Army of Two
Private military contractors, à la Blackwater, run roughshod over the rules of engagement in today’s wars; Army of Two takes this phenomenon and imagines a near-future where PMCs threaten to wield even more dangerous amounts of influence. Players control the duo of Tyson Rios and Elliott Salem, two ex-Army rangers. While working in various hotspots around the globe, Salem and Rios find clues to a vast conspiracy with the goal of implementing the full-scale privatisation of the US military. Army of Two was designed primarily as a co-op experience; for example, sniping while parachuting becomes a synchronised event, with one player controlling the chute and the other killing enemies. One of the game’s key mechanics comes in the form of managing Aggro — it clusters around the deadliest player, drawing enemy attention. The lack of Aggro renders the partner invisible to the enemy, letting him sneakily outflank the bad guys. The game’s characterisation of Rios and Salem feels a little off-key, with the battling buddies exhibiting oddly frat-boy attitudes. Maybe the bro-pound is supposed to underscore co-op camaraderie, but playing air guitar after wiping out hordes of enemies feels a little…tacky. Available on PS3 ($71.95), Xbox ($61.95).

Singstar ’90s
Karaoke-based games (and bars, for that matter) fall flat when your favourite tunes aren’t on offer. Thankfully, Singstar ’90s comes equipped with 30-odd solid tracks from the decade that feared Y2K, including Sir Mix- A-Lot’s ‘Baby Got Back’, Seal’s ‘Kiss from a Rose’ and ‘Ice Ice Baby’ by the eternally infamous Vanilla Ice. The scoring system measures pitch variation, so you don’t have to hit each note of Soundgarden’s ‘Black Hole Sun’ or Color Me Badd’s ‘I Wanna Sex You Up’ perfectly in order to compete in the battle modes. You can choose to sing along with the videos or plug in the Eye Toy USB camera to watch yourself or others sing. You also have the option to record a Golden Moment (which has nothing to do with R Kelly), a video of your performance to play back later. This won’t quite feed your rock ’n’ roll dreams as completely as the fake-instrument theatrics of Rock Band or Guitar Hero, but it’s less intimidating than any video-game newbies attending your MTV flashback party.
Price TBA.

Turning Point: Fall of Liberty
The concept of a world where the Nazis won World War II pops up every so often in genre fiction. Turning Point’s story begins when a car accident in 1931 kills Winston Churchill; without his rallying, Nazi Germany achieves total victory on all fronts. Predictably, the Führer’s ambitions stretch across the Atlantic, and the game opens in 1953 as Hitler’s forces launch a multi-city assault on American soil. Players adopt the role of New York City construction worker Dan Carson, who joins the resistance after an air raid. Lady Liberty’s been bombed into scrap metal while threatening zeppelins (laughably dubbed ‘assault blimps’) blot out the sun across the cityscape, but players never really get a sense of how else Fall of Liberty’s world differs from our own. Already saddled with an indistinct hero, the game wastes an intriguing idea with story beats that dribble out only via cut scenes. It’s ironic that the game hinges on an alternative-history hook: in another alternative history, one in which TP:FAL came out eight years ago, it would’ve been a great first-person shooter. In 2008, it just feels like an under-realised effort.
Available on PS3 ($95.95), Xbox ($71.90).