Ever get the feeling that there are just too many videogames to play? There are huge releases for every system this week, along with a substantial amount of smaller titles. It’s a good time to be a gamer.
Fable III (360)
This is the big one for me this week. I absolutely adore the ‘Fable’ series and just about everything else Peter Molyneux has done. There are always flaws – huge gaping incredibly obvious flaws – but the originality and ambition more than make up for it. ‘Fable III’ won’t be an exception to the rule, but as the third game in the series, it’s bound to have more polished mechanics and smoother gameplay on top of all the new features.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II (360, DS, PC, PS3, Wii)
The first ‘Force Unleashed’ got a bit of a bum rap, but was a generally solid game. The folks at LucasArts have taken the criticism into account and are hoping for a much better reception for ‘The Force Unleashed II’. You’ll get to dual-wield lightsabers, customize your character, and hopefully not platform too much.
Rock Band 3 (360, DS, PS3, Wii)
It’s hard to tell what the reaction is going to be for ‘Rock Band 3’. It seems as if the music game craze is starting to peter out, but ‘Rock Band 3’ is the most overindulgent yet. The game introduces new instruments, a huge range of new songs, and of course Pro Mode. It’s also competing in the accessory space with Move and Kinect, so it may take a lot to make ‘Rock Band 3’ the success that its predecessors were.
WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2011(360, PS2, PS3, PSP, Wii)
Wasn’t this series once named ‘Raw vs. Smackdown’? I wonder why the change? The original flows off the tongue better. Regardless, ‘Smackdown vs. Raw’ brings you everything you’ve come to expect from wrestling games. It has a huge roster, incredible customizability, and better sharing features. I’m still willing to bet it doesn’t hold a candle to ‘Virtua Pro Wrestling 2‘, though.
William Henley
Fable! Fable! Fable!
That being said, this coming weekend would be a good weekend to get caught up on the other games in the series. Played both, haven’t beaten them, but that’s okay – even the old original Fable still holds up well!
I LOVE the band games! With RockBand 3 coming out, this will probably be a good week to pick up 2 and some of the Guitar Hero games cheap on the used rack!
And of course, I never seen a Star Wars game I didn’t like, and The Force Unleashed was AWESOME!
TJ
Haven’t played a wrestling game in a while and missed out on VPW2 but for my money the Fire Pro series was the best.
Dick Ward
I dig Fire Pro, but I loved VPW2. It’s the same engine as Wrestlemania 2000 and No Mercy for the N64, but more customizable than Wrestlemania and without the horrible bugs of No Mercy. 🙂
Alex
I’m going to put out an alert here, if it’s okay. I *do not* recommend buying Force Unleashed II at full price. I picked it up at midnight on Monday, tickled pink. The gameplay is fun, though virtually unchanged from the first game, and the graphics are pretty, but the game was over in a little less than seven hours, and the story is absolutely brain-dead (really unfortunate since the story was so cool in the first one). Seven hours works out to around $9/hour, which is just unconscionable. I’m far from being a pro-gamer. I’m strictly amateur, and the fact that it was done so quickly even with my mediocre skills is very, very frustrating.