Gamers Evolved

Atari has stated this week that they will be releasing Smash Court Tennis 3 onto the Xbox 360 during August of this year. The newest game in the installment will have brand new stars, the ability to play Xbox Live online, and brand new customization options.

The new entry will include a total of 16 tennis pros, including Roger Federer, Maria Sharapova, Rafael Nadal and Martina Hingis. The game engine is said to include improved animations, realistic shadows, skin shaders, and high dynamic range rendering.

This week we received news that an updated version of Soul Calibur is coming to the Xbox Live Arcade. The game – which is one of the best of Dreamcast games – will have brand new leaderboards, and a more advanced Survival, Arcade, and Training modes.

Apparently, though, there’ll be no online multiplayer – unlike Capcom’s XBLA version of Super Street Fighter II Turbo. Some news sites have reported that the ‘original’ Soul Calibur is coming to Xbox – which, is technically incorrect – that was Soul Edge (or Soul Blade if you prefer), from 1996.

We were checking out the Mafia II official website and we happy to see some details of the new game. On the website they stated that the game will be released on the Xbox 360, PC, and PS3 with the gameplay being “virtually identical across all platforms”.

We were also given some story line information, “… a dark and seductive story about one man’s journey through the unforgiving world of the Mob. Set in an open-world environment, Mafia II ushers you into Empire City during the 1940s and 1950s.” Mafia II is one of the few games (at this time) that we are looking forward to later this year. It is set to be released November 2008.

Microsoft is planning to catch up with the compeition (a.k.a. the Nintendo Wii) by creating a brand new remote controller that has motion-sensing technology. Sound familiar? They are creating the new remote to compete with the one that is used by Nintendo and something that everyone loves.

“Microsoft’s response to Nintendo’s Wii will appear before the end of the year,” states the report, adding that the Xbox 360 motion-sensing device has been in development since last summer. The report claims that Microsoft’s controller is similar to the Wii Remote, but also comes with an analogue stick and a microphone built in.

Bully: Scholarship Edition is an updated version of Bully – which was released by Rockstar almost a year and a half ago for the PS2. In the game you are a student attending a boarding school because you were a big, bad bully at your other school. You spend the whole game trying to make up for your transgressions and work your way back up to earn people’s repsects

The game is less about being a bully and more about the role of becoming a protector for the harassed – which is something of a relief among the other games that are being released. By fulfilling missions, you progress from one chapter to the next.