Because last week just wasn’t awesome enough, we follow up last week with more sequels that we probably just can’t live without. Even if they’re kinda weird sequels. On the one hand we’ve got a sequel that we’re looking forward to mainly because the last one really wasn’t that good, but it had potential which it never lived up to. The other one a good number of people aren’t looking forward to at all because the original is just too awesome, and this sequel will only mean that the developer won’t be supporting that one with updates and whatnot. Confused? Gamers are a finicky bunch aren’t they?

Remember. Release dates are quite literally made at the whims of the publisher. The following are subject to change without any warning by the publishers.

Releases To Watch For This Week

Venice was the first city to invent the express lane.

Assassin’s Creed 2 (Xbox 360, PS3)

Tuesday November 17, 2009

The first Assassin’s Creed, if you were to listen to video game journalist speaking candidly about it, was probably the only triple-A title that I was aware of that really isn’t one. New IPs don’t become triple-A titles overnight, but thanks to Ubisoft’s hype engine and some pretty underhanded tactics, it became one anyways. The first one had a good idea in place but was never able to expand on it, so what we got was a triple-A title that doesn’t feel like one. Assassin’s Creed 2, in theory, will not make those same mistakes. All the previews I’ve read and heard about this one is that the developers have seriously learned from their mistakes and are going about to change that perception. Set in Venice during the Renaissance Era, Assassin’s Creed 2 puts you in the shoes of Ezio and tells the story of his involvement in the war between the Templar Knights and the Assassins. The game basically gives you all of Renaissance Venice to go about and explore wherein you’ll discover plenty of side missions, documents, and money to spend on new weapons. With any luck, Assassins Creed 2 could be the flowers that bloom on the battlefield.

EA Sports Active: More Workouts (Wii)

Tuesday November 17, 2009

It’s probably a little pretentious of me to be hyping up an exercising game when I myself am a lazy, fat pig. Nevertheless, even I can see that the original EA Sports Active really is a good exercise game. More Workouts is the same thing but with… well… more workouts including some that targets the abs and the thighs, the kinds of workouts that were missing in the first EA Sports Active. In a perfect world, More Workouts should’ve been kind of a downloadable content for the game, but given the platform, and some argue the audience it was for, it ends up as a stand-alone packaged product, meaning you don’t need the first one to make use of this version. Fans of the original will undoubtedly want to get this “expansion” for the additional workout variety, and newcomers have no real reason to get the older version given how this one has all of the old workouts included. Guys like me will be over at Wendy’s thinking about games like these.

“Tickets please”

God of War Collection (PS3)

Tuesday November 17, 2009

How to make easy money. Step 1, take the least amount of effort into something that undoubtedly will net the highest amount of money. See God of War Collection for the PS3. I’m not saying that it was lazy of them to update the graphics on a 4-year-old game. I can think of a number of games that I’d love to see updated into high definition. I’m just saying that chances are good that Sony is about to make a buttload of money off of this collection. $40 of which will actually be my own. In case you don’t know, God of War Collection is just the first two God of Wars on a Blu-Ray disc with updated graphics. Both of those games garnered great reviews and beloved by just about anyone who likes over the top, epic, bloody action in their games. Also, it’s a far better way to catch up on the God of War story than to read through Wikipedia entries. Sure its faster, but its also a whole lot less fun.

“Dude I’m not a zombie!  I just don’t go out very much.”

Left 4 Dead 2 (Xbox 360)

Tuesday November 17, 2009

The first Left 4 Dead, unlike Assassin’s Creed up there, was awesome. It was so awesome in fact that it could conceivably be updated and improved upon by the developers through patches and updates for a good long time. Instead, they went and made Left 4 Dead 2. Valve believes that the updates in Left 4 Dead 2 are so different that it wouldn’t be feasible to update the first Left 4 Dead. Instead they went ahead and made a sequel with brand new characters, new single player levels, new environments, new modes, more weapons, and new super infected. Fans of the first and Valve’s unerring reputation for supporting their games post launch have already decried this sequel fearing that Valve has abandoned their philosophy and adopting the sequel-centric line of thinking like everyone else. Regardless of this Left 4 Dead 2 looks to replace the first Left 4 Dead in everyone’s choice of zombie shooter. Won’t you join us?

Come for the sun.  Stay for the ribs.

Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles (Wii)

Tuesday November 17, 2009

The Resident Evil games, at least if these Chronicle games are to be believed, sure have a big story to tell. Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles follows the style of The Umbrella Chronicles in that it retreads some familiar territories and storylines, in addition to some brand new areas and storylines, in a light gun game style. So instead of walking around prerendered rooms with a fixed camera and shooting zombies with limited ammo, you walk around in first person mode, but you’re on rails. You shoot at whatever pops up on screen and move on once everyone on screen is dead. In Darkside Chronicles, you’ll be retreading the events of Resident Evil 2 as Claire and Leon. In addition, you’ll also be playing through Leon’s story after he escapes from Raccoon City but before he ended up in Europe a la Resident Evil 4. No doubt, Darkside Chronicles is aimed squarely at Resident Evil lore fans.

