The loud, annoying cacophonic shriek you heard Tuesday morning was the sound of millions of 12-year-olds finally getting their hands on Modern Warfare 2. But the highly anticipated sequel has company on store shelves, joined by Nintendo's 39873495783rd Mario game and BioWare's game o' sexy babes.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (PS3, Xbox 360, PC)
Price: $49.99–$149.99
Why You Need It: If you happen to be the only person in the world not to have a copy yet, you're missing out, friend-o. Read our review to find out why.
Why You Don't: The thought of having to endure the verbal cesspool that is online gaming gives you pause. The single-player campaign (about five hours long) may not be long enough to hold your attention.


New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii)
Price: $49.99
Why You Need It: The newfangled 3D Mario games may have put off some old school gamers just looking to sit on the couch without having to worry about obnoxious button combinations. Enter Mario's latest incarnation. Up to four players can play co-operatively (or compete for high score) in this Super Mario Bros. remake.
Why You Don't: We already got burned with Wii Fit, so at this point, we're convinced this is just another ploy from Nintendo to make us lose weight.


Dragon Age: Origins (PS3, Xbox 360, PC)
Price: $49.99–$149.99
Why You Need It: When you're not slaying dragons and attempting to making whoopie with the female mages, DA:O does a good job of creating a gripping environment of deceit and violence. Your first run-through isn't going to cut it either: There are multiple start points and endings that depend on the decisions you make during the game, so multiple plays are required for 100 percent enjoyment.
Why You Don't: Trying to get your girl in on the action might be a tall task, unless you can effectively explain, for example, why a rogue's cunning skill is more important than his dexterity.

OUT NEXT WEEK
Tony Hawk Ride (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii), Left 4 Dead 2 (Xbox 360), NCAA Basketball 10 (PS3, Xbox 360), Assassin's Creed II (PS3, Xbox 360), God of War Collection (PS3), Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles (Wii)

The weather may be heating up, but with another stellar week of game releases, calling over a bunch of your buddies for some friendly console competition isn't out of the cards. (Your girlfriend? She can watch.)

This week's games selection is punctuated by the caped crusader’s return to a console near you. Also, a compilation of the Metroid Prime series hits stores alongside the release of a Metroid-esque Xbox Live exclusive. And, if Inglourious Basterds gets you in the mood to kill some Nazis, a legendary first-person shooter is back in HD glory.

Batman: Arkham Asylum
Platform: Xbox 360, PS3
If you’ve checked out the free demo available on each respective online service, you know that Eidos pulled no punches in making this one of the highly-stylized Batman games ever. Loosely based on the comic book of the same name, Arkham Asylum follows Batman, voiced by Kevin Conroy, as he seeks to chase down and defeat The Joker (Mark Hamill), who has taken over the crazy house. But, not before getting past the insane clown’s cast of shady associates inhabiting the cells of the asylum alongside him.

Metroid Prime Trilogy: Collector's Edition
Platform: Wii
It’s been a long time since JUSTIN BAILEY meant anything to anyone, but fans of the series have something to get excited about. This compilation features the Gamecube games Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes with revamped Wii motion controls and the Wii game Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Unfortunately, finding out what’s under Samus Aran’s power suit will have to be left up to your imagination. Our guess: genitals.

Wolfenstein
Platform: Xbox 360, PS3, PC
If you’re like Inglourious Basterds’ Brad Pitt and feel like being in the “Nazi-killin’ bidness,” look no further, friends. B.J. Blazkowicz is taking up arms once again and returning to kick some Heinrich Himmler ass. While Hitler’s Third Reich has halted further expansion into the modern world courtesy of some American muscle, but the Axis are still conjuring up plans to resurrect a ghost force to help them take over the world.

Shadow Complex
Platform: Xbox 360
Don’t you hate it when you go out for a relaxing hike with your girlfriend, only for her to go missing and you to get plunged into a government conspiracy that eventually turns you into the ultimate weapon? Yeah, us too. But, Shadow Complex gets a pass because it’s so freaking awesome. This 2D side-scroller takes a page out of Metroid, Castlevania, and, yes, even some Metal Gear Solid and delivers five to ten hours of fun for the low, low price of $15.

The weather may be heating up, but with another stellar week of game releases, calling over a bunch of your buddies for some friendly console competition isn't out of the cards. (Your girlfriend? She can watch.)

This week's games selection gets you primed for pigskin season, offers up some crazy Japanese anime fighting, and brings you into The Shit twice, but in two different historical eras. Sounds like a party if we've ever heard of one!

