September went way too fast and, for some strange reason, we had better weather this month then we did all summer. Unfortunately, if today is anything to go by, we’ll soon be returning to those cold winter nights. Thankfully, October has an excellent line-up of games to make staying in your nice warm house completely worth it. Here’s four of them!

Dead Space

Release date: 24 October

Format(s): PC, PS3, Xbox 360

EA’s new survival horror in space is looking absolutely terrific. Plus, EA have been doing wonders with the backstory; going as far as releasing comics, an animated film an alternate reality game on the No Known Survivors website.

Lashings of gore and more jumping-out-of-your-skin moments than you can shake a stick at means that Dead Space isn’t for the fainthearted. For the rest of us, however, it’s sure to be one hell of a ride. Just make sure you don’t play it in the dark (or do, like me, and then whimper when you realise what an idiot you’ve been).

Fable 2

Release date: 24 October

Format(s): Xbox 360

Lead designer Peter Molyneux recently said that online co-op might not be available on release (instead they’re aiming for about a week later) but don’t let that put you off! Apart from the jump-in jump-out co-op you can get married, have kids, become good or evil, or, you know, actually have a good old RPG adventure. Oh, and there’s a dog - a dog you’ll apparently cry over.

Sold? Sigh, I’m still getting it anyway.

Fallout 3

Release date:31 October

Format(s): PC, PS3, Xbox 360

Here’s another dog (what is it with dogs and games lately?) but instead you’re tramping around with one in a post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland (good look feeding him).

It’s been ten years since we last saw Fallout and the fan boys are literally peeing themselves with excitement over a futuristic - Oblivion - with-guns-and-incredibly-over-the-top-gore-and-a-side-order-of-good-old-1950’s-style-music…. phew. Well, I’m one of those fan boys anyway.

Apparently there are over 200 possible endings so that’s quite a lot of playtime right there.

Saints Row 2

Release date:17 October

Format(s): Mobile Phone, PC, PS3, Xbox 360

I don’t know what to make of the recent multiplayer videos other than they don’t exactly impress me. It think it’s one of those games that sound better when it’s described, or possibly are better when you actually get to play it. In any case it looks like a fun and over-the-top helping with deep customisation options and a stellar voice cast. Plus, I can’t wait to play through it on co-op.

It will probably suit those who weren’t impressed with GTA IV but I swing both ways. GTA IV had an enthralling and movie-like story, but the whacky parts were removed in favour of this. Saints Row 2 is looking to fill that void and the amount of things you can do is pretty ridiculous. I’m a gamer, we love ridiculous sometimes as constant seriousness would not be fun. Come on, we grew up playing a game that had a plumber trying to rescue a princess while eating mushrooms. Sometimes games are all about the fun, they don’t have to be realistic. Hopefully they’ll also be a pretty good story thrown in there too, and that may just mean it nears perfection…well…until you see a gang member wearing a hotdog costume.

……..

I….

What….

Seriously, what the hell are they thinking? It’s almost too easy for people to make fun of the Wii these days when you’re getting games like this coming out for it.

Firstly, the game seems to be nothing more than a bunch of mini-games loosely based on world records (because shearing a sheep seems excellent fun…), but that’s the main aspect of any Wii or DS shovelware these days.

Secondly, they get the woman with the world’s longest fingernails to appear in the trailer promoting it. If that sight isn’t terrifying enough to put you off then you’ll be horrified to know that the game also includes a mini-game where you have to grow the world’s longest fingernails. I hope that kid got paid a lot to be in a trailer with the contender for world’s scariest woman.

Don’t get me wrong here, there are some excellent Wii and DS games out there, but the market is flooded with games like Guinness World Records: The Videogame and it kind of puts me off ever taking the Wii seriously over something that I’d just get out at a party.

I don’t even know if this game is coming to Europe but it’s supposed to be coming out within the next month. Don’t buy it, I beg of you!

I’m a little late in posting this news so forgive for that but I figured that this was newsworthy enough to post about anyway so here it is.

Nikkei Net Interactive, a Japanese business news website, is reporting that Nintendo are set to release a new iteration of the hugely successful Nintendo DS later this year. The updated version of the handheld will apparently feature a built-in camera and music playback, plus improved wireless capabilities allowing the handheld to connect to ‘information terminals’ in a bid to expand non-gaming features.

