Some pretty little 3D games on a little Windows Phone. Ooh! Admittedly, not the biggest gaming news. The neat aspect comes into play with XNA though – Microsoft have unveiled The Harvest, a touchscreen dungeon crawler (pictured above) running on an ASUS Windows Phone prototype, built using XNA Game Studio – essentially a cross platform game development platform, allowing developers to create games that can run on a PC, Xbox 360 or Windows Phone. The Harvest was said to be developed in just a few weeks, and the ease of porting games using the XNA platform should mean many nice little games will make their way over to the Windows Phone platform, puny CPUs and touchscreen controls allowing.

The sudden desire to start collecting Sega GameGear games has lead me to visit a few local charity shops in pursuit. I haven’t seen any GameGear stuff yet, although I have managed to pick up a few bargains, including a promo copy of Ridge Racer 7 on PlayStation 3 for £2 and Call of Duty 4 on PC for the same price. Another store had Halo and Star Wars: Republic Commando on Xbox for a mere quid each while today I saw a boxed “Saga Mega Drive” with some random boxing game for £8.

I have to admit that I am surprised – every charity shop I’ve been in to has had games in, even if they are just a few old FIFA games for PlayStation 2. There seems to be a few savvy owners around too – one had Final Fantasy VIII on PSone priced up at £9.99. Still, that isn’t a bad price seeing that the cheapest price on Amazon is £22.48.

UK Charts

It’s yet another #1 for EA – Battlefield: Bad Company 2 has gone straight to the top of the chart. The Xbox 360 version has sold the most amount of copies (53%), followed by PlayStation 3 (31%) and PC (16%). Shortages of Heavy Rain have seen it fall from #1 to #4. Sonic & All Stars Racing drops to #5. This wouldn’t have happened if they had called it Alex Kidd & All Stars Racing.

Another PC game in the charts this week is Supreme Commander 2 at #23, while the PC version of Assassin’s Creed II has helped Ubisoft’s white-clad assassin go back up to #14.

I was expecting to see Brain Training and 42-All Time Classics to make re-appearances, given that the DSi XL – released last week – is aimed at “senior gamers”. Neither game though has re-appeared but Mario Kart DS is back at #31 while the charming Professor Layton and Pandora’s Box has returned at #37.

This Week’s Games

Expect a load of DS titles to re-enter the chart next week due to the super-sized Nintendo DSi XL hitting stores tomorrow. There are only two new DS games released this week to coincide with it though – the apparently better than you might expect Alice in Wonderland (also out on Wii) and Ubisoft’s Imagine: Journalist, as mocked on UK Resistance.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is the only thing arriving on consoles. GameRankings is currently showing an 89% average review score, so yeah, it’s good. I’d imagine that the single player isn’t as good as Call of Duty: MW2 but the multi-player mode has a lot more stuff to get stuck into.

Finally, get your phoenix downs ready for Tuesday 9th as that’s when Final Fantasy XIII is out. The usually reliable PSM3 Magazine only gave it 70% while GamesMaster magazine scored it 76%. These aren’t the kind of scores I was expecting, to be honest.

Next week: Moto GP 09/10, Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition, Sonic Classic Collection and Yakuza 3.

Last week Tesco and Asda revealed plans to enter the pre-owned games market; this week Argos has announced that they will soon be exchanging used games for in-store credit too. Put aside any thoughts of taking loads of copies of FIFA 2005 to your local though – they’re not going to take any old rubbish, only certain titles which appear on a list. You’ll also be able to see the trade in values on their website, which is handy. CeX are the only retailer to do this at the moment.

This news is a little surprising. For non-UK readers, Argos isn’t your typical high street store – it’s a catalogue store. You look through a catalogue, write down the number of the item you want and take it to the till. Then after five minutes or so, your item is brought down to you from a warehouse. How they’re going to sell these pre-owned games is a bit of a mystery. I’m guessing that they won’t appear in their catalogue and each store included in the trial will simply have a shelf/rack of pre-owned stuff. If that’s the case then it might increase the amount of people going into their stores.

UK Charts

The law of gravity also applies to the top 40 chart – what comes up, must come down. Aliens vs Predator was #1 last week. It’s now at #2, knocked off the top by the heavily promoted Heavy Rain. It’s the first Sony-published title to take the top of the chart since Killzone 2 almost a year ago. Copies of Heavy Rain are also said to be in shortage, with more due to arrive in stores by next week.

Sonic & Sega All Stars Racing is the next highest new entry at #8. It’s the Wii version that has been shifting the most copies, followed by Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Army of Two: The 40th Day is the week’s biggest faller dropping all the way from #10 to #30. Level 5’s RPG White Knight Chronicles is the only other new addition to the chart at #35.

Konami’s hopes must be shattered – Silent Hill: Shattered Memories hasn’t made the top #40 although it goes in at #11 in the Wii chart and #5 in the PlayStation 2 chart. And no, that isn’t a typo – Konami have released it on PlayStatation 2 instead of PlayStation 3.

There’s a shop in Brighton that sells imported sweets and other sugar-filled snacks. I usually buy a can of Mountain Dew when passing by, but today they had a range of energy drinks that caught my eye.