NCAA Football 10 (Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, PSP)
Release Date: July 14, 2009
It's baaaaaaaaack! EA developers have promised that this year's iteration feels so real, you'll be scoring with the head cheerleader after the game. The little things, like sack evasion, adaptive AI, and tackling, have been ratcheted up once again, and some nifty additions—a Create-A-School mode and authentic marching bands—will let you customize your experience on the gridiron. And, when all of that gets boring, you can set down your controller and let ESPN's Erin Andrews tell you about your player's torn medial collateral ligament all night long.

BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger (PS3, Xbox 360)
Release Date: June 30, 2009
As if your illicit drug-infused, alcohol-fueled Saturday night needed another catalyst to slowly kill your bodily organs, Aksys Games—the minds behind the Guilty Gear series—has released its frenzied Japanese anime fighting masterpiece upon unsuspecting American citizens. The 2D arcade game features 12 unique pugilists in a long-winded and complicated plot for control of the world.

Battlefield 1943 (Xbox Live, PSN)
Release Date: July 8, 2009
Advance into enemy lines or dig into the trenches with EA's World War II-themed online multiplayer first-person shooter. Play on the American or Japanese side as you fight for control of Wake Island, Guadalcanal, and Iwo Jima with authentic historical weaponry and vehicles. (Or, hop into a Zero or Corsair and provide aerial support from above.) A word of advice: Playing this in the company of gramps may cause him to begin retelling old war stories to no end.

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood (PC, Xbox 360, PS3)
Release Date: June 30, 2009
Having lost everything in the Civil War, the three McCall brothers—two gunslinging badasses and a priest—go rogue from army life in search of a mysterious treasure hidden somewhere in the wild, wild, west. With law enforcement looking to drag them back for justice and the prospect of riches and a lascivious minx slowly driving a wedge between them, you take control and decide the fate of the wanted McCalls.

Rating:

Reviewed by: Gerasimos Manolatos

Price: $29.99–$59.99

The Skinny: The battle for Earth continues when the Decepticons seek to resurrect the remains of The Fallen, a treacherous member of the original Primes who wants to sap all of the bot juice from the planet. You can play on the side of the Autobots and provide the citizens of the world a stay of execution or lead the Decepticons with prospects of world domination. Either way, Megan Fox makes an appearance, and that already puts the game ahead of the curve.

The Good: If you ever muttered the phrase "When I grow up, I want to be a Transformer!" you'll finally get the chance to do just that. (We've scrubbed away all memory of the pile of crap made for the first film.) T: RofF combines the essence of what it takes to be a Transformer—be large, have cool guns, blow stuff up—into one tight package without sacrificing any of the mythology. (In other words, you won't find any metalheads transforming into super sexy college co-eds found in the movie.) The story pretty much follows the movie's major plot points, pushing you from one scene to the next while unlocking side quests that flesh out each encounter a bit more. For example, you'll engage in a naval battle on a main quest mission, but then be able to eliminate hostile Decepticons in the area in a second mission. However, there are a few large deviations, especially near the end of the game, that warrants some headscratching. (Then again, Michael Bay's plot wasn't exactly Shakespearean in nature either.)

The Bad: In the movie, you'll find slick maneuvers and eye-popping fight scenes. In the game, not so much. Sure, they may be alien beep-boopers, but the developers could have done a bit more to not make the Transformers move, well, like robots. The special effects present in the game aren't impressive and when it's time to actually roll out into a mission, the graphics are bad enough that you'll have to be reminded you're not playing on a PS2. (To be fair, the menu areas are pretty slick and showcase the bots quite well.) We also didn't like the one-off mission of saving Megan Fox. You'd think Activision would put one of the hottest females on Earth a bit more front and center to gloss over the game's inadequacies, but that, unfortunately, doesn't happen.

Saturday Morning Cartoons: You'll be able to unlock four episodes of the G1 Transformers cartoon series by completing certain achievements. Only thing is they come in YouTube quality. Really?

Buy, Rent, or Disembowel: Considering it took us about three hours to complete the Autobots campaign and about the same amount for Decepticons, you're going to want to give this one a rent over the weekend. Of course, you can always buy it just to experience Megan Fox calling for your help over and over again.

If high school gym class consisted of showing off your nonexistent skills as an athlete and avoiding Dirk, the class bully, you might want to turn away from your screen.

Behold, the official NBA 2K10 collector's edition package you will be able to pick up for $99.99 when it hits stores this October. 2K Sports has put together a pretty decent offering for the tenth anniversary of their flagship basketball title, which hopes to "deliver the most realistic, stylistic, and feature-rich simulation experience ever available in the NBA 2K franchise." Apparently that includes giving you something to stuff midget nerds into in the form of a metal lockers.

