With that in mind I handed it to my brother, Marcus and his 6-year old son, Flynn to see what they thought of it.

Flynn’s Review:

There are loads and loads of levels that need unlocking and you play spy games, battle games and racing games. You can choose from lots of different cars like Finn McMissile, Francesco, Mater, Holly and more.

In the races I was quite good and in the battle races you got to shoot bullets. The one with the ramp is a really good one but that’s not a battle race.

Finn McMissile could jump in one of the spy games and he had a turbo engine and fire came out the back and made you go super fast.

I think Cars 2 is awesome, fantastic and brill.

Marcus’s Review:

Flynn was so eager to play this game that he managed to damage the slider button which opens the UMD on his PSP. So there I was at 7:30am on a Saturday morning surfing the net trying to find out how to fix it. Luckily it was a fairly simple fix and we were soon able to get the door open and insert the disc. Once we’d gone through the software update process Flynn was finally able to start playing.

He’s an avid Cars fan so was really pleased with it and loved being able to play as Finn McMissile and also as Francesco, his two favourite characters from Cars 2. He got so engrossed in it that it was difficult to get a review out of him, which says a lot in itself.

One week on and he’s still playing. Reviewing it as an adult you’d comment on the relatively simple graphics and the strange grandstand camera view you seem to be stuck with. The gameplay is fairly basic too but then this game isn’t aimed at adults.

It successfully couples the premise of car racing with the notion of developing spy car skills, although you can still play some more straightforward races. You also win badges for attaining different skills, unlocking levels and characters from the film along the way.

Try to imagine Austin Powers aimed at kids in the guise of an anthropomorphic cartoon car honing their spy skills and you’ve about got it.

Summary:

It’s kept Flynn interested and it is still in the PSP a week later. What more could you ask for?

CARS 2 is out now on PSP, Wii, DS, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Read about when happened when I got some hands-on time with Red Faction: Armageddon last month. It was very destructive!

The other demo is for LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean. I probably don’t need to say much about this. LEGO + Pirates + Johnny Depp = Fun. From the looks of the screenshots and the trailer it should be another classic LEGO game.

* Assuming Sony get the network is up and running again.

LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean is due for release on the 13th May 2011 on Wii, DS, PlayStation 3, PSP and Xbox 360. Red Faction: Armageddon is released on the 3rd June 2011 on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

In this new game, the King of action (where did he get this name?) is pitted against his old nemesis – Proton – in a fight to the death across 28 levels. The trailer below even includes some in-game action.

Critical Mass also features some co-op multiplayer action for when you get bored with the main game ;-) The PSP version will be released in a couple of months.

Duke Nukem: Critical Mass is released on the 8th April 2011 on DS and on the 1st July 2011 for PSP

As you may have worked out from the title, this game is based on the Clone Wars cartoon series and not the Star Wars feature films. Which is probably a good thing as the prequels were crap.

Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars is due for release on the 25th March 2011 on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, DS, 3DS, Wii, PSP and PC.

I’m proud to announce that one of the contributors to this very website – Tikipod – is the graphics artist on Gravity Crash. Mmm, notice how he’s not written any posts for ages, yep, working hard on Gravity Crash. Definitely. Yeah, it takes time to create all those lovely light blurs, heat haze and refractions :-)

Back to Gravity Crash. Well, it looks quite a bit like Thrust crossed with Defender. In total there are 40 single player levels and 5 major boss battles and a level editor. I’m told the level editor is really easy and quick to use. Once your level is created you can upload it for others to play. Think of it like LittleBigPlanet’s level editor, just simpler.

Here’s a trailer for Gravity Crash, featuring awesome in-game music from CoLD SToRAGE.

You can also buy some of the music from CoLD SToRAGE’s band camp page for £1.59. Gravity Crash also features multiplayer modes including local split-screen so you can get your butt kicked by your boy/girlfriend.

Gravity Crash currently doesn’t have a release date or price for either the PS3 or PSP version. Boo!!!

It’s open to the public from 12pm tomorrow (3rd July 09). You can find all the details on my previous Gathering Hall post.

Here’s a shot of The Gathering Hall being made to look cool!

Don’t forget if you are going to The Gathering Hall you MUST have a UMD of Monster Hunter Freedom Unite and a PSP to play it on, otherwise you will be refused entry.

Happy hunting!

• 1st July – Secret preview session
• 3rd July 12pm – The Gathering Hall opens to the public
• 3rd July26th Jun 2pm – Meet up in HMV Oxford Street

To sign-up for the secret preview session go to the forums on http://capcom-europe.com

Also check out the http://www.encyclopedia-gigantica.com for lots of Monster Hunter Freedom Unite game info.

Finally, if you are going to The Gathering Hall you MUST have a UMD of Monster Hunter Freedom Unite and a PSP to play it on, otherwise you will be refused entry.

The Gathering Hall aims to be the ultimate destination for Monster Hunters. In it you will be able to meet other hunters, download exclusive quests, attend tutorial nights and meet the developers (when they are in the UK).

It will be open 7 days a week and free to enter if you have a PSP and a copy of Monster Hunter Freedom Unite. At the moment I don’t know how long it will open for, so take advantage while you can! Also The Gathering Hall has a Twitter account – http://twitter.com/GatheringHall.

The Gathering Hall can be found at: 121 Charing Cross Road, London (see below for the Google Streetview of the location).

Update 12th Jun 09: The Gathering Hall will be open for 2 months only, from the 3rd July. So use it while it lasts! Here’s a trailer for the game too.

In keeping with a classic tradition of the games industry – cramming lots of stuff into a short period of time (e.g lots of games and the Christmas period) – the E3 of old (pre-2007) used to squeeze practically all console and games related announcements into just 3 days every year. Then it was made boring for 2 years in an effort to distribute the announcements throughout the year and help reduce games companies marketing budgets. Yeah, that didn’t work very well.

The main E3 2009 expo takes place between the 2 – 4th June 2009 in LA. Actually, you need to include the 1st June 09 as well as some of the major players hold their big keynote addresses before the show actually starts:

• Microsoft keynote – 1st June 18:30 BST
• EA press conference – 1st June 20:00 BST
• Ubisoft press conference – 2nd June 01:00 BST
• Nintendo keynote – 2nd June 17:00 BST
• Sony keynote – 2nd June 19:00 BST
• Konami press conference – 3rd June 23:00 BST

If you want to follow all the of the E3 news and announcements (this will be a lot!) then check out E3Feed which pulls together all the E3 related news from the major gaming sites.

Here at TAG we will be be bringing you just the super tasty bits of E3 for you to digest. Yummy.