It was way back in 2007 when Realtime Worlds gave us a taste of what it was like to be a good guy in a sand-box game, while even though we could still "commandeer" vehicles and "accidentally" shoot civilians, the idea of being on the other side of the law was a unique one. Here we are three years later, and although Realtime has stepped on to do other things (APB), it seems like new comer Ruffian Games are going to give us another shot at being an Agent. That's right ladies and gentleman, Crackdown 2 is almost upon us, and The Agency has "spared no expense" when it comes to preparing what is sure to be another fun filled stay in Pacific City.

In a market dominated by the Madden NFL series, one developer is hoping to change the face of American football games. By using the Euphoria physics engine, Backbreaker is looking to break the mold and have tackle animations that are not scripted. From what I've seen, Backbreaker looks like it could be the American football game to get this summer.

Hoping to cash in on the success of the LEGO Star Wars video games, Traveler's Tale is set to release LEGO Harry Potter Years 1-4. From what I've played, Traveler's Tale does a good job keeping the game fun, but not to challenging. Hit the jump to read about all the mischief you'll encounter at Hogwarts, LEGO style.

When considering sports that translate well into videogame form, cricket isn’t exactly the first to spring to mind. The slow, stop-start nature of the sport can make watching and playing it fairly tedious, and it’s fairly tough to see a cricket game appealing to anyone other than the hardcore fans. Nevertheless, there have been many attempts to bring cricket to the gaming masses, most notably with the Brian Lara and International Cricket Captain series. International Cricket 2010 is a sequel to the 2009 effort Ashes Cricket 2009, and promises revamped gameplay to make the game as authentic as possible.

In a world of sequels, endless franchises and big money shooters, it’s always nice to see something a bit different. Naughty Bear is the new project from WET developer A2M, and is set to be released at the end of June. While most of the game is still being kept under wraps, what has been revealed is very encouraging and has the potential to be a great sleeper hit.

505 Games’ latest game, Naval Assault: The Killing Tide will soon be heading to a console near you. But why should you be excited about the title? Well, because it’s from the same publisher as that of IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey, the excellent WW2 dog-fighter. However, this battle takes place in the sea, but we still have high hopes for it, too.

The entire game takes place in World War 2, where you command a fully-equipped submarine. Whilst details on the story mode are limited, impressions indicate that the game will feature a good chuck of WW2 history. It’s certainly piqued our interest and will be interesting to see what how it unfolds in the final copy of the game.

The entire adventure takes place under water, so you can expect some excellent looking water effects and physics. The game looks as though it excels in making the water’s characteristics incredibly real. Furthermore, the effects the explosions from your missiles look fantastic from what we’ve seen. If taking out the subs were enough, the game will also throw plenty of enemy planes at you too, making the challenge even harder.

More inside

Hoping to match the success of last year's The Beatles: Rock Band, MTV Games and Harmonix are bringing Green Day: Rock Band to store shelves on June 8th. The band specific title just hit Xbox Live in demo form, and I wouldn't be your friendly neighborhood 'opinionater' if I didn't let you know how it is.

Hit the jump to learn what makes Green Day: Rock Band different.

A game like No More Heroes 2 sells mostly on the name of the developer or the idea – the idea of unwanted destruction of all that one would expect, in a crazy enjoyable kind of way that is constantly surprising. Though, I’m sure any fans of the original will know all about this adrenaline-rushed sequel, allow me to educate the fine reader of this article, on what shall obviously prove a wacky experience.

All that you need to know about NMH2 can be summed up in describing a couple of its gameplay mechanics – it’s mostly a traditional hack n’ slash, with your gelled-up Travis Touchdown in the protagonist seat, hoisting a lightsaber-esque sword. You can progress the story through individual missions on a selective overworld – this being a step back from the traversable city in the first game, but that may be an improvement – these consisting of single objectives. It’s a third-person game: Travis doesn’t control as you would expect, however.