Inside the special edition set are these goodies:
> NBA 2K10 video game
> 2K Sports' NBA 2K10 game locker 
> 3" Figurine of Kobe Bryant by McFarlane Toys
> 16" x 36" Kobe Bryant poster
> Commemorative NBA 2K 10th anniversary DVD
> Access to the Gold Room, the NBA 2K10 VIP online lobby (accessible only with Xbox LIVE® and PlayStation®Network membership)

You have to get a bit lucky to snag one of these babies: Only 30,000 will be made and each will be individually numbered for authenticity. For an even luckier ten purchasers, an autographed Kobe Bryant fine-art print, designed by Shepard Fairey's Studio Number One, will be hidden and randomly packaged among the different lockers.

The game was already our pick of last year's litter, but having something like this populating our place of residence to show off to nobody in particular just made the deal just a tad sweeter. Just a tad though, no more.

And we thought our jobs were cool. Imagine heading into the office and having this kind of conversation:

Boss: "Hey, Bob. What are you working on?"

Artist: "Oh, you know, same ol' same ol'. Finishing up some snazzy renderings of fictional dragons and hobbits."

Boss: "Oh, great. Well, we're switching gears today and starting work on a game for the Transformers movie. John's working on animations, Cindy's fine-tuning the graphics, and we're going to need you to do some character drawings."

Artist: "Oh, great. What do you need from me?"

Boss: "This..." *Slides issue of Maxim with Megan Fox on the cover*

Artist: *Head explodes*

Yeah, so Megan Fox, also known as No. 2 on our 2009 Hot 100 list and star of the biggest movie this year, makes an illustrious appearance in the video game tie-in. Unfortunately, it's only for one mission where you must go to her rescue. Her and her flailing breasts arms can be seen to the left. Note to Activision: Megan-centric downloadable content or bust!

Once a year, journalists converge upon the smoggy land of make believe breasts for three days of obscene amounts of video game consumption and flame wars over polygon counts on consoles. We survived, but not before getting to see all of the latest and greatest games to hit the market this year. Who emerged victorious from all of the pixel noise is still up for discussion, but a few stood out for their achievements in the production of eye candy. Presenting our favorites...

Best Booth Babes: The Girls of Trauma Team
We'd rather get a lobotomy than play the game, but leave it up to Atlus peeps to use the "sexy nurses" route in garnering attention. They definitely beat the Helga-esque bohemoths that took our temperature the last time we ended up in the hospital.
(Runners-Up: The Girls of Dirt 2… or, more specifically, the one who's previous job was a porn star. Background checks, FTL!)

Most Likely to Succeed: Halo 3: ODST
Microsoft spent in excess of $10 million marketing Halo 3 and there's nothing to make us second-guess that the company will not pull out all the stops to repeat their media blitz later this year. While there won't be a Master Chief to brand on special edition 7-11 cups this time around, the Orbital Drop Shock Trooper (where ODST gets its name) is sure to get some face time when the game eventually hits in September. It features a gripping storyline parallel to the Chief's and a new co-op Firefight mode that will help sharpen your Flood-killing skills for hours upon hours.

Most Likely to Take Over the World: Modern Warfare 2
Activision stumbled upon a hit after revamping their WW2-based series. Finally, 2007's Game of the Year gets its long-anticipated sequel and, if the trailers are to be trusted, there will be a lot of Commie ass to kick this time around. Snowmobiles, F-16 planes, helicopters, tanks, and other mobile war contrivances were seen making an appearance in the game, only fueling speculation that there will be a ton of vehicular mayhem to be had this November.

Most Athletic: Wit Fit Plus
We previously told you that "no one needs exercise." Then, almost 20 million of you went out and bought the Wii Fit anyway. The newest version promises more accurate movement sensors, online connectivity, and additional exercises to make you regret ever stepping into an In-N-Out Burger.

Most Likely to Make Your Family and Friends Hate You: New Super Mario Bros. Wii
Remember way back when there was only room for two buttons on your Nintendo controller...and they both did the same thing? Yeah, that good stuff is coming back, in the form of Nintendo's remake of the classic 2D platform game Super Mario Bros. But, this time it's personal. The developer showcased its newest title at E3 and announced four-player simultaneous cooperative play, meaning up to four people (Mario, Luigi, and two Toads) can race through the Mushroom Kingdom to save the Princess together. Cool, right? The fun doesn't stop there: You can also compete against each other for score, so being an a-hole (i.e. pushing your friends down endless pits or throwing them off the screen with Yoshi's swallow maneuver) is a wise decision.

Game That Made Us Say "WTF?": Pluff
There really are no words to describe this...thing, but if we had to, "Furbie," "hairball," and "fire hazard" would be somewhere in the description. Creator Diana Hughes, with the help of some programming friends, made the Pluff controller for her MFA thesis at the University of Southern California, and was at the expo with the hope of getting the attention of a big time developer—she prefers Nintendo. Pluff is a furry controller that has emotions: Stroking and hugging it makes it like you while shaking and beating it will make a social worker show up at your doorstep asking questions.

