Publisher Midway held a gigantabulous press event at a convention center hotel outside Las Vegas this week, laying out a big chunk of its upcoming software lineup for the coming months and revealing a few games for the very first time.

We’ve got hands-on info on the big stuff: This is Vegas, TNA Impact Wrestling, Wheelman, and the 360 version of Unreal Tournament III. And if you haven’t yet seen our UK boys’ exclusive MKDC trailer, stop doing everything and click here.

But there were also a few other games that were simply announced - no trailer, no hands on, not even a screenshot to be had. First among these (in our minds, anyway) is a new game in the Blitz football series for this fall. It’s called Blitz: The League II, and we’re told it will showcase new teams and new stories. And although it wasn’t directly mentioned, we’re assuming there will again be actual football somewhere amid all the drugs and injury and gritty off-the-field shenanigans the last game was known for. That would make sense, right?

Sequels to TouchMaster and Game Party are on the way as well. They’re coming for “Nintendo platforms” - we’re guessing DS for TouchMaster 2 and Wii for Game Party 2. If you don’t remember the originals, that’s understandable - they were targeted straight at the casual market and snuck out with little fanfare.

TouchMaster was a collection of those kinds of games you usually see sitting on the bar at a tavern (cards, trivia, a few puzzles or memory games, and so on). And Game Party mined the same vein, but with some more active pursuits like air hockey and darts added into the mix and with fewer games overall. Hardcore players should expect the sequels to be more of the same and plan to pass - we’ll tell you if they add an Unreal Tournament mode or something.

Apr 18, 2008