New Releases

Animal Paradise Wild takes gamers through savannah, forest, and jungle as they play with and care for a variety of baby creatures. There are 18 different wild animals to unlock, including elephants, cheetahs, pandas, and gorillas, and players can participate in a number of mini-games with their new pets, such as a round of rock-paper-scissors with a monkey, or a game of meerkat whack-a-mole. Gamers can also unlock unique habitats for their animals or use the stylus-based controls to snap pictures of their furry friends for a photo album. ~ Christopher Brown, All Game Guide

Scene It? Twilight is a game show-styled trivia contest for Wii, featuring more than 500 questions taken from the vampire romantic fantasy film by Catherine Hardwicke, based on the novel by Stephanie Meyer. Players compete to provide the most correct answers to a series of questions, which may be based on video clips or stills taken directly from the feature film. After watching a sequence from the film, players may need to choose the next line spoken, for example, or recognize the events taking place by quickly studying a freeze-frame of the action. As in earlier Scene It? games, designed for use on standard DVD players as well as on home computers and consoles, the controls are extremely simple; the challenge is in recognizing the scenes and remembering the characters or events hinted in the question. Created especially for play on Wii, Scene It? Twilight has players using the Wii Remote to buzz in and select their answers from multiple choices. ~ T.J. Deci, All Game Guide

Namco's hand-to-hand fighting game series returns to PlayStation Portable with enhanced graphics, destructible environments, online features, and the series' largest character roster to date. The "King of Iron Fist Tournament" brings 40 contenders into the fray this time around, with mainstays such as Jin, King, Anna, Law, Phoenix, and Heihachi, as well as six newcomers, including the jet-pack enabled Alisa Bosconovitch, the veteran warrior Lars Alexandersson, and the obese but impossibly quick American karate champion known as Bob. The series' fan-familiar match types and battle modes are included, although some have been revamped. In the storyline-driven "Scenario Campaign" mode, similar to the "Tekken Force" mode featured in earlier editions of the game, a chosen character battles through set piece areas, fighting numerous enemies to progress. Online functionality is fundamental in Tekken 6. Players can join matches against others over an Internet connection, or fight alongside a human-controlled ally in a co-op mode. Character appearances can be customized, with selections of clothing, hairstyles, fashion accessories, and tattoos, for a memorable look in online battles. ~ T.J. Deci, All Game Guide

The God of War Collection is a compilation that includes the first two mythological adventures of Sony's irascible antihero Kratos. Originally released for PlayStation 2, God of War and its sequel God of War II have been reformatted and remastered to fit on a single PS3 Blu-ray disc, and both games offer full PlayStation Network trophy support. ~ All Game Guide

Gamers once again don the hooded cloak and hidden daggers of Altaïr for more Crusades-era assassinations and open-world acrobatics in Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines. Though released at the same time as its Renaissance-themed console cousin Assassin's Creed II, this PSP exclusive takes place immediately after the events of the original game, sending Altaïr to Cyprus where he must track down and kill all of the island's Templar officers. Altaïr retains all of his weapons and skills from the original game, and PS3 compatibility means that players who collect special Templar coins in Bloodlines and Assassin's Creed II can unlock and share new abilities across platforms. There are nine different mission types, including tailing, interrogation, and treasure hunts, and the action takes place in two sprawling cities, with gamers once again scaling the tallest monuments and towers in order to locate their next target. The Animus system returns, with seven different "memory blocks" serving as the game's levels, but Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines eschews the futuristic sojourns, protracted missions, and expositional death conversations of the original game in favor of shorter, more direct action aimed at on-the-go portable gamers. ~ Christopher Brown, All Game Guide

EA's answer to Wii Fit returns with a variety of new exercises in EA Sports Active: More Workouts. The game includes 35 all-new activities, including four warm-up exercises and four cool-down exercises designed to help maintain flexibility and minimize injury, and four new abdominal workouts are included to fill in the gaps missed by the upper-body, lower-body, and cardio exercises of the original EA Sports Active. The new "6 Week Challenge" extends the structured workout plan of the first game's "30 Day Challenge," once again offering players a trainer-driven series of 20-minute workout circuits designed to target every major muscle group, adapt to individual levels of fitness, and keep track of weight, calories burned, and overall progress on a weekly basis. More Workouts also comes with a "Fitness Book" featuring nutrition and exercise advice to help gamers maintain a healthful lifestyle. ~ Christopher Brown, All Game Guide

Assassin's Creed II: Discovery extends the saga of Ezio Auditore da Firenze to the DS as gamers take the cloaked protagonist to the Iberian Peninsula where he must rescue his fellow assassins from the Spanish Inquisition. Assassin's Creed II: Discovery is set 15 years after the initial events of Assassin's Creed II, and it eschews 3D action in favor of fast-paced side-scrolling combat. The series' signature use of stealth is not completely abandoned, however, as Ezio's best course of action is often to avoid attention by sneaking up on enemies. If players are detected, they must engage in hand-to-hand combat featuring the same sort of rhythmic parries and ripostes as the console versions. As the action unfolds, gamers can unlock faster health regeneration, new outfits, and better climbing skills, and at the end of each level the game displays a player's stealth numbers, damage taken, and notoriety stats. DSi gamers have the option of putting their own face on wanted posters strewn throughout each level, but ripping the posters down makes it easier for Ezio to operate undetected. ~ Christopher Brown, All Game Guide