Game Your Dad Will Most Likely Play: The Beatles: Rock Band
Everyone loves The Beatles. You. Me. Yes, even Dad, whose struggles to find the computer's "On" button are well-chronicled. And, finally, there is a video game for him (and us, 'cause we'll play anything with a controller attached to it.) Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr made an appearance onstage at Microsoft's E3 press conference and formally put their seal of approval on the rhythm game being released this September. The game will feature a ton of fan service and, for those who can't tell a Beatle from a Preying Mantis, a great introduction to the music of one of the most important bands in history. This will also mark the first time music from the legendary British group will be licensed for a video game with plastic peripherals. However, mop-tops will be sold separately.

Best Game With a "2" in the Title: Mass Effect 2
It just so happens that a bunch of new games found some success with the masses over the past few years and all of them are getting the sequel treatment at the same time. Modern Warfare 2, Assassin's Creed 2, Uncharted 2, and BioShock 2 are all being released within the next year, but nothing impressed us more than the second chapter in the Mass Effect series. Not only can gameplay be changed drastically by loading up your old Mass Effect saves, but with new planets to explore, and more alien butts to kick with snazzy new powers, we're going full speed ahead on the SS Normandy.

While the last Need For Speed game didn't quite make it past "rental" status, EA Games isn't sparing any expense making their next attempt worthy of your 60 dollars. The game company announced that the BMW M3 GT2 will be the cover car for their upcoming game Need For Speed SHIFT. The game, scheduled for release on September 17, will feature classic and exotic cars from the past 40 years racing through world-renowned tracks like the 20 KM Nordschleife ("Northern Loop" in Nürburg, Germany) and fake, but grueling circuits made by the mad scientists at EA. We'll be at E3 with a first look at the game so check back for more!



In the meanwhile, drool over all of the cars that you'll be able to drive in the game.

Need for Speed SHIFT car roster:

2006 Aston Martin DBR9

2009 Audi R8 LMS

2008 Audi R8

2008 Audi RS 4

2007 Audi S3

2007 Audi TT 3.2 quattro

2006 Audi S4

BMW M3 E36

BMW M3 E46

BMW M3 E92

2008 BMW 135i Coupé

2009 BMW M3 GT2

2007 BMW Z4 M Coupé

2008 Bugatti Veyron 16.4

2006 Dodge Challenger Concept

2008 Dodge Viper SRT10

Falken Tire 2010 Ford Mustang GT

2010 Ford Shelby GT500

2007 Ford Focus ST

2006 Ford GT

2006 Need For Speed Shelby Terlingua

1996 Ford Escort RS Cosworth

2009 Chevrolet Camaro SS

2006 Chevrolet Cobalt SS

2006 Chevrolet Corvette Z06

2006 Honda Civic Si

2000 Honda S2000

2006 Koenigsegg CCX

2008 Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4

2007 Lamborghini Murciélago LP640

2007 Lamborghini Reventón

2006 Lotus Elise 111R

2007 Lotus Exige S

2005 Maserati MC12 GT1

2008 Mazda MX-5

2006 Mazda RX-8

1995 Mazda RX-7

1994 McLaren F1

2007 Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren 722 Edition

2007 Mercedes-Benz SL65 AMG

2008 Mitsubishi Lancer EVOLUTION

2006 Mitsubishi Lancer EVOLUTION IX MR-edition

2003 Infiniti G35 (V35)

1997 Nissan 200SX (S14)

2009 Nissan 370Z (Z34)

2006 Nissan 350Z (Z33)

2009 Nissan GT-R SpecV (R35)

2008 Nissan GT-R (R35)

2000 Nissan Silvia (S15) spec.R AERO

1999 Nissan Skyline GT-R (R34)

1972 Nissan Skyline 2000GT-R

1992 Nissan 240SX (S13)

2006 Pagani Zonda F

2010 Pagani Zonda R

2008 Porsche 911 GT2

2009 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR

2006 Porsche 911 GT3 RS

2004 Porsche Carrera GT

2007 Porsche Cayman S

2008 Renault Mégane RS

2007 SEAT Leon CUPRA

2006 Subaru Impreza WRX STi

2007 Lexus LF-A Concept

2008 SCION tC

1986 Toyota Corolla GTS (A86)

2008 Volkswagen Scirocco

2006 Volkswagen Golf GTI

Need for Speed SHIFT track list:

1. Alpental

2. Autopolis International Racing Course

3. Ambush Canyon

4. Brands Hatch

5. Dakota

6. Ebisu Circuit

7. Glendale

8. Hazyview

9. Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca

10. London

11. Miytomi

12. Nordschleife

13. Road America

14. Rustle Creek

15. Silverstone

16. Circuit de Spa Francorchamps

17. Tokyo

18. Willow Springs