Disregarding the fact that Halo 3 was released on Wednesday – netting Microsoft a cool $170 million in the US alone in just one day – this week’s line up of new releases “belongs” to THQ, with no less than five games out across different formats. Juiced: Hot Import Nights, Conan, Moto GP 07, Bratz The Movie and Ratatouille to be specific. We can’t vouch for their quality, but it’s not often that a publisher pushes out so many titles all in one go. Unless it’s a budget publisher, but they only do that to save on distribution costs. The skanks.
This week’s biggie though, again ignoring Halo 3, is FIFA 08. Don’t actually ignore Halo 3 though – it’s ruddy good! The Wii version of FIFA 08 would appear to be the one to go for – EA has added loads of extras, including a Footii Party mode presented by a Mii take on Ronaldinho.
Sega are releasing Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars on PSP at a budget price – it’s only £16.99 on Play – but reviews suggest that it hasn’t aged too well. Another racer from Sega out this week is Sega Rally on both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Edge gave it a solid 7, but said it’s about six months too late with Colin McRae Dirt being better in some respects. On the flipside, EA’s Skate has been getting glowing reviews with many saying that it’s better than any of the previous Tony Hawks. The Xbox 360 version of Skate is out this week, but PlayStation 3 owners will have to wait a fortnight. Stuntman: Ignition makes its belated appearance on Sony’s black slab this week though. We bet PlayStation 3 owners are getting really pissed off with having to play catch up again and again.
Curio of the week – an award that we just invented there and then – goes to Grim Grimoire on PlayStation 2. It’s a beautiful looking 2D RTS from Disgaea developers Nippon Ichi and is apparently very good. DS owners though might want to get some Jam Sessions in before Guitar Hero DS arrives. Also on DS: Codemaster’s Race Driver Create & Race, which looks it could be the best serious racer for the handheld. Not that there’s much competition, mind.
Doesn’t look like there’s much out next week, although something called ‘Hard Knock High’ on PlayStation 2 piques our interest…