New PAL Releases Roundup News

The unnecessary convolution of the Ace Attorney releases in Europe is the sort of crime Nintendo, which is on distribution duties for the Capcom-made DS adventure games, wouldn't have gotten away with in the days before Wii Sports, Wii Fit and Wii Have All The Money Now.

Getting things right - albeit for the first generation in a while - buys it out of a lot of Internet scorn. But when you think about it, we're losing out more than ever, deprived not only of sensibly ordered game releases, but of endless forums howling themselves senseless, and of angry Photoshoppers putting Satoru Iwata in the dock while Phoenix Wright and Apollo Justice stand across the courtroom pointing fingers beneath bitterly amusing speech bubbles that say "OBJECTION!!"

Then again, the Ace Attorney games are most popular with gamers who import things from America, and they will shrug their shoulders tomorrow at the release of Apollo Justice, the fourth DS game but the third European DS release, having already played it and having also already played the third game, Trials and Tribulations, which has yet to be given a European release and probably won't be out for months. Because, since the DS is region-free and you can buy US games for cheap over the Internet, it's not as big a deal for them.

But then again again, we should still be mildly cross, because gaming's new children - your Mum, basically - are not so meticulous in their pursuit of US videogame releases you can only buy over the Internet, and are more likely to go to the shops. And therefore they will find Apollo Justice slightly confusing. There will be a feeling that something's missing. Something like an entire game that hasn't been released yet for no obvious reason.

But hey, they can always buy something for the Wii. Boom Blox is an idea of Steven Spielberg's brought to life by EA, and Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors is Square Enix's latest contribution in the battle to make this paragraph longer. It has failed. Although there will be more paragraphs about it, and Boom Blox, in their respective reviews very soon.

This week:

• Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney (DS)
• Boom Blox (Wii)
• Cobra 11 Crashtime (PC, Xbox 360)
• Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors (Wii)
• Iron Man (PSP)