While a camera would open up new gameplay options I don’t see the point myself as the already installed mic is nothing more than a gimmick that many games don’t bother using or it’s not a massive part of gameplay when they do (plus it makes you look like an idiot when you’re shouting into it on the train). Plus, cameras and music playback are already basic features of any new mobile phone hitting the market - especially in Japan where mobile phone usage is extremely high.

In Japan the new DS will apparently be priced below 20,000 yen as the current DS price there is 16,800 yen. It will be launched in Japan first and will have to sell “several hundred thousand units” before being released overseas, which would probably be easy to do for Nintendo so I wouldn’t be surprised if we see one on our shores within a year or two.

Nintendo have not outright denied the rumor. Instead, they had this to say:

“We are always developing new products. However, since nothing has been announced officially, we are unable to comment at this time.” - Famitsu (Via Kotaku)

Take it as pure speculation right now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be true. With Sony having released an updated version of the PSP (and another update due for release in October) it would make sense for Nintendo to update their own handheld. We don’t even have to speculate how it would sell as anyone with common sense will know they’ll sell by the truckload.

Nintendo To Debut Camera-Equipped, Music-Playing DS In Late ‘08 - Nikkei Net [Subscription required] (Via Kotaku)

Who would have thought that a video game series with a basic premise of looking after a farm would become so popular and be so fun? It’s like The Sims in that games that portray mundane tasks tend to sell by the truckload when the very reason we’re playing games is to get away from doing these tasks. It’s a strange contradiction. I am one of those people who has been captivated by the Harvest Moon series and I don’t regret it one bit. I fondly remember picking up Harvest Moon: Back to Nature for the Playstation and being all giddy and excited simply because I realised you could get married in the game. God, I’m such a girl.

Thankfully we can all start building the farm of our dreams and courting the local nurse again with the upcoming gazillionith installment of the series called Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness. The series is returning to the DS following the release of Harvest Moon DS, a game that wasn’t exactly praised from the highest mountain (I own a copy and there are a number of bugs that range from mildly annoying to incredibly frustrating and game damaging).

The series has often been criticised of offering up the same ideas time and time again, but this time you’re shipwrecked on an island and decide to stay and set-up a farm. Ok, so it’s really not that original but I suppose it will do. Anyway, you originally start out with four people living on the island but building up your farm will attract new settlers to the island who, as always, will open up shops for you and possibly become friends or love interests. It’s apparently the biggest handheld HM title yet and includes over 100 characters and, erm, new types of crops (yay!). Frustratingly (as there was already enough to deal with) too much sunlight or rain will be bad for your crops, but hopefully you can hire help again.

While it’s good to see a few new ideas it remains to be seen if the game isn’t just the same old thing with a new lick of paint. Japan and North America already have their hands on the game but a European release is still TBA.

While I’ve always admired Rockstar’s habit of trying to get away with as much as they possibly can in their video games I think that they may have stepped slightly over the line with this one. The above screenshot shows evidence of a drug-dealing minigame in the upcoming Nintendo DS game GTA: China Town Wars. While it’s not on the scale of the ‘Hot Coffee‘ scandal (which I never saw as that of a big deal since sex isn’t exactly as bad as walking down the street and killing innocent people. Kids should not be playing an 18-rated game anyway) it’s no doubt still going to be pretty scandalous, especially since Rockstar is releasing the game on what’s thought to be the family friendly Nintendo DS.

Dan Houser, the boss over at Rockstar, told EDGE magazine (which I subscribe to by the way, since it’s brilliant) this:

“We wanted to have a drug-dealing mini-game in lots of the GTA games,” said Dan Houser, big boss of Rockstar. “It works well with what GTA is, with driving around the map, and it gives you another thing to think about - another layer or piece of the puzzle to keep you motivated.” - EDGE

Well, nice idea Dan but I doubt that the people already incensed over the GTA franchise will see it that way - but I think Rockstar secretly likes the publicity anyway and purposely adds more fuel to the fire. Of course, it is the parents responsibility to control what their children play and the GTA series has never been intentionally targeted at children. I myself - as a grown adult - am not too fussed about what appears in a game since, in the end, it’s real-life, you can see it in books and films plus, well, it’s just a video game.

While I believe that the DS needs more adult-orientated games parents and others may not take too kindly to these types of games ‘polluting’ what they see as a handheld largely for children (part of this is due to the developers releasing so many children’s games on the handheld which has largely swayed it’s image to the younger generation). Of course, in the end, who’s fault is it if a child get’s hold of a video game clearing not intended for them? Is it the retailers or the parents fault? Or is it the developers who made the game’s fault? I think we all know the obvious answer to that one.

