Videogame Releases: Week of June 5th, 2011

With E3 going on right now, it’s easy to lose focus and only think about videogames that are still a year or two off, instead of those hitting shelves today. If you did, you’d be missing out on a few decent titles.

Red Faction: Armageddon (360, PC, PS3)

The ‘Red Faction’ series is a strange one. It started off as a less than impressive first person shooter with destructible terrain. The original sold well enough to justify a sequel that was released the next year, but it seemed like that would be the end of the line for the franchise.

In 2009, the IP was resurrected in the form of ‘Red Faction: Guerrila’, an incredibly fun third-person action game with some of the most satisfyingly destructible environments in gaming. The follow-up, ‘Red Faction: Armageddon’ seems to continue that trend.

THQ announced that the ‘Red Faction’ series is a big one for the developer, and that we can expect sequels every two years.

inFAMOUS 2 (PS3)

For the sake of my sanity, I’m just going to go ahead and spell this as ‘Infamous’ for the remainder of this post.

‘Infamous 2’ is the follow-up to the surprise hit of 2009. Rather, it’s not a surprise that ‘Infamous’ was a hit, but it’s a big surprise that it was better received than ‘Prototype’, which seemed like the front runner based on previews and hands-on events.

Sucker Punch has added more open world elements for the sequel, and has made some significant upgrades to the look of the game. Even more interesting is the increased focus on moral choices, which will affect the powers you’re able to use and the outcome of the story.

Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters (360, DS, PS3, Wii)

It’s a game based on a movie that looks like it might be the worst of the super-hero crop this summer. That’s not necessarily an insult, since ‘Thor’ was actually pretty sweet and the new ‘X-Men’ flick has been getting some good word of mouth. Still, it’s a licensed game made by people who create licensed games. Don’t expect much.

2 comments

  1. Picking up my Infamous 2 today, the first was amazing and one of the best action/platformers I’ve probably ever played, Red Faction Guerrila was a good game, but the reviews for Armageddon havent been too favorable with most of the game taking place underground and not a lot of places for full destruction like in the previous title, the demo was alright but I was already missing how cool Guerrila was, what was cool in Armageddon though was the magnet gun which would pull two things violently together when you shot it, hit the enemy with one end and attach the other to a wall or box or what have you and watch as they collide into each other 🙂

  2. Wow, I just got infamous from the Playstation Store, and have yet to check it out. I guess that is pretty good timing – lets give out the first game the weekend before the second is scheduled to hit the shelves!

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