Get your game on

>> Expect war, Super Mario Galaxy and Harvey Birdman on your console this fall

by ERIK LEIJON

Plebeians rejoice! The evil video game console manufacturers have thawed their frigid hearts and have dropped the prices on their expensive next-gen systems. The Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 (60 GB model) are about 100 bucks cheaper in stores than they were when summer started, and vigilant consumers might be lucky enough to find an unsold Wii on the shelves.

If it wasn’t clear earlier, 360 and PC owners would be wise to pick up BioShock, the Secretariat in the race for game of the year. A couple of local products, EA Montreal’s Army of Two and Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed, also promise to be major hits and will be discussed ad nauseum later in the year. Here are a few other games that will preserve summer in our hearts, despite imminent cold weather.

Arms race

World in Conflict (PC, expected release date: Sept. 18): The recent pics of a shirtless Vladimir Putin and an illegitimate claim on the Arctic Circle, have once again freaked everybody out about those pesky Ruskies and imagining a present-day where the Cold War rages on. Imagine no longer, as Massive Entertainment’s latest real-time strategy game starts with a bombing of Seattle and an ensuing M.A.D. policy. No word on who gets to attack Afghanistan first, or if Stéphane Dion demands that the game end by 2009.

Halo 3 (X360, expected release date: Sept. 25): I have no doubts Halo 3 will be a great game, and we’ll be scheduling weekly multiplayer tournaments for the next five years, but beware the fury of millions of enraged gamers if Bungie settles for another unfinished single-player mode. The last game never really concluded—except with a dent in my wall and three weeks of court-ordered anger management. It’s been an excruciating three-year wait to find out what happens to Master Chief, so here’s hoping we don’t get another soap-opera-style cliffhanger for a denouement.

Sega Rally Revo (PC, 360, PS3, expected release date: Oct. 9): The original Sega Rally, released as an arcade game in 1995 and for the Saturn shortly after, was a mighty strange twist on rally racing. It looked like a veritable sim, down to the little advertisements on the cars, but the racing physics were pure arcade wackiness. The idea was for the rally cars to drift in a way that was easy to learn and difficult to master, instead of being a painstaking recreation of the real deal. As the more sim, less fun, NASCAR games of recent years have proven, the world still needs over-the-top racers.

Law and order: DS

Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations (DS, expected release date: Oct. 23): Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law, will make his video game debut sometime in November using the Phoenix Wright lawyer/adventure engine, but the original cartoon litigator will be making witnesses buckle under the pressure yet again on the Nintendo DS. As the best defence attorney the anime world can buy, Phoenix must cut through the bull and prove his client’s innocence beyond reasonable doubt—all the while on the clock.

Super Mario Galaxy (Wii, expected release date: Nov. 12): A new Mario game is always reason to celebrate, especially when he isn’t carrying around a water-spraying backpack (not that Super Mario Sunshine wasn’t devoid of charm). The latest costume change is the bumblebee suit—it allows our hero to fly for a few seconds in order to reach flower petals regular Mario can’t access. The story mode is enabled for multiplayer, since a second player can absorb coins and attack enemies by pointing the Wii remote. Mario never had difficulty breathing under water, so the vacuum of space should be a piece of cake.

Haze (PS3, expected release date: Nov. 19): Halo be damned—the seminal first-person shooting multiplayer experience was and shall always be Rare’s GoldenEye 007. Most of the 007 team defected to form Free Radical, known primarily for the TimeSplitters series. The future war motif seems fairly standard, and the storyline of the drug-dependant warrior’s sounds like Deep Space Nine, but where this game should truly shine is in four-player online co-op. You know, that and the constant supply of drugs.