Something For The Long Weekend? Today's New Releases

The Spring bank holiday is upon us, and for those of us not watching Bristol Rovers triumphing at the soccer-kicking play-offs, becoming comatose in the presence of relatives or holing up in a caravan in the so-called countryside, gaming awaits. Here's what you might want to spend your hard-gotten earnings on this week.

SPOnG's pick of the week is, without a doubt, Mario Strikers: Charged Football for the Wii. SPOnG will be using it to enthusiastically take out our play-off frustrations while we watch the footer on the second telly, (that's right, second telly. We're not even kidding.) To find out why SPOnG loves kicking a footy about in chain mail, take a look at our Charged review here.

If you can hear the word 'avast,' or even 'behind,' somewhere in the background, ignore it.

Final Fantasy fans get to excise their anger at the lack of FFXIII until next year with Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales for the DS. Sure, it's sugary enough to rot the teeth right out of your mouth and through the floor, but it's got the word 'final' and 'fantasy' in the title! That, and it looks like quite a tasty little puzzler.

And no, there's no swash or buckle reflected in your monitor.

For manga and anime fans, Namco Bandai has Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles is out on the PS2 today. Think Harry Potter, but substitute the wee wizard for a ninja in an orange jump-suit with a nine-tailed fox demon inside him. Inside him in a spiritual way, of course.

Was that...? No, it couldn't have been Keith Richards in nautical attire...

For those of you who still lament the loss of Philippa Forrester getting jiggy with mutant robotic dinosaurs (and we know there's a lot of you out there) Nintendo has Custom Robo Arena for the DS.

Something pointy was just pulled away from SPOnG's spleen and the word 'Savvy' is ringing in our ears... All of a sudden we're getting an urge to point out that there's some game about pirates coming out this week, too... In fact, now we think about it, isn't there some Disney film about pirates out this week? We just took a look at a couple of videos and can, in fact, confirm that Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is coming out on every platform you can shake a rusty cutlass at.

Also out this week is Bionicle Heroes for the Wii, Buzz! Junior: RoboJam for the PS2, Crush for the PSP, Enemy Engaged 2 on the PC, Nucleus on the PS3, Pacific Storm: Allies for the PC, Shadow Hearts: From the New World for the PS2 and Winx Club: Join the Club on PSP.