August 30 - September 3

Section: 

Metroid: Other M for the Wii is an easy pick for game of the week, though the critical response to the latest Samus adventure may be a bit more diverse than the grand and unrelenting praise we are accustomed to seeing. Team Ninja has apparently taken some license that traditionalists may take some issue with, particularly in the characterization of the lead character. It may be worth a look through a few reviews before making a snap buying decision.

Also of note this week, Valkyria Chronicles 2 comes to the PSP from faraway shores. You know, I make fun of the PSP from time to time, but looking at the broad history of the platform, there are a lot of hardcore-gamer titles on this system that you really can't get easily almost anywhere else.

Find the full release list for the week below.

PC
- Prison Tycoon: Alcatraz

360
- Battlefield Bad Company 2: Ultimate Edition
- Dead Rising 2: Case Zero (XBLA)

PS3
- Battlefield Bad Company 2: Ultimate Edition
- Castle Crashers (PSN)

Wii
- Guilty Party
- Metroid: Other M

DS
- Camp Rock: The Final Jam

PSP
- Valkyria Chronicles 2
- Ace Combat : Join Assault

Coming Soon

- Halo Reach : September 14
- Civilization V : September 21
- Fallout New Vegas -- PC, PS3, Xbox 360 : October 19
- Rock Band 3 -- Xbox 360, PS3 : October 26
- Fable 3 -- PC, Xbox 360 : October 26
- Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 -- PC, 360, PS3, Wii : October 26
- DC Universe Online : November 2
- Kinect : November 4
- Little Big Planet 2 : November 16

Comments

I'm stoked for Valkyria Chronicles 2, but it's releasing inbetween two fantasy football drafts for me. Booo. Oh, wait, that's my fault.

Prizon Tycoon? Huh.

garion333 wrote:

Prizon Tycoon? Huh.

Can I beat and waterboard the prisoners?!??

No but you can make the prizonerz print licenze platez.

So worried that Metroid: Other M will be weaksauce

Hope you didn't hurt yourself praising the PSP there. "Can't get easily anywhere else"? It's ok, you can say it has exclusive and good games, really.

Rock Band 3, Fallout New Vegas and The Force Unleashed 2 coming soon. Neat.

RB3 is great because apparently you can choose which tracks come up when you do a "Mystery Setlist", which is worth the 60 bucks alone. Although I hope you can toggle that option easily because sometimes its fun to try out random songs that you might not otherwise try.

Apparently Prison Tycoon is an ongoing series that has had a release almost every year since 2005, and not something Sean made up to see if we were paying attention.

Prison Tycoon is a real thing. I'm just trying to wrap my mind around it here. There is a game-- FIVE games-- called Prison Tycoon, in which you, the player, are a tycoon who administers a privatized prison. For profit. And not, as far as I can tell, because the developers wanted to make a political statement about the prison-industrial complex, but because they thought that someone, somewhere, would find it FUN. That somewhere there was someone who played SimCity or Railroad Tycoon and said, "Y'know what these games need? More MURDERERS and GANGS and SHOWER RAPE. You know the sadistic murdering quasi-fascist unscrupulous fundamentalist warden in the Shawshank Redemption? I WANT TO BE THAT GUY."

And apparently, they were RIGHT. Or at least, right enough to drum up enough sales to justify not one, but FOUR sequels.

Is anyone else deeply, DEEPLY disturbed by this?

hbi2k wrote:

Apparently Prison Tycoon is an ongoing series that has had a release almost every year since 2005, and not something Sean made up to see if we were paying attention.

Prison Tycoon is a real thing. I'm just trying to wrap my mind around it here. There is a game-- FIVE games-- called Prison Tycoon, in which you, the player, are a tycoon who administers a privatized prison. For profit. And not, as far as I can tell, because the developers wanted to make a political statement about the prison-industrial complex, but because they thought that someone, somewhere, would find it FUN. That somewhere there was someone who played SimCity or Railroad Tycoon and said, "Y'know what these games need? More MURDERERS and GANGS and SHOWER RAPE. You know the sadistic murdering quasi-fascist unscrupulous fundamentalist warden in the Shawshank Redemption? I WANT TO BE THAT GUY."

And apparently, they were RIGHT. Or at least, right enough to drum up enough sales to justify not one, but FOUR sequels.

Is anyone else deeply, DEEPLY disturbed by this?

Is it a women's prison?

Also, I'll never look on a train in Railroad Tycoon going through a tunnel the same way again.

I could have sworn that Dead Rising 2 was advertised for both the 360 and the PS3.

Like here, for example.

I'm glad they went multiplatform on this one. I was sorely disappointed when Crackdown 2 didn't come out for the PS3 as I thought it was supposed to. Since everyone said it was basically the same as crackdown 1, it would have been nice if they'd spent some effort on a port since they didn't spend it on new art assetts.

This will be a hard sell for my wife, who likes to watch games I'm playing, though. She's not big on the whole zombie thing. Especially not since they started making them fast for some reason.

Dead Rising 2 is multiplatform. The DLC prequel chapter, however, is exclusive.

Crackdown is published by Microsoft, so there's no chance of that one ever making its way onto the PS3.

RE: Coming Soon: Pre-orders placed at GameStop for FIFA 11 (have I mentioned that I'm excited about this game yet?) will bag you a code for Sept. 2 access to FIFA 11's web-based Creation Center, which otherwise goes live on launch (Sept. 28). I'll be dropping my $5 off to snag my code and begin building a squad.

Also: NBA2k11 drops on Oct. 5. MJ, baby! "I'm Back"

Mister Magnus wrote:

Also: NBA2k11 drops on Oct. 5. MJ, baby! "I'm Back"

That's the bonus disc you get when you buy a download code for NBA Jam, right?

hbi2k: Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.

garion333 wrote:

I'm stoked for Valkyria Chronicles 2, but it's releasing inbetween two fantasy football drafts for me. Booo. Oh, wait, that's my fault.

Prizon Tycoon? Huh.

I'm downloading (legally) Valkyria Chronicles 2 right now onto my PSPgo. Ten... minutes... left.

I never finished Valkyria Chronicles 1, I hope that I don't get too many twists spoilered. I did hear about the one thing that happens to the one girl, so I think that's the major plot point.

As for Other M, I think I like watching other people play Metroid games more than I actually enjoy playing Metroid games. I'm not very good at them.

Reminder there is a Metroid catch-all. You can watch me rant and swear as I fumble with the controls and boggle at the story.

Beat it yesterday in just over 9 hours game time. Think it's replacing Fusion as my least favorite Metroid game. Definitely worse than Prime 2.