At the tail end of this week, I turn the page on 36 and look ahead to see what 37 has in store for me. At that point, it’s official. I’m in my late-30’s. And yet, it’s somewhat encouraging that this peek into the wild woods of Geriatric Park comes at the end of my favorite week of the year.

The 2009 E3 (the Electronic Entertainment Expo) launched in LA yesterday with the big Xbox 360 conference, and the megaton charges that Microsoft lobbed were heard loud and clear (and streaming) a full coast away making my day and more importantly, tightening my grasp on my youth.

No matter how old I get nor how many new responsibilities I draft into the fold, I always look forward to the next great video game experience. I used to call it my vice, as if there were some reason that I should hide my passion, but I’ve stopped that. I work hard “damn hard” and I lead a very fulfilling life. But at the end of the day, when the world quiets and my children are nestled all snug in their beds, I like to steal a slice of time and journey to the world of make-believe. I may never keep the tax man at bay, but I can save the princess this day.

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Publisher: Telltale Games
Developer: Telltale Games
Minimum requirements: Windows XP / Vista (Vista64 unsupported); 2.0 GHz or better processor; 512MB RAM; 64MB DirectX 8.1-compliant video card; DirectX 8.1 sound device; DirectX Version 9.0c or better
Genre: Adventure
Release Date: Available now

In my review of the first installment of Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures, I paid tribute to the stellar work that the developers at Telltale Games had done in using episodic series to resurrect the adventure-game genre. With the games industry rivaling movies, music and television as a viable pastime, there are many tastes to satisfy out there beyond those hardcore gamers who grew up on a strict diet of first-person shooters and hack ‘em/slash ‘em staples. The fact that Telltale is trying to attract gamers in search of more cerebral pursuits is just part of the story. Their genius is directly tied to their ability to find properties that can flourish in bite-sized portions. They know how to whet our appetites by giving us a few stellar hours with these quirky characters and leaving us hungering for another morsel; which brings us to their latest dish, Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures: The Last Resort.

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Publisher: Telltale Games
Developer: Telltale Games
PC version minimum requirements: Windows XP / Vista (Vista64 unsupported); 2.0 GHz or better processor; 512MB RAM; 64MB DirectX 8.1-compliant video card; DirectX 8.1 sound device; DirectX Version 9.0c or better
Genre: Adventure
Release Date: Available now

Synergy is a wonderful thing. For years it’s been the buzzword of the techno world, with talking heads droning on about how our TVs would one day interact with our toasters and broadcast our breakfasts live across the Web for the entire world to enjoy. While this techno-wizardry is sweetly significant, it’s on the fringes that we find its real benefits. For starters, the ability to download anything on demand has breathed new life into beloved gaming archetypes we thought lost to the ravages of time, and this in turn has led to the evolution of episodic gaming, which the fine artisans at Telltale Games have taken up as their cause. Telltale has worked wonders providing adventure gamers with a new lease on life through their expert handling of beloved series such as Strongbad and the sublime Sam & Max. Now joining their growing stable of prized properties is the celebrated duo Wallace & Gromit in their first of four planned Grand Adventures, Fright of the Bumblebees, another example of Telltale taking familiar characters and building old-school adventure games with nouveau production values around them.

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Publisher: Disney Interactive
Developer: Disney Interactive
Genre: Music/Rhythm/Adventure
Release date: Available now

I’m going to launch this review with an earth-shattering revelation. We’re talking Da Vinci Code, faked moon landing, Milli Vanilli levels of conspiracy paranoia. I am utterly convinced that tween rocker Hannah Montana (star of Disney’s “reality show” of the same name) and Miley Cyrus (Achy Breaky’s brat), are one and the same. After all, I’ve never seen them in the same place at the same time. Also (while we’re talking conspiracy theories), I am utterly convinced that my editors have installed a covert Webcam in my home and assigned this game to me just so they could catch me lip-synching with Crowley Corners’ celeb crooner in the hopes that the video of a 36-year-old dude busting out “The Climb” would become the next hot Web sensation.

