Brian and I managed to check out a bundle of random games that range from a heroic tactical role-playing game to an interactive board game involving drama queens. Majesco sure knows how to cater to a broad audience, that's for sure. Regardless of whether or not the game is targeted to your demographic, chances are, you know someone who fits the bill.

Brian:

Dawn of Heroes

There's quite obviously a long way to go before Dawn of Heroes for Nintendo DS is ready for prime time. The demo that Majesco had on-hand for us to see was barebones to say the least, showing little more than the basics of combat that this turn-based tactical RPG will have when it's released later this year. As such, there's very little I can tell you about the story in the game--other than the generic basics: Long ago a hero defeated a bad guy and encased him in stone. Time passes and bad stuff starts happening all over again. The locals blame the entrapped bad guy and a new group of heroes arrive on the scene to take care of it. Boom. Cut to many, many turn-based battles.

Yes, sensei.

Speaking of those battles, the combat in Dawn of Heroes is interesting. The upper screen shows off the game's attractive character models--which sort of look like tattooed, badass Cabbage Patch Kids to my eyes--while the lower screen is where you control the action. Combat takes place on a grid of sorts, and each character will have a certain amount of spaces he or she can move on that grid, mixing in attacks as they go. With ranged attacks and plenty of magical spells, it looks like combat will be consistently interesting but, other than that, there's not much more I can tell you. Fans of the Fire Emblem series, file this one away for future reference. I know I'll be keeping an eye on it.

Sophia:

Drama Queens

It's very likely that this game won't appeal to most of you, but a video game with "Drama Queens" in the title peaks my interest. It wasn't quite what I was expecting because Drama Queens is an interactive board game on the Nintendo DS. (I'm not sure what I was expecting really, an adventure game perhaps?) It's about as random as the Game of Life, but before you get to the end to tally up your popularity points, you'll swap boyfriends and BFFs, move ahead in your career and hopefully find friendship and love. Obviously targeted at the tween girl audience, Drama Queens can be played locally with four players or in hot seat mode with one cartridge. There's a story mode if you want to play on your own, but I'd imagine cat fights being much more entertaining with other people. Let the games begin once Drama Queens is released in April.

Drama, drama, drama.

Our House: Party!

Gardening is tough work.

Gardening Mama

Speaking of gardening...I do have to admit, Cooking Mama is fantastic series for young gamers and I enjoy watching my little cousins play. Sadly, when it comes to my turn, they boss me around and tell me that, "I'm doing it wrong." In my defense, I'm a better chef in real life…which is what counts right? Anyway, Gardening Mama is what you would expect it to be. Cooking Mama all over again but outside. All those onions need to come from somewhere! Mama guides you through the garden planting bulbs and saplings, so that you can watch your virtual garden flourish with delightful tulips and juicy apples. Alex did a hands-on during the Tokyo Game Show, and if he can do it, so can you. Gardening Mama can be played with four players and you can decorate your garden, as well as unlock new outfits for Mama. Look for it when it is released sometime in March.

Gardening is more than just poking holes.

Okay, confession time. While I was a big Atari 2600 and NES fan, I mostly missed the Genesis, Sega Saturn, and SNES days. My excuse? I'd like to tell you it was because I was focused on my studies in high school and college… but that would be lying. Closer to the truth: I was spending my time drinking and chasing girls. Beyond the occasional casual jaunts of Super Mario World or Street Fighter II, gaming just wasn't a big part of my life until I finally decided to buy a PlayStation on a whim back in 1996. As a result, I've got a sizable gap in my gaming history, one that seemed perfectly justifiable back then but, these days, feels like wasted time.

So, for someone like me, Sega's upcoming Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 feels simultaneously retro and brand spanking new. Loaded with more than 40 games from Sega's revered console including, as the name suggests, a load of Sonic games, you'll likely find something in the lineup that tickles your fancy, or drums up the nostalgia. Highlights for me included Streets of Rage games, Shinobi III, Ecco the Dolphin, and the utterly innovative (and really, really hard) Comix Zone. Check out screens of the game here.

In addition to the 40 games that are available as soon as you pop in SUGC into your console, there are a few surprises hidden away for you to uncover. These goodies include more games (including the original Phantasy Star, which wasn't a Genesis game but complements nicely with Phantasy Star II, III, and IV, which are also available in this collection). In addition to the extra games, the collection also features original box art you can peruse, and video interviews with many of the creators of the games that are featured in this collection. To unlock extra games, you need to complete certain tasks in other games. For instance, to unlock the classic isometric arcade space shooter Zaxxon, you need to earn five bonus coins in the platforming game Decap Attack.

