PS3 Fanboy

After much delay, PS3 owners are finally able to taste the dish Ubisoft first baked for Xbox 360 owners back in mid-November. Has the extra six months in the Ubi incubator, provided PS3 gamers with a far superior version? Does the PS3 version blow its Xbox cousin out of the water? Does the PS3 rendition give you superhuman powers?

Rainbow Six: Vegas weaves an interesting-enough plotline, centering around southern boy Logan Keller, a recent rising star amongst the ranks of the Rainbow team and whose face you'll become intimately familiar with as you duck him behind crates or crane his neck around doorways to spot and eliminate bad guys. One of our hero's first missions starts the Rainbow team off in Mexico, where you're being sent to eliminate a terrorist threat led by international terrorist Irena Morales. The game's plot is riddled with conspiracy-a-plenty, taking twists and turns while leading the Rainbow team to locales like Mexico, Vegas (of course) and later, an expansive hydroelectric dam.

Another Sunday, another release list. Let's see what's out in the next seven days.

US Games

• The Darkness
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
• The Bigs
• Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas
• Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Double Agent
  
• Transformers the Game

EU Games

• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
• Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas

Asian Games

• Marvel: Ultimate Alliance
• Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas

Quite a well populated list. There's no real way anyone can complain about this week's releases. Unless you're a European The Darkness fan. Don't forget, though. If there's a game that's only available in another region, then feel free to import it. Your PlayStation 3 won't care. Release dates are subject to constant change, so give your local game shop a ring before walking down there.

Which of this week's releases will you be picking up? We've already got our copies of The Darkness ordered.

Aren't you curious to see what Ubisoft has planned this first quarter? While we'd love to just copy and paste the list in its entirety, it's probably best if we just list the games coming out for the PS3. It's more honest and, well, it makes the list much smaller.

• Enchanted Arms
• Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas
• Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent

Again with your monopolization... damn you, Tom Clancy! Now keep in mind some of the games listed should be coming out on the PS3 -- they just have a different release date from the other systems and fall outside of the first quarter. Well, Ubisoft, hopefully these three games (along with the other March releases) will wholly satisfy us.

So... many... references... in... this... title. Anyway, it's all true! Rainbow Six: Vegas (seriously... doesn't anyone else care that it's Rainbow? Are they trying to imply ethnic diversity or univeral acceptance? Tom Clancy, I'm on to you...) has been delayed until the end of January 2007. For the PS3 and PSP. 360 fanboys who invariably come here, rejoice! You can do more of the Rainbow Six-ing while we wait with bated breath to play this neato game.

Why the delay? IGN hypothesizes the online component. But that's fine by us, since Rainbow Six pretty much works because of the online component, a delay to fix that up isn't exactly a bad thing, right? Sony was pretty sparse in its information regarding the PlayStation Online thingy to third-party games (just look at Tony Hawk's Project 8). So, is anyone particularly bothered by this? Or is it all good as long as the final product can compete with XBox Live's online functions for the game?