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure (Virtual Console)
April 14 Escape the Museum
April 14 Samurai Shodown Anthology
April 14 Tournament Pool
Xbox 360
April 15 OutRun Online Arcade (Xbox Live Arcade)
F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin
Rated M for Mature
Released Feb. 10
Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC
Published by Warner Brothers Interactive
Killzone 2
Rated M for Mature
Released Feb. 27
PlayStation 3
Published by Sony
What’s more respectable, a game that’s technically excellent, but lacking in ambition, or one that’s less well-designed, but tells a more interesting story? That’s the quick and easy breakdown of Killzone 2 and F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin. The former nails the first-person shooter formula as thoroughly as possible, but without an iota of originality, whereas the latter tries something different by muddling together familiar ideas from various genres and media forms. One’s more fun to play, but the other tickles the ol’ gray matter a bit more.
Remakes, ports and sequels abound this week. I keep that sentence on my computer’s clipboard, ready to be pasted in every single week. It’s more notable with this week’s lineup of new games, though. The most intriguing titles here — Dead Space Extraction, MySims Agents, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, Motorstorm: Arctic Edge, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days — are extensions or new installments of established franchises. These aren’t Halo-sized blockbuster properties, but never underestimate the value of familiarity and name recognition. We’re living in a world with a Land Before Time XIII, after all. My crippling Turbo-Grafx 16 nostalgia impels me to highlight the new Military Madness: Nectaris remake arriving this week on Xbox Live. It’s been far too long since I last waged war on the surface of the Moon.
Halo 3: ODST
The annual summer gaming drought is over and the fall’s weekly flood of new video games has begun again. It’s dangerous to stroll through the video game aisle or (shudder) any of your 50 local neighborhood GameStops without knowledge and a plan. So please, let us educate you.
I was talking to some people about this band 
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Bionic Commando multiplayer demo
