Sunday Evening New Releases and ShackReviews

March 26, 2006 2:45 PM

We've got another healthy batch of releases this week. Square Enix's Kingdom Hearts II (PS2) is coming out, which I'm sure is good news for a lot of people. I tried playing the original game, and there were some really interesting aspects and some very nice art direction, but the combat and a couple other elements got really frustrating over time. From what I've heard, they've fixed those things in the sequel. Other than that, this seems to be a pretty big week for previously released games coming to additional platforms. Beatmania comes from arcade to PS2, GRAW comes to PS2, there are a couple more new versions of Far Cry on the Xbox platforms, Painkiller's Xbox port is out, Headfirst's Call of Cthulu game is finally arriving for PC, and Blazing Angels heads over to PC from the Xboxes.

This Week's New Releases

PS2

Beatmania (Konami | Tue. | PS2)
Kingdom Hearts II (Square Enix | Tue. | PS2)
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (Tiwak / Ubi Paris | Tue. | PS2)

Xbox/X360

Far Cry Instincts Evolution (Ubisoft Montreal | Tue. | Xbox)
Far Cry Instincts Predator (Ubisoft Montreal | Tue. | X360)
Painkiller: Hell Wars (People Can Fly | Tue. | Xbox)
Rumble Roses XX (Yuke's | Thu. | X360)

GameCube

Harvest Moon: Magical Melody (Marvelous | Tue. | GCN)

Portable

Untold Legends: The Warrior's Code (Sony Online Ent. | Tue. | PSP)

PC

American Conquest: Divided Nation (GSC Game World | Mon. | PC)
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth (Headfirst | Tue. | PC, also Xbox in Oct. '05)
Daemonica (RA Images / Cinemax | Tue. | PC)
Space Rangers 2: Rise of the Dominators (Elemental Games | Mon. | PC)
Blazing Angels Squadrons of WWII (Ubisoft Romania | Tue. | PC; also Xbox, X360 last week)

Multi

Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires (Omega Force | Tue. | PS2, X360)
Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers (Pandemic | Tue. | PS2, Xbox, PC)
Warpath (Digital Extremes | Tue. | Xbox, PC)

Featured ShackReviews:

Masem has another lonely week as our sole reviewer, this time looking at Ready At Dawn's Daxter (PSP) and Namco's Me and My Katamari (PSP).

Years after actually beginning it, I finished The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (GCN) yesterday. The ending really makes me wish I'd played through the game in a shorter period of time, because I think there are things I don't quite remember from about midway through the game that are pretty significant in the context of the ending. Anyone know of anywhere one can download or view the cutscenes from that particular game?

Chris Remo

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Bob422

 reply
March 26, 2006 2:58 PM

Kingdom Hearts 2! When this game scores a 9.0 or better on GameSpot and IGN a couple of days from now, what are you naysayers going to say then huh? HUH???

That's what I thought.
- FatBaby
  
   reply
  March 26, 2006 3:07 PM
  
  That I wish I would finish the first one already....
- omnova
  
   reply
  March 26, 2006 4:13 PM
  
  Uh, what naysayers?
- Speedy8
  
   reply
  March 26, 2006 4:47 PM
  
  I'll say it's probably a good game, but IGN and Gamespot reviews suck a lot of the time. I still need to play the first game again, got like 10 hours into it before but got bored, the combat was so boring and repetitive, and story didn't interest me a lot.
  - Bob422
    
     reply
    March 26, 2006 5:02 PM
    
    Correction - it's a great game. Don't trust IGN or GameSpot? Trust the review source of your choice then. And this game fixes those problems you mentioned.
    - Speedy8
      
       reply
      March 26, 2006 5:07 PM
      
      Oh yeah and the spaceship travel sucked. The main problem though is I don't wanna play the new game without finishing the first one. It has the same storyline correct? If not I suppose I could just skip the first. But I have Suikoden 5 and Oblviion for now, so I'm set for awhile.
      - Bob422
        
         reply
        March 26, 2006 5:44 PM
        
        Space travel is massively improved and works like Panzer Dragoon Orta now.