I’ll have a post about the game coming up pretty soon.

GTA Chinatown Wars maintains gritty, urban edge with drug-dealing minigame - Joystiq.

Fracture is Lucas Arts attempt to create a popular franchise other than the Star Wars games that they’ve continually churned out. It’s also not just another futuristic third-person shooter as its big pull is in its unique terrain deformation weapons, some of which you get to play with in the demo. The demo itself opens with some futuristic airplanes flying over the Golden Gate Bridge, which is now over hilly land instead of a stretch of water. This gives you some idea of the story, but the basic gist of it is that two factions (Atlantic Alliance and Republic of Pacifica) are fighting against each other due to conflicting ideologies in a world completely transformed by the effects of global warming and the damage done attempting to combat it. Both sides have access to terrain deformation weapons, so you have to wonder why they don’t just create their own land or sink the enemy into the sea like this Penny Arcade comic points out.

Anyway, forget the wider story for now as it’s not really that important in the context of this demo. After being dropped off on the ground (just outside the famous Alcatraz Island prison) the Colonel explains how your Entrencher tool works. With this weapon you can raise and lower terrain, as long as you’re aiming at dirt of course, and will most likely be your must used tool in the game. Firing it at the ground either pops up a great mound of dirt or sinks it into the ground, both of which can be used in puzzles and as a means of cover as I will explain later. I know this first part of the demo is intended to be a tutorial but it still has some pretty idiotic moments. For example, after Jet Brody (the awful name of the character you play in Fracture) has been taught how to use the Entrencher you come across a tunnel blocked by a pile of dirt. While it’s pretty obvious what you’re supposed to do Jet goes ahead and states the obvious anyway; ‘the path is blocked’ and then a short while later ‘Colonel, the wall is to high to jump over’. Well, duh, you have a tool in your hand that will remove the blockage or create a hill to hop over the wall, what the hell do you think you have to do?

After these basic ‘puzzles’ you’ll come across the freighter crash you’re supposed to investigate and you’re first weapon (apart from the machine gun you carry). In the weapons cache that the colonel helpfully pointed to you’ll find subsonic grenades, which the colonel cheerfully recommends you waste by throwing at two piles of crates (thankfully there’s an infinite amount of the things in the cache anyway). These subsonic grenades are actually pretty cool, as they’ll blast a big crater in the ground that flings rocks and objects (in this case, the crates) up in the air. Next you have to toss one of the grenades through a window, which blows out the wall and allows you to use the Entrencher to create a ramp of dirt up to the newly created hole in the wall. Up here is your next weapon.

The Bangalore is effectively a rocket launcher that packs a pretty hefty punch. To test it out you’re tasked with firing it at a small shed, which gleefully explodes in a shower of metal. Unsurprisingly Jet is unimpressed by this display so the colonel suggests he tries firing it at a nearby water tower. As the supports buckle and the water tower collapses to the ground there’s a nice little attention to detail as the ground deforms as it realistically would when a heavy object hits it.

The next weapon you’ll find it the Black Widow - which is a sticky bomb launcher.  You can fire up to six at a time and then detonate them by hitting the ‘x’ button (I was playing the 360 version, by the way). The colonel tells you to test them out by destroying the column supports holding up another freighter on a landing pod. With this done another cache drops down and you now have access to the spike grenades. Spike grenades create a column of molten rock that launches up from the ground, which can create an instant platform for you if you throw one underneath you. This time, however, you have to throw one under a piece of metal to create a ramp up to  a window. Up there is the sniper rifle, but that doesn’t really need to be explained to you as it’s your standard video game issue. If you want you can stay in this area before moving on to the next (such as messing around with an infinite ammo supply of each weapon you’ve found).

Annoyingly you’ll be reverted to the standard issue Entrencher and machine gun when you enter the next area. General Sheridan revolts and quickly kills off most of the troops surrounding you and the colonel. What follows is a chase through the prison, but all you’ll be able to pick up for the meantime is the subsonic grenades. Eventually you’ll come across a gun emplacement where you have to employ the use of your Entrencher to create cover for allied troops pinned down by the emplacement. Once you go through a nearby door your faced with nothing but an open stretch of dirt between you and the gun emplacement, so it’s pretty obvious what to do. This is your run-and-gun style play, running along creating cover for yourself while you advance towards the emplacement. Then you can either get behind the emplacement to take out the enemy soldier controlling it or simply do what I did and raise the terrain, stand on top of the new mound and toss a subsonic grenade at the emplacement. It’s worth nothing that the emplacements bullets are powerful enough to lower the terrain you raised to use as cover.

