UK Charts

Last year’s Hulk game was pretty pointless as an excellent Hulk game (The Hulk: Ultimate Destruction) had already been made. I’m wondering if the same is going to apply to X-Men Origins: Wolverine as 2003’s X-2: Wolverine’s Revenge is widely regarded by the fans to be a definitive Wolverine experience. It’s out on all formats (bar PSP) this week and with the movie out too it’ll no doubt get into the top #10.

There are also two other movie tie-ins out – Coraline, which I’m guessing is a bit rubbish due to the lack of publicity, and Hannah Montana: The Movie Game. Which I’m also guessing is rubbish.

On Wii there’s Marbles Balance Challenge, the sequel to Kororinpa, only this time you can use the balance board. Gaming’s favourite mother is back on DS with Gardening Mama, while Koch Media for some reason thought that Russell Grant’s Astrology would make a good DS game. Best stick to Rhythm Paradise, which has been popular with importers and Nintendo have promoted with funky shop displays.

Next Week: Secret Files 2: Puritas Cordis, Velvet Assassin, Vertigo and Pool Hall Pro. Also: some Only Fools & Horses T-shirts. GAME, you plonker!

I don’t know about you, but I usually associate Trivial Pursuit with either snobby dinner parties or dull Christmas Day afternoons. Amazingly, then, EA has managed to change my stance by delivering this surprisingly stylish and fun to play console iteration. The commentator is pleasingly random too: “You got that question wrong, no goldfish flavoured ice lolly for you this time!”

The main reason it’s entertaining is because the questions are up to date and relevant to us Brits. There’s stuff about UK bands, TV shows and football teams while modern questions consist of events in last year’s Olympics and films released in the last few months. Some questions give you pictures to choose from, others ask you to stick a pin on a map or point to a country. The majority though are multiple choice, so even if you don’t know the answer there’s still a 25% chance of getting it right.

UK Charts

Atari must be in high spirits at the moment – The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Athena goes in at #2 in the top 40 chart. Wii Fit remains #1 leaving The Godfather II at #3 FIFA 09 at #4, and Resident Evil 5 at #5. There are no other new appearances in the top 40, although WSC Real 09: World Snooker Championship is back in at #28.

In the single formats Little King’s Story trumps (yes, trumps) his way in to a respectable #12. Moto GP 08 is one place behind. Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2 goes in at #22 in the PlayStation 3 chart and #24 in the Xbox 360 chart.

The PlayStation 2 chart is currently a very strange mixture of hardcore titles and kid’s licensed games. Ben 10: Alien Force and Monsters Vs Aliens are at the top of the chart, then down below there’s Persona 4, Shin Megami Tensi: Persona 3, Mana Khemia and Warriors Orochi 2. I don’t know what this means.

UK-based publisher Empire Interactive has always been a quiet one, but over the years they’ve put out some decent games including the excellent Taito retro collections and the FlatOut series.

Alas, this week the staff at the firm’s London offices were shot, sorry, sent home. Empire has been up for sale for a while but nobody has taken them up on their offer. They had a few games in the pipeline too, including Martain Panic for Wii and Jagged Alliance for DS.

I wish the staff luck with finding new jobs.

This Week’s Games

Rising Star’s Little King’s Story on Wii has been likened to Nintendo’s Pikmin. So what day did they choose to release it? On the same day as the Wii re-release of Pikmin 2, of course! Surely they can’t have planned for that to happen? Both are very good games though, and well worth a look if you fancy ordering around people to do your bidding.

If you fancy killing people instead of bossing them about (or simply don’t own a Wii) there’s The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It contains another yet another re-release, this time of Escape from Butcher Bay, plus an additional story to play through. Atari snapped this one up after Activision dropped it. Going by the glowing reviews they were wise to do so.

Anything else? Well, there’s Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2 which is of niche appeal, Don King Boxing and Moto GP 08 on Wii and Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust on PlayStation 3. The Xbox 360 version is disastrous – nearly every mission is a tedious fetch quest and Larry’s unfinished animation causes many unfair deaths. You’d need serious dedication to play it all the way through to the end. That’s how bad it is.

Next week: X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Rhythm Paradise, Gardening Mama, Marbles: Balance Challenge, Coraline and Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce.

Codemasters have been talking to IGN about the new Formula 1 games they’ve got in the pipeline.

Formula 1 2009 will be first, out in the autumn for just Wii and PSP. It’s sounding reasonably comprehensive: KERS, strategy calls and weather systems during races, a three-year career mode, smaller challenges, multiplayer – all that. Importantly, the game will adjust to the player’s skill, which is always a good thing.