Taking its story and setting from the concurrently released TriStar Pictures feature film, Planet 51: The Game is a mission-based driving adventure, set on an alien planet that is oddly familiar. In something of a role-reversal, players take control of Captain Chuck Baker, an astronaut explorer who lands on the strange planet, believing it to be uninhabited. Instead, he finds himself in the midst of picket-fenced suburbs, reminiscent of 1950s America -- except for the "little green men"-like inhabitants, who treat Chuck exactly like the alien invader that he is. The play of the game involves exploring the 3D suburban world from a behind-the-back, third-person perspective, sometimes on foot but usually in a vehicle, and accomplishing tasks such as reaching a distant location or escaping from pursuers. As in the computer-animated movie, the ultimate goal, ostensibly, is to recover Chuck's lost spaceship.

Chuck can commandeer essentially any vehicle he comes across in this travels, including family sedans and motorcycles, taxi cabs and cop cars, and even heavy-duty trucks or zippy riding lawn-mowers. Different cars and trucks have different power and handling, and although the vehicles on Planet 51 hover instead of roll on wheels, most rules of the road still apply. Rules are made to be broken, however, especially when you're a giant alien on the run from a frenzied mob. Chuck can also break from the main story, to interact with various characters from the film in side-quests and various mini-games. In some sequences, players can take control of Lem, the young alien boy who befriends Chuck, and his pet robot Rover, making use of their special skills and abilities to overcome game-world obstacles or beat special challenges. ~ T.J. Deci, All Game Guide

Ubisoft's ever-expanding series of animal-themed life development sims lets young gamers turn their rodent friends into performance artists in Petz: Hamsterz Superstarz. Players rear a young hamster and train it to take on a variety of outrageous activities, including running through mazes, parachuting, bowling, and participating in fashion shows. As the hamsters get better at certain events they earn coins that help unlock new toys and accessories, and gamers can always send their furry friends over to the Petz Nursery if they need extra care. ~ All Game Guide

Single-handedly take out well-guarded targets through a combination of stealth and acrobatic maneuvers in this anticipated sequel to 2007's Assassin's Creed. Featuring a new protagonist in a different era, you'll control a young nobleman named Ezio Auditore da Firenze in 15th century Italy, at the height of the Renaissance. After a tragic event befalls his family, Ezio trains to become a master assassin, looking to exact his revenge on those responsible. Ezio will explore three sprawling cities, countryside, and various small villages while completing objectives during the day or at night. Assassin's Creed II offers three times the mission types found in its predecessor, with more things to see and do within each setting.

Money is now an important part of the game, allowing Ezio to purchase weapons, clothing, armor, repairs, and decorative items for his Italian villa. Ezio can pickpocket people, search for hidden chests, and complete side missions to fill his coffers. Other key changes include Ezio's ability to swim and even soar through the sky thanks to friend Leonardo da Vinci's flying machine. The open-ended world also allows for more free-running, climbing, and leaping from great heights. Among the new weapons at Ezio's disposal are pikes, maces, war hammers, scimitars, axes, and twin wrist-mounted blades that can be used to kill two people at once. Updated combat techniques include the ability to grab, kick, head-butt, drown, disarm, or pounce on enemies. ~ Scott Alan Marriott, All Game Guide

Sony's family friendly mascot Sackboy comes to portable gamers with new platform adventures, new worlds to explore, and new user-generated levels in LittleBigPlanet. Following the "Play.Create.Share" model of its console forebear, LittleBigPlanet for the PSP once again finds gamers guiding their lovable burlap doll through more than 35 themed levels in "Play" mode, designing their own unique levels in "Create" mode, and uploading their creations to the PlayStation Network in "Share" mode. The "Play" mode levels are filled with prize bubbles that reward curious and thorough players with new costumes, stickers, and level-building materials. Once players have completed a series of "Create" mode tutorials they can begin to craft and share their own levels, limited only by their imagination and the number of items they have collected in "Play" mode. ~ Christopher Brown, All Game Guide

Players return to a virtual playroom re-creation of the iconic movie series in LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues. As in LEGO Indy's Original Adventures, gamers play through famous scenes from the films, with 3D characters and settings created completely from colorful LEGO building blocks. The 2009 sequel game features scenes from all four feature films, including the most recent Indiana Jones movie, The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Some characters have new moves since the first game, and new vehicles are available to recreate well-known movie scenes on boats, motorcycles, and mine carts. In a feature new to the LEGO movie game series, players can also create their own levels, using an almost unlimited supply of blocks. Custom levels can be built completely from scratch, or created by altering and adding to the pre-designed levels included in the game. As in the Indiana Jones original and other LEGO movie games (LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Harry Potter, LEGO Batman), players can collect objects hidden throughout the game world to unlock playable characters. More than 60 hidden artifacts in The Adventure Continues can be collected and used to unlock Crystal Skull characters such as Marion Ravenwood and Mutt Williams, as well as supporting characters and villains from throughout the film series, such as Short Round and Indy's father, Dr. Henry Jones Sr. ~ T.J. Deci, All Game Guide