Not enough FPSes yet? Well, this week, we got the graphical powerhouse of the PC shooter world coming to consoles, unless you’re still playing on a SD television. On the portable front we have Square Enix’s follow up to their Final Fantasy fan service, Dissidia Final Fantasy, which I’m guessing will be more fan service-y than the previous one. If none of these interest you, well there’s always Legos.

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

Crysis 2 (Xbox 360, PS3)

Tuesday March 22, 2011 (PS3 version comes out on Thursday March 24, 2011)
Everyone’s favorite benchtesting program, or at least it was back in 2007, finally got a sequel. The Nanosuit from the first Crysis that made all the superhuman things you can do back then will again be at your disposal in Crysis 2. The suit enables you to take a lot of bullets, jump really high, run really fast, punch and kick really hard, and even turn invisible so you can scamper away in fear or more cowardly things like going around and shooting an enemy from behind.

You don’t get a kick-ass suit like this without some kind of an invasion storyline though, and Crysis digs up a nice familiar plotline for ya. Aliens. They’ve invaded New York City, and now you’re going to have to fight your way through the decimated city if you want to rid Earth of these unwanted aliens. Nice and simple. Well, I’m sure the story is more complicated than that, but given how it’s not Halo, who’s keeping track?

On the Multiplayer front, you actually get to use all the neat armor abilities from the single player, and the maps were designed to accommodate your various abilities. The multiplayer maps tend to have a lot of vertical layers to it thanks in great part to your ability to jump really high. A lot of the objects in the environments like overturned cars and such are placed for your Nanosuit-powered kicking pleasure.

Like every multiplayer shooter released post Modern Warfare, Crysis 2’s multiplayer also offers a form of progression as well, but instead of just unlocking armor and weapon mods as you level, your play style determines what kind of mods you unlock. If you stick around the frontlines, you get armor mods that delay detonations of enemy planted explosives near you or one that lets you pull of the Air Stomp, wherein you jump up and land with a fist pound to the ground that flattens anyone near it. Stick to the shadows long enough, and you’ll get mods like seeing your enemy’s footprints that you can follow or being able to see through a cloak.

Both modes benefits from Crysis’s pretty as hell graphics, so even if the actual game turns out to be crap, you’ve still got one hell of an eye candy video game in your hands.

Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy (PSP)

Tuesday March 22, 2011
What do you do if your franchise has created so many memorable characters? If you’re a Japanese company, you go and make a crossover game. Like the first Dissidia, Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy mashes all the main characters and main villains of every numbered, non-spinoff Final Fantasy including the MMO Final Fantasy 11 (sort of) into a rather unique fighting game. Funnily enough, the story takes place before the first Dissidia making this “sequel” a prequel.

Had this been a Capcom game, they would have named this Super Dissidia Final Fantasy Turbo EX Champion Edition rather than tacking on that “012” moniker like Square Enix did. Dissidia 012 has all the same characters from the previous iteration plus eight more. In Final Fantasy ascending number, these are Kain of FF4, Tifa of FF7, Laguna of FF8, Yuna of FF10, Shantoto of FF11, Vaan and Gabranth of FF12, and Lightning of FF13.

The combat system is... uhm... different. Suffice it to say that nothing has changed from the first one. The fighting remains just as flashy and hectic as before and can be pretty tactical and heady if you play it that way. Dissidia does have one new addition though. Assist allows you to call in a preselected character to come in and do a couple of hits for you Marvel vs. Capcom style.

The first Dissidia gave Final Fantasy fans, and haters, a place to play out their fantasies. With more characters, most of which were chosen because of their popularity (save for Vaan), Dissidia 012 looks to be a damn good upgrade from the previous Dissidia.

Honorable Mention

Monster Tale (DS)

Tuesday March 22, 2011
You guys trust me right? Wasn’t Henry Hatsworth In The Puzzling Adventure awesome? Apparently the guys and gals who made that game didn’t stop there. They’ve been working on this other game called Monster Tale, and it looks to be a lot like Henry Hatsworth. Instead of a puzzle game on the touch screen though, you have a monster raising sim.

NO WAIT! COME BACK! Yes, graphically speaking Monster Tale does look like it skews kind of young. You do play as a girl, Ellie who stumbled upon Monster World and befriends a monster named Chomp. Turns out, Monster World has a problem that Ellie and Chomp might just be able to help out.

So here’s where this game betrays its creators roots in Henry Hatsworth. Ellie stays on the top screen and plays out very much like a 2D Mega Man game, although I don’t think she can shoot. Monster Tale has 5 levels, but they seem to be laid out like a Metroid game where you have inaccessible areas of the map until you find the power-up somewhere else on the map.