Honorable Mention

LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, DS)

Tuesday November 17, 2009

The LEGO games have always been very funny. The little pantomiming of LEGO dudes with their super expressive faces and the nice, kid friendly, and usually far more amusing than its source material, take on famous sequences from the movies are really the main draw of the LEGO games. The trouble is that the basic, brain numbing gameplay hasn’t changed one bit since the first LEGO game, and chances are good that it isn’t going to change in this one. Yet here we are with more Indiana Jones goodness. LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues covers all 4 Indiana Jones movies. This time, you get to make your own levels as well, one LEGO piece at a time. Those levels can actually be integrated into the main storyline. It’s definitely a nice touch of innovation, if you don’t find yourself falling asleep before you even get to those areas.

Little Big Planet (PSP)

Tuesday November 17, 2009

Little Big Planet is a great, wonderful advancement in terms of what a game can do when you give the reins of power over to the players. Witness the community that has sprung up around the Little Big Planet level creation tools. See imagination in action in some of the best user made levels available for play. Look at how cute Sackboy is! Whatever you do though, don’t try to play it. If you do, you’ll find probably the most sub-par platforming game since, I don’t know, sliced bread. I’ve seen some of the levels made by people, and truly they are awesome. But everytime I try to play anything in Little Big Planet, I always end up really angry at how badly the controls are, and don’t even get me started on the 3 levels of depth either. Yes, Little Big Planet is an awesome platform for people to show off their creative talents, and I know people who are absolutely head over heels in love with the game. This PSP port has all of the same functionality, and undoubtedly all of the awesomeness of the user created levels. Chances are though, it’ll also have all of the things that I hated as well. For this dichotomy, I place this awesome, flawed game squarely in the Honorable Mention section.

Hopefully you won’t actually be doing THAT to pull off that trick.

Tony Hawk: Ride (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii)

Tuesday November 17, 2009

For a good number of years, Tony Hawk was the king of the skateboarding game that is until Activision just couldn’t control themselves and kept on releasing one Tony Hawk after another effectively running it into the ground until all shred of fun was expunged from it. Realizing this, they put the series on break, and now it looks like they’re ready to try again. Tony Hawk: Ride’s biggest innovation? Its controller. Instead of using the normal controller or even the Wiimote, Ride comes with a fake, plastic skateboard without wheels and a bunch of sensors. Like Guitar Hero, it’s big, and it’s expensive. At $120, Ride is going to push people’s definition of “fair price.” On the one hand, Ride seems to be offering a one of a kind skateboarding experience. On the other hand, its $120 for a piece of plastic! Granted you could’ve said the same thing about Guitar Hero, but that was a kind of a one in a million lightning in a bottle situation. Ride isn’t a new genre by any means. If anything the Skate series currently holds the Skateboard-game-to-own title and not Tony Hawk. Ride has a giant, self-imposed disadvantage against the Skate series. Unless the game itself turns out to be a true revolution in the skateboarding genre, this could be the Tony Hawk series swan song.

Coming This Week

Tuesday November 17, 2009

F1 2009 (Wii, PSP)

I can’t help but feel a little bit bad for Formula racing. It’s popularity is so low here that this ostensibly official Formula racing game for the year isn’t even on any of the hi-def consoles. I don’t even see the difference between formula racing and stock car racing. They’re both cars aren’t they? They both go really, really fast, so why isn’t it popular here?

Hot Wheels: Battle Force 5 (Wii, DS)

If TV shows and movies are to be believed, racing can solve so many problems like staving off an alien invasion apparently. At least that seems to be the premise of this game based off of the cartoon show. Why can’t there be cartoons where stamp collecting can fight off demons and vampires or something like that?

Jambo! Safari Animal Rescue (Wii, DS)

A port of the arcade game, you lasso wild African animals for points with the help of the Wiimote or the sylus. Unlike the arcade game though, Jambo! comes with a slew of additional modes like a hot air balloon ride sight seeing mode and Ostrich Racing.

NCAA Basketball 10(Xbox 360, PS3)

College basketball fans are about to get their serialized basketball game fix this week. Hope you like your basketball game college-y.

Planet 51 (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, DS)

At least the premise is interesting. A human astronaut landing on a 50’s style alien world and mistaken as the first wave of an alien invasion does sound like an interesting little movie. For a video game, it’ll have to do better than that. Not that we ever have any say in what movie gets turned into a video game, but one can hope.

Scene It? Bright Lights! Big Screen! (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii)

The popular, movie centric quiz show is back with even more questions and game modes for everyone to screw up. Enjoy!

The Princess and the Frog (Wii, DS)

Oddly enough a hand drawn animated feature would actually be a kind of novelty in this day and age.  From the looks of the available screenshots, at least this one isn’t a generic 3D platformer.  It does look like a generic mini-game collection though.  The DS version at least might be a 2D platformer with some other mini-games in it as well like cooking and a rhythm game as well.

