This past weekend has been one of the first in a good while where I’ve actually sat down and got really, really stuck into a game. As I speak Jay has just polished off Mass Effect 2 and I am on my way, blazing as bad and nasty a path behind me as he left goodness and light. It’s somewhat different from the original in plenty of ways, but you’ll have to wait for my review in a few days’ time to find out if I thought those changes were for the better or not. Place your bets now!

In any case, Mass Effect 2 is old news now, and you need old news like I need a punch in the face. Talking of punches in the face, this week sees the release of God of War-alike Dante’s Inferno for all major consoles. God of War 3 ain’t hitting these shores for a good while so it might be a useful stopgap measure; in Jay we have just the man to find out, given his love for all things Kratos-based. Call me pessimistic, but I have a bad feeling about how all this is going to end.

Possibly less of an acceptable stopgap to core Final Fantasy fans is the Wii release of Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers, although to be fair its action gameplay probably pushes it slightly more toward Kingdom Hearts territory than anything. It looks entertaining, sure, and on its own will be a pretty good way to spend a dozen plus hours, but with Final Fantasy 13 looming large and stealing the limelight away, will it be anything more than an appetiser for Square Enix devotees? I’ll take a look and let you know.

There’re a couple of pretty big PC releases too this weekend, with both Star Trek Online and S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Call of Pripyat (that pretty much busted my shift key) locked and loaded. The former speaks for itself really; it’s an MMO that carries on from where the latest film ended (where that may be I don’t know – not seen it) and lets you do pretty much standard MMO kinds of stuff as you command your own starship around. The latter is the third game in the series of shooter/RPG hybrid titles in which you travel various nuclear-filled areas to discover why a selection of the most advanced helicopters in the world suddenly fell out of the sky. Sounds dark, brooding and rather interesting.

Those are probably the three titles that’ll leap out at you from the shelves this Friday, but in case you were after something different, take a peek below at what else is heading our way. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some alien races to wipe off the face of the planet. Mwahaha.

Endless Ocean 2 – Wii
Astroboy – PSP, PS2, Wii, DS
Sims 3: Design and Hi Tec Stuff - PC
MX vs. ATX: Reflex – 360, PS3, PSP