This Week’s Games

Blimey Charlie – this week is rammed with new releases, with the Wii alone on the receiving end of thirteen shiny new games.

Fallout 3 – out on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC – is the big one, and I’m wondering how many people are going to buy it and find themselves a bit baffled upon discovering that it isn’t a straight-laced shoot ’em up. It’s meant to be very, very, good though.

Then there’s James Bond 007: Quantum of Solace, which Activision has been very coy with. I don’t think I’ve even seen a single screenshot of the Wii and PlayStation 2 versions. I do know that it’ll feature scenes from the last Bond film, and each level can be finished in two ways – stealthily or by force. Then there’s Manhunt 2, running almost a year late, and MySims Kingdom on both Wii and DS.

My Japanese Coach could be of interest to a few, while new instalments of Crash, Avatar, Tak, SpongeBob and Bratz should keep the kids happy. At least until they realize that Super Mario Galaxy is leagues better.

Next week: Gears of War 2, Motorstorm 2, Professor Layton & The Curious Village, Tom Clancy’s End War and Guitar Hero: World Tour.

There are plenty of third-party titles lined up for Giftmas for the PlayStation 2, including Tomb Raider Underworld and Sonic Unleashed, but the only Sony published game due is SingStar Singalong with Disney.

With this in mind, you’d think that next year would be looking bleak for the system. But Sony has found an answer – developers will no longer have to submit a game for content approval, effectively making the console an open platform the same way that the PC is.

This should attract smaller developers, but there are a couple of concerns – we may see a slew of dodgy ‘adult only’ titles, while quality control would be non-existent. Not that has harmed the Wii in any way, shape or form…

Absolute dedication to a very specific cause never ceases to intrigue me – and it’s more common than anywhere on the internet. Today, for example, there’s a press release about the first annual Widescreen Gaming Forum (WSGF) Awards.

The WSGF website is an impressive thing. I have no interest in how well widescreen is implemented in PC games, but these guys have coined their own terminology (Hor+, Vert-) to describe the various possible implementations, and even offer pre-release certification to developers. The sheer scope of the endeavour and the attention to detail is fascinating to read about, even though it’s ultimately irrelevant to me.

UK Chart

Last week was definitely a good one for new releases, with no less than four new entries in the top 10 chart. Fable II takes #1, followed by Far Cry 2 at #2. EA’s apparently very good but not that scary Dead Space arrives at #6, with Midnight Club: Los Angeles at #10.

There are two other new arrivals too: Moto GP 08 – which Capcom now has the license for – at #32 and Spider-Man: Web of Shadows at #38. Monopoly makes an appearance at #25 in the Xbox 360 chart, Star Ocean at #10 in the PSP chart and Celebrity Sports Showdown – which I didn’t even know was out yet – at #41 in the Wii chart.

The DS chart is just too painful to go into in great detail, but in a nutshell, DS owners really like animals.

With the London Games Festival under way, and the Video Games Live concerts taking place at the Royal Festival Hall today, I’ve been listening to the first Video Games Live CD release.

Game music attracts a particularly fanatical fan, if you’ll excuse the phraseology. I am not such a person. The only game soundtrack CDs I own are Wipeout and Yoshi’s Story, which I got free, respectively, with an issue of Arcade magazine, and as a pre-order freebie. So for me VGL is more of a curiosity, especially given the calibre of musicians involved – the English Chamber Orchestra is performing at the concerts in London today, for example.

So what’s on the CD? There’s a lot of overtly dramatic fare – pounding drum beats, chanting, that sort of thing. I’m talking about Warcraft, Medal of Honor, God of War, Advent Rising, Tron and Halo. To my ears – admittedly quite unsophisticated ears – they’re all pretty indistinguishable. Even Myst, after a quiet atmospheric start and a brief dalliance into world music, eventually ends up in the same territory.

There are exceptions, though. Civilisation IV sticks largely in the world music groove; Kingdom Hearts is unmistakeable Disney fantasy; and the ludicrous rock of Castlevania is surprisingly good fun.

The highlight for me, though, is Tetris. It’s only just over a minute long, but it’s Russian folk piano joy at its best. More jovial inclusions – Mario, Sonic, anything like that – would have made this a more complete compilation. But maybe that’s being saved for the second volume.

This Week’s Games

Without a whiff of sarcasm, it’s a good week for new releases. Fable II has been a long time coming but looks like being worth the wait, and both Far Cry 2 and EA’s twisted survival horror romp Dead Space have been getting a lot of positive attention.

Then there’s Midnight Club: Los Angeles – and also the PSP version Midnight Club: LA Remix – while Spider-Man: Web of Shadows has crept out on all formats. Reviews have been mixed to say the least – everything from 51 to 98 percent. Yes, really.

On the DS there’s Transformers: Animated and Atari’s What’s Cooking? Jamie Oliver, which will probably do all right in the charts.

Next week: Fallout 3, the presumably rubbish James Bond 007: Quantum of Solace, Crash Bandicoot: Mind Over Mutant and Manhunt 2.

