What's New? (26th Oct, 2007)

Your eyes may not bulge at the sight of it, but a quick glance down this week's release list may have them sparkle with the realisation that there's a nice pattern of transition to observe, as EyeToy, Metroid, Tomb Raider: Anniversary and Pro Evolution Soccer emerge on next-gen platforms for the first time. Although, if you did get that at first glance then you're better at this than I am, since I've been sitting here for hours wondering what the **** to type.

It's not the most inspiring collection, perhaps, but there are some interesting releases. Of the above, Tomb Raider's high quality ought to have it climbing with appropriate deftness and breastability into your overdraft, emerging with a surprisingly conservative handful of gold coins or whatever you bank in. Although judging by Dan Whitehead's assessment of The Witcher, which you'll be able to read before lunchtime if you aren't already gorging on Wispas, there's more than one place you can go if you like your adventuring with a side of sexuality.

Metroid's Samus Aran isn't quite as sensual as dear old Lara (sadly), but her arrival on Wii this week is the most interesting thing to happen on Nintendo's big-selling joy-slab in a while, and Kristan reckons it's top-drawer. Frankly I've found myself left behind by the previous game's vastness, so need to do a bit of catching up first, but unless you fancy taking a chance on one of the other randoms bearing the Wii bracket below you'd be hard-pressed to pick anything more promising to flap your 'motes at.

And while it's tempting to devote the rest of the word-count to the peculiarity of Eye of Judgement (or to embark on the potentially dangerous theme of Sony's new SingStar $ethinicity_of_the_week PS2 karaoke policy), it's also worth pointing and waving at the arrival on Xbox 360 of Virtua Fighter 5 (a review should be up soon, don't worry), which brings with it proper online play - something absent from the otherwise-excellent PS3 version from earlier this year. People who should know tell me that it works brilliantly, at least played against friends less than a continent away, despite the series' famed obsession with timing, but you might want to wait and see what one of our resident beat-'em-up (bemup?) experts makes of it rather than going on my particular brand of cheap hearsay.

Elsewhere, it might end up swallowed by the weight of its opposition, but Clive Barker's Jericho sounds like it's worth taking an interest in, not least because of the titular Barker's ongoing evangelism of the medium - something that's rare to see among interesting storytellers, and rarer still to manifest itself in such an interesting man. Watch out for a big old interview with Barker soon; it should be well worth your time.

Finally, then, there's Pro Evolution Soccer's "2008" version, which you can finally pick up on PS3 as well as the other traditional formats. Martin Korda had a lot of nice things to say about it, and having had a poke around last night I can confirm he wasn't taking our money and dribbling. That said, I'm not particularly inclined to focus on football this week, for reasons long-time readers will probably giggle at knowingly - but hey, Liverpool may be their typical, diabolically useless selves away from home at the moment, but at least, er, well there is no "at least". We're just rubbish, I hate football, and leave me alone. Enjoy your weekends!

This week:

• Alan Hansen Sports Challenge (PC, PS2)
• Avatar: The Burning Earth (DS, Wii, PS2)
• Battlestar Galactica (PC digital download, Xbox Live Arcade)
• Cheggers' Party Quiz (PC, PS2)
• Clive Barker's Jericho (PC, PS3, Xbox 360)
• Coded Arms Contagion (PSP)
• Dead Head Fred (PSP)
• Escape from Bug Island (Wii)
• Escape from Paradise City (PC)
• EXIT (Xbox Live Arcade)
• Eye of Judgement (PS3)
• Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights (PS3)
• King of Clubs (PC, PS2)
• Magician Lord (Wii Virtual Console - NeoGeo)
• Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii)
• MotoGP '07 (PS2)
• NBA Live 08 (PC, Wii, PSP)
• Nicktoons: Attack of the Toybots (PS2)
• Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (PS3, Xbox 360, PC, PS2)
• Singstar R&B (PS2)
• Super Air Zonk: Rockability (Wii Virtual Console - Turbografx-16)
• SWAT: Target Liberty (PSP)
• The Bigs (Wii)
• The Sims 2: Castaway (PS2, Wii, DS)
• The Witcher (PC)
• Tomb Raider: Anniversary (Xbox 360, PSP)
• Virtua Fighter 5 (Xbox 360)
• Yoshi's Story (Wii Virtual Console - N64)
• Zoo Tycoon 2: Extinct Animals (PC)