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The ESRB dished up a large quantity of titles this week, but many of them were geared toward the younger audiences.  These titles on the Wii, PC and DS have their roots in children’s toys, movie tie-ins and long-standing franchise games.  The 360, PS2 and PS3 also had a nice showing in terms of quantity with a nice mix of titles with different expectancy levels.  My intriguing title of the week was a recently announced sequel that needs some improvements over the original, despite its gaudy selling stats.

Kids of all ages will be happy with the list, but especially those about thirteen and younger.   EA alone has FOUR different versions of a Littlest Pet Shop for the DS rated.  Knowledge Adventure had four JumpStart 3D titles (DS) and Activision Value saw Shrek’s Carnival Crazy Party Games and Barbie Horse Adventures for the PS2, Wii and PC show up on the list.  Kids sell games, and the PC, Wii and DS platforms are littered with games for this audience.  However, the big kids weren’t left out on these platforms, as Call of Duty: World at War (DS), Guitar Hero: Aerosmith (PC), Samurai Shodown Anthology (Wii), Prince of Persia: The Fallen King (DS) all popped up. 

After getting virtually nothing for the 360 and PS3 last week, there was a plethora of rated games that were posted this week.  Most of these are retail games spanning both consoles, and include a couple of dueling BAJA titles in BAJA: Edge of Control and Score International: Baja 1000 as well as NHL 09, EA SPORTS Fantasy Football Live Score Tracker, Armored Core For Answer and Randy’s favorite game title ever…Age of Booty.  The PS3 had Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice rated, while the Xbox 360 saw Brave: A Warriors Tale (also on Wii and PSP), the previously released Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2 and Tales of Vesperia from Namco Bandai.  This week’s list reflects a nice cross-section of titles without being too bottom or top-heavy. 

The Intriguing Title of the Week is Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades for the Nintendo DS.  Since being announced at E3 a little over a month ago, there has been very little information released on the game.  Two things I am looking for include a better and balanced track list, and whether the interface has been improved upon.  When the game was reviewed for GamingNexus by Cyril back in July, one of his main issues in giving the game a C- was with the music that the game came packaged with.  He summed it up pretty good with this line: “the 25 songs in Guitar Hero: On Tour feel like they were chosen at random by a couple of teenagers. How else can you explain the inclusion of Smash Mouth, Los Lonely Boys, No Doubt, Maroon 5 and American Idol's own Daughtry “   Maybe “Decades” will give us set lists from each of the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.  If you couple that with the Wi-fi sharing ability and the second version might be another leap forward for handheld rhythm games. 

Here is the final tally on who, what and where everything was rated for the last two weeks. There were 62 rated titles on 9 platforms. DS (23), PC (20), Wii (11), Xbox 360 (8), Playstation 3 (7) and Playstation 2 (7) had the most games rated. There were 52 of the 62 titles rated at E10+ or lower, 10 rated at T for Teen and none rated at M for Mature.

 
Got a comment on the article or a rated games, put it in the section below or send me an e-mail. Until next week, make sure you know what your kids are playing…… 

*The weekly Intriguing Title of the Week (and any game that is tossed in that paragraph) is identified based on a game on the list that catches the eye of the author for any number of reasons.  Good, bad or otherwise, feel free to agree, disagree or add some constructive input to the discussion.