Welcome to genre bender week!  Where the genres you’ve come to love gets strange, radical treatments.  This week, we’ve got a shooting RPG not named Borderlands, sports games with a unique camera, and a strategy game based off reality.  Won’t you join me on this twisted tale of games seeking to break the norm?

Remember.  Release dates are quite literally made at the whims of the publisher.  The following are subject to change without any warning.

 

Honorable Mention

Alpha Protocol (Xbox 360,PS3)

Tuesday June 1, 2010

Of all the genres in gaming, the Role Playing Genre is probably the only genre to have undergone the most radical changes through either evolution or inter-genre mating, and today, it’s bleeding into yet another genre: The stealth genre.  Alpha Protocol goes so far as to actually print the genre that the game falls under right on the box cover.  So what exactly does an espionage RPG entails?  Apparently, it means a lot of weapons and gadget customization to fit the way you like to play coupled with Mass Effect style dialogue and consequences.  The consequences come from the friends you choose.  You get to ally yourself with just about anyone you meet in the game, and depending on whom you befriend, the game plays out differently.  As for the actual gameplay itself, it’s basically Splinter Cell with the occasional + however-many XP message popping up for completing objectives and doing spy things like hacking and picking locks.  From the gameplay trailers I’ve watched, it could be at least decent, and being the RPG junkie that I am, I might give this game a shot.

 

Backbreaker (Xbox 360, PS3)

Tuesday June 1, 2010

How’s this for a first?  I am absolutely impervious to the “charms” of football and all of its forms, and yet I can’t help but be fascinated by Backbreaker.  This unlicensed football game doesn’t put the camera over the playing field.  It puts it behind the player like a third person shooter.  If that isn’t enough, Backbreaker utilizes the Euphoria engine.  This means animations, like tackles, don’t use a predetermined, canned animation.  Instead, the engine determines the player’s animation like holding out the arms to soften the fall or holding on to the ball tighter to make sure you don’t lose it from the fall.  In other words, it uses the in-game physics to determine what happens in a lifelike manner.  Your success depends on whether or not you juked at the right time to avoid a player or if your tackle hits them dead on.  Madden has quite the death grip over the football genre.  Could this game finally broaden the genre to gamers not interested in football games?  Could this be the Wii to the football genre?  It’s got me interested, and that’s saying something.  Believe me.

 

Coming This Week

Tuesday June 1, 2010

Bass Pro Shops: The Hunt (Xbox 360, Wii)

Why do outdoor stores like Cabela and Bass Pro Shops like to make games about the activities they enable?  You don’t see Ikea making Ikea: Extreme Remodeling or Tower Records with Dance Dance Revolution Tower Records Edition.  And yes, I know Tower Records is out of business.

Pure Futbol (Xbox 360, PS3)

Sometimes an entertainment industry will have the exact same idea at the same time coming from two different parts of it (think Deep Impact and Armageddon).  Here we’ve got a 5v5 soccer game also with a third person camera.  Lucky for soccer, no one company has any kind of an exclusive license to the soccer players, so Pure Futbol will feature real soccer players along with real teams.  Let’s see how this one plays out.

Superstars V8 Racing (Xbox 360, PS3)

After 2 weeks of arcadey racing, the pendulum must inevitably swing back towards the sim side.  Superstars V8 Racing looks to be a very sim heavy racer complete with car tuning, real life cars, real tracks, real physics, yada yada yada.  Since Gran Turismo 5 is still undetermined, perhaps you can sate your sim racer hungers with this game for now.

MorphX (Xbox 360)

Those Russians sure love their nuclear wasteland shooters.  On top of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and the recent Metro 2033, you can add MorphX to that list.  At least this time, aliens are involved, and you can upgrade your health and stamina with alien DNA.

Club Penguin: Elite Penguin Force: Herbert’s Revenge (DS)

Did you know that this is actually a Point and Click Adventure game?  Too bad it’s all wrapped up in a very, very kid friendly trappings complete with a vegetarian polar bear who hates the cold.  I guess if you’re desperate for any kind of PCA game, this one here is for you.

Diamond Trust of London (DS)

Turn based strategy games normally involve moving military units across the board to take over territory.  Not to get your grubby hands on conflict diamonds before the UN can crack down on you.  That’s exactly what you do in this atypical strategy game.  Hope you don’t feel too badly about the blood spilled in the name of these lovely shiny pieces of hardened carbon.

My First Dollhouse (DS)

Personally, I’d rather buy an actual dollhouse than make a virtual one.  With a real dollhouse, I can sate my inner pyro and burn it to the ground without destroying my DS.

 

LTTP

• Tetris Party Deluxe (Wii, DS)
• Mean Girls (DS)
• Mind Over Matter (DS)

 

How is this possible?  How can I harbor these unnatural feelings for a sports game?  Maybe I’ll try it and just get it out of my system.  What about you guys?  Who’s up for shooting irradiated aliens?

 

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