As for the bottom screen, Chomp can either hang around down here using whatever items you send down there from the top screen or on the top screen floating all around the screen and attacking various enemies. Chomp does have its own health bar, so you still have to watch it from getting into trouble. Some of the items you send to the bottom screen includes a catapult that shoots out bombs to the top screen and a soccer ball that Chomp kicks to the top screen and bounces around damaging enemies along the way. Chomp itself can transform into at least 30 different forms and useful objects.

It’s hard to tell just how much of Henry Hatsworth’s greatness will be carried over into this game, and this gamble of mine is based strictly off of the pedigree of the guys behind the game. Let us see how this plays out shall we.

Coming This Week

Tuesday March 22, 2011

Dynasty Warriors 7 (Xbox 360, PS3)

Koei. Enough said. No I mean seriously! What can they possibly do to make us care about a Dynasty Warriors game ever again? Real time Dual Weapon switching? 3-D capability? Both are accounted for, and still I care not for this new iteration.

LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, DS, PSP)

Did you know that the Star War: The Clone Wars TV series is, gasp, actually good? Turns out, A lot of people really liked the show, probably more so than the prequel movies. It really shouldn’t surprise anyone then that we’re getting a Lego treatment of the TV Series. From the looks of the trailers some sequences from the prequel movies will also be in the game as well. Just try not to lose your head in this one. They don’t come cheap you know.

Playstation Move Heroes (PS3 Move)

What do you do if your game system has created so many memorable characters? If you’re a Japanese compa... wait a minute? Have I written that before? Must be my imagination. In Move Heroes, we have the dynamic duo of Ratchet and Clank, Jak and Daxter, and Sly and Bentley joining forces for some inter-universe competition, and as you can well tell, you’ll need the Move controller along with the Navigation controller. With the main leads, you’ll be swinging your wand to attack while the sidekicks uses it to aim their respective weapons in a Third Person Shooter style game. Oh how low these motion controlled peripheral games have to go before they rise up to greatness.

Tomb Raider Trilogy (PS3)

Given the numerous nature of the Tomb Raider franchise, one must wonder as to which three does trilogy refers? As it turns out, Tomb Raider Trilogy does not have the HD remakes of the original three Tomb Raiders but the latest three Tomb Raiders. Namely, you’ll be getting Tomb Raider Legend, Tomb Raider Anniversary, and Tomb Raider Underworld for your HD pleasures. Surely you understand how hard it would have been to update the fully pixilated, fully polygonal Tomb Raiders of old. These are just so much easier, especially since one of them is already in HD.

Raving Rabbids Party Collection (Wii)

Poor Rayman. At first, it looked like he was going to make a comeback via his little mini-game collection Rayman Raving Rabbids. Until the Rabbids pulled a Fonzie to Rayman’s Ron Howard. The next 2 Rabbids game after that – Raving Rabbids 2 and Raving Rabbids TV Party - doesn’t even have Rayman anywhere in it as evidence by this compilation of the three Rabbids game. Don’t worry Rayman. You’ll get your chance in Rayman Origins. I hope.

Nanda’s Island (DS)

Fun fact! Did you know that Nanda in Japanese basically means “What the Hell”? In this case though, I’m pretty sure they just wanted to name the panda shaman character in this puzzler Nanda for kiddie reasons like Ellie the elephant or Milly the kitty. Help Nanda revive an island by directing rainwater towards arid areas of the island with your stylus. Sounds interesting enough.

Naruto Shippuden: Kizuna Drive (PSP)

The good news is that this Naruto game isn’t a fighting game like the other 90% of Naruto games. It is, however, joining the 90% of PSP games that decided to become their own take on Monster Hunter. In this case, you and up to 3 friends can play as various Naruto characters and beat up enemies that get in your way before pummeling the main boss of the area. Personally, I’d love to see Naruto’s take on Puzzle Quest.

LTTP

TrackMania: Build to Race (Previously titled: Trackmania) (Wii) 3/22/2011

That Crysis game sure looks pretty as hell doesn’t it? Too bad I can’t afford it. Damn 3DS. Oh did I mention that it’s coming out this Sunday? In case you’re wondering why there isn’t a single mention of any 3DS games here, that’s because I’m writing up a special edition of Coming Soon! just for it like I did for Kinect. Look for it on Saturday, or I’ll be square, even though I hear it’s hip to be one.

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