Greetings humans, Monki here again with Dan's Games of the Week. I've been looking differently at Dan ever since he told me he wanted to make love to the Wii. I wonder if his wife approves of that.

I watched a former roomate of mine almost destroy a $3000 television after playing a couple days of Dead Rising only to realize he will now have to restart due to missing a time sensitive mission (and saving the state that way). Dead Rising is almost perfect except for just a few amazingly small errors that can destroy your brain. Small text, braindead AI and the whole saving issue, paaainful.

All that aside, at least this is something new, something fun, something next-gen. The simple pleasure of throwing a propane tank into a large group of zombies then blowing it up with your pistol is worth the sixty dollars alone.

Okay, I've taken up too much precious time away from Dead Rising to write all this, on to Dan and his Wii-loving Games of the Week.

Game Releases for the Week of 8/13-8/20

Hello again chums! Dan here with your list of games shipping out this week. Once again the 360 has the game-to-play (in my humble opinion), though there are a few others that may be worth your valuable time. Next week of course is the day the frat-boys and gaming-jocks pine for each year, with the juggernaut Madden 2007 ready for launch. Some are saying this may be the tipping point for the 360 -- will the average Joe Gameplayer want to wait for the PS3, or will the pull of Madden on the Xbox 360 be too hard to resist?

Xbox 360

8/15 99 Nights - See game of the week, below.

PSP

8/15 Payout Poker & Casino - Featuring 12 different casino games for Sony's portable: Texas Hold'em, Omaha Hold'em, Red Dog, Blackjack, Baccarat, Roulette, Craps, Slots, and Wheel of Fortune (No word as to what the other three are -- maybe "Get Waitresses Attention" and "ATM Withdrawal Challenge" are included?) Namco promises the ability to roam around 4 fully-3D casinos, win fake-money, spend your fake-money at a "swanky casino boutique", and challenge others online in heated fake-money matches.

DS

8/16 Deep Labyrinth - First-person RPG in the Elder Scrolls vein, scaled down to DS size: Instead of a vast and vibrant world, you're trekking through bland countrysides and the proverbial deep labyrinth. Stylus strokes likewise control sword swings, just like mouse motions do on PC Elder Scrolls games. The world is full of cutesy anime-ish characters but a deep weapon upgrade system will presumably appeal to all manner of RPG fanatics.

8/19 Freedom Wings - They've used the Nintendo DS's touch screen for pretty much everything else, so why not a flight sim? Natsume's attempt arrives this week, a game that challenges you to fly WW2-era fighters with all the staples of flying games: escort missions, bombing runs, etc. The NDS's lower screen is used as a control panel, where you can find status indicators, your radar, and sliders to adjust speed and altitude.

Xbox

8/15 World Racing 2 - Budget title that's been in development hell for more than two years, this franchise started in 2003 with "Mercedes Benz World Racing". Now with the Benz part dropped (but still featuring 17 makes, including Mercedes and Volkswagen) this is your generic non-next-gen racer with 100 tracks, visible damage, and upgradeable vehicles.

8/15 Xyanide - I remember being excited about this one, oh, two years ago, after it was shown at E3 2004. Essentially its a trippy arcade shooter with a classic game mechanic that has you blasting everything on screen. There seems to be a few innovative elements, like a targeting system where you place a cursor near the enemy you're trying to bust up. One has got to wonder, however: why wasn't this game retooled and released on Xbox Live Arcade? It would have been the biggest thing since Galaxy Wars. Its really too bad the publisher is content to let it languish in old-gen-Xbox land.

PS2

8/17 Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus - Dirge is a 3rd person shooter meant to cash in on FF7 through a program Squenix Calls "Compilation of FF7". It encompasses all the other revisitiations of FF7 such as the Advent Children movie, this game, the cell phone game Before Crisis, the PSP game Crisis Core, and the possible PS3 remake. The game stars Vincent Valentine, the mysterious vampire guy, tons of weapons, a story that explores Vincent's past. I'm hearing mixed things on the gameplay but it does have a lot of fancy cutscenes and serves the now ongoing FF7 storyline, which is always a good thing for FF fans. (The preceding was brought to you by resident FF expert Trillian)

PC

8/14 DarkStar One - While I'm not sure who greenlit the name "DarkStar One", this game certainly does not seem terrible, and in fact features gameplay inspired by the grand-daddy of space combat games, Wing Commander (incidentally one of the best game franchises ever, because I said so). Developed by German studio Ascaron Entertainment, DarkStar One combines an epic story with classic space battling, innovative missions that expand on the classic escort-battle-escort formula, and some goods trading and ship upgrading thrown into the mix for good measure. For those curious, there is a demo.

8/14 World Racing 2 - See the Xbox description

GC + GBA

None

Game of the Week:

99 Nights, Xbox 360, 8/15

Continuing the theme of massive amount of enemies on screen at once from last week's Dead Rising, 99 Nights essentially has a single hook the screen gets dark, the camera pulls back, and you watch as the hundreds of enemies on screen explode up into the air before tumbling back down. Of course, I only played part of the full game, so the question still lingers: will this stay fun, or turn boring quickly? There's only one way to find out..

Game I'm Playing:

Star Fox Command, Nintendo DS, 8/28

Sure, I could have waited until this one was released on American shores later this month. But my Star Fox addiction kicked in, enticing me to import the latest Fox McCloud adventure on the very import-friendly NDS. Retooled to take advantage of the particulars of the Nintendo handheld, Star Fox Command manages to bring a new gameplay mechanic into the Star Fox fold while keeping the spirit of the original intact. Essentially, the entire game now plays like the free-roaming levels in the N64 version (you use the stylus to fly, which takes some getting used to but eventually becomes as natural as a thumbstick). The action taking place in short bursts based on encounters with enemies on a turn-based-strategy style world map, the idea being you have a limited amount of turns to traverse a map, find a boss enemy, and destroy it. You use the stylus to plot a flight path across the map -- when you meet an enemy unit, you play the aforementioned short burst of Star Fox action to clear the area. It's an interesting concept and it works well, though I personally would have liked at least a few on-rails levels to change up the gameplay. Overall though, with 4 person WiFi action, this game is a no-brainier purchase for both Star Fox fans and flight combat fans alike.