The Street Fighter: Dragon Punch Energy Drink features Ken on the bright red can. I haven’t tasted it yet but I know I’ll be buzzing after – it contains 120mg on caffeine. I’m guessing that the Ghostbusters Ectoplasm drink is green. If not, I want a refund. Then there’s the brilliantly titled Quagmire’s Cherry Pop. Giggidy. There was also a Resident Evil T-Virus energy drink. I don’t think I’d be alone in saying that the idea of buying something with the word ‘virus’ on the can is slightly off-putting.

You can rest assured that none of these cans will end up in the recycling bin.

Physicist Sidney ­Perkowitz has been in the news over the last week, suggesting that science fiction films require too much suspension of belief. His solution: they should only be allowed one major breach of the laws of physics, and everything else must follow logically from there.

Now, he’s not a young man, so games might not invade his brain space too much. But, boy howdy, he’d not be keen to see… well, pretty much any game.

He’s got a problem with the giant insects in Starship Troopers, so most massive end of level bosses are going to get right up his nose. And that’s before the general sci-fi nonsense of, you know, most games.

Come on then: what’s your favourite game-related science codswallop?

This Week’s Games

I don’t know if Sonic and SEGA All-Stars Racing features any music – remixes or original – from Sonic R, but it bloody well should. Even if it doesn’t it’s still worth considering as reviews have been solid including an 8/10 from GamesRadar and 78% from NGamer Magazine. Both said that the track design is decent but the commentary soon gets annoying. It’s out on Wii, DS, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and, funnily enough, PC, this week. Why no PSP version, Sega?

PSP owners shouldn’t feel too bad though – both Dante’s Inferno and perplexing puzzler Echoshift are out to buy from tomorrow. The curious Heavy Rain, which is rather aptly named given the weather at the moment, is this week’s big PlayStation 3 release. I have no idea if it’ll sell well though. The Wii meanwhile gets the very good Ace Combat-alike Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces and the presumably rubbish Safar’Wii.

Over in the world of Xbox 360 there are two new racers – budget priced Crash Time 3 (£17.99 at Gameplay) and Superstars V8 Racing: The Next Challenge. The first Superstars V8 didn’t review too well. Maybe this will be an improvement?

Another less than full-price title hitting shelves is Way of the Samurai 3 on both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It sounds like there’s some nice ideas behind it – there’s 15 different endings and you can talk your way out of fights. The first Way of the Samuari game has something of a cult following too.

Another else left? Only a little gem of a game called Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes on DS. This got rave reviews (which is a phrase I haven’t used in a long time, incidentally) around Christmas time but was put back until now to avoid getting lost in the Xmas rush. Imagine a mixture of Advance Wars and Final Fantasy Tactics and you should get the gist.

Next week: Final Fantasy XIII, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Sonic Classic Collection, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, Infinite Space, Dementium II and the Nintendo DSi XL.

Visceral Games satanic slasher is not based on the seven deadly sins as some misinformed people may lead you to believe, but rather the nine circles of Hell as described by Dante Alighieri’s fourteenth-century poem the Divine Comedy. As Dante embarks on his quest to free his lover he has to fight his way through Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Wrath, Violence, Fraud, Betrayal and Heresay. I know that the winners of 2001’s Pop Idol weren’t the best group ever, but I don’t think it particularly fair that they’ve ended up in Hell.

If you’ve played any of the God of War games then you’ll feel a sense of familiarity here. The combat system is well thought out and versatile, allowing for air combos and counter attacks while every foe bestows souls when destroyed that can be used to unlock new moves and upgrade existing ones. When finishing off an enemy you can choose to absolve their sins or punish them which will determine whether Dante follows the Holy or the Unholy path.

Following the Holy path will give better magic attacks and stronger defenses while the Unholy path gives more brutal attacks. Dante also comes across historic figures such as Boudicca and Pontius Pilate which too can be punished or absolved for their sins via a button matching mini-game. There aren’t enough souls to go around to follow both the Holy and Unholy paths in one game, which gives incentive for a second play through.

Japanese publisher Spike, who release many western games in Japan, recently asked over 6,000 Japanese gamers if they’d rather play Western games with subtitles or dubbing.

The “winner” was subtitles with 49% of the vote, followed by 47% with dubbing. 4% just simply didn’t care. Or words to that effect. The breakdown for specific genres though is a little more mixed – 59% percent want dubbing in first person shooters but for RPGs only 45% percent want dubbing.

If you read Japanese and give two hoots, there’s a dedicated website of the findings.

UK Charts

It’s a good week for Sega – despite mixed reviews Alien Vs Predator has managed to shove Bioshock 2 off the top of the chart after just one week. Rebellion also claim that it’s the fastest selling game of the year so far, beating even Bioshock 2. Sega’s Vancouver 2010 tie-in is in at #11 this week too, which likewise, has been getting some negative reviews.

There can’t be many Van Halen fans in the UK – Guitar Hero: Van Halen has failed to enter the top 40. The best it can do is #17 in the Xbox 360 chart.

Dante’s Inferno has fallen like a sinner dropping into hell this week, going from #9 to #22. The very similar Darksiders is back on the rise though, up from #32 to #19. And after appearing at #14 last week due to “super bowl fever”, Madden NFL 10 has fallen from #14 to #39.