A medieval variant of Master Chief’s amour and energy sword have been spotted in Fable II. Rumour has it though that you can only unlock “Hal’s armour” – as it’s known in the game – if you’ve pre-ordered the limited edition pack, which has had several items dropped since being first announced. Annoyingly.

Fable II is out today; so far review scores have been glowing including a 10 from Eurogamer and a 9 from EDGE.

The Women’s Conference sounds like a smashing event. Nintendo will be there, patronising all 14,000 of them with the likes of Wii Fit, Wii Music and Personal Trainer: Cooking. Games less likely to be shown to the fairer sex include anything with sport or a gun in it because, you know, they don’t like that sort of thing. Speakers at the event will include Arnold Schwarzenegger, Condoleezza Rice and Bono. The first person to throw a Wii Remote at Bono wins my undying adulation.

In other female news, indiscriminate marketing tool and occasional pop group Girls Aloud will be among the celebrities featuring in Nintendo’s next advertising campaign. They’ll be playing on the DS while relaxing at ‘home’. Brain Training gets a couple of genuinely respected actors behind it, in the form of Patrick Stewart and Julie Walters, as well as Ronan ‘Bloody’ Keating. He and his family will also get up to some multiplayer shenanigans, as will Redknapps Harry, Jamie and Louise. Leaving the worst till last, Fern Britton will appear with husband and chef Phil Vickery using a cooking title.

UK Chart

Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 has tackled FIFA 09 to take the top spot in the chart. How long for, though, is the question; undoubtedly FIFA will be top dog again sometime in the run up to Christmas.

FIFA 09 drops to #2, with Saints Row 2 in at #3. Bioshock – which was released on PlayStation 3 last week – is the next new entry at #14.

Golden Axe: Beast Rider, which has received some appalling reviews, only manages an appearance in the Xbox 360 chart at a poor #17. What’s the betting that this will be one of the first games reduced in the Christmas sales?

There’s quite a lot of older games, most of which are knocking on for a year old, around the arse end of the chart: Assassin’s Creed, Ratatoulille, Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, Halo 3 and The Simpsons Game to be precise. I’m guessing Halo 3 is being bundled with Xbox 360 consoles, as it has gone from #22 to #16 this week.

Something Awful have knocked up a guide to what was required in order to get the ‘Nintendo Seal of Quality’ stamped on their game, throughout Nintendo’s console history. You can see it by clicking on these words.

Best bit: “Works extra good when blown on.”

The infamous seal was never intended to show consumers that a game was of a decent quality; it was used to prove that it was a legit copy, and not a pirate, and that it would actually work when you plugged it in.

Play-Asia just popped an email in my inbox promoting two new upcoming Dreamcast releases: 2D Shooter DUX and watery puzzler Wind and Water: Puzzle Battles.

Last Hope developer NG:DEV.TEAM is at the helm of DUX. The choice of colour palate is bold (to say the least) but there’s a nice smooth visual style. Wind and Water, on the other hand, started out as a GP32 release, but is being improved with new cut-scenes, extra modes and a new character – Mr. VMU.

As for the GP32 itself, there’s a new one of those on the way too, known as the GP2X Wiz. Don’t expect it to appear on the shelves of Game and Gamestation any time soon.

Are beat ‘em ups back? I’ve not used that term in ages. Beat ‘em up. Brilliant. Once one of the busiest genres, these days we’re pretty much left with Tekken, Virtua Fighter and Soulcalibur. It makes me wonder whether video game genres are subject to boom and bust, much like the economy. Ten years from now, will I be sat here asking where all the war games went, the public having grown sick of them? I can only hope.

Anyway, beat ‘em ups. Largely forgotten PlayStation and Saturn-era series Battle Arena Toshinden is coming to Wii – presumably because its weapon-based nature might fit nicely – but possibly as just Toshinden. Then there are rumours mounting that Rare are working on a new Killer Instinct game, following character cards appearing in Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise.

If this trend carries on, we’ll see Square-Enix announcing an update to bizarre beat ‘em up cum action-adventure Tobal No. 1. I just hope we don’t see the return of Eternal Champions, which despite what I thought fifteen years ago, is shit.

I’ve shoe-horned in a mention of the economy already, so let’s not leave out the other big real news story: the US presidential election. Thankfully I don’t need to find a tenuous link: adverts for Barack Obama appeared in some of EA’s games in some US states, through the magic of Xbox Live. It’s a story that certainly captured the imagination of the Guardian, with an article and two blogs.

In less consequential matters, nominations for the MTV Game Awards 2008 – a German thing, for some reason – were announced this week. The nominations themselves aren’t desperately interesting, but the categories are worth looking at. Mainly ‘Bad Mother Fucker’ – an award for the best boss battle. I’m not sure that the Germans realise that this is actually quite a naughty thing to say; moreover I’m not sure that Nintendo would be delighted if Bowser – one of the nominations – is awarded that title. ‘Living in a Box’ is my other favourite category – both for the title, and because it’s an award for the best in-game item. The Golden Joystick Awards, with their tedious sponsored categories like ‘BBC 1Xtra Soundtrack of The Year’, could learn something from the Germans.