New releases for this week AND last week

by Cory Birdsong on

Square has the laziest box art department. Game logo + single color background = DONE.

he DS has had an excellent couple weeks, with notable franchise releases like Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time, as well as original IP like EA’s crazy ass Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure, a product of the Madden team’s long-repressed creativity. A port of the indie PC racer TrackMania was also released, as well as Pokémon Platinum, which is just an enhanced version of 2007’s Pearl and Diamond.

The Wii has not had a terribly great time, comparatively, with the only notable release being a version of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time, which is basically a DS port. Awesomely, however, the two are cross compatible, so you can play with any mix of Wiis and DSes, unless I’m mistaken and you can only use one Wii. Other releases worth mentioning: Rune Factory Frontier is a fantasy Harvest Moon spinoff and is getting decent-ish reviews, as is Ubisoft’s port of old-school PC adventure game Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars.

WiiWare has some kind of pseudo-Pong tribute called BIT.TRIP BEAT for 600 points/$6, and a Sega Swirl clone called Pop’Em Drop’Em SAMEGAME, for 500 points/$5. This week, the Virtual Console featured Bomberman ’94 from the TurboGrafx ($7), apparently a good version of Bomberman, Detana!! TwinBee ($7), an imported vertical shooter, also from the TurboGrafx. Summer Games II, a Commodore 64 sports minigame collection type thing, was also released for $5.

Hi-larious titles of the week: Discovery Kids: Pony Paradise. Totally Spies: Totally Party.

Again, for a full list of the awful shovelware that made me quit doing these new release posts in the first place, check after the jump.

This week:

Wii

– Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars – Director’s Cut

– Cate West: The Vanishing Files

– Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time

– Monsters vs. Aliens

– MotoGP 08

DS

– Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars – Director’s Cut

– Discovery Kids: Dolphin Discovery

– Discovery Kids: Kitten Corner

– Discovery Kids: Pony Paradise

– Discovery Kids: Puppy Playtime

– Fashion Studio: Paris Collection

– Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time

– Imagine: Family Doctor

– Lux-Pain

– Monsters vs. Aliens

– Pimp My Ride: Street Racing

– Pokémon Platinum

– Touch Mechanic

Last week:

Wii:

– Crayola Adventures: Colorful World

– Marble Saga: Kororinpa

– Pro Evolution Soccer 2009

– Ready 2 Rumble: Revolution

– Rune Factory Frontier

– Totally Spies: Totally Party

DS:

– Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars

– Great Empires: Rome

– Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure

– Mind Body & Soul: Big Word Puzzle Book

– SBK-08 Superbike World Championship

– Scrabble

– Suikoden Tierkreis

– TrackMania DS

– Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume

– World Championship Games