The old-school graphics for some of these classics don't always hold up--though the bright, attractive color palette of some of the original Sonic games are a testament to those early games' quality. That said, you have the option to either play the game in the original aspect ratio, or stretch things out to widescreen, if you're playing on an HDTV. Not all of the game's benefit from expanding the screen width--in fact, of the games I tried, only Ecco really benefited from the feature. A smoothing option reduces some of the graphical ugliness but, none of the games in this collection are going to end up looking like Sonic Unleashed.

Despite the Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection's odd name--which makes it sound like simply a collection of Sonic games--this seems like a fun collection for fans who want to relive Sega's glory days or, for folks like me, want to play some of these classic games for the very first time.

List of Games:
Alex Kidd
Alien Storm
Altered Beast
Beyond Oasis
Bonanza Bros.
Columns
Comix Zone
Decap Attack
Dr. Robotnik's M.B.M.
Dynamite Headdy
E-SWAT
Ecco the Dolphin
Ecco: The Tides of Time
Fatal Labyrinth
Flicky
Gain Ground
Golden Axe
Golden Axe II
Golden Axe III
Kid Chameleon
Phantasy Star II
Phantasy Star III
Phantasy Star IV
Ristar
Shining Force
Shining Force 2
Shining In the Darkness
Shinobi
Sonic & Knuckles
Sonic 3D Blast
Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Sonic the Hedgehog 3
Streets of Rage
Streets of Rage 2
Streets of Rage 3
Super Thunder Blade
VectorMan
VectorMan 2

Unlockable Games:
Alien Syndrome
Altered Beast Arcade
Congo Bongo
Fantasy Zone
Golden Axe Warrior
Phantasy Star
Shinobi Arcade
Space Harrier
Zaxxon

Today, we had a chance to take a quick look at the Xbox 360 version of Divinity 2: Ego Draconis , which is also headed to the PC. Many of you--tens of you, in fact--may remember the game's predecessor, the original Divine Divinity and its follow-up, Beyond Divinity, each of which could best be described as a combination of the isometric hacking and slashing of Diablo II with some of the branching story elements of the Baldur's Gate series.

Divinity 2: Ego Draconis will feature such characters as this guy. Do you dare accept the challenge...of this guy?

Divinity 2 takes place, surprisingly enough, after the events of the previous games, which include the defeat of Damian, the incarnation of evil. As it happens, Damian returns for, as our European counterparts might put it, "another go" in the new game and eventually becomes the great enemy of the land you must vanquish. However, your character has his-or-her own problems at the outset of the game, since you start off knowing nothing of Damian or even of the previous two games in the series, and is instead a wet-behind-the-ears adventurer who's trying to earn his-or-her merit badge in dragonslaying. From what we can tell, becoming a dragonslayer isn't an easy job, since you not only have to find and kill one of these majestic beasts, but you must also find a dishonest and evil dragon who is disturbing the otherwise diplomatic relations between humans and dragonkind.

The original Divine Divinity of 2002 for the PC.

To do this, you will go on adventures through a huge, continuous overworld with no loading time breaks (though there will be load times to enter dungeons), in search of monsters to slay and quests to perform in order to gain precious experience points that will advance you along the game's branching skill trees that, like in Divine Divinity, are separated among different professions. Like in the previous games, you can choose to specialize your character in a specific profession, such as a warrior, a mage, or a ranger, and seek out "mentor" characters to train you along these lines. It seems that you can also take a more freeform approach the game and simply pick up whichever skills you care to, and regardless of whether you decide to become the world's wimpiest wizard with the world's floppiest robes, you'll always be able to swing a sword using the game's simple, real-time "press-buttons-to-perform-attack-combos" control scheme.

Skeletons? In my fantasy-themed role-playing game? It's more likely than you think.

Quests will come from all sides, including from towns, which will act as quest hubs that may unlock other quests; we visited a town from the earlier parts of the game where the local tavern has come under siege from a group of rowdy, drunken soldiers. Pacifying them will win you the approval of the townspeople at the bar (and who knows, maybe a barmaid or two), who will then offer you additional quests. In the meantime, you'll also be able to acquire a "battle tower," essentially, your own player housing, which takes the form of a huge, multilevel tower that acts as a storage room for your trophies of war, crafting stations for any alchemy ingredients you've captured, and even an experimental breeding ground to play God with your companion critter. Over the course of the game, you'll be joined by a monster who can be tinkered with by your tower's friendly necromancer to swap out the body parts of powerful ogres and wily goblins (and presumably, wily ogres and powerful goblins). However, most players will probably be more attracted to how you will also eventually gain the power to assume the form of a dragon yourself, and engage in 3D flight (and 3D combat with wyverns and other flying beasties), as yes, as a dragon, you'll be able to gain dragon-ly experience points and pick up new items (such as dragon armor) and learn new skills (such as dragon skills). The version of the game we saw was extremely early, though we're told that although the PC version of the game is further in development than the Xbox 360 version of the game, both games will be brought in line with each other and should be ready for a simultaneous release this June.

