What's New?

On the way to lunch with an old friend on Monday...

Actually, she won't appreciate that. Hrm.

On the way to lunch with a young and immaculately dressed, well-spoken friend with literary aspirations, contacts in the TV and movie sectors and a boatload of transferable skills (CV available on request) this week, I came across a rather unfortunately named business: "Expectations Ltd." Neon lights and all.

Fitting really (fitting enough for me to cannibalise the experience for a What's New intro in any event), because April 22nd isn't a date typically associated with great gaming expectations, and casting your eyes down the list of new releases below you could well be forgiven for skipping over a few things dismissively.

Well, don't be fooled! There are actually some great little games out this week - including one on the other side of the Atlantic featuring the phrase "She is warm for your form" that sounds so good I actually want to just run off and play it right now. But they chained me to the desk after "the Mercury incident", so that seems unlikely.

The good games, then, are: Jade Empire, Lego Star Wars, Stronghold 2, Unreal Championship 2 and Yoshi's Universal Gravitation. And, over in Yankland, Psychonauts.

I know! Who woulda thunk that Lego Star Wars, of all things, would be any good? Or that Unreal Championship 2 would be anything other than a cash-in? Or that Yoshi's Universal Gravitation would have been noticed anywhere other than this column? Or that I would have bothered to look up Stronghold 2 - a strategy game - on GameRankings and establish that it's probably good?

Unfortunately, Microsoft has failed to negotiate the relatively simple task of putting a review copy of Jade Empire in the post, so there will be no review this week, as much as we'd like to give you one.

Instead there will be disparaging and dismissive comments like: presumably the reason it got such high scores in the US is that the reviewers only had time to assess the ease with which the cellophane could be removed from the DVD case before having to go to press.

Of course really there's little doubt that it's lovely. It's BioWare. It's an action-RPG with sort of Eastern influences. It's yet another reason for Western RPG fans to make sure they own an Xbox. The only real question is how good it is. A question that will be, God - and the Royal Mail - willing, answered within the next few days as soon as Rob gets his hands on it.

Even if I have to buy it myself. Which, given that I just said a nasty thing about Microsoft's PR people, who I actually really like [look at the backpedalling! -Ed], seems rather likely at this point. Anyway.

"Is it good or bad luck when a ladybird lands on your hand?" I wondered just now, before answering my own question by stubbing my toe on a chair leg and reaching out to steady myself on the blade of a breadknife.

More importantly, is it merely luck that makes Lego Star Wars such a good game? Absolutely not. It's the developer's love of both Lego and Star Wars bound so tightly together, producing a game with so much charm, personality and inventiveness that it was almost impossible for me to stop playing it. Some people won't appreciate the infinite-respawns mechanic, but for me that just makes it all the more enjoyable: it's just a procession of fun, which, for a game based on that trilogy, is clearly an accomplishment worthy of the second longest paragraph of the week. (Wait for it.)

Mind you, love is fleeting, someone once wrote (probably an ex-girlfriend), and Lego Star Wars certainly is pretty short, but there's also certainly lots to do once you've seen through the story side of the game. If you enjoy collecting things, like Lego and Star Wars and have kids, it's the best thing out this week.

Unreal Championship 2, meanwhile, is something Kristan's been playing, but the noises have been very encouraging. Instead of just porting the first-person shooter arena combat to Live as it did with the first one, the developer has worked in things like third-person-camera-framed acrobatic melee combat, as well as all the other stuff that keeps people buying Unreal Tournament titles. And the response has been almost universally positive. Review, er, today!

Yoshi's Universal Gravitation is another skew on something we already liked - a platform game based around a tilt sensor embedded in the GBA cartridge - and rather like WarioWare Twisted it's pretty much unique as a result. As we said when we looked at the Japanese version ages ago. I'll be using its Euro release as an excuse to go through it myself, I imagine.

As for Firefly Studios' Stronghold 2... I'm not going to try and convince regular readers I know what I'm talking about on this one, so I'll defer to the judgement of others. It combines RTS sensibilities with RollerCoaster Tycoon-style economic concerns, and is a "solid sequel", according to the one review I've read. There'll be another popping up soon, hopefully. Here.

With all that out of the way, I can now talk about Psychonauts. Developed by DoubleFine Productions under the directions of Tim Schafer (yes, that Tim Schafer; the man who made point-and-click so funny), it's a funny platform game. Which is to say it's very funny in typically bizarre fashion. I want an excuse to write more things about it next week, so I won't go into too much detail, suffice to say that it's been very lovingly put together, and the Microsoft guys who ditched it (before Majesco picked it up again) were lunatics worthy of having their own brains trampled around in by the game's central protagonist.

All of which leaves me little space to apologise to Microsoft for being horrible about them twice in the space of one column, so I'll have to be quick: Guys, I ju

• PAL Releases
• Freedom Force vs. The Third Reich (PC)
• Jade Empire (Xbox)
• Lego Star Wars: The Video Game (PS2, Xbox, PC, GBA)
• Rugrats All Grown Up! Express Yourself (GBA)
• Stronghold 2 (PC)
• Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict (Xbox)
• World Fighting (PS2)
• Yoshi's Universal Gravitation (GBA)

• Key US Releases
• ATV Offroad Fury: Blazin' Trails (PSP)
• Psychonauts (PC, Xbox)