If you were told, say five years ago, that the biggest thing to hit the gaming world on a vital Christmas build-up week was, essentially, a firmware update, would you laugh? Would you even have an idea of what that meant?

Such is the blistering pace that the industry travels, a new approach to your console – or multimedia entertainment hub – is what’s causing the biggest buzz right now, and for good reason too. Some argue that NXE will be a bigger jump than Vista was from XP.

This Wednesday, suddenly your 360 will be able to stream movies and TV shows via Netflix, suddenly it has Miis, suddenly it has a new interface, new Live friend functionality and the ability to install entire games onto your hard-drive. Suddenly, Microsoft has shown, the console holders can change their game halfway through a hardware cycle. 

There are new games out this week too; it’s mid-November, so as usual there’s lots of them. The Christmas cram may be as annoying as ever but it can be quite reassuring to know that, however fast the industry moves, some things will never change.

This Week"s Big Releases

Left 4 Dead

Valve
360/PC
US Release: Nov 18
UK Release: Nov 21
What other studio would have been responsible for Left 4 Dead, a survival-horror zombie-fest that just so happens to be a 4-player online co-operative game? History will tell you that Valve is seldom content on familiar ground when it comes to first-person shooters. Nearly all of its work in the genre, from Half-Life to Portal, has managed to unite strict standards with fresh ideas.

Left 4 Dead’s merging of unfamiliar concepts can easily be thought of as its main innovation, yet under the game’s bonnet is a feature that may prove to be even more significant. ‘The Director’, as it’s called, is a comprehensive AI system that will constantly monitor the players’ performance and adjust to this by changing volume and placement of the game’s zombies.

If this dynamic AI system fails to impress, Left 4 Dead is in the company of a long list of games. If it succeeds – if the AI system makes each playthrough as wild and disturbing and unpredictable as watching a great horror movie for the first time – then Left 4 Dead would be without equal.

The current issue of Edge magazine has applauded the game highly, stating that “even in a season packed with multiplayer treats, and despite the relative lightness of its content, Left 4 Dead stands among the very best that online gaming has to offer.”



Animal Crossing: City Folk

UK: Animal Crossing: Let’s go to the City
Nintendo EAD 2
Wii
US Release: Nov 16
UK Release: Dec 5
One of Nintendo’s biggest games of the year, and it feels odd that there’s been absolutely no talk of interface. Though players can still expect to be giving their remotes the customary swings, shakes and twitches, what’s central to Animal Crossing: City Folk is user connectivity.

This has always been the case for the series. Though the Gamecube version (itself an updated port of an N64 game) never featured online capabilities, Animal Crossing has always yearned to be a social device in the home, where players could enter each other’s game and leave their mark.

With the Wii version that core idea will be fully approached. City Folk gives players the chance to send messages and items to other Wii Connect24-enabled users, as well as transfer data via the DS for those without internet access. Players can also play together online in the same town, speak through the Wii’s new microphone, download additional content and, apparently, send images to email accounts and cell phones. 

The lingering question for City Folk is whether such features are still compelling enough for purchase in a generation that’s just about to see NXE and Sony’s Home arrive. There is an uneasy sense of familiarity in the preview footage, and an underlying concern that City Folk is, ultimately, a game that could have and should have been released years ago.




Tomb Raider: Underworld

Crystal Dynamics, Buzz Monkey Software, Santa Cruz Games,
PS3/360/PC, Wii/PS2, DS
US Release: Nov 18
UK Release: Nov 21
In tune with Crystal Dynamics’ previous editions of the Tomb Raider franchise, the Redwood City development team continue to adjust, tighten and refine the Tomb Raider formula without drastically changing it.

Though this attitude towards design will surely need addressing eventually, especially when games like Drakes Fortune always threaten to steal thunder, right now you can expect Tomb Raider fans to be delighted with a game that makes numerous improvements to a trusty template.

Playstation Official Magazine UK looked upon the game favourably, concluding that “running around robbing ancient artefacts, desecrating temples and cracking intense puzzles is just as satisfying as ever, and feels like vintage Tomb Raider through and through.”



You’re in the Movies

Zoë Mode
360
US Release: Nov 18
UK Release: Dec 1 (TBC)
In line with the release of NXE, this week’s release of You’re in the Movies is expected to drive Microsoft’s voyage into that potential goldmine of the casual market.

You’re in the Movies comes bundled with a Live Vision camera which allows players to capture their own inner-thespian. The recorded footage can be cut, edited and highly customised with the game’s tools to create a full movie. The idea is to provoke laughs as opposed to drama; it’s the ideal tool for a special birthday message but not something likely to deliver the next Paul Thomas Anderson piece. Along with this, the game features mo-cap minigames where the player can, for example, swat bees by flapping their hands about the place. 
 
It’s not unfair to say this has all been done before; it clearly has. Much of what you can enjoy from You’re in the Movies you can get from two five-year-old PS2 games – Eye Toy Play and Eye Toy Groove. And anyone who’s played Lionhead’s 2005 release of The Movies may not be so enthusiastic to make a purchase. Nevertheless, putting friends and family in front of a camera for some light-hearted ridicule remains a joy as ageless as Tetris.



Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe

Midway Games
PS3/360
US Release: Nov 16
UK Release: Nov 21
Who would win out of a fight between Scorpion and Captain Marvel? The answer is Ryu, but like any good fighter that doesn’t stop Midway Games getting back up on its feet for another round of pummelling.

In another attempt to reignite a flame that had, in fairness, died over a decade ago, Midway is now incorporating characters from the DC Comics Universe into its latest MK outing. The catch, aside from the entire breakdown in continuity, is that the gore has largely gone.

DC characters, it is deemed, aren’t the sort for the brainless hilarity of punching heads squarely off shoulders or pummelling people with their own severed legs, so for the first time ever the game drops its saving grace to pick up a Teen rating. Some of you may have already put this fact under a more unflattering light; DC characters aren’t the sort for belonging in a Mortal Kombat game. Yet still, Mortal Kombat takes the heavy hits, gets back up, and continues to stand right in your face.   

The game features 22 characters, has withdrawn its weapons and largely returns to 2D-driven combat. And to be fair to such an embarrassingly transparent cash-in, reception has been quite positive. IGN’s reviewer suggested that “the game is fun and a solid entry into the franchise, but I doubt many folks will find it entertaining past a rental”, whereas Official Xbox Magazine said the game has “the best pure fighting action of any MK game since Mortal Kombat 3”



Need for Speed: Undercover

EA Black Box
360/PS3/Wii/PC/PS2/DS/PSP/iPhone
US Release: Nov 18
UK Release: Nov 21
In an investors meeting back in June, EA ceo John Riccitiello spoke of “torturing” the development team behind the Need for Speed series by handing them twelve-month development deadlines for eight years running. Fortunately for the Vancouver team, this policy changed last year when EA split the group into two and handed both a recurring 24-month development cycle.

However, things may have got worse for the Undercover team before they have a chance to get better, as the halved development group were given a one-off incongruent deadline of sixteen months so the franchise could remain on target for Christmas releases. What those hacked man-hours will mean for the title is currently up for debate, though early reviews suggest the game is missing its marks.

Issue 169 of Edge magazine has given the game a considerably low score while Official Xbox Magazine concludes that “a good time can be had, but only if you"re patient... and a really big fan of Most Wanted.”