With the dawning of a new calendar year, we at the GameSpot previews team are trying to expand the sort of coverage we give upcoming games. One way we've been doing this is by bringing back video previews. Most of our video work is limited to on-camera interviews and gameplay demos, but now we've started putting together little video vignettes that combine the proper text of a preview article and video footage of the game. Last week, I did a fairly straightforward video preview for The Godfather II, which you can see in HD here, or super compressed down below:

However, this week we went a little more over the top with our video preview for House of the Dead: Overkill. This game is pure bat**** insanity, so we wanted to do something that reflected that. Brian Ekberg is the genius behind this video. He came up with the concept, wrote the voiceover script, and came up with most of the ideas for things we could improv about on camera. Just about the only thing I came up with was my ridiculous name, Dr. 48. Behold in stunning HD, or right here:

We had way more fun than anyone should have while filming that, and we definitely want to do some more video previews like this (as in sticking with the spirit of the game, not necessarily being super vulgar). What games out there would you guys like to see us cover in video preview form? I'm sure there are plenty, so have at it!

Bonus trivia: The character creator in The Godfather II is really detailed and even lets you customize your gang members. So of course I made a maniac Waluigi in perrywinkle. If you ask anyone around the office, they'll tell you I'm terrible with character creation. I always make the looniest people, and often spend more time in that menu than the game itself.

Bonus trivia 2: The suitcase, gun, and fake money used in the HotD video came from a James Bond: Quantum of Solace preview event. It's been sitting under my desk since October waiting to be used in some way. I think we did it justice.

2009 is starting and the first official week of of the year ends today, so here's a short-list of some of the PC games scheduled for a 2009 release to which I'm most looking forward. Again, this short-list (note: it's not even a "list," it's a "short-list") is NOT supposed to be all-inclusive. If I don't include your favorite game in this post, it's not because I'm biased or hate that particular game, it's because your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries.

Here's the shortlist in no particular order:

Empire: Total War
Projected release date: March 2009
Genre: Strategy, Real-Time + Turn-Based
Recent Preview Coverage: Exclusive Naval and Campaign Hands-On Impressions

Empire: Total War will offer grand economic and political strategy plus gigantic real-time land battles, and real-time naval battles in the Age of Sail. Pictured: The Sail. Not pictured: The Age.

This one is a pretty obvious addition to nearly any short-list of promising PC games for this year. The Total War series is known for its epic, era-spanning strategy based on various contentious periods in actual world history, such as the conquest of Rome, the unification of the Holy Roman Empire, and feudal Japan. However, the Total War series has often focused on historical wars between massive world superpowers, while Empire will include new campaigns based on the war between the royal armies of England and 13 scrappy, underdog colonies that came to be known as the United States of America. It's also going to have some of the best-looking real-time naval combat I've ever seen in a game on any platform, and the naval battles seem pretty satisfying so far, at least in my short time with them. The new Colonial America setting also gives the Total War development team a chance to play with new economic options, such as commodity trading (tobacco, sugar, and so on) and fur trading, as well as with new government options, some starring such American luminaries as Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock, as well as new land army types and new military officers, such as the steady veteran general George Washington. Empire looks like it could provide lots of really cool new content for Total War fans to sink their [collective] teeth into, and hopefully, it will.

Dragon Age: Origins
Projected Release Date: March 2009
Genre: Role-Playing
Recent Preview Coverage: Interview on the Characters of Dragon Age: Origins

Dragon Age: Origins will attempt to recapture the magic of Baldur's Gate. No, not the console version of Baldur's Gate. Turns out there was a PC one about 10 years ago. Then, fire was invented.