Exactly how it’s going to work on Wii isn’t clear yet. Neither is it clear how the unpredictable 2009 season is going to be handled – but I’ve written more about that elsewhere.

A fuller career mode seems to be lined up for Formula 1 2010, which will be released for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 next year – because it’s going to take longer to develop than the Wii and PSP interpretation. Nothing much is being said about that game at the moment though.

UK Chart

Last week was a dull one for new releases, so consequently there are no new entries in the top 40 chart this week. The top 10 is also largely unchanged, you boring sods. Wii Fit is #1 for the twelfth week (but only the third week running), followed by EA’s big bad Don The Godfather II at #2 and FIFA 09 at #3. Carnival: Funfair Games is back in the top 10, up from #16 to #10. People must really like shooting plastic ducks.

Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party has been advertised heavily on TV recently, helping it rise up from #21 to #15. Sega Mega Drive Collection is also back on the rise up from #36 to #25. I’m guessing that’s because Sega has finally got round to publishing more copies.

Halo Wars has dropped out, as predicted in last week’s chart. It looks like Wanted: Weapons of Fate will soon be joining it, currently hanging on at #40. You might say it’s not wanted after all…

Popcap’s newest edition to Xbox Live Arcade is akin to a cheese sandwich – simple but pleasing. With a cannon and ten shiny balls at your disposal, simply destroy sixteen orange pegs that have been randomly placed on the screen. With bonuses, power-ups and extra balls available for proficient pegglers (as Shakespeare once didn’t write) it’s just as satisfying as a cheese sandwich too.

This Week’s Games

Two games that have been knocking around on the release schedules for eons are finally out today. Recommended DS FPS Dementium has seen a change of publisher while the delay behind CID: The Dummy (which stands for Crash Impact Dummy: The Dummy, oddly) is a bit of a mystery. I reckon it might be because Oxygen wanted a Wii version as well as PlayStation 2 and PSP ones.

The only thing out for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 this week is Rock Band Song Pack 2. For a rare change it’s actually the PSP that has the most releases, with the likes of Phantasy Star Portable, Mytran Wars and Dragonball Evolution. The last is based on the “live action” movie and been getting rubbish reviews. It didn’t even sell well in Japan, the only country where PSP games shift in decent numbers.

On Wii there’s the balance-board compatible Skate City Heroes. It looks uncannily like a game that the lovely Midas Interactive published on PSP last year. So, yeah, avoid.

Next week: The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, Little King’s Story, Moto GP 08, Pikmin 2, Dynasty Warriors Gundam 2 and Dance Party.

UK Charts

Another week, another load of cash for Nintendo’s coffers. Wii Fit stays on top of the chart, and has now been #1 for 11 weeks (not running, mind) making it Nintendo’s longest serving ‘all formats #1′. Nintendo’s previous longest running UK #1, believe it or not, was Pokemon Yellow.

The Godfather muscles in at #2. The Wheelman and Call of Duty 4 are now both of the top 10; Wii Play and Mario Kart Wii are back in.

It has been out for a while now but Monsters Vs Aliens finally makes a top 40 chart appearance at #23. Halo Wars meanwhile has now dropped out of the chart altogether.

With a name like Lux-Pain, Rising Star’s latest DS endeavour could entail just about anything. Well, you wouldn’t be able to get away with calling a kid’s game Lux-Pain but it’s a name that would definitely suffice for a beat’em up or a shoot’em up. It’s neither of those though – it’s an incredibly text heavy anime-influenced adventure game, not dissimilar to the Phoenix Wright series.

Lead character Atsuki is a telepathy-blessed detective out to find the source of a parasitic virus infecting Japanese citizens. It kicks off with an investigation on a crime scene where a man who tortures animals has been laying dead for weeks, before moving onto a Japanese high school where the kids have been committing suicide. Grim stuff, then.

Arcade cabinet accumulator Archer Maclean (also of Mercury, Dropzone and IK+ fame) has crawled out of the woodwork to announce his next game – SpeedZone, for the Wii.

The publisher’s website doesn’t make a good impression – they make it look very cheap and nasty indeed – but Archer hasn’t made a bad game yet. Plus he’s putting his name to it, so it must be good.

It’s a futuristic affair and multi-player sounds promising – there’s an 8 player split-screen mode, where one player uses the Wii-remote and the other player uses the nunchuk. So it’s probably best that you don’t invite your friends with bad BO over, what with having to sit close to each other and all. You can also use any GameCube pads that you have lying around.

Detn8 appear to be only the American publisher; hopefully a different publisher will pick it up for the UK and give it some decent box-art.