With more highly publicised titles such as Sports Champions and Start the Party! being the centrepiece of the PlayStation Move launch library, it would be easy not to notice Sony’s new budget puzzle game Tumble neatly tucked away on the PSN Store.

Playing seemingly like a digital version of the classic Jenga and a little reminiscent of Boom Box for the Wii, at its most basic level Tumble is all about stacking blocks up to a certain height and preventing them all from toppling over. On internet paper it doesn’t sound like the most exciting premise for a game however, so can the technology of the PlayStation Move bring this puzzling premise to the 21st century?

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There’s little to be complaining about this week on PSN. The star of the show has to go to Lara Croft, as The Guardian of Light has finally been ridden of its 360 exclusivity binds, available as both a full game and trial and unlock sample.

Elsewhere, a further collection of demos awaits including My Sims: Sky Heroes and the new WRC FIA World Rally Championship, along with a strong dose of DLC for the likes of Mafia II and the newly released Fifa 11.

A full listing of this week’s update can be found after the break.

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It’s the announcement Sonic fans have been craving since its reveal earlier this year: the 2D series reboot Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 will finally be launched on current generation consoles this October.

SEGA confirmed the various pricing and release dates for all formats, which are as follows:

• iTunes App Store (iPhone, iPod Touch): October 7
• Wii Shop Channel: October 11, 1500 Wii Points (Oct. 15 EMEA)
• Xbox Live Arcade: October 13, 1200 MSP ($15)
• PlayStation Network: October 12, $14.99 / £9.99 / €12.99 (Oct. 13 EMEA)

Details of the iPhone version are also said to be coming soon.

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Who gets tired of shooting zombies?  No one, am I right?  Well to be honest zombie games are starting to become the new World War II setting of this generation in my opinion. Though  if you are still in need of extra zombie action then the best place still has to be the Left 4 Dead series of titles from the people’s developer, Valve.

Valve made us all aware recently that the new “The Sacrifice” DLC would be coming really soon.  Well they’ve gone and elaborated on “real soon”, turning it in to a firm date.  That being the 5th October.

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I’m going to do the unorthodox thing here and begin this review with a personal story. As I was playing the final level of Team 17′s Alien Breed 2: Assault on Xbox Live Arcade, I remarked to a friend that it “feels like a game I might have played twenty years ago.” It was a silly comment mostly meant to express my frustration with the game. I wasn’t enjoying it.

But as I was doing a spot of research to learn how I could have missed the release of Alien Breed 1 (I somehow missed the release of Alien Breed: Evolution too, the first in this series), I came across this little nugget on Wikipedia:

“Alien Breed is the first in a series of science fiction computer games played in the form of a top-down shooter for one or two players. It was released in 1991 by Team 17 for the Commodore Amiga.”

Hey, wasn’t 1991 twenty years ago?

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After watching many of this past year’s E3 conferences and multiple developer interviews, one game in particular caught my eye that promoted some very cool and unique ideas that haven’t been explored too much in the gaming realm. While Hydrophobia’s interactive environment isn’t something new being brought to the table, the ability to manipulate water in a realistic fashion proved to be quite interesting and really carved a place in my most anticipated titles of the second half of 2010, even with its episodic nature.

Yet, where there’s much promise, there is also equal room for disappointment. Does Hydrophobia live up to Dark Energy Digital’s ideal of a successful AAA title being released over XBLA? Read more… »

It is common knowledge that quintessentially Japanese games have a reputation for truly terrifying me in copious amounts. SCE Japan Studio has long been responsible for inflicting such terror thanks to a long list of uncomfortably bizarre titles including Ape Escape, LocoRoco and Patapon. And now, in the rise of Sony’s new motion controller PlayStation Move, it’s Kung Fu Rider’s turn to petrify my soul.

You play as either bumbling private detective Tobin or his scantily-clad secretary Karin who, for reasons that are left unexplained throughout the duration of the game, are fleeing from the Mafia (wait, shouldn’t it be the Triad if it’s set in Hong Kong?). Their chosen means of escape? Why, riding down the streets of Hong Kong on an unstable office chair, of course. Oh dear.

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Hey, Nintendo fans! It’s Monday and that means new downloadable titles on a console near you. So, if you look forward to new digital releases every week, here they are. Luckily, most of the titles this week actually look pretty decent.

This week’s update has it all – puzzlers, shmups, RPGs…lawn darts. Okay, three out of four ain’t bad. Hit the jump for more on this week’s games.

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So, we’ve had the obligatory sports title for the PlayStation Move, but now it’s time for the obligatory party game. Cast your mind back to 2003 when the original EyeToy was launched for the PS2, and sugar coated games like this were in ready supply, namely in the ancient EyeToy: Play series.

As the title (complete with unnecessary exclamation mark!) may suggest, Start the Party! is a collection of party mini-games that cater to the family-friendly audience that has kept the Wii surviving all these years, and it plays much in the same vein as the aforementioned EyeToy games, but with the added benefit of Move’s supreme motion technology.

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In an interview published today, Microsoft Games Studios’ general manager Dave Kuehmann commented on some criticism that PC gamers have been sending towards the gaming giant, pertaining to their commitment to develop games on the platform. According to Kuehmann, “It is our job to lead the way on PC” but admitted “we need to step up.”

To be fair, I probably should list the full quote. He said, “There’s been a fair bit of criticism aimed at Microsoft that we were spending a lot of our focus on console, and we need to be putting resources behind PC as well. Other companies should look to Microsoft for leadership, but I’m not sure they do. It is our job to lead the way on PC. And in some ways we are doing that and in other ways we are not. So we need to step up.” Read more… »

Halo: Reach is a prequel, swansong, and denouement of the Halo universe.  The story of planet Reach was told in the novel The Fall of Reach by Eric Nyland, and gamers have now been given an opportunity to live the tale that seems to mark the beginning of the end for humanity, but instead sets the stage for fanning the embers of hope.

In Reach, the player steps into the boots of a Spartan-III super soldier who, in turn, fills the shoes of a dead member of Noble Team, a Spartan special operations squad. Noble Six takes the job just as the religious alliance known as the Covenant is discovered on Reach, the seat of the human space navy and home to the Spartan program and other secret intelligence projects. The discovery of Reach by their genocidal enemy leaves humanity with no safe haven other than Earth. It is a portentous moment in the Halo canon, and from the outset we know the end of the story: Reach will fall.

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The launch of a new motion technology for a console is now an instant guarantee for a flagship sports title. The Nintendo Wii had Wii Sports, Microsoft’s Kinect will have Kinect Sports, and, not wanting to feel left out, Sony’s new PlayStation Move has been bestowed with yet another casual collection of themed sports mini-games entitled Sports Champions. “How predictable,” you must all be thinking.

Sports Champions‘ line-up of activities is far from predictable, however. Whereas Wii Sports served suggary nuggets of familiar sports such as Bowling and Baseball, Sports Champions considers this far too juvenile and serves up a posh nosh menu of Disc Golf, Archery, Bocce and Gladiator Duel, along with Table Tennis and Volleyball for slightly less cultured mortals.

Nevertheless, the monumental influence of Wii Sports cannot be disregarded, so can Sony’s more sophisticated approach do the hardware the same justice as it did for Nintendo four years ago?

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