“I am Michael Fish from the 1970s and I am magnanimous in victory. Lay down your weapons.”
“This week there are brief flurries of robots over Playstation and Xbox download services, alongside a strong downpour of Journey – so don’t go out without an umbrella or weak human emotions.”
“Bill Giles from the mid-90s will no longer trouble this glorious new era with base accusations of black magic.”
XBLA
Shoot Many Robots (Wednesday 14th March)
Price: 800 MS points
Four players, lots of guns and (as stated in the title) many, many robots converge in Demiurge’s manic side-on shooter. It’s fast-paced, super-customisable and more than a little silly. Potentially worth a peek…
Defenders of Ardania (Wednesday 14th March)
Price: 1200 MS points
A deep-set, and very European, Tower Defence game that’s already strutted its stuff on iPad – Defenders of Ardania gallivants towards its XBLA release with quite possibly the worst release trailer of all history in tow. Old style news reel meets awful rock? Yes please!
PS Store
Shoot Many Robots (Tuesday 13th March)
Price: £7.99
Ubisoft’s rednecks versus the machines shooter gets an almost-simultaneous release on Sony Box. Watch out for shrapnel, and bullets.
W.A.R.P. (Tuesday 13th March)
Price: TBA
The cutesy adventures of Zero the self-transporting gut-busting alien charmed our own Keith Stuart into awarding four fabled Hookshot Inc stars in our review. It’s a fine, minimalist adventure packed with nice puzzles and occasional human-maiming. Well worth a punt.
Journey (Tuesday 13th March)
Price: £9.99
You’ve no doubt heard so much about Journey, and witnessed such a frightening degree of pseudo art-froth being coughed up in reviews by windbags like Christian ‘bloody’ Donlan’, that you’d rather stab out your eyes than play it. Don’t though! It’s really charming, utterly brilliant and you need your eyes to play Mass Effect 3. (Also: windbags are cool and sorry Christian.)
Nintendo eShop (Europe)
Battle of the Elements (DsiWare, Monday 12th March)
Price: 500 points
Rumour has it that this is actually a rather decent puzzle outing for the DS – if confusing, badly translated and a bit like an upside down Tetris. Anything that features a fish waging war on sushi gets our interest, to be honest. (And cartoon pandas).
Metroid (3DS Virtual Console, Monday 12th March)
Price: £4.50
The original Samus adventure elegantly sashays onto 3DS, although if you’re an American type or a Nintendo ambassador you may well already have it – and have discovered that the hero is actually a girl. (A girl!) It’ll never catch on.
“My name is Michael Fish from the 1970s, and this was the fun forecast. No-one can stop me now.“
