New PAL Releases Roundup

Where shall we go this week? Last time on New PAL Releases Roundup we visited the future, as I tried to make a point about how games were running away from the Christmas crush and fell victim myself, typing "2010" whenever I meant "2009". Thanks to the mercy of the internet, anybody who stumbles on the corrected text now will never realise, but we all know the truth. (And I'm probably not helping myself by drawing attention to it, come to think.)

This week, however, we've got a jolly old choice of destinations, largely thanks to the last scion of colour in videogames, the Nintendo family of consoles. On the DS alone we can visit the inside of Bowser's tummy thanks to the sparkling Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, or the outer reaches of your imagination, thanks to the less sparkling but still very flashy Scribblenauts. Or there's a galaxy far, far away in Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Republic Heroes, which is to be contemplated in a review not so far, far away from publication.

Or we can go to war, obviously, since we're talking about videogames after all. This week's war is a guerrilla conflict on an island on the other side of the planet, bossed by Codemasters in the publisher's new take on Operation Flashpoint, not to be confused with the work of Bohemia Interactive in ArmA II, except in its creative goals and commercial aspirations. Behind the bike sheds, 5pm, no crosshairs. Speaking of which, since lots of you have asked nicely (well, some), we'll take a separate look at the PC version of Operation Flashpoint soon.

There's also quite a lot going on in the world of downloads this week, most notably in Frontier's LostWinds 2, the hopefully enchanting follow-up to an enchanting WiiWare launch title, which I personally found enchanting. I was pretty enchanted, for the record. Look out for a review of that at some point tomorrow afternoon, and for all the treats mentioned below in your local emporiums and download lists.

This week in shops:

• Ant Nation (DS)
• Cate West: The Vanishing Files (DS, Wii)
• Chronicles of Mystery: The Tree of Life (PC)
• Cities XL (PC)
• Disney Sing It: Pop Hits (PS3, Wii)
• Family Party: Outdoor Fun (Wii)
• Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility (Wii)
• Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! (PSP)
• Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (DS)
• Mario & Luigi 3: Bowser's Inside Story (DS)
• NBA 2K10 (PC, PS2, PS3, PSP, Xbox 360)
• NBA Live 10 (PS3, Xbox 360)
• Obscure: The Aftermath (PSP)
• Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising (PC, PS3, Xbox 360)
• Rock Band 2 (Wii)
• Scooby Doo: First Frights (DS, PS2, Wii)
• Scribblenauts (DS)
• Spore Hero (Wii)
• Spore Hero Arena (DS)
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Republic Heroes (DS, PC, PS3, PSP, Wii, Xbox 360)

This week online:

• A Bug's Life (PSN - PSone game for PS3/PSP)
• Comet Crash (PSN - PS3)
• Digger HD (PSN - PS3)
• Dragon Quest Wars (DSiWare)
• Final Fight 2 (Wii Virtual Console - SNES)
• Happy Holidays Halloween (WiiWare)
• LostWinds 2 (WiiWare)
• Lucidity (Xbox Live Arcade)
• Mahjongg Artifacts: Chapter 2 (PSP Minis)
• Photo Clock (DSiWare)
• South Park: Let's Go Tower Defense Play! (Xbox Live Arcade)
• Sudoku (PSP Minis)
• Wonder Boy II: The Dragon's Trap (Wii Virtual Console - Master System)
• Yummy Yummy Cooking Jam (PSP Minis)