I’ve never seen a month so manic as April. The first half has jack squat in terms of anything exciting, and the second half revels in the glory that is Portal 2. Unfortunately for you folks, we are still in the first half of. I guess you’re just going to have to enjoy killing things with music this week.

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

Honorable Mention

Patapon 3 (PSP)

Tuesday April 12, 2011
Never underestimate the power of music. Now there’s an awesome tagline for the movie version of Patapon. The popular music strategy game returns with Patapon 3. What? Never heard of the music strategy genre? That’s because Patapon started it, and nobody bothered dared to imitate it. Like the previous two, Patapon 3 has you controlling your army via music. By playing out different drum patterns, your Patapons will move forward, attack, hunker down, retreat, and other actions.

Patapon 3 changes the formula a little bit by replacing the squads of Patapons with individual superhero Patapons. At the end of Patapon 2, the Patapons found a mysterious box and decides to open it. Unfortunately they unleashed seven evil spirits who turned the Patapons into stone. All save one. The lone Patapon found incredible power at the bottom of the box turning the Patapon into a superhero and sets out to save the rest of the tribe.

Like before, your superhero Patapon, along with 3 other superhero Patapons, can be customized with new weapons and upgrades making them more and more powerful as the game progress. The previous two installments depended a little too heavily on grinding to upgrade the Patapon squads, and I can’t tell if Patapon 3 will follow the same formula.

Patapon 3 also has local versus and co-op multiplayer features, but that has never been the game’s strength. The fact that Patapon 2 even existed probably surprised the few people who bought this game given how under the radar the series is let alone Patapon 3. Critics loved Patapon’s refreshing take on the music rhythm genre, but the audience for Patapon appears to be fairly niche.

Coming This Week

Tuesday April 12, 2011

Rio (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, DS)

Why do publishers insist on making these games? Haven’t the last 37 bajilion licensed games taught the consuming public anything yet? Kinda makes you wonder what sort of Men in Black Neuralyzer tech is installed in everyone of these games doesn’t it? It almost (almost!) makes me want to play this mini-game collection (platformer on the DS) just to see this tech in action. Or is this how these games stay profitable? How many times have I had this thought?

Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga (Xbox 360)

If you’re wondering what’s the difference between this and Divinity II: Ego Draconis, you can stop now. Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga contains both the original and the PC only expansion Flames of Vengeance, which concludes the Ego Draconis storyline. You could say that this is the complete version that Ego Draconis probably should have been. Boy aren’t you glad you held out buying Ego Draconis until now.

Fantastic Pets (Xbox 360 Kinect)

You know the 360 was asking for it. Pet simulators shied away from appearing on Microsoft’s “hardcore” console, possibly due to how badly Viva Piñata did, but then Kinect showed up. Instead of cute baby versions of big cats, we get a dog, a cat, a lizard, and a horse, possibly because THQ just couldn’t make up their mind. Interestingly enough, you can customize your pet so much that you could end up with a fully metalic horse or a dragon. Just remember to teach your dragon who’s the boss lest you end up being its lunch.

SpongeBob SquigglePants (Wii uDraw)

Looks like Wario is about to get some competition. This uDraw required, micro-games collection has over 100 SpongeBob themed, Nanogames that you play through in rapid succession. If you get tired of that though, SquigglePants also has a paint program. Whatever you draw, you can export to the SD card, the one in the uDraw tablet and not the one on the Wii itself. Mario Paint and Warioware in one package? Is it me or is that kind of... brilliant?

Late to the Party

• Michael Jackson: The Experience (Xbox 360 Kinect, PS3 Move) 4/12/2011
• DanceDanceRevolution (Xbox 360) 4/12/2011
• Trackmania: Build to Race (Previously titled Trackmania Turbo) (DS) 4/12/2011

Patapon is undoubtedly a great game, but it’s such a deceptively grind heavy game. I wonder if this one won’t be so grind heavy. How about you guys? Anything on this list catches you eye?

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