Weekly Multiplayer Releases: Week of March 11, 2008

Looks like the rest of the video game industry has cleared out its release calender for fear of Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Or as we like to call it: The Halo 3 Effect.

Pick of the Week: Super Smash Bros. Brawl Mascot Fighter | Wii Five years from now you’ll still be playing Brawl with your buddies and even bashing heads in the odd online match-up. This is not prediction. This is fact. With a massive character roster and a multitude of multiplayer game modes, Brawl isn’t just the Pick of the Week; it’s the Pick of Forever. Unless your one of the unlucky few with a Wii that’s unable to handle Brawl’s double-layer disc. In which case, well… You’re better off just waiting for next week, honestly.

Hit the jump for the rest of the week’s multiplayer offerings.

Also available this week:

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates Action RPG | DS The GameCube title with a controversial multiplayer setup gets a sequel for Nintendo’s latest handheld this week. Once again every player needs to bring their own portable console, but it makes infinitely more sense here, as up to four players can cooperatively tackle the game’s challenges wirelessly.

House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return Light Gun Shoter | Wii As is often the case with light gun games, you and a friend can easily blast through all of House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return in a little over an hour. At the very least, Sega could have included the original game as well, conveniently preserving the entire trilogy on a single disc for future generations. Still, the landmark zombie-blasting franchise is one of the best in the genre, but unless you’re a hardcore fan, consider buying rather than renting this limited compilation.

Lost Empire: Immortal Turn-based Strategy | PC Strategy games and MMOs seem to be the only genres thriving on the PC these days. Lost Empire doesn’t do anything you haven’t seen before: There’s epic, turn-based space combat, empire building, and ten-player online multiplayer. Strategy junkies will be sure to eat this up just the same.

Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters Platformer | PS2 The Ratchet & Clank series is one of my favorite series of the past generations, but this PSP-to-PS2 port is off avoided. Kotaku has a news story about the game’s laughably terrible multiplayer component, which is limited to two-player, split-screen deathmatch across four maps. Seriously. That’s it. Just keep pretending like the last PS2 entry in the franchise was Up Your Arsenal.

Seven Kingdoms: Conquest Real-time Strategy | PC An eight-player RTS in a fantasy setting! If you’ve never heard of Warcraft, you’re going to love this. For the rest of us, unless you’re really hard up for some brand new real-time strategy this week, it’d be best to keep on waiting.