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Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Longtail Studios
Genre: Adventure
Release date: Available now
Review by: Ed Humphries

True confession time: I’ve never seen an episode of Grey’s Anatomy in my life. My brain boggles at the notion of how the once geeky Patrick Dempsey pushed McSteamy aside to be stud du jour. I guess this makes me the perfect critic to check into the virtual Seattle Grace and review Ubisoft’s licensed game from ABC’s hot property Grey’s Anatomy. There’s no question that the show has grown to be a ratings powerhouse inspiring legions of fans, but does Grey’s Anatomy: The Video Game offer enough entertainment to someone who doesn’t know their McDreamy from their McLovin’?

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Publisher: Tecmo
Developer: Tecmo
Genre: Action/Adventure
Release date: Available now
Review by: Ed Humphries

Despite its immense popularity, the constant knock against the Nintendo Wii has been its anemic software support for hardcore gamers. Store shelves are stocked with a variety of party games aimed squarely at the casual consumers who have pushed the Wii to its lofty perch, but, to date, the system has lacked the in-depth action-adventure titles that supported the last-generation’s big mainstream success, the Sony PS2. Tecmo aims to fill this gap with a port of their PS2 hit, Rygar: The Battle of Argus.

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Publisher: Activision
Developer: Treyarch
System: Xbox 360
Genre: Action
Release date: Available now
Review by: Ed Humphries

There will never be another Goldeneye. “James Bond Will Return” is the post-script that ends every Bond film (as well as Rare’s treasured 1998 N64 release), but the promise of another Goldeneye lives on only in dreams. This hasn’t stopped developers from trying to replicate the game’s success, however, with each successive adventure falling under the weight of the creaky 11-year old shooter. A burden that Bond’s latest outing, Quantum of Solace, must now bear.

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Publisher: EA
Developer: EA Redwood Shores
System: Wii
Genre: Virtual Life
Release date: Available now
Review by: Ed Humphries

“Get a life” used to be an insult. Now, it’s a gamer’s prime directive. In addition to our normal 9-to-5, we’re always looking for an escape: to live a Second Life, teach the fine folks at Animal Crossing some new tricks or jack up the prices in Fable and see how the populace responds. This unquenchable desire to lead a simulated life has pushed The Sims series to great success, with many additions and expansions released over the years. The latest Sims incarnation is for the Nintendo Wii, MySims Kingdom.

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Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
System: Wii
Genre: Action
Release date: Available now
Review by: Ed Humphries

I grew up among the greatest generation of video gamers. In the era of the Atari 2600, Intellivision and Colecovision, the Nintendo Entertainment System solidified gaming as a hobby, and later as a mainstream entertainment choice. The NES gave birth to Super Mario Brothers; the 2D adventure that arguably fathered today’s billion-dollar gaming industry. Now we live the good life, with Wi-Fi-enabled super consoles linking battalions of virtual soldiers and adventurers across the globe. But those who stayed on the meandering path through the decades sometimes cast a wandering eye back to the great games of earlier years. This nostalgia has encouraged game companies to toss us a bone every now and again, rip an artifact from the past and apply a glossy new coat of paint, leading to the latest release from Nintendo, Wario Land: Shake It.

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Publisher: EA
Developer: EA Redwood Shores
System: Xbox 360
Genre: FPS
Release date: Available now
Review by: Ed Humphries

There are no new ideas, just new ways of freshening up the old ones. At least, that’s how the old cliché goes. While it’s a tenet derived from narrative fiction, the same notion can be applied to video games, a medium that continues to push the idea of interactive storytelling with new and exciting ways of involving the player in the narrative, even if the stories never really evolve beyond the same yarns that have been spun in the past. But, as with fiction, old tales can be rendered new when enough care and polish is applied. With the launch of Dead Space, EA presents a new take on a somewhat creaky survival horror genre in desperate need of a fresh voice.

At the outset of the game, your character, Isaac Clarke (a possible homage to Asimov and Arthur C.), is awakened aboard a vessel streaking through the void to rendezvous with the deep-space mining ship USG Ishimura. The crew of this “planet cracker” has made an amazing discovery on the surface below, and as the scientists aboard begin the process of deciphering their archaeological find, all hell breaks loose. Responding to a mysterious distress signal transmitted by Clarke’s girlfriend, Clarke has two main objectives: rescue the girl, and sift through the rubble and decay that has overtaken the Ishimura in an attempt to understand how things have gone so horribly wrong.

