The Gunstringer – some strings attached

Last week was an eventful one for new releases. This week? Not so much, but there’s a fair old bit of variety.

Perhaps not for PlayStation 3 owners though, as their new releases aren’t actually all that new – they’re Splinter Cell Trilogy HD and God of War Collection Volume II. Eurogamer said that the conversions of Splinter Cell aren’t that great – Ubisoft used the PlayStation 2 versions – but the games themselves still play well.

The same can also be said for God of War Collection Volume II, which contains the PSP’s Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta. “A worthwhile, if never quite spectacular, update to the Kratos canon,” said Eurogamer. They gave this an 8, while Splinter Cell Trilogy scored 7.

On Xbox 360 there’s the Kinect-only The Gunstringer. You control a cowboy puppet brought back from the dead, waving one hand to make him move and the other to aim and shoot. The demo on Xbox Live was entertaining, although hardly groundbreaking – one section simply sees you running away from a boulder, Crash Bandicoot style. Nice presentation though. The developers claim it’s the first Kinect game you can play sitting down and inside the box there’s also a code to download Kinect Fruit Ninja – which you can’t play sitting down. It’s an appealing £24.90 on Amazon.

Also out on Xbox 360 is Tropico 4, which gives you the chance to become El Presidente of a ‘banana republic’ and either turn it into a holiday island or a glorified slave camp for your citizens. 2009’s Tropico 3 was great – one of the few God-sims to work well on a console.

Elsewhere there’s cartoon license Phineas and Ferb: Across the Second Dimension on PS3, Wii and DS. Settlement Colossus on DS is another hidden image game, Mahjong 300 on DS is the sequel to Mahjong 299 (we assume) while The Crown Of Midas on Wii is a mystery/puzzle game thing. “A built-in help system will enable the player to finish the game completely,” says the Funbox website.

Next week: Gears of War 3 (360), F1 2011 (PS3, 360, PC), Supremacy MMA (PS3, 360), Barbie: Jet, Set and Style (Wii, DS) and Just Sing Vol 2 (DS).