What is up with the releases for the Nintendo consoles?  Last year, they consistently come out week after week.  Lately The pickings has been slim.  Maybe the publishers have just realized that they’ve been releasing way too many games for the DS and the Wii.  But that’s just me.  As for the other consoles, it’s business as usual.  This week, we’ve got the sequel to the game that managed to make the Tony Hawk series irrelevant.  Also, we’ve got a sequel to the game that took the stereotypical “snow level” to the next level by making every level in the game the snow level.

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

Lost Planet 2 (Xbox 360)

Tuesday May 11, 2010

Be prepared for more snow level!  Or not.  Back in the first Lost Planet, the entire game revolves around heat and cold.  The environments were all ice and snow, but the enemies carry in them Thermal energy which you can use to boost your own health and occasionally your own weaponry.  In Lost Planet 2, 10 years have passed, and the world has completely changed.  Now we have jungles, desserts, oceans, and the occasional snowy areas.  So with such a drastic change in locales, you’d think this would be a drastically different game.  The combat has stayed exactly the same as before.  It’s still a third person shooter with a grappling hook for reaching higher ground.  You still fight the Akrid, although their average size seems to have grown considerably, by shooting at their glowing orange areas.  Not to say that any of this was bad of course, but some would argue that these were the things that needed some refining.  From the demo I’ve played, these things were exactly the things that remained intact while everything else seems to have gotten more awesome.

The change in the climate thankfully means a broader color palette to stare at.  Taking down Akrids the size of buildings is a little bit more fun than just taking down bus sized Akrids.  The thing I can’t quite get a handle on for Lost Planet 2 is the single player mode.  I think there’s a story, but almost everything Capcom have shown us is about the multiplayer mode with its insanely customizable avatars and some out-of-left-field guest characters like Marcus Fenix and Dom from Gears of War.  I know that there’s a 4 player co-op mode, but that’s about it.  Well, here’s to hoping that the things that they’ve made more awesome will help us forget the flaws.

The great lengths people will go to avoid taking a bath boggles the mind

Skate 3 (Xbox 360, PS3

Tuesday May 11, 2010

The Arcade vs. Simulation pendulum is a strange and funny thing.  The skateboard genre reached popular mainstream thanks to the Tony Hawk series.  That series took a more “arcadey” approach to the skateboarding game, but that notion of arcadey vs. realistic didn’t really show up until Skate came out.  The Skate series is basically the Gran Turismo of the skateboarding genre because compared to the Tony Hawk series, and just about every knock off of Tony Hawk, Skate was very technical.  Pulling off tricks successfully requires skill and practice.  Skate 3 continues its tradition of a highly technical skateboarding game, but it seems to have taken itself somewhat less seriously.

First up, Coach Frank, the “best skateboarding coach money can buy”, is the in-game teacher that teaches you the basics of Skate along with some of the advanced techniques.  Thankfully, his tips will actually be real, but his humor retains all the charms that you’ve come to love.  The Hall of Meat mode returns from Skate 2.  If your favorite skateboarding YouTube videos are those involving skateboarding screw-ups, then this mode is just for you, and only you.  The point of this mode is to make the worst possible looking skateboarding screw-up as humanly possible.  One of the new additions to this mode is the ability to manipulate your skater while their crashing.  This way, you can literally make your skater spring off the ground so they can get over that waist high barrier just to fall down the cliff on the other side.  Skate differentiated itself from Tony Hawk by taking the genre to the Simulation side of the aforementioned pendulum, but with Skate 3 it seems to be swinging back towards the Arcade side a little bit.  If it makes for a better game, I can get down with that.

Honorable Mention

3D Dot Heroes (PS3)

Tuesday May 11, 2010

Plenty of knock offs for the original Legend of Zelda has came and went.  It’s just a little strange that one would come out now.  Anyone who’s touched 3D Dot Heroes will attest to the fact that this is an unabashed Legend of Zelda clone.  From the story to the structure of the game and right down to the moment-to-moment combat, movement, what have you, this is literally the original Legend of Zelda game slightly re-imagined, and slightly modernized, but probably the first thing you’ll notice is the strange, strange graphics.

The game is in 3D, but everything is made of 3 dimensional pixels.  Imagine the Lego video games, but everything, and I mean everything, is made out of that 1-piece Lego block.  Even the people are made out of them.  So the game is both pixilated AND 3D!  One of the advantages to this strange graphic design is that you can create your own hero one 3 dimensional pixel at a time.  Instead of the usual sword-wielding dude, you can have a dragon or a skeleton or some other out there avatar as long as you can fit it inside the allotted dimensions.  Most gamers these days have probably never played or even seen the original Zelda, so the charms of this game will undoubtedly be lost on them, but for everyone else just pining for the “simpler” days, this is like a godsend for them.

Coming This Week

Tuesday May 11, 2010

Batman: Arkham Asylum (Game of the Year Edition) (Xbox 360, PS3)

Meet the rare breed of comic book licensed games that was actually worth a damn.  This Game of the Year Edition includes 6 previously released DLC Challenge Maps.  Also, this version will be able to support 3D mode for your TV, that is if you’re rich enough to own one of these 3D TV sets.

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Heroes 3 (PSP)

I just checked with all the Naruto games I’ve written about, and none of them had the same subtitle.  So that means Naruto Shippuden has at least 5 different offshoots.  Worst yet, most of them has a number attached to the end.  So do they just slap on some subtitle and add a number at the end just to make it sound extra cool or something?

LTTP

SBK: Superbike World Championship (PS3)

Satisfashion (Wii)

Monster Racers (DS)

I never knew I could be so excited for a game as pixilated as 3D Dot heroes, and yet here I am.  I suppose the rest of you are probably more excited for that Lost Planet game with its awesome graphics and explosions and giant monsters.  Well you can have it.  I’ll stick with my blocky heroes and monsters.

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