Arcade racers have been around for a while now, but lately there has been a lack of titles for the genre. However, Activision has stepped up to the plate and will soon be releasing Blur, a racing game with twist. Developer Bizarre Creations hopes to fuse realistic cars and tracks with arcade handling and car-on-car combat and from everything we’ve seen and heard, it looks as though they could be on the road to success.

The main feature of Blur is “fan points”. Fan points build us as you perform over-the-top stunts and succeeding in in-race challenges. These points then allow you to progress through Blur’s career mode by allowing you to purchase new cars and parts to increase the performance of each. The points will also allow you to build up your fan base, which increases your reputation throughout the story mode.

I rarely talk about upcoming games but ModNation Racers as some key elements that beg to be talked about. At its core ModNation is Little Big Planet meets Mario Kart which is simplifying it and is no means a knock, but a compliment for the developer United Front Games.

The developers manged to create a solid cart racing title that has a great community feature. Players can create their own custom racer from the ground up with so many possibilities it can make your head spin. You can create your favorite video game hero or villain, animals, aliens; anything you can imagine. Players can share their characters and even download others and add their own touches to them. Carts can also be created from the frame up, shared and downloaded. The amount of different parts is astonishing. Players can create a classic muscle car powered by a hamster wheel or in my case the 60's Bat Mobile.

There is also a track creator that is simple to use with easy controls. I loved Little Big Planet but creating levels was just too time consuming and frustrating. In ModNation creating tracks is effortless with easy erasing and the ability to instantly try your new track. I was really impressed by the community aspect of the game. The download system when trying other peoples levels, carts, or characters is almost instant. The download system makes each file be extremely small making downloads seem instant which should promote players trying new levels and sharing more. Players can also race with up to 12 players online.

ModNation's team of artists, programmers and more are normal gamers with tons of talent and it shows in the game. All the tools they used are available to gamers to create and share the fun with others. Look for my full review closer to the end of May when the game launches.

From the developers behind the renowned racers such as Pure and the Motor GP series comes another racing game from the minds of Black Box Studios. Black Box Studios have clearly shown their worth to the genre of games, but for Split / Second Velocity, don’t expect any realism here. As you zip around the tracks in the game, they will crumble, brake and explode from beneath your feet, giving one of the most frantic and exhilarating experience any reason can provide. Disney says the game will be fast and a lot of fun, and from what we’ve seen, this should certainly be the case.

As I’ve briefly mentioned, the game’s main premise is the fact that the courses can change throughout your race. Unlike most games where environment changes change the car’s characteristics, Split / Second Velocity has entire buildings and changes in the landscape which will affect your progress through the race. As you play through each of the several tracks in the game, you’ll build up a meter, which can then trigger certain in-game events. The idea of this is to then stop other players from beating you at the finish line and to open up shortcuts. Because of the radical changes to the map each time you activate one of these special powers, no race will be the same.

The amount of power you’ve built up through racing, the more sever the destruction will be. If you build it up all the way, expect to see entire buildings collapse around your car. If you only build it up partially, minor things like airplane crashes and cracks in the ground will alter the race.

On Wednesday, I was one of few lucky enough to play the Xbox 360 version of Prince of Persia: Forgotten Sands – which is due out next week in Europe and North America – at an event sponsored by Ubisoft. Experiencing the first two-and-a-half hours of the game, I was thoroughly impressed and left with far greater hopes of how the full retail release will turn out.

What will strike most players off of the back of the Prince of Persia from a couple of years ago is the amped up difficulty, straight away in Forgotten Sands – sooner than an hour into the game, I felt as though I was being tested to some degree in comparison to its fair-weather predecessor that liked holding-hands with the player. This is almost entirely through the far improved platforming, reminiscent much more of the popular trilogy on the PS2 – wall-running and jumping is not always easy and there’s enough ducking, jumping and climbing to keep it from treading familiar ground. In particular, being able to freeze time to manipulate the environment proves a critical change of pace for the game, being able to switch between real and paused time. It’s all very streamlined, with the latency of the controls having the good-game-y attribute of quickly adapting to my style of play.