Proving there’s fighting life beyond Street Fighter.

The good news has been trickling in for the past month or so, but Capcom has finally unveiled this sweet poster for their new upcoming arcade brawler. It’s a 3D in graphics and 2D in gameplay tag-based fighter that clearly brings to mind classics such as Marvel VS Capcom 2. The roster is fairly small so far and all that’s been shown are stills of the action, but with how well SF2 Remix and Street Fighter 4 are turning up, you’ve got to have faith in the company that was once the powerhouse of versus mayhem. For those unfamiliar with the other side of the battle, they’re all characters from classic Japanese anime such as Gatchaman (G-Force in the states) and Tekkaman. While on the Capcom side, you have the familiar favorites, as well as surprise inclusions like Soki from Onimusha 4.

How will it play? What consoles will it hit after its arcade run? Those are still in the unknown, but Capcom has promised to reveal all in the near future. In the meantime, you can keep checking the game’s official site: http://www.capcom.co.jp/tatsucap/

Prequel to the most immersive FPS of all time.

Welcome back to the dust-choked Zone, set in the fictional aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster.  Set one year before the first game, take the role of Scar, a mercenary fighting for survival against the rival factions vying for control as much as the hostile wasteland of the Zone itself.  It’s a war of territory, artifacts, and true power, with Scar as the deciding factor.

The original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was lush in its ruined detail, creating the feeling of a real environment, cast in a lighting system that still hasn’t been surpassed.  Direct X 10 support in Clear Sky results in truly spectacular visuals, including dynamic transitions between day and night, detailed landscapes, and lifelike animations.  Though it’ll naturally still work with DX8 and 9.

The AI of the original could be dangerous and downright amusing, flanking you when you least expected it and giving you a helping hand when the odds suddenly turned against you.  That’s also been improved for the prequel, so enemies and allies make situation-based decisions to create the sense of a real struggle.  To take this further, very little in Clear Sky will be predetermined.  Battles will play out in real time with the player there to tip the odds in favor of one faction over another.

Everything you loved from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is making its return, from vast areas to a wide assortment of quests, quirky NPCs and an arsenal of realistic weaponry.  New levels, movie-quality cut-scenes leading up to the original, fast travel, weapon modification, and other welcome features have also been thrown into the mix, for what’s certain to be a grotesque beauty of an experience.

Fresh from Bethesda Softworks’s underground bunker.

Testing your tolerance for big plastic controllers.

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith is nearly upon us, coming with either just the game or bundled with yet another guitar, though it’s only a superficial reskinning of GH3’s all mighty axe.  So if you never got the GH3 bundle, or wrecked the guitar imitating the Who, then you can pick up this replacement, though I honestly think the game is overpriced with the skimpy amount of tunes it includes.  Worse, the guitar is going to be a relic come this fall.

That’s not the big problem though, looming ominously on the horizon like a Transformer fan’s plastic robot army.   The problem is one of space.  This autumn is going to see the release of Guitar Hero: On Tour and Konami’s Rock Revolution, with Rock Band 2 likely close on their heels.  Look, I’ve got a good sized condo.  I’ve even got a garage, and no way do I have room for three full sets of plastic instruments, which of course aren’t going to be compatible with their competing titles.  My Rock Band drum set sits in the corner collecting dust, occasionally dragged out for a drunken fumbling session.  The drum kit with GH:WT looks much nicer, but where am I going to put it?  Not to mention the new guitar it also comes with, whose special features make previous models obsolete.  I’ve got three plastic guitars already.  I didn’t buy these fake music games to be forced to go into a real instrument store to pick up a guitar rack.

Oh, Konami?  Too little, too late.  For years, you had the music genre pretty much to yourself, and plenty of time to bring over Guitar Freaks, but someone beat you to the punch.  Now you’re offering another set of instruments and no master recordings?  Are you out of your mind?

On the other hand, there’s Ultimate Band, which is exclusive to the Wii.  I have no idea how it’ll turn out, videos make it seem a little on the simple side, but it has the great advantage of not forcing you to buy more plastic than what already came with the system.  Sure, I’d have to actually buy a Wii, but when it’s smaller than a Rock Band guitar, I think I could find the space for it.

Game for free on your little 360.

Okay, it’s not exactly free when you have to pay for Xbox Live, but lately the service has been giving people their money worth with a plethora of free content. I’m not talking just about Xbox Live Arcade, though last week it saw probably one of it’s best releases in some time. Aces of the Galaxy is a sweet on rails shooter with amazing graphics and intense action that’s sure to give your right thumb a workout. You also have Rogoo, a falling block style puzzle game with a cute premise and split second timing. Either one is worth your point bank, but there’s more to play without paying.

You can ignore the Crash Time demo. It’s pretty much awful in every sense of the word as a car chasing game with graphics worse than the accents. Also, you probably shouldn’t bother with the single player portion of the Battlefield: Bad Company demo. If you’ve played Call of Duty 4, you’re bound to be bored with this stripped down imitation. Where the game really shines is in multiplayer, where you can assume a variety of kickass classes like demolitions and blow the hell out of the enemy team, while either attacking or defending your gold supply.

Ninja Gaiden II is a must play. The action is vicious and visceral with four fully maxed weapons to reduce the enemy to bloody chunks. Yep, the camera is pretty bad and the occasional platforming is annoying, but there’s simply no other action game that does decapitation better. Another surprising must play is Civilization Revolution, ironically not coming to the Wii (so far). This is the turn-based empire building strategy game completely redone from the ground up for consoles, and it’s intensely addictive. Build and establish cities, raise armies, ignore the advice of your cheeky advisers, gain new technology, and prove yourself to be the greatest leader the world has ever known. This can be played both offline alone and online against a random opponent, though of course the full game will let you choose to confront your friends. Let’s hope they stay that way.

There’s also a demo of Quake Wars that just popped up, but I haven’t had the chance to try it yet. With this many demos, who needs full games?