Release Date Roundup - 23rd to 29th Jan

GTA IV, GT5 Prologue (US), Mercs 2.

Image credit: Eurogamer

News by Robert Purchese Associate Editor

Updated on Jan. 29, 2008

Every day when I go out for lunch I get assaulted by one of those fiendish charity fund raiser types with a clipboard of strategies on. It usually starts with a frustratingly attractive lady saying hello. Oh but I cannot hear you because I am looking in this shop at, er, knickers. Now she has me, she knew this would happen. The only way out is to pledge a donation and walk off convinced I have helped. I eat the rest of lunch in misery. And now walk in the road.

Which leads me on to the movers and shakers in the release date world this week, somehow. The biggest of them is Grand Theft Auto IV, which Rockstar finally ended speculation about by revealing a 29th April date along with lots of new details.

Sony spread the cheer too today, dating the US version of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue for 17th April. Remember, if you have an American credit card you can mock up a US account and get it when they do. Which we recommend doing, because Sony Europe is still making its mind up.

Electronic Arts did a little of that too, putting an end to Mercenaries 2 speculation by saying no it will not be out on 8th February and actually you will not hear anything about it for "a few months". If only it had offered such clarification on rumblings Battlefield: Bad Company had been pushed back to the summer.

Still, Ubisoft can push with the best of them, as it nudged Dark Messiah 360 back a week to 15th February. It also held Assassin's Creed (PC, DS) back to 28th March but counteracted it with assurances that Haze will be with us between April and June. Yes, apparently it really will this time.

Which is a bit better than those white lies from Atari that said oh actually Beautiful Katamari will be here in March and not February as we announced very recently.

Lost Odyssey really will be here on 29th February as has been whispered for a while, which is the same day Koei has chosen to bring Persona 3 to Europe.

Frustratingly (for some, we imagine) 2K Games said it had halted work indefinitely on the Wii version of Civilization Revolution, largely so it could focus on the 360 and PS3 offerings. And this made us happy enough to go undercover and dredge up a secret and officially unconfirmed date of summer for Okami Wii.

All that's left is Rez HD and Chessmaster on Live Arcade this Wednesday, the former expected to get very high marks, plus a 14th March date for FlatOut Head On on PSP.

List below for clarity. Not charity. Bastards.

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