Singstar Latino (PS3)

The name says it all. It’s a Singstar game with a focus on Spanish songs. I love games where you don’t even have to read some game description to figure out what it is.

Jumpstart: Escape from Adventure Island (Wii)

Wait! Why are we escaping from Adventure Island? Shouldn’t we be exploring it or something? This edutainmnent, kids game is weird. We should be trying to find it and try to live on it. Not escape from it. Obviously this game was made to brainwash kids into no liking adventures. For shame!

Just Dance (Wii)

A game that supposively tracks your dance moves off of one Wiimote?  I don’t think so.  At least you’ll have an excuse for doing the Cabbage Patch without feeling stupid.

Naruto Shippuden: Clash of Ninja Revolution 3 (Wii)

How in the world is anybody supposed to keep track of all these Naruto games these days?  They’re almost like genre of their own!  Well no, it’s a fighting game featuring Naruto characters from Naruto Shippuden, but still, how many of these Naruto games have I written about?

Rec Room Games (Wii)

Please welcome yet again another mini-game collection.  You get table tennis, darts, air hockey, Whack-a-Mole, and a couple others.  At least it supports Wii Motion plus so you know that your mole whacking will be extra accurate.

Assassin’s Creed 2: Discovery (DS)

When working with an underpowered handheld, rule number 1 is don’t try to imitate a home console.  Thank God Assassin’s Creed 2: Discovery will be adhering to that rule.  Instead of a 3D open world game, you get a 2D platformer with some sneaking sprinkled in.  Set 15 years after the events of Assassin’s Creed 2, Ezio heads over to Spain to rescue some fellow assassins from the clutches of the Templars.  I suppose that’s one storyline plot that’s been ruined.  We know Ezio survives the events of Assassin’s Creed 2.

Foto Frenzy (DS)

As much as I love those spot-the-difference games, I don’t know if that warrants an entire $20 game with nothing but those kinds of game even if it has 200 of them. If you’re seriously into those kinds of game, here’s where you can put your $20 to good use.

Imagine: Artist (DS)

Well, at least the DS is a pretty good platform for a painter job simulator. Yes, you pretend to be an artist, attend art exhibitions displaying your works, wow clients somehow, and other artist-y things. Starvation and poverty not included.

Junior Brain Trainer (DS)

Brain training for kids! Here at RRB Games, we take education for children very seriously. We recommend 8 hours of Junior Brain Trainer everyday, which focuses on reading, writing, spelling, and other topics normally covered in our woefully subpar schools. Your child may complain that this game is meant to be used sparingly and becomes boring after 20 minutes, but pay no heed to such ramblings. It’s a sign that it’s working! Keep at it!

My Hero: Doctor, My Hero: Firefighter (DS)

As long as little kids everywhere tell people that one day they’re going to be a doctor or a fireman or an astronauts, games like these will come along to exploit those desires and make you shell out $20 just so you can play these little budget simulators on the little DS screens. Of course, you could just apply for med school or join the firefighters for real instead, but that’ll just take way too long. Whose got the patience for that?

Petz: Dogz Talent Show, Petz: Hamsterz Superstarz (DS)

See, now the Petz dev teams are getting desperate. They’ve covered just about every kinds of pets to cover already. What’s next? Pets in wacky getups. That’s the evolution of the Petz series. Look it up. I dare you.

Spectral Force Genesis (DS)

Japanese games may be complicated, and their stories convoluted. But nevertheless reading about them always makes them sound so much more interesting. This long running series in Japan takes place in Neverland, no relations, that has been divided into 40 countries. Your job is to take any one of those countries and conquer the rest through military action and a little bit of diplomacy. For $20, that doesn’t sound so bad.

Assassin’s Creed: Bloodlines (PSP)

Whereas the DS Assassin’s Creed is about Ezio, this one brings us back to Altair’s story picking up shortly after the events of the first Assassin’s Creed. Bloodlines will bridge the two games together so Assassin’s Creed lore whores will be able to sleep at night knowing exactly what happened in between. From the looks of the videos, this appears to be Assassin’s Creed on the PSP. Hopefully it won’t have the lack of variety of Assassin’s Creed either.

Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s Tag Force 4 (PSP)

Okay, so Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D doesn’t involve motorcycle racing while playing a card game. So all it is then is just a futuristic Yu-Gi-Oh. I’m already off the Yu-Gi-Oh bandwagon, and I’ve a feeling the only ones even looking forward to this game are the ones who’s still on it. To them I say, enjoy.

LTTP

Chaotic: Shadow Warriors (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, DS)

Buck Fever (Wii)

Crazy Chicken Tales (Wii)

Junior Classic Games (DS)

Talk about Assassin’s Creed overload. Ubisoft is seriously trying to get Assassin’s Creed into just about every gamer’s hands except maybe for Wii gamers. I’ll definitely getting my copy of Assassin’s Creed 2 and Left 4 Dead 2… someday. Stupid Modern Warfare 2! Any of you guys not addicted to Modern Warfare 2 and will actually play something else?