You may or may not know about this new addition to the Prince of Persia series.  Ubisoft released a hands on preview at the Tokyo Game Show to reveal a bit of the play style that the new game will feature.  The biggest change is that it seems to be a return to form.  The controls are simple and seem similar to the fluid controls of Assassin’s Creed.  There is a button for jumping, another for the sword, and another for his gauntlet.  There’s a little room for accidents, but it seems to work pretty well so far.  The fighting seems more stylish, but still boring though.  Another interesting focus is an attempt to make the new female lead, Elika, more involved.  The feel is reminiscent of a two-person game.  Elika will develop magical abilities that you can call on later and the early reports seem to show that they’re really building up her character.  If all goes well, this should be a nice boost for the struggling series.

Sins of a Solar Empire was one of the best strategy games on the market last year.  It took the strategy and civilization building of Galatic Civilizations and put it into a powerful RTS game.  If you liked the original, then I have some good news.  They’ve officially announced an expansion pack to be released around November 18th.  It will only cost $10 and add a lot of balancing features to the gameplay.  The main focus is on defensive options.  Minefields and extremely powerful star bases are now available alongside superweapons to lead your fleets and destroy said star bases.  It should really mix up the gameplay and make for a better, more challenging, game.

This new PSP title should be a nice boost for starved fans of action RPGs.  This new addition to the Star Ocean line should be a pleasant addition to the PSP’s lineup.  There isn’t anything too groundbreaking.  The combat is standard real time fighting with a mix of button mashing and special attacks.  The party system should be interesting though since you can switch into any character at any time in the fight.  The skill system also seems to be well made with tons of options for minor character specializations as cooks or smiths.  if you’re a fan of the genre, you’ll want to watch out for its release next month on October 21st.

This looks like a fun little title from Nintendo.  Wario is back for some old side scrolling adventures and they are all centered around the Wii’s shake ability.  You basically do just about everything in the game by shaking or turn the wiimote.  Movement is still standard side scroller action, but Wario’s special moves are all shake-based.  The one really interesting aspect to the gameplay was the alarm system.  You grab a special being at a point in each of the five main levels and then have to race back to the start and beat an alarm.  It was a bit of a nice twist on the genre.  There’s also zany levels and bosses but that basically goes without saying in a Wario platformer.  If any of this sounds cool just keep an eye out for it’s release in a few days on the 22nd.

Alright.  It looks like Molyneux is actually staying realistic with the game in not promising the world with this game as it approaches its release.  He recently did a demonstration of the game at London and it looks fairly solid.  Basically it plays as Fable 1 except there are more quests, more items, and more properties.  The one significant feature was that good and evil actions would have a serious consequences with little reminders throughout the story, although I’m not convinced about the effectiveness of this after Oblivion’s shallow attempts.  The other weird addition is that rented properties will accumulate money even if the game is off.  This doesn’t sound like a good idea considering that a big complaint last time around was that everyone had millions in gold and nothing to spend it on.  It basically seems like this is a fancier version of Fable for the people who liked it before.  It looks like a solid RPG, but it just looks like it fell short of the target again.

This is just a quick mention for Brother’s in Arms: Hell’s Highway.  A full four levels of gameplay were shown off at a pre-release demonstration.  With the September 30th release date approaching, it should be reassuring for you to know that everything looks on track.  It’s basically the same old style with new graphics, bigger battlefields, and better Ai.  The developers are also putting the camera to better use with a more cinematic cut to show off the devastation you’re causing.  Fans of the series should definitely seek this release out in a few weeks.

This one shouldn’t be much of a shock for anyone.  The Lego series is now going to pick up Batman for their line.  There’s plenty of missions where you play as Batman or one of his villains trying to do stuff.  You’ll grapple and punch through the plastic world and have a fun arcade time.  Everything so far shows a fun little romp through the world without a whole lot of changes.  If you liked the Star Wars or the Indiana Jones versions, then you’ll probably like this set.  It will be coming out next week on the 23rd, so keep an eye out.

This little beauty should be a great game for any fan of survival horror games.  Dead Space basically smashes Resident Evil 4 into System Shock and Bioshock for a freaky experience.  It’s already drawing a lot of controversy for its violence, so you know that’s going to be good.  The basic story has you exploring the remains of a navy ship overrun by…something.  It’s basically just a standard sci-fi story, but it is a good excuse to kill some stuff.  the best part so far is the promise of strategic dismemberment (also causing the controversy).  Zombies don’t die from headshots.  A number of the monsters have to be crippled by shooting and damaging their limbs to weaken their abilities.  Throw in some special powers and a few no gravity sections and you should have a fun survival horror game.

This title should make a nice addition to the Wii’s lineup.  It basically looks like they took the combat system of Metroid Prime and applied it to a Half-Life style of gameplay.  It looks great with some glimpses at exotic weapons and tactics.  The short story is that you’re a secret agent basically working for MIB (called “The Trust” for legal reasons).  Only an early build was on display so some of the intricacies are still under wraps, but there’s talk of some major multiplayer options to round out the package.  Keep an eye out for this one at the beginning of next year.

Well, any fan of the original probably knows that this sequel is about to have its main release in America on the 15th.  Some lucky people already have their pre-ordered version and the comments look pretty good.  If you haven’t looked at the game before, it basically added a bunch of features to the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R.  The biggest of these is the battle for the zone between the various factions.  This seems to have been pulled off well with various early release players confirming different accounts of the war on the sidelines based on AI decisions.  A lot of bugs have been reported though, so let’s keep our fingers crossed for a quick patch.