Review: Dragon Ball Z – Ultimate Tenkaichi (PS3)

To recap, January was unusually strong with three (update: FOUR) good games on the PS3:

MAG was released by the hands that built the SOCOM franchise on the PS2 and so far the buzz is good from online shooter fans.

Darksiders did well with the critics and definitely earned a spot on my must-play list. A new IP from a relatively unknown developer that borrows from well-established franchises to tell a new story was welcomed by most.

Bayonetta landed with a thud thanks to PS3-exclusive terrible loading times and graphical issues late in the game. A new patch last week permitting a hard drive install apparently does a very good job of dealing with the load times, letting me put it back on my long-term must-play list.

Army of Two: The 40th Day‘s demo impressed me enough to put it on my must-play list. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that it’s on sale for USD$40 this week (CAG).

February is looking even better than January did with White Knight Chronicles, Dante’s Inferno, Bioshock 2, and Heavy Rain coming to the PS3 alone. Details and PSP games as well after the jump.

February 2nd:
PS3 – White Knight Chronicles: International Edition marks the non-Japanese arrival of Level 5′s long awaited PS3-exclusive RPG. It offers an online co-op component featuring 51 hour-long 4-player co-op quests and the ability for players to build their own Georama village populated by buildings, shops, NPCs, and items earned in the single player adventure. The Georama acts as a lobby for up to 12 people to gather and voice chat in before breaking out into 4-man adventuring teams. The added incentive to venture online is that some of those quests give out reward items not otherwise found in the single player game which can be taken back into the single player game with your character. Kudos to PS Nation Podcast Episode 150 for their in-depth interview on the game.

PSP – Lunar: Silver Star Harmony is an enhanced retelling of an RPG that apparently first appeared back on the Sega CD. I’ve heard there’s a demo on the PlayStation Store but haven’t tried it myself.

February 9th:
PS3, PSP – Dante’s Inferno may take ripping off the God of War gameplay mechanics to a new high but everything I’ve seen about it looks great and the demo was fun to play.

PS3 – Bioshock 2 has the unfortunate distinction of being a sequel to a game whose demo didn’t rise above my first person shooter apathy. Someday I’ll play it.

PS3 – Star Ocean: The Last Hope International Edition is another RPG landing this month in case you can’t get enough of them. I’m generally not an RPG gamer, so my money’s still on the co-op-friendly White Knight Chronicles.

PSP – Hot Shots Tennis: Get a Grip will apparently have ad-hoc multiplayer and — as a Clap Hanz game like the Hot Shots Golf games before it — lots of unlockables for arcade tennis fans (IGN preview).

February 16th:
PS3 – Aliens vs Predator from Rebellion unleashes an old license onto new hardware. I’m a fan of their work on Rogue Trooper on the PS2, so we’ll have to see how they do with this one.

PSP – SOCOM Fireteam Bravo 3 is actually the fourth SOCOM game (after Fireteam Bravo, Fireteam Bravo 2, and Tactical Strike) on the handheld and it seems to be the most full-featured yet for co-op fans with up to 4 players in online play.

February 23rd:
PS3 – Heavy Rain is a PS3 exclusive from developer Quantic Dream which will have a demo on the 11th. Long hyped as a game that will really play with your emotions it at its core seems like an adventure game, which isn’t a huge selling point to me. What I know of the story, however, is enough for me to at least play the demo and see how it works.

PS3 – Last Rebellion from NIS is another exclusive title and an RPG to boot. Again, I’m thinking WKC might starve this game of buyers.

PS3 – Sonic & SEGA All Star Racing will be a cross platform release, but the most recent video I saw seemed to actually show slowdown in it that maybe, just maybe wasn’t done for promotional stylistic reasons so I’m not optimistic about this one. I may just wait for Modnation Racers.

PSP – Metal Slug XX is for run-and-gun shooter fans.

February 28th
PS3, PSP – Puzzle Chronicles from Konami is an unabashed Puzzle Quest clone and hey, it has two chances to be good. I’ll take it for a spin if I can get my hands on a demo on either platform since I greatly enjoyed Puzzle Quest on my PSP way back when (IGN preview). Then again, putting it at the end of the month on the release lists might mean there’s no firm date for it, so it may not even appear this month.

That’s quite a bit for a February, but March is when things really get crazy. All dates courtesy of the IGN release list (PS3, PSP) and Gamespy release list (PS3, PSP).