Wii Previews

With ex-Sony man Phil Harrison on board and fingers in practically every gaming pie (thanks to distribution deals with publishers the world over), and a brand that everyone recognises, Atari has the foundations in place to become great once again. But, most shockingly, it's actually got some great games to back it up. Here are five games Atari were showing off that we reckon you're going to want to play.

The CG animated Rango is still three months away but EA was more than eager to bring their game tie-in to our attention at a recent closed-door unveiling of the Xbox 360 version. In case you haven't heard, the movie reunites Johnny Depp (in the title role) with Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski. It is also the first full-length animated film by the visual effects company, Industrial Light & Magic...

It's fairly rare that movie games catch us by surprise. It's even rarer that they keep surprising us, level after level. Rango manages to pull do that as one of the few movie tie-ins to offer a variety of environments and gameplay...

Normally, when a bunch of jaded games journalists get together to preview an upcoming game, most of the noise in the room comes from the game itself. Within minutes of being let loose on the Gamescom demo of Rayman Origins, however, we heard something we hadn’t heard in years, at least not in a professional context: a lot of laughter and shouting, all of it coming from the supposedly world-weary writers at the controls. Clearly, this merited further investigation...

Whether or not Rayman Origins actually stands a chance in hell when it arrives in stores next month remains to be seen, but judging by what we’ve played so far, it certainly deserves to. It’s vibrant, fast and beautifully animated like few other games out there, 2D or otherwise. It’s also surprisingly fun, with inventive, cleverly designed levels that range from quick, easy romps to crushingly difficult speed runs. Most importantly, though, it has an “OK, just one more level” appeal that sucked us in and kept us playing for hours longer than we intended.

That may be too generous for a preview. We’ve only been able to play through about the first half of the game, after all, so it’s entirely possible that Origins turns to crap right after that. Possible, but unlikely...