“There are multiple gameplay modes at hand here, but the primary one is combat-focused racing. You face off with up to 19 white-knuckled adrenaline junkies and try to complete a number of laps around a variety of circuits faster than everyone else while staying out of trouble and out of those 19 sets of crosshairs. Scattered about the courses are icons representing each of the eight power-ups available, like the fire-and-forget shunt, the shock attack, mines, turbo boosts, and shields. Most projectiles can be fired forward or backward and it’s important to use them in both directions. Focus entirely on what’s ahead and an opponent will quickly fill your tailpipe with fire and brimstone, but keep your head on a swivel and you might make it for 30 seconds or so without getting blasted – maybe.”

Be sure to check out this game a little bit more some time.

Guitar Hero

Aerosmith Track Pack

“Livin’ On The Edge”
“Love In An Elevator”
“Rag Doll”

Price: $5.49/440 Microsoft Points/550 Wii Points for pack, or $1.99/160 MSP/200 WP per track

Rock Band

Packs

Grateful Dead Pack 03

“Beat It on Down the Line”
“Cumberland Blues”
“Scarlet Begonias”
“Throwing Stones”
“Touch of Grey”
“U.S. Blues”

Tracks

The Smithereens – “A Girl Like You”
The Smithereens – “Only a Memory”

Rock Band Network Tracks

Amberian Dawn – “Valkyries”
a t o m – “Satellite (Live)”
Ballyhoo! – “Paper Dolls”
Band of Horses – “Is There a Ghost”
Blackberry River Band – “Santa Fe”
CJ – “Eency Weency Spider”
Connor Christian and Southern Gothic – “Sunday Suit”
Counterfeit Pennies – “Five More Minutes”
Evile – “Now Demolition”
Farther Snake – “Shape 3″
iwrestledabearonce – “Tastes Like Kevin Bacon”
The Knew – “By Yourself”
Nothing More – “Fat Kid”
Reverend Horton Heat – “Death Metal Guys”
Sadaharu – “It’s Not Paranoia If They’re Shooting Live Bullets”
Thunderdikk – “Bra Off Party On” (X-Play’s J.P. Shub’s band!!!)
Windtunnel Syndrome – “You’re an Egg! (Evolution)”

Price: $9.99/800 MSP for pack, $1.99/160 MSP/200 WP per track (Rock Band Network prices vary by track)

Lips

No  new releases

SingStar

No new releases

DJ Hero

No new releases

The following is a review that was given to this game:

“If it sounds like The Forgotten Sands is a series of highs and lows, that’s because it is. It’s a game filled with heightened moments of elation followed by stretches of frustrating mediocrity. It nearly all falls apart at the very end, too, when the game creates an unnecessary wall of difficulty by asking the player to accomplish ridiculous feats of timing totally out of line with the rest of the game. The Forgotten Sands‘ flow walks a very fine line, wanting to give the appearance of challenge but without breaking the player’s forward momentum. When you stop moving in this game, you stop having fun. To this end, one of the final stretches in The Forgotten Sands crafts arbitrary difficulty through an uncontrollable camera viewpoint and timed jumps that rely less on skillful use of the Prince’s abilities than it is blind memorization of hard-as-nails jumps.”

Make sure to check out more about this game if you get a chance.

Sony PlayStation 3

• Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
• Red Dead Redemption
• Shrek Forever After
• Split/Second

Nintendo Wii

• Attack the Movies 3D
• Backyard Sports: Sandlot Sluggers
• Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
• Shrek Forever After

Microsoft Xbox 360

• Alan Wake
• Attack the Movies 3D
• Backyard Sports: Sandlot Sluggers
• Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
• Red Dead Redemption
• Shrek Forever After 
• Split/Second

Nintendo DS

• Backyard Sports: Sandlot Sluggers
• Blue Dragon: Awakened Shadow
• Imagine: Animal Doctor Care Center 
• Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands 
• Shrek Forever After

Sony PlayStation Portable

• Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands

PC

• Split/Second

Be sure to check out some of these games in this next week if you get a chance as they will all be available some time very soon.

Here is a preview of this “fragile alliance” mode from Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days:

“The potential for someone going traitor is always there, whether it be your teammates or yourself. If you do decide to go traitor, you could hang back and silently assassinate teammates — just make sure no one sees you do it. Or you can grab a human shield, keeping your teammates from shooting you by making it crucial for them not to accidentally shoot the buddy being used as a shield. If a teammate shoots a teammate, he can turn traitor, and the guy who gets wounded has a certain amount of time to get his revenge on the shooter without becoming a traitor himself thanks to a function called “yellow card.”

