Happy Valentine’s Eve everybody! Did you get your turkeys yet? Wait, wrong holiday. Did you get your con... boxes of chocolates yet? If you’re one of the poor souls without a mate this year, why not drown your sorrows, or possibly your jubilance, with this week’s smattering of releases?

Remember. Release dates are quite literally made at the whims of the publisher. The following are subject to change without any warning.

Releases To Watch For This Week

Twisted Metal (PS3)

Tuesday February 14, 2012

Psychotic clowns. Where do we stand on these menaces to society? So long as they’re driving the ice cream truck from hell, we seem to be okay with them. You can thank Twisted Metal for that.

The premier car combat game in existence returns complete with its original creator, David Jaffe at the helm. Never heard of the car combat genre? I can’t blame you. The last game in this genre came out 2008. Unopposed. In case you can’t tell by the name of the genre, think demolition derby with lots and lots of guns, explosives, and a generous helping of wacky weapons like an exploding, giant clown head.

Despite the simple premise, some fans of Twisted Metal actually care about the various characters and their backstories. For them, TM’s single player mode features dedicated storylines for Sweet Tooth, Dollface, and Mr. Grimm, all veterans of the series. The basic story involves the demolition derby with guns tournament held by a man named Calypso. The winner gets to make a wish and have it be fulfilled.

The real bread and butter of the Twisted Metal series lies in its multiplayer though. Players will be able to play local and online multiplayer in various standard modes like Free For All Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Capture the flag among others. One of the more interesting modes, called “Nuke,” involve a two teams having to go to the opposing teams area and kidnap their leader so you can strap him or her to rocket back at home base, launch the rocket, and pilot it into a giant statue on the enemy’s home turf without having the rocket get shot down.

No one really knows why the car combat genre disappeared despite Twisted Metal’s popularity. Whatever the reason, this Twisted Metal looks to reinvigorate people’s love for cars and destruction and ultimately revive this dormant genre. Or it’ll just be a nice little one-of video game that will stay wholly unique while everyone else tries to crack the Call of Duty formula.

Honorable Mention

Rhythm Heaven Fever (Wii)

Monday February 13, 2012

Do you see rhythm everywhere you go? Does it feel like people walking on the street or cars honking at each other or the chime from the doorbell all seem to be working off of some invisible metronome that only you can see? You, my friend, need to play Rhythm Heaven Fever.

This long running rhythm game, at least in Japan anyways, finally gets its first home console release with Rhythm Heaven Fever. Previously a handheld exclusive, Fever contains 50 mini-games that revolve around you pushing a button at exactly the right time based on the rhythm that you hear, which is usually represented with some kind of a quirky on-screen animation. One mini-game has you kicking away balls as they bounce rhythmically towards so that said balls doesn’t hit your girlfriend sitting next to you. Another has you jumping up and down on a see-saw. Another one has you hitting golf balls as they’re thrown to you by a monkey and a mandrill. In each case, the game throws in curveballs that really changes the rhythm and can seriously screw up your entire rhythm for the rest of the session.

Fever does feature a multiplayer mode, but it appears to be fairly limited given how only 10 of the aforementioned mini-games will be available for this mode. Nevertheless, Fever should appeal to those who can’t help but see rhythm everywhere. As for those who are somewhat rhythmically challenged, may I suggest Solitaire?

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2 (DS)

Tuesday February 14, 2012

For those of you who hasn’t upgraded your Nintendo handhelds, this should give you enough reason not to upgrade for a little while longer (Sure, 3DS can play DS games, but given the incompatible screen resolutions between the two, DS games look far better on the DS.).

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2 won’t be rewriting the Devil Survivor formula by much. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between the two. Most of the overworld interactions still happen in menus. Dialogues happen between two non-animated portraits. Battles take place on a grid Strategy Role Playing Games style. You still buy demons from an auction house. You still fuse them to make newer, more powerful demons. Devil Survivor 2 does add one new element though. Sort of.

Similar to the Social Links mechanic found in Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 and 4, interactions with your party members will net you rewards as you grow closer to them, usually by successfully choosing the right things to say to them. Beyond this wrinkle, the thoroughly addictive gameplay formula has not change. Now, if we can only convince people that new DS games still comes out despite the 3DS, Devil Survivor 2 won’t have any problems selling.

Coming This Week

Tuesday February 14, 2012

BlazBlue: Continuum Shift EXTEND (Xbox 360, PS3)

The hell? Another BlazBlue? What is this Super BlazBlue Tournament Edition or something? In a word, yes. This one contains all of the available DLC for Continuum Shift plus four new story scenarios, an updated fighting engine which includes new moves, and a couple of new modes. At this rate, you might as well wait for Super BlazBlue Tournament Edition Turbo sometime in the next week or something more ridiculous than that.

Grand Slam Tennis 2 (Xbox 360, PS3)

Remember the first Grand Slam Tennis on the Wii? Grand Slam Tennis 2 doesn’t seeing how it’s avoiding that console completely despite starting out exclusively on the Wii. This once motion controls centric tennis game has dropped all the motion stuff and opts goes for a more simulation-centric tennis game, but Grand Slam won’t be eschewing everything from its motion controls roots. Instead of pushing buttons, swinging your tennis racket involves moving the analogue sticks in specific ways to get different kinds of hits. Prepare for some tennis thumbs folks.

UFC Undisputed 3 (Xbox 360, PS3)

Super Moves? Health bars? Screw that noise! For MMA fighters, winning means landing your punches and kicks at the right time and place. The MMA fighting series continues with this third iteration with two new weight classes, 150 fighters to choose from, and including the Pride mode, which lets you play a match in the now defunct Pride league including all of the rules from it like being able to kick people in the face. Happy kicking!

Tales of the Abyss (3DS)

I thought the days of ports for the 3DS would be done by now, but then again, I also thought that 52 card pickup was a new card game. Boy was I wrong. Tales of the Abyss originally came out for the PS2 back in 2006. This long running Japanese Role Playing Game stars the amnesiac Luke on a journey to presumably get his memories back while doling out every imaginable JRPG trope in existence, if reviews of the original are anything to go by. If you must play all the Tales games that come to our shores, I guess you’re stuck with this one.

Tekken 3D: Prime Edition (3DS)

Looks like Tekken felt a little left out on the 3DS what with Street Fighter and Dead or Alive having entries on this handheld. This Tekken will have 40 fighters from the Tekken universe, local and online versus modes, and over 700 in-game collectible cards, which can be traded with random strangers via the 3DS’s StreetPass feature. Happy punching!

Hakuoki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom (PSP)

Pop quiz hot shot! What do you suppose this game is? Some kind of a samurai game? Another demon bashing game starring samurais? A cooking game? If you chose the first, you’re still wrong, but at least you got close. This visual novel stars a young woman during the end of the Japanese Edo period, basically around the time samurais started to fade away. As she search for her father in Kyoto, will she also find love? That’s right. This PSP game, mere days away from the Vita’s release, is aimed at women who own PSPs? Say how many guys own PSPs again?