Upon climbing up to the roof you’ll come across some explosive barrels, a staple of pretty much any video game that involves a gun or two. Shooting them will create a huge hole in the roof, which you can then drop through on to the battle below. You’re troops are pinned down behind the columns of a nearby building and, unfortunately, the only thing between you, your allies and a new weapon are a number of enemy troops. Thankfully you can hit ‘Y’ to sprint across Gears of War style to the other side of the battlefield. Unfortunately General Sheridan manages to escape, no doubt setting up the rest of the games story but who cares when you now have access to the torpedo launcher?

“Torpedo? But we aren’t on water Tom!!!’

Ah, but we are playing a game that has everything to do with the terrain below your feet. At this point of the demo you have to hold out while waiting for extraction, and you’re holding out against a constant flood of enemy troops. Thankfully all you have to do is fire your infinite supply of torpedo launcher ammo at the oncoming enemy. The torpedo will go underground and zoom towards your enemy (you can see the ripple on moving across the ground, kind of like the film Tremors) and detonate when you hit ‘X’,. It’s incredibly satisfying to see enemy troops go flying into the air, their last thoughts being ‘Where the hell did that come from?’. It’s kind of both disappointing and gratifying to have an infinite supply of the ammo right next to you, hopefully the full game won’t be so easy. After your extraction arrives you hop into it and so ends the demo.

Fracture has some pretty nice elements, but it all depends on whether or not they extend the terrain deformation elements beyond what we can see in the demo. Of course, for a developer to put everything in a demo would be incredibly stupid but the simple terrain lowering and raising puzzles, plus the original but eventually tiresome cover system doesn’t exactly impress me past the first ten minutes of play. It’s a demo in the end, and it’s a fun 15 minutes regardless of whether or not the full game will turn out to be far more complicated. Right now the freedom that’s supposed to be granted by the terrain deformation feels terribly linear but I suppose there’s always the multiplayer (which does look incredibly fun) if the singleplayer game doesn’t live up to expectations.

You can check the demo out now on Xbox Live and the Playstation Network. The full game will hit our shores on October 10th.

I suppose you could question the decision to put brutal gore in a World War II video game - after all, you can blow half of a nazi’s head off - (note for the squeamish: the trailer above contains a number of ‘gory’ scenes) but, on the other hand, why shy away from the gritty reality of one of the greatest wars the world has ever seen?  Brother’s in Arms: Hell’s Highway is aiming to be a pretty realistic representation of WWII and is throwing in a story that’s hoping to make you care about the characters that are taking part in it. So maybe, just maybe, you’ll think twice about ordering your men into a situation where they’re sure to be spouting gout’s of blood (or you might want to see that, depending on how that mind of yours works). Unreal Engine 3 is employed to make these gory scenes look stunning, but you wouldn’t be playing a war game if you didn’t like gore, right?

Speaking of orders the tried and tested command system from previous Brothers in Arms games is still very much the main part of the game, as it wouldn’t be much of a squad-based shooter without it. However, this time your men can vault or climb over obstacles rather than annoyingly going around them as in previous installments. These obstacles can be hidden behind with the new cover system, and the game will switch to third-person viewpoint as you ‘dig in’. This doesn’t automatically mean you’ll be safe though, as cover is now fully destructible (you can see part of this in the video above). While this makes sure that you always have a tactical head on you and keeps the battle fast-paced you’ll be pleased to know that it works both ways and your enemy is just as prone to being left in the open as yourself.

BiA is still very much catering to the tactical player (although you could say that destructible cover both encourages tactical play and run-and-gun play) so if you’re expecting Call of Duty 4 or Halo 3 then you’ll probably be disappointed. BiA has always given me a sense of what it may have been like to fight in a real war, and the extreme attention to detail in re-creating World War II landmarks only hightens your sense of being there. Of course, this depends on how good the AI is and whether or not they actually bother to flank your position like Gearbox says they will.

Hopefully the story will also be engaging enough to suck you completely into the game, but you’ll find that out for yourself on October 3rd.

