Genre: Party/Puzzle
Publisher: Vivendi
Developer: Dimps
Release Date: October 2006

Well … Crash is back.

Crash Boom Bang! is sort of weird, in that it's the first game in the long-running Crash series being made by a Japanese developer. For Crash's DS debut, the reins have been given to Dimps, the house behind Dragon Ball Z: Budokai.

As a result, Crash Boom Bang! has taken a turn for the anime. (Look, Mom, I'm using nouns as adjectives!) The game is more colorful than its American predecessors were and definitely more cute; Crash has gone from looking insane to looking

Genre: Sports
Publisher: Vivendi
Developer: JC Entertainment
Release Date: Q1 2007

It is within the bounds of possibility that you could sell a million copies of anything in Korea, as long as it was a massive multiplayer online game. Ideally, it should be an MMO you can play with one hand, freeing up the other hand to smoke a cigarette.

Freestyle Street Basketball is, at once, a demonstration of this principle and an idea I'm surprised we haven't seen before now. This is a game where you can create and kit out a cel-shaded cartoon avatar, and then

Genre: Action/Adventure
Publisher: Vivendi
Developer: Krome Studios
Release Date: October 2006

Spyro's newest venture is entitled A New Beginning, and for good reason. With this new game, the reset button's been hit on Spyro; all past adventures have been forgotten in favor of giving one of the hardest-working mascots in video games a fresh start.

In this case, it means shifting the onscreen action's focus from cutesy platforming to surprisingly intense action. Krome Studios, the dev house that gave the world Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, has set out to make Spyro's newest adventure feel like "playing through a

Genre: Simulation
Publisher: Vivendi Universal Games
Developer: Tilted Mill
Release Date: Q3 2006

Caesar IV is the latest in the distinguished Caesar line of city-building sims that rose to great fame as part of the late, lamented Sierra Entertainment. Even though it's been a good eight years since the last iteration came out to positive reviews and much love from simulation fans, Vivendi Universal has allowed developer Tilted Mill to bring back the franchise for one more outing on the PC. What's special about this title is that the development team includes many staffers who've worked on

Enchanted Arms

Genre: RPG
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: From Software
Release Date: August 2006

Come On, What Was Wrong with [eM] -eNCHANT arM-?

Horse armor and wizards' towers won't keep Oblivion players saddled up forever. Well, maybe they will, but at some point, you'll need to take a breather and find something other than shutting down Oblivion Gates to do with your Xbox 360 role-playing time. Excellent RPG alternatives remain scarce, much as they always were on the original Xbox, so it was disappointing to find the Enchanted Arms demo station somewhat under-mobbed next to the tangle of squirming E3 attendees trying

Genre: Real-Time Strategy
Publisher: Vivendi
Developer: Most Wanted Entertainment
Release Date: September 2006

You may be able to overcome countless terrorists, foreign insurgents, and enemy armies, all before breakfast, but in Joint Task Force, your greatest enemy might be CNN.

JTF is a story-driven, tactical RTS from Most Wanted Entertainment. You play the part of a fictional, multinational peace enforcement unit, with missions set in such recent real-world hotspots as Afghanistan, Bosnia, Colombia, Iraq, and Somalia. Your unit may not be real (Most Wanted's aiming for gameplay over realism here; to quote them, "Real is not fun"), but

Genre: First-Person Shooter
Publisher: TBA
Developer: Bohemia Interactive Studio
Release Date: Q3 2006

When you look at the first-person shooter genre as a whole, they can largely be broken up into gameplay that is either based on strict linearity (heavy use of hallways, such as Half-Life or Doom 3) or the somewhat less linear collection of larger, more open areas (e.g., Ghost Recon series, Half-Life 2). The original Operation Flashpoint came out on the PC a few years ago and was critically successful for two reasons. Firstly, the title absolutely oozed atmosphere, from the well-written yet totally

Genre: Grand Theft Pacino
Publisher: Vivendi-Universal Games
Developer: Radical Entertainment
Release Date: Fall 2006

The Godfather might have been a fun sandbox game in its own right, but let's face it: it completely failed as a licensed title. From the total lack of subtlety to ludicrous elements like the horse-head stealth mission, the game sometimes felt like a profoundly extended exercise in missing the point of the original movie. I bring this up because the upcoming Scarface: The World is Yours is in some ways a remarkably similar title. Not only is it a GTA-style sandbox

Get the Mythic Wars trailer off WP (39mb)

Mythic Wars is a turn-based strategy game set in a fantasy world. Combining both classic strategy gameplay and sophisticated 3D graphics players can experience epic battles like never before.

Taking place in a fantasy world of Human kingdoms, Orc clans, Dwarfs' citadels and Elven forests the player is thrust into a world of war and legend. Play the role of an Orc or Goblin boss, a captain of the Human army or lead the elite forces of the Elven army. Participate in castle sieges and village defense, assault and reconnaissance operations and swift

Genre: Action
Publisher: SCEA
Developer: Zipper Interactive
Release Date: November 2006

If you're a SOCOM fan, then you've probably played the original SOCOM Fireteam Bravo for the PSP. Because of the title's success, the team at Zipper Interactive has decided to bring out a new release with tons of fixed features and additions, such as increased visual quality.

My favorite features are the crosstalk option, which has been completely revised, and the increased interaction between this game and the new SOCOM: Combined Assault for the PS2. This means that while you play Fireteam Bravo 2 and perform missions,