Well readers, this week was a bit of a quiet one on the old Xbox 360.  After last week’s bumper crop of games (and that’s including Beijing ’08 getting released as well), this week’s release schedule is a lot thinner.

First up we’ve got Unreal Tournament III.  I lost track of the Unreal series a while back but I’m sure there have been more than three of them now… but anyway, the granddaddy of the FPS world is back (again). 

 Another unreal experience from the Epic stable

Connoisseurs of the genre will of course know that the original Unreal Tournament was one of the finest games of its type and is still the benchmark due to its wealth of modes, tight controls and vibrant modding scene.  The sequels are generally bloated messes but hopes are high for this one.  Even if the idea of playing the original UT on a joypad makes me physically sick.

Early reviews suggest that UT3 is looking pretty solid, so if you fancy getting out of the trenches and indulging in some brutal futuristic sports combat, check this one out.

 You’ll feel a right wally playing this

Also hitting the shelves this week is WALL-E.  This diabetes-inducing, sugary sweet nonsense is the latest lunchbox-selling animated tripe to throw at your kids now that they are bored of Buzz Lightyear or that rubbish thing about that fish.  This game of the movie (*shudder*) is already attracting some awful reviews.  As such, Gaming Verdict suggest you avoid both the movie and the game and just buy Short Circuit on DVD.  You’ll feel better.

Soul Calibur has always been one of the best one-on-one fighting games, but with no Mission Mode or online play, there’s little to recommend this game if you still have a working Dreamcast.  Graphically it looks quite smooth, although the lack of detail is odds with my rose-tinted memories of the original.  Horribly compressed sound also does a nice hatchet job on the game’s audio. 

Dreamcast spectacular on Live

You’d probably be better of waiting for the immanent release of Soul Calibur IV, although you may want to avoid that to if you’re not a fan of Namco’s frankly insulting DLC pricing policies.

Oh well, there’s always Xbox Live Arcade to rely on right?  Well, this week sees the slightly pointless port of the Dreamcast classic Soul Calibur.  800 M$P (£6.80) gets you a cut-down version of the original that has all the characters unlocked from the start because it does away with the Mission Mode.