This may or may not be news to you, but the developer we know as BioWare started off making hardcore nerd role-playing games for the PC, and a few years later, the studio created some obscure outer-space game about aliens nobody has ever heard of. Then, from what I can tell, it decided the key to success would be to make outer-space games that went further and further into outer space each time. In 2009, BioWare finally seems ready to return to its roots with Dragon Age: Origins, which will be a fantasy RPG, minus the Dungeons & Dragons license used for the Baldur's Gate series, and minus the setting-free D20 ruleset used for Knights of the Old Republic. I first saw Dragon Age at the 2004 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) event and was excited by the prospect of BioWare returning to its fantasy RPG roots. Then about four years passed, and I saw the game again. Even though the developer seems to be putting a lot of emphasis on the new game's story, I'm personally hoping for another Baldur's Gate II-style hack-and-slash odyssey. Since it seems doubtful we'll ever get another Baldur's Gate game, I'm hoping Dragon Age: Origins ends up being the next best thing. (And yes, the game will eventually come to consoles as well, but it's debuting first on the PC.)

The Sims 3
Projected Release Date: February 2009
Genre: Strategy
Recent Preview Coverage: Interview on the Improved Aspiration System

The Sims 3 will have improved AI, in-depth careers, and much more character customization. It'll also let you strike out with the ladies in even more embarrassing ways. (pictured)

This is another obvious addition to add to the wishlist of most any PC game player (and if you don't happen to be a Sims 2 player, it's OK, there are more than 5 million other people out there who are). One of the most intriguing aspects of The Sims series is how it lends itself to be played in a bunch of different ways. It's either a quirky role-playing-game-like experience where you try to build up one individual "sim" (those funny little computer people who talk in gibberish); or a strategy game where you try to manage a group of sims and all their little needs and wants; or a hands-off ant-farm-like experience where you simply sit back and watch whatever zany hijinks these little computer people with differing little personalities get into (if any); or an out-of-game design exercise where you play as an interior decorator, laying out an outdoor "lot" area like a restaurant or a bowling alley, or designing the interior of a tricked-out home, usually with the help of the free money cheat code. Or it's some combination of them all, since, if you ever get bored of any one of these aspects, you can immediately switch to focus in on another. It sounds like The Sims 3 may not be as open-ended for home designers who want to do nothing but build, build, build, since the game will ship with only one town (not multiple towns to build up and tear down, like in the Sims 2, but the town itself is said to be enormous), and hopefully future expansion packs (another hallmark of The Sims series) will remedy this. The Sims 3 will also have streamlined "motive" needs (no more having to worry about whether the room you're standing in is pleasing enough to the eye), an enhanced life goal system with short-term "wish" quests, and longer career paths that even include moral choices. I haven't asked about this specifically, but my gut tells me you'll also still be able to have two little sims make "Woohoo." For those who aren't familiar with the term, but think they know what it might mean...it means exactly what you think it means.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II
Projected release date: Q2 2009
Genre: Strategy, Real-Time
Recent Preview Coverage: Exclusive Single-Player Hands-On Impressions

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II will offer a unique campaign and lots of violence and gore. In fact, this screenshot is rated M for "Mature."

Dawn of War II is one of the most promising strategy games of the new year, if not the most promising. If you're not familiar with the Warhammer 40,000 universe, here's a quick primer: It takes place a zillion years in the future, where squadrons of supercharged human Space Marines in gigantic suits of power armor go out and fight pretty much everybody else in the universe, which includes a bunch of different alien races like the Orks (yes, that's how it's spelled), techno-elf Eldar, insect-like Tyranids, and plenty of other races that are all basically a different shade of murderous crazy, and pretty much all hate each other. Because the Space Marines are genetically engineered for battle and fanatically devoted to fighting wars in the name of their crippled, god-like emperor, they actually win a good number of their battles, even against impossible odds...and this is, incidentally, the foundation of Dawn of War II's single-player game. I've had a chance to try out the single-player campaign and from what little time I've spent, it seems like it has every chance of turning out to be the kind of addictive, easy-access, hack-and-slash experience that the development team seems to be shooting for, and should hopefully bring in a lot of new players to the world of real-time strategy. I haven't had a chance to try out the multiplayer personally, but from the sound of it, it's much closer to a more-traditional real-time strategy experience, just highly streamlined (there aren't a bunch of different base structures to build) to minimize building and maximize combat. It's unfortunate that Dawn of War II will apparently ship with "only" four playable races (Space Marines, Orks, Tyranids, and Eldar)...which is actually a pretty substantial number on its own, but fewer than what the original Dawn of War and its expansion packs eventually offered in total (such as the Necron, the Imperial Guard, and Chaos). Even though lunch breaks don't actually exist in my world, Dawn of War II's quickie campaign mission structure should still come in handy for my schedule, and hopefully the multiplayer turns out well, too.

Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty and Diablo III
Projected release dates: 2009, maybe.
Genres: Strategy, Real-Time and Role-Playing, Action, respectively
Recent Preview Coverage: Starcraft II Hands-On Impressions and Blizzcon 2008 Diablo III Hands-On Impressions

No, I didn't forget either of these games. Did you really think I would?

Yeah, duh. I know. Not much to say except that these two games are probably the most no-brainer of the no-brainer additions to whatever list of upcoming games that every PC game player out there is keeping tabs on. Also, that last sentence was probably the ugliest sentence I've ever written in my entire life. Maybe there is one other thing to say: Hopefully one or both of these games actually does, in fact, get released this year. We'll see.

See All Videos for Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty

See All Videos for Diablo III

That's the short-list so far. Again, this isn't supposed to be a comprehensive list that has every single 2009 PC game on it, just some of (but not all of, I admit) the more interesting ones I think should be on your radar. One other thing: I purposely haven't included Star Wars: The Old Republic, BioWare's massively multiplayer game based on KOTOR, but only because this game's release date appears to be even more uncertain than the Blizzard games.

Did I miss any? (Just kidding, of course I did.) Let me know with a comment. And if you're upset that I didn't include your favorite game on this short-list...again, don't blame me, blame your heritage.

If you haven't gotten enough of MySims, you'd be happy to know that there will be two new titles to get your hands on in the near future. Electronic Arts has announced that MySims Party will be available sometime this year and we got a sneak peek at MySims Racing in its pre-alpha stage.

MySims Party includes familiar faces from the previous MySims and MySims Kingdom. It's a compilation of short and easy minigames that the whole family can enjoy together. Last night, I was able to mess around with a few minigames on the Wii and the Nintendo DS with the developers. The DS will include an entirely new set of games that revolve around the DS's features. For example I played a minigame where I had to chisel around a fossil and blow away the dirt. The Wii version seemed to have a wide variety of games that range from remote waggling to rhythm based swinging, as well as games that rely completely on chance. The presentation of the game is nicely done, with vibrant colors and festive backdrops. We should be able to provide a more detailed hands-on in the next few weeks when we receive a preview build of the game.

MySims Racing, even in its early stages, looked really good. It includes power-ups, drifting, road hazards and the ability to knock people completely off the track. Thankfully it also includes the ability to use any kind of controller figuration that suits your fancy.

We'll update with more information as soon as it becomes available. In the meantime, be sure to check out some bright and shiny new exclusive screens!

Cake Mania continues to tempt gamers with its delectable treats and addictive time-management gameplay. This game caters to a more casual audience and those who like similar games like Diner Dash (and the dozens of other management games that have popped up since). You play as Jill, who managed to save her grandparent's bakery from closing from the first Cake Mania game, but she is now bored with running a mom and pop shop and wants to get out there and share her cakes with the world. As luck would have it, her friend Risha, who seems to be living a glamorous life in the big city, calls her up asking for help. Right after the phone call, another friend Jack appears at her doorstep begging her to lend her culinary skills. You begin by choosing who you want to help first, but you can switch back and forth so that you're spreading the joy equally among your two friends.

The formula for Cake Mania remains the same throughout, except that it gets harder when you get more customers. You'll use the Wii Remote to click on customers to give them a menu; then you click on the oven to bake the cake that they want. When the cake is done baking, you'll put frosting on it and then give it to the customer who ordered it. It's easy, but customers start to get impatient so you'll need to be quick on your feet if you want to maximize profits. You'll earn money as you go along and in between stages you can purchase a variety of upgrades. More ovens, frosters, TVs, fish tanks and new shoes are just some of the items that you can get. A new pair of shoes cost about $600, so it's not cheap to make Jill walk faster.

Cake Mania's appeal lies in the time-management gameplay and it draws out the obsessive compulsiveness in you to try and upgrade everything. The cake theme helps too because who doesn't love cake? A random assortment of customers will also visit your bakery, from ninjas to leprechauns but unfortunately we didn't have the chance to serve them yet. We decided to help poor Jack first and noticed that the only customers in his underwater bakery consisted of people in deep-sea diving gear. There will be 9 locations to explore and 19 different decorations spruce up your cake.

The game is very bright, with a lot of solid colors and upbeat music to get you in the groove. It translates fairly well to the Wii because of the remote but you still have the most control with a mouse on the PC. You can also manage your own bakery with up to three friends co-operatively, as well as custom bake your own cakes. In the Mix! will retail for $29.99 and will be released later this month.