Here is a review which was given to this game:

“The combat system is, likewise, well-conceived but joylessly executed. Iron Man’s attack powers are split between his left and right hands. You can assign two different weapon types to each side and change them on the fly by pressing the D-pad. Combat is built around a rough lock-on mechanic. In theory, it works like it would in most games: when locked onto an enemy, a translucent blue circle surrounds them and a green health meter is intertwined. The problem is that it’s impossible to hit a moving target with standard attacks, which renders it fairly useless, since lock-on mechanisms are designed to hit non-stationary enemies.”

Be sure to look into more details about this game if you get a chance.

“We decided to take a different approach with this list than we did in the previous edition,”  said  aGuinness World Records’ spokesperson in a statement. “Instead of asking developers, industry insiders and journalists to rank their favorite titles, we approached a different kind of expert: the players themselves! We are confident that this ‘top 50′ more accurately reflects the tastes of the average gamer and not just the critics.”

1. Halo
2. Call of Duty
3. The Legend of Zelda
4. Guitar Hero
5. Metal Gear
6. Super Mario Bros.
7. World of Warcraft
8. Gears of War
9. Super Smash Bros.
10. Grand Theft Auto
11. Pokémon
12. Resident Evil
13. Fallout
14. Half-Life
15. Sonic the Hedgehog
16. Counter-Strike
17. Runescape
18. FIFA
19. Kingdom Hearts
20. Final Fantasy
21. Pac-Man
22. Madden NFL
23. The Sims
24. Tomb Raider
25. WWE Smackdown Vs. RAW
26. Rock Band
27. LittleBigPlanet
28. Saints Row
29. The Elder Scrolls
30. God of War
31. GoldenEye 007
32. Bioshock
33. KillZone
34. Skate
35. Left 4 Dead
36. Need for Speed
37. Chrono Trigger
38. Gran Turismo
39. StarCraft
40. Ratchet & Clank
41. Pong
42. Tom Clancy’s…
43. Star Wars: Battlefront
44. Battlefield
45. Diablo
46. Lego Batman
47. Mario Kart
48. Burnout
49. Crash Bandicoot
50. Pro Evolution Soccer

Activision has greatly decreased the number of games that they are going to come out with each year. The success of their games may have recently gone down causing Activision to come up with a different plan of releasing. Apparently, this fall, Guitar Hero 6 is a game that has been given a release date that is set for the fall of this year and the next DJ Hero game will be coming out shortly after that. For reasons that are unknown, Activision has decided not to say “DJ Hero 2″ but instead they continuously just refer to it as the next DJ Hero.

Activision did have a few things to say about the games including that they are ”more great original music, new and innovative gameplay modes and a significantly enhanced social gaming experience and plenty of downloadable content.”

The following is a review which was given to this game:

“Every few kills, Shadow commits something called a “scrotality.” Let your imagination be your guide. More than once, you will need to play as Shadow to recover a keycard from an enemy location. Nevermind that this dog, bless his heart, isn’t always smart enough to even bother trotting out of the way of a bullet storm — he can infiltrate an enemy base and seek out a specific key card. I didn’t buy it in Jaws Unleashed when the shark did it, and I don’t buy it now.”

Have you given this game a try yet? If you have, then what do you think of it?

Guitar Hero 5

Black Sabbath Track Pack

“After Forever”
“Into the Void”
“Sweet Leaf”

Price: $5.49/440 Microsoft Points/550 Wii Points, or $1.99/160 MSP/200 WP per track

Rock Band

Tracks

Busted – “Thunderbirds Are Go!”
Flyleaf – “Again”
Silverchair – “Tomorrow”

Rock Band Network Tracks

All That Remains – “Undone”
Black Gold – “Plans & Reveries”
Silverstein – “American Dream”
Safari So good – “Delaware Are you? I Don’t Know Alaska”
The Devil Wears Prada – “Dogs Can Grow Bears All Over”
The Fire Violets – “Dead to the World”

Price: $1.99/160 MSP/200 WP per track (Rock Band Network prices vary by track)

Lips

Pack

The Go-Go’s Song Pack

“Head Over Heels”
“Our Lips Are Sealed”
“We Got The Beat”

Tracks

David Bowie – “Let’s Dance”
Dexys Midnight Runners – “Come On Eileen”
Human League – “Don’t You Want Me”
Joan Jett – “Bad Reputation”
LL Cool J – “Going Back To Cali”

Price: 440 MSP for pack, or 160 MSP per track

SingStar

There are no new music DLC releases for this game this week.

DJ Hero

DJ Hero Domination Pack

Danny Byrd – “Red Mist VIP”
Darude – “Sandstorm” vs. Josh Wink – “Higher State of Consciousness”
Wolfgang Gartner – “Wolfgang’s 5th Symphony”

Price: 640 MSP/300 WP for pack