What's New? (New releases roundup)

Seven deadly (assas)sins - Killer 7 (PS2, Cube)

Fortunately, it's not exactly having to elbow anything aside right now, and that's just as well, because it's one of those deliciously divisive games that we so enjoy picking apart around here, earning scores that range from as little as 4 to as much as 9 out of 10 depending on where you look.

This is nothing like Driver 3 though, which settled into a rhythm of being beaten harder and harder the further we got past those unconvincing pre-release review scores; Killer 7 is just a simple game designed with an arthouse mentality, whose core mechanics either do something exciting to you or make you want to do something incisive to them. With a butcher's knife. Everyone we've spoken to about it says that far from being a festering bug-ridden pile of groaning putrid rubbish, like Driver 3, it's a fascinating piece of software that just seems to split people down the middle - kind of fitting really, given that it's about playing through an assassin's seven coexistent personalities.

I'm struggling with that, though. Some of them are girls. You'd think he'd be able to work out something was up when he went to prance gaily through a meadow crying or shopping or demanding somebody help discuss his feelings only to fall over because he's actually a fat old bloke in a wheelchair with a rifle.

[You forgot to mention "being rubbish at reading maps", "not being able to understand the offside rule", "driving badly" and "having periods", to name but a few other hilarious clichés you fat-handed tit. -Ellie]

Speaking of prancing gaily...

Flame me! - Fantastic Four (PS2, Cube, Xbox, PC, GBA)

According to Empire, this assumes "an arrogant level of idiocy in its audience" on the big screen. Which, when you combine it with the widely held conviction that the game will only appeal to people who loved the film and yearn for something to remember it by, probably rules it out of contention for what little money you have left jangling around your piggybank this weekend. Unless you can really make it stretch. Aaaaaaaah!

It sounds like the traditional movie tie-in. Control a couple of superheroes, beat people up repeatedly using fairly unexciting approximations of each character's superpowers, and continue in this vein until every conceivable henchman has been vanquished, all the key plot points have been lip-serviced and all that remains is to topple the villainous mastermind who decided to base his recruitment policy on obesity, stupidity, and whether candidates looked at home in a knackered Ford Transit going door-to-door extorting cash from pensioners with broken washing machines. At least Dr. Doom seems to employ people with wings, I suppose.

Really though, you don't need another clunky beat-'em-up based on a superhero film. What you need is God of War. Everyone needs God of effing War.

A distinct lack of fun, fun, fun in the sun, sun, sun

Elsewhere on the shelves this week there's Pro Cycling Manager (PC), which not only manages to identify a niche that surely nobody will be interested in but also manages to turn up at the precise point at which actually going outside and cycling is a cheap, effective and enjoyable way to alleviate the sweaty tedium of being indoors. Also, there's Perfect Ace 2: The Championships (PS2, PC), which is probably a tennis game (see part two of previous sarcastic comment) but then might just as well be a game about manufacturing playing cards (and now refer to part one).

Over the water (a substance I'm increasingly preoccupied with), we discover Sid Meier's Pirates! in the "current" pile, and that certainly ought to fare better with less stern Xbox types than it did on the choppy waters of the average PC, where its smorgasbord of mini-game ideas didn't make the cut lest we forget - but then if we're going to beach ourselves properly on this pitiful metaphor then we might as well log that it's moored just off our own coastline, apparently set to come ashore next Friday.

Finally, there's just enough space to wish all of you well in this troubling period of relatively few new games. Our advice? Find a beer garden, plonk yourself down and play Meteos. Or, play God of War, because you really, really must. Meanwhile, Muggins here will be playing cricket games, for one reason or another, starting with EA Cricket 2005. "That really was a testing innings," I've so far been told, with the 1 run for 10 wickets in 12 balls statistic suggesting that including a tutorial might be an idea in Cricket 2006.

[In much the same way, as a number of readers have pointed out since this article was originally published 45 minutes ago, that the typing of the word "tickets" in place of "wickets" suggested that employing a sub-editor might be an idea for Eurogamer 2006. Hey ho.]

Drink well!

• PAL Releases
• Fantastic Four (PS2, Cube, Xbox, PC, GBA)
• Hellforces (PC)
• Killer 7 (Cube, PS2)
• Perfect Ace 2: The Championships (PS2, PC)
• Pro Cycling Manager (PC)
• Universal Combat: A World Apart (PC)
• Yu Yu Hakusho: Dark Tournament (PS2)

• Key US Releases
• Coded Arms (PSP)
• Fullmetal Alchemist 2: Curse of the Crimson Elixir (PS2)
• Sid Meier's Pirates! (Xbox)