From Scottish highlands to Dubai deserts – New console games

BERLIN: It’s the time of year when games enthusiasts are still basking in the afterglow of the E3 video games convention. But the titles featured there – Assassin’s Creed 3, Need for Speed: Most Wanted, etc – are not going to be released for ages. Time to focus on what you can get right now.

Even if things are a little dry during the summer months, there is still plenty to look forward to, with an adventure as a Scottish princess, another that requires you to keep the rhythm and yet another where players have the chance to save the world with a fighting robot, all waiting in the wings.

The action game Steel Battalion – Heavy Armor takes players to the year 2082. A virus has wiped out most microprocessors, catapulting the world back to the technology standards of the 1940s. Players are tasked with manning a new kind of weapon – the vertical tank, a kind of two-legged fighting robot – on the side of the US in the new superpower war.

The game allows support from a maximum of three friends in cooperation mode. What really makes Steel Battalion stand out is that the game lets players simultaneously use the Kinect motion-based controller and the regular controller.

That means the regular controller is used for picking targets and firing the main weapons, while the Kinect allows one to use one’s torso for controlling the periscope, the machine-guns and the gun turrets. Even the interaction with the tank’s crew is controlled with gestures, not buttons.

Steel Battalion – Heavy Armor is being sold exclusively for the XBox 360.

2K Games has created a shooter game for adults with Spec Ops: The Line. Set in a Dubai destroyed by a sandstorm, it revolves around a group of soldiers sent in to save civilians that ends up going missing itself. That’s when players come in: as the head of a special forces unit to find out what has happened.

This, of course, leads to a series of shootings. But the developers have promised some curveballs, where players will be required to make some tough moral choices. Spec Ops: The Line is available for the Playstation 3 and XBox 360 and costs about 55 euros. It is only for adults.

Things are a lot more peaceful with the Wii game Beat the Beat: Rhythm Paradise from Nintendo. It includes about 50 mini-games for one or two players, all of which involve having fun while keeping the beat.

In these games, the right beat can help you manipulate a fork to skewer flying peas or keep a crib rocking at the right speed. There’s a tutorial mode to explain the game to newcomers, which can come in handy at parties. The rhythm challenge is presented in bright, friendly animation. Beat the Beat: Rhythm Paradise is available for about 40 euros.

Pixar’s new animated film, Brave, already has a game by the same name for the Wii. Scottish princess Merida dreams of taking charge of her own life. However her mother, Queen Elinor, would rather marry her off to the son of a clan leader in the kingdom – an option that does not appeal to a girl who would like to make her own way.

Along with a story mode that bases itself on the movie, the game includes a series of mini-games where the titular character can show her skills in a variety of events, like bow and arrow. Brave costs about 30 euros.

Meanwhile, a new title in the long-lived skateboarding series Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater comes to the download portals XBox Live Arcade and Playstation Network. There have been 11 predecessors.

However, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD is no sequel, rather a completely reworked version, in terms of visuals and gameplay, of the first two parts of the series, from 1999 and 2000.

Gameplay remains the same as with the older versions, with the goal of getting the skateboard up ramps and across various outdoor obstacles while performing breakneck tricks to earn points.

But there are multiple changes to the details. Players no longer gather VHS cassettes, but more modern DVDs. Multiple songs have been taken from the original games, but developer Activision has added a few new tracks. The download should cost about 15 euros.  -dpa

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