Even more games

FlatOut 2: (July 11) Developer Bugbear surprised the game industry with the original FlatOut, an impressive looking and driving arcade racing experience that eventually sold hundreds of thousands of copies worldwide. Now BugBear, Empire Interactive and Vivendi Games are back again with this sequel for the PC, PS2, and Xbox. This time the sequel actually has a detailed story driven racing career mode, complete with different characters you encounter. Of course the emphasis is still on fast and furious (no pun intended . . . ok, maybe a little) driving, this time in urban locations as well as rural ones. Impressive graphics, highly interactive environments and, yes, the cool ragdoll driver mini-games all come back, new and improved, for this second installment.

Dungeon Siege 2: Broken World (August 1): Developer Gas Powered Games says “Goodbye” to former publisher Microsoft and “Howdy” to new publisher 2K Games with this expansion pack to 2005’s best selling PC fantasy action-RPG sequel. The expansion takes over directly from the end of the Microsoft publisher Dungeon Siege II, adding two new character classes, over 40 new monsters, an all new campaign and lots of other new additions and improvements. At the least, we can pretty much guarantee that this expansion will be 100 times more entertaining than the upcoming Uwe Boll Dungeon Siege movie.


Dead Rising: (August 8) Capcom is a master at zombie action games with the BioHazard/Resident Evil series. However those games usually have just a few zombies to fight off at any one time. How about when you have to deal with hundreds of them at once? That’s the premise of Dead Rising, the Xbox 360 exclusive title that has your character fighting off hordes of the undead in a shopping mall (a not so subtle nod to George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead movie and its recent remake). This game not only looks great thanks to the dev team really using the Xbox 360 hardware features, it also plays great in the couple of times we have gotten a hands-on peek at press events. You can pick up almost anything you can see in the shopping mall to take out the zombies . . . yes, even that teddy bear that you made yourself. There’s nothing cuter than flinging a stuffed animal at creatures who want to eat you.


Saint’s Row: (August 29) Developer Volition and publisher THQ make it down to the wire for the summer season with this Xbox 360 exclusive title. The latest in the open world action game genre, Saint’s Row takes place in the fictional town of Stillwater where the developers are promising a true non-linear gameplay experience where you have to rise up from a small time gang member to the leader of Stillwater’s streets. Having seen live demos of the game first hand, we can tell you that the graphics put previous open world games like the GTA series, True Crime and The Godfather to shame and there will also be multiplayer support in Saint’s Row as well, something that has been oddly lacking from most games in this genre.


Of course there are other games coming out in the next three months. Here are some other titles that didn’t quite make our top 10 list but that you might be interested in anyway:

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories PS2: (June 5) Rockstar Games releases this port of last year’s PSP game to the PS2 and cuts the price down to a nice $19.99

The Movies: Stunts And Effects: (June 6) Lionhead and Activision finish off this movie studio sim game franchise with an expansion that has lots of stuff blowing up.

NFL Head Coach: (June 20) Forget those new Madden and NCAA football games. Now you can be the Mike Ditka of your dreams with this Electronic Arts sports strategy-sim game for the PC, PS2 and Xbox

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow: (June 27) Developer 7 Studios and publisher Bethesda Softworks has you taking control of Johnny Depp in this action movie game adaptation for the PC and PS2 (and no, you can’t control Johnny Depp that way either…)

Rome Total War: Alexander (sometime in June): This Internet download only expansion pack for the Creative Assembly-Sega historical RTS game adds lots of new content for a price of just $14.99.

CivCity: Rome: (July 3) Firefly Studios, Firaxis and 2K Games bring a Civilization sensibility to this historical city sim game.

Lord of the Rings: Battle For Middle Earth II Xbox 360: (July 5) Electronic Arts hopes their fantasy RTS franchise can work on a console.

Chromehounds: (July 8) Big Xbox 360 exclusive mech tactical action from From Software and Sega. And when we say “Big” we mean “Big mechs”...man, your mind is in the gutter today.

Stronghold Legends (August 1) Firefly Studios continues their long running castle sim-RTS series with Dracula and King Arthur. No really, they do.

Nighty-Nine Nights: (August 16) Can this hack and slash Xbox 360 exclusive from Phantagram, Q Entertainment and Microsoft make us forget that all those crappy Dynasty Warriors games ruined this genre for us?

Again, the summer season is usually not the time for a ton of great games, but there should plenty of titles for fans to spend time away from their loved ones to be in front of their TV or PC monitors…just be sure to get some sun during this time. Beginning September 1, when the flood of new titles rushes in like a levy breaking you may not see that odd bright globe in the sky for a while.