As you probably know, the vast majority of games become available on the Friday of each week in the UK. Chances are that if you're reading a site like this, you know when the games you're looking forward to the most are coming out, but I think it's good to have an awareness of what else is hitting the market. Besides, some less publicised games can creep up on you. Other parts of Europe usually get the same or similar release dates. Enough justification? If I miss a week, it's probably due to the lack of anything coming out that's worth writing about, which will happen from time to time. Not the most exciting week to start off with, but here goes...

Trauma Centre: Second Opinion (Wii)
Sword of the New World: Grando Espada (PC)
World Championship Poker 2: All In (Xbox 360)
Act of War Gold (PC)
Neverwinter Nights Legacy (PC)
Purr Pals (DS)Can you believe it's taken this long for Atlus and Nintendo to get this out over here? I find it quite staggering that one of the Wii's better launch games has taken roughly 9 months to scrabble our way. It's one of those delays that's clearly a strategic move, PAL Wii releases are extremely thin on the ground at the moment. Having said that, when haven't they been?

Trauma Centre is of course a game about cutting people up while they sleep. Some might call it a surgery simulation, these people are confused. It's about precision and coping with pressure under limited time, as you would expect, but it's presented in quite a simple way, and with the usual half tonne of text dialogue and unsubtly dressed animé nurses. You should probably think about it if you're after a Wii game. It's not really a Wii game from the ground up, more a conversion of a DS game. But at the same time, it couldn't be done like this on the 360 or PS3, and I know I'd rather play something like this on a bigger screen than on a DS, even if it doesn't support widescreen like some kind of shambling corpse of a game.
Not a lot else really. Granado Espada is a Korean MMORPG with an Age of Exploration setting. The only other differentiating thing about it seems to be that you control and manage a party of characters simultaneously, rather than just have your own avatar. I've played enough MMORPGs to know that this won't prevent it from being a cynical grinding factory.

The poker game on 360 might please the unemployed hick in you, but there's already a poker game on Live Arcade, so this is surely redundant. Act of War Gold and Neverwinter Nights Legacy are re-issues, and finally the DS game speaks for itself.

Stay safe, and avoid objects.