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Publisher: Gamecock Media Group
Developer: Blazing Lizard
System: XBLA
Genre: Sports
Release date: Available now
Review by: Ed Humphries

There’s a great line in Robert Altman’s 1992 Hollywood satire, “The Player.” A desperate screenwriter pitches potential projects as mash-ups of established properties, describing them as “It’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s meets Psycho,” each more ludicrous than the last. The idea is that audiences crave the familiar, rejecting anything new and innovative. The game industry isn’t immune to this Reese’s school of thought (take two great things and make one great taste) with sequel after sequel cannibalizing the innovations that have come before to seemingly build a better game (when Sonic is employing Bullet Time, you know we’ve got problems.) It’s a notion that developer Blazing Lizard has embraced heartily, melding pirate chic with ninja cool in its recent XBLA release, Pirates vs. Ninjas Dodgeball. Based on my time with the title, I can safely say that no one’s got their chocolate in my peanut butter.

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Publisher: 2K Sports
Developer: Visual Concepts
System: Wii
Genre: Sports
Release date: Available now
Review by: Ed Humphries

With its unique ability to offer players more control of their onscreen avatars, thus further selling the illusion that they’re in the game, the Wii has been a prime destination for sports titles. This is the system which was arguably sold based on the strength of its packed-in, sports-themed minigame compilation Wii Sports, and with that thirst satisfied, gamers have looked to continually quench it with new experiences. One sport that has sat on the sidelines to date is ice hockey, which would seem to be a shoe-in for the Wiimote’s ability to properly mimic a hockey stick. Skating to the rescue is Visual Concepts’ new release, NHL 2K9, the first official hockey title for Nintendo’s juggernaut.

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Publisher: THQ
Developer: Blue Tongue
System: Wii
Genre: 3D Platformer
Release date: Available now
Review by: Ed Humphries

At its big E3 press conference in July, Nintendo cancelled Christmas. At least, that’s the way it felt to the legions of fanboys (myself included) who looked to the Big N’s annual briefing for news of the game that would be keeping us warm once the leaves started to fall and the holidays arrived. With no new IPs or return engagements from the back catalog of marquee mascots announced, Wii owners looked with dismay at the cold days ahead. And then, an unlikely hero arrived to brighten this winter of our discontent. A true Cinderella man, de Blob is in de house, and he might just be de cure for what ails us.

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Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Gearbox
System: Xbox 360
Genre: FPS
Release date: Available now
Review by: Ed Humphries

Some days I feel this war is never going to end. Every time I think my tour of duty is coming to a close, along comes another assignment to guide the Greatest Generation through another World War II game. While it has become cliché to rail against the proliferation of WWII-themed first-person shooters, clichés exist for a reason, born of repetitive thoughts and actions. So each successive Axis and Allies adventure needs to bring something new to the forefront, or at the very least, offer a different perspective of the action. These are the marching orders that Gearbox, developer of the Brothers in Arms series, accepts in the creation of its latest title, Hell’s Highway.

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Publisher: Atari
Developer: Namco Bandai
System: Xbox 360
Genre: Sports
Release date: Available now
Review by: Ed Humphries

For a sport that single-handedly fathered the entire video-game bloodline following the release of Pong, tennis seems to get short shrift in gaming these days. Sure, there are a smattering of games released each year—usually timed to coincide with Wimbledon—but compared to the vast iterations of baseball, hockey and of course, football, that are released almost monthly, tennis often languishes on the sidelines. It’s a void that Namco Bandai hopes to fill with the release of Smash Court Tennis 3.

Smash Court Tennis 3 is actually a port of a PSP title released in 2007. While it features the facelift one would expect in the transition to more powerful hardware, this is the exact same game released on Sony’s handheld. That said, the Xbox 360 version of offers a full menu of features to fill your solo and multiplayer needs, so newcomers to the series should find something of interest here.

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