This week’s new releases! March 28th – April 3rd

Looks like things have calmed down quite a bit after last week’s rather cramped schedule. Probably for the best as everyone is likely still busy either playing Crysis 2 multiplayer or lamenting the small range of decent titles on their kick-ass 3DSs (spoiler: that situation has not improved this week). However there’s still a few interesting titles to be found if you’ve already had enough of shooting dudes or pining for Mario.

Highlights

The much delayed Motorstorm Apocalypse finally hits the shelves this week after recovering from some rather serious distribution issues, namely that Sony kinda felt that selling a game about a city decimated by natural disasters would be in somewhat bad taste less than a week after an earthquake/tsunami killed thousands of people in Japan. We might actually see quite a few foreigners importing this game from Blighty (wow that makes a change) as the US release date is still TBA and I think we can rule out any Asian version for the foreseeable future.

So what about the game itself? Well it’s just more of the same Burnout style vehicular mayhem but in a post-apocalyptic setting and with ……….a story mode? Not to sure about how that’s going to work in a racing game, but at least it’s something different I guess.

What would a release schedule be without the traditional ultra niche simulation game for the PC? Boring as hell, that’s what! So I present to you Driving Simulator 2011: Vehicle Collection, a truly groundbreaking title that simulates the experience of driving a car. I can’t really think of much else to say about it other than that, and evidently the publishers couldn’t either considering the press release listed “a uniquely constructed 3D world” as a feature. I was under the impression that sort of thing was expected of all games these days.

If that still wasn’t enough to sedate your desire for digital motorcars then we’ve also got Need For Speed Shift 2: Unleashed (or simply Shift 2: Unleashed depending on where you’re from) which is supposedly going to “redefine the racing simulator genre”. So does that mean Driving Simulator 2011 is going to be obsolete on day one? Damm, better cancel my pre-order then. While Shift 2 is probably going to offer a radically different experience from the smash hit Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (the one from 2010, not 1998) EA are at least going to reuse its “Autolog” social networking system, a wise move considering Hot Pursuit just won a BAFTA for multiplayer content.

Now there’s probably a few of you wondering what the hell The 3rd Birthday is. Well basically it’s the third game in the Parasite Eve series, a much loved RPG franchise that’s been on an 11 year hiatus since the late PS1 era. I can only assume Square Enix decided not to call it Parasite Eve 3 because they evidently have some kind of policy that dictates all their portable games must have utterly ludicrous names.

As a massive fan of Parasite Eve 2 I was overjoyed when I first heard 3rd Birthday had shifted development to the PSP instead of the originally intended Japanese mobile phones. However that enthusiasm diminished somewhat when I realised Square made the rather curios decision of taking the series away from it’s Resident Evil inspired survival horror roots and instead turned it into a third-person cover based shooter with body swapping mechanics. Oh god, that exact combination of words brings back deeply unpleasant memories.

The only other thing I can see worth much of a mention in my book is the ultra perverted and ridiculously named Ar Tonelico: Qoga: Knell of Ar Ciel, an RPG I incorrectly documented in last week’s list. My bad!

Full Schedule

Multi
WWE All Stars (PSP/PS3/PS2/Xbox360/wii) [Yes, it’s coming out on PS2. No, I don’t get it either.]
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12: The Masters (WII)
Need For Speed Shift 2: Unleashed (PC/Xbox360/PS3)

PS3
PES 2011: Pro Evolution Soccer (Platinum re-release)
Ar Tonelico: Qoga: Knell of Ar Ciel
Motorstorm: Apocalypse

PSP
The 3rd Birthday: Twisted Edition [FYI: All European versions are considered the “Twisted Edition”]

PC
Driving Simulator 2011: Vehicle Collection
Mystery Of Mortlake Mansion
ARMA II: Reinforcements

DS
Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship 2011 – Over the Nexus
Bejeweled Twist

3DS
Combat Of Giants: Dinosaurs 3D
Rabbids Travel In Time 3D

Xbox 360
Tekken 6 (Classics re-release)