You’d be forgiven for being sceptical about Stormrise, after all it’s yet another attempt to bring the RTS (Real Time Strategy)  genre to the console. While there have been a small few RTS games that have worked well on a console (such as Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium: Wars) the genre just doesn’t seem to translate well from a mouse and keyboard to the fiddly console pad. However, developers aren’t giving up yet and games such as Tom Clancy’s Endwar (which makes use of the headset mic to give orders to troops) are coming up with novel ways to make the genre adaptable. Plus, there’s that small fact that Stormrise is being developed by Creative Assembly - the guys behind the amazing and incredibly immersive Total War series.

Stormrise dispenses of the point and click method, a method that is incredibly efficient with a mouse and keyboard but leaves the player - especially those just coming into the RTS genre -   largely frustrated. The new method involves flicks of the analog sticks to select units rather than having to click on them. The game then takes the perspective of what that unit can see which, and if you can see it then you can go there. However, the click and drag interface can still be used to move troops around from another unit’s perspective. It’s supposed to mean less frustration and less error and will hopefully lead to far more fluid battles, if Creative Assembly is to be believed.

The maps will be true 3D rather than your usual overhead view, sort of like Company of Heroes. Units can go up and down buildings, in-between them, over their roofs or, to top it off, underneath them in the caverns below - or all of the above at the same time. This will hopefully lead to the player having far more choices when it comes to making tactical decisions, and should mean that you’ll see some pretty epic battles.

Normally I wouldn’t question the quality of a game that Creative Assembly puts out, but we are talking about a console RTS here. I’m hoping for the best though, and maybe you should to. Post-apocalyptic games have also been done to death, but it’s what’s done with the setting that counts - just like it’s what’s done with the RTS genre that counts. We’ll see if the new control scheme works sometime next year for the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

The Xbox 360 is now the cheapest console on the market in Europe as Microsoft has announced yet another price cut.

It’s only been six months since the last price cut but Microsoft is gearing up for the big autumn game releases and the incoming re-design of the 360 dashboard. They also want to bring their console to a wider market and a more casual audience, something that Nintendo’s Wii has been eating into over the past few years.

Starting this Friday the Arcade unit (that’s the one without the hard drive) will cost £129.99 here in the UK. The 60GB model will set you back £169.99 while the 120GB Elite model will cost only £229.99. This means that the PS3 will cost more than two Xbox 360 Arcade units as it retails at a still expensive £299.99.

There’s a pretty good end of year line-up coming for the Xbox 360 so I wouldn’t be surprised if we see the Xbox 360 selling out of units this Christmas, as well as the Wii. As usual you can compare the cheapest prices over on the Pricegrabber site.

EA has a habit of churning out updates of the same series year after year (see The Sims or the FIFA franchises) and the Need for Speed series is no exception as it’s now on it’s twelfth installment. I don’t have a problem with EA milking a franchise as long as they actually put out a decent game, and the Need for Speed series has had some pretty decent installments. For example, although racing games aren’t my absolute favourite genre (my brother, however, loves them) Need for Speed: Most Wanted was an absolute blast to play. However, you also get the less than stellar installments, such as Need for Speed: Pro Street (although zooming around a track in a Bugatti Veyron is pretty damn cool) but I suppose you can’t win them all. Fortunately the upcoming Need for Speed: Undercover looks to right the wrongs of Pro Street (even the developers admit Pro Street was average), leaving the track and returning to the streets.

The above video doesn’t show much gameplay wise but it gives you some sense of the story. You’ll be playing the part of an undercover cop infiltrating the underground racing club, which reminds me a bit of The Fast and the Furious. While the storyline probably won’t win any awards it still beats driving around the same track over and over again (this may be ok for other pro racing games but were talking about souped up street cars that are more at home screaming around city streets). Being the undercover cop and all you’ll be returning to race the streets while trying to avoid the police (as they don’t you’re undercover, so doing all that damage to their cars is suddenly all ok!), but it won’t be the same as always. One new feature is the highway battle, which see’s you driving down the long highway connecting the three in-game city areas and battling with an opponent. While this is nothing more than a fancy race in spirit there’s also a lot of traffic to avoid at high speeds, which sounds a little like the Burnout series (another game that recently went free form).  Oh, and there’s also the traditional zooming to the chop shop while being chased by every cop in the state. All this returns to the open world which made Most Wanted so fun.

While you may think it sounds like more of the same it’s still good to see EA returning the game to its roots and will probably be a refreshing and welcomed return to those disappointed by Pro Street.  I know my brother will probably be playing it anyway, that’s if he can tear himself away from FIFA 09.

With typical EA style it’s set for release on pretty much everything that plays video games on November 21st.