Remember how bad Star Wars games used to be?

Okay, you had the classic wireframe arcade game and Knights of the Old Republic had it’s fans but lets be honest with ourselves, Lucasarts churned out games as cheaply as possible because they new they’d sell like hot cakes anyway. Then what happened? Out of the ashes of the Prequel Trilogy and a ruined franchise something wonderful arose like blocky plastic phoenix, it was still Star Wars but it was something else too… It was Lego!

Now… remember how bad Indiana Jones games used to be…

Oh yes, it’s coming, summer 2008 will see the release of Lego Indiana Jones Trilogy and it’s from the exact same team that such a great job on the two Star Wars Games (And the upcoming ‘Saga’ compendium) so lets be honest with ourselves – this is going to be awesome!

A couple of months back Warner Brothers also confirmed that a Lego Batman game is in the works.  Carry on reading to see the early trailer:

Now for the all the exciting news in the wake of the Electronic Entertainment Expo -

Probably best if you just imagine tumbleweed here. I know we’re building up for the big end of year releases but the lack of any worthwhile game releases or news right now is mind boggling.

In regards to E3, there was a bit of a surprise in that of all the downloadable demos and content being pimped out at the expo the single most snatched item was the Ace Combat 6 Demo from Konami. Which is great evidence that having something new to show makes an impact! Big 3, take note.

It also seems that Sony learnt from the show that Exclusives make headlines. They have signed up with Rockstar for a new game francise, as yet un-named, and in the wake of being dropped from the Katamari Demacy line-up they’ve secured an exclusive deal for a new game from the developers called Nobi Nobi Boy (That’s Stretchy Stretchy Boy to those not fluent in Japanese). Details are pretty scarce as it’s very early days but the image below is apparently the game’s hero.

The Internet’s games forums were aflame in teenage hormones for while around the 26th when Hosi Simon, spokesperson for Rockstar confirmed, in regards to the platform selling GTA franchise, that ‘if you want the complete experience with the episodes, then yeah, you should buy the 360…’ Sony still maintains it has something in the works regarding their version of the game.Meanwhile the press has been given more access to the game in its current state and the reports were predictably euphoric.There’s a particularly nice gallery of images at GameInfoWire.

And speaking of exclusives, the PC version of the hit 360 game Gears of War will not be available, as was largely assumed, on the console of its conception. The new stuff is just too extensive to be a viable download apparently.

With a dearth of any genuine news regarding the DS here’s a little wild speculation from yours truly… I think there’s a new, even smaller, Nintendo DS is in the works. This theory is born of the following information:

1. A week or so ago Nintendo announced that it was leaving the Gameboy name behind and switching it energies onto the DS.
2. Microsoft has been releasing market research for some time now that shows that backwards compatibility accounts for an insignificant number of hardware sales.
3. The new lighter PSP was one of the few genuine surprises at E3 And there is a fast growing market in kits that allow copied DS game roms to be played via a flash card in the Gameboy slot of the DS unit.

All these things would indicate to me that a new DS without a Gameboy cartridge slot is in the works – this would allow it to be smaller, lighter and protect against piracy. Watch this space – I will be unbearable if I’m right!

On the PSP the only two releases of note this side of E3 are Alien Syndrome, an above average if unspectacular action RPG and an almost identical port of Playstation classic Parappa the Rapper, with the bonus of downloadable tunes to follow. You can’t really go too wrong with this game – check the video of the E3 trailer if you don’t know what you’re missing! You gotta believe!

Even more interesting to me was the leaking of a patent application that makes it look like Sony are considering a joypad socket on the PSP. Regulars will know that I have problems considering the PSP a portable system and this rumor combined with the TV out feature on the new version of the unit suggests that I’m not alone.

On the release front for the big three systems it’s been mainly sports titles with 2K Sports the first of the two controversial American football releases. The 30 vs 60fps issue between PS3 and 360 proving to be a moot point as far as All Pro Football was concerned when the game turned out to be a bit pony anyway.

Fairing better was EA Sports NCAA Football which got a good reaction in most reviews – for the 360 anyway – as EA refused most reviewers a copy of the PS3 version before the official release!

Now we wait for the big one, Madden, to be released early August to see if can still hold the crown in the American version of football

The much anticipated The Bigs hit stores too and was very well received for both 360 and PS3 – disappointingly the Wii version didn’t turn out so well despite the OTT nature of this baseball game looking ideal for the Nintendo machine.

Of course the best selling game of recent weeks has been the Transformers Movie tie in – I’m not even going to bother with anymore detail than that, you can figure the rest out for yourself. Here’s a clue – It’s a movie tie-in.

Which just leaves Classic game of the week.

I was tempted, with the Nintendo announcement mentioned above, to go for a Gameboy game but since I was reminiscing about Battletoads for that machine just a couple of weeks back I thought I’d look elsewhere. Just about everywhere else as it turns out. In fact the absolutely outstanding Defender of the Crown started by setting the standards for home computer graphics on the Amiga in 1986 and saw it’s last port onto the Gameboy Advance in 2002. An unprecedented 16 year lifespan of essentially the same game.

During this time Defender of the Crown was released on DOS, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Atari ST, ZX Spectrum, CD-i, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, Macintosh, Apple IIGS and there is even a flash version of the game on the Cineware website.

Defender of the Crown was a simple strategy game where you built armies, fought for territories, won or stole money and repeated the process until England was once again under Saxon rule! You entered Jousting tournaments, rescued damsels in distress (And got jiggy in the C64 version), you raided castles and on occasion called on extra man power from your good friend Robin Hood. The game wasn’t the hardest and the strategy involved was simplicity itself but in 1986 the game was a thing of great beauty and the swanky production values, on the Amiga version in particular, still show great class to this day.

Posted by Elgar in Console Yourself, Sci-Tech & Video Games • Add to del.icio.us Add to Digg