New PAL Releases Roundup

Fable, Far Cry, Midnight Club, more.

News by Tom Bramwell Former Editor-in-Chief

Updated on 23 Oct 2008

This is it. This is the big one. Gears of War 2 and LittleBigPlanet may be a couple of weeks away, but this week you've got one of 2008's best games, one of its most interesting, one of its best racing games, one with monsters in it, and even a PSP RPG.

You've also got Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, which Activision has decided not to distribute to reviewers until after it's released, but it would be rude of us to infer from that that it's absolute wank, obviously.

It's also a fabulous week to return to our on again, off again romance with videogame names, which are - as we've said for years - unrivalled for their sheer abstract brilliance. The reason the Video Game Name Generator is so funny is that it's so realistic.

Even the basic ones are bizarre. "Fable II", "Far Cry 2". The problem is generally, but not exclusively compounded by the need to acknowledge the original series in a follow-up. Hence "Buzz! Junior Ace Racers". "Disaster: Day of Crisis" is an exception: a new game with a sequel's nonsensical name.

Special mention, however, must go to Capcom for "MotoGP 08". It won't be the only game this year that admits it's still 2008 (Blade has its upcoming snooker game, WSC Real 08, for instance), but it's still an impressive way to convince people you're out of date at a glance, even though that makes no logical sense at all. Good work, videogames.

This week in shops: