Taxes are due Tuesday...did you get them done? If so, it's time to start thinking about how to spend that refund. Maybe this week's release list will help you.

Playstation 3	Xbox 360	Nintendo Wii
•Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (Also available as a download from the Playstation Store)	...	•Okami •Summer Sports: Paradise Island
PSP	Nintendo DS	Playstation 2
...	•Cory in the House •High School Musical 2: Work It Out •MLB 2K8 Fantasy All-Stars •Rondo of Swords	...

Yeah, it's a light week number wise but game wise, it's an extremely heavy hitter.

My pick of the week depends on what category you fall in to. If you have a Wii, but don't own Okami on the Playstation 2, then I demand that you buy Okami for the Wii this week. Okami was a PS2 adventure game in the style of Zelda, but got severely underlooked by most people because of the release of Twilight Princess. Now that the hype of Twilight Princess has settled down, it's time for you to revisit the game that was far superior to the vastly overrated Wii launch game. There, I said it. Okami is better than Twilight Princess. I'm not the only one to feel this way either. Zelda fanboy flaming aside, Okami on the Wii looks to be a fantastic port of the PS2 classic. The port will feature the same great game you never played on the PS2, however the team at Ready At Dawn (the same team behind the excellent Daxter and God of War: Chains of Olympus for the PSP) have taken the liberty to do some enhancements to the Wii edition including 16:9 widescreen visuals running at 480p and some wagglan controls (sadly). However, you can paint with the Wii Remote, which is awesome and hopefully inspires Nintendo to make Mario Paint for the Wii.

However, if you're like me, a snobby bastard that's a part of the hip alternative gaming scene, you'll have Okami already and most likely won't be interested in a Wii port of the same game. What do you do then? You buy Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, that's what. Gran Turismo 5: Prologue is a demo of Gran Turismo 5 fully featured racing game that will give you an early glimpse at what to expect from Gran Turismo 5 when it ships next year (or in 2010, knowing Polyphony Digital). This title follows in the footsteps of previous pre-release GT titles Gran Turismo Concept and Gran Turismo 4 Prologue, but what makes this one different is that it is the first one to receive a worldwide release. The game features 76 cars, 6 tracks, 12 track layouts, 16 player online racing, Full HD 1080p graphics, and uncompressed LPCM 7.1 surround sound. New to the Gran Turismo series with 5 is GT-TV, a video on demand service that will be regularly updated with both free and pay content related to the world of racing and automobiles. However, the game does not include in-game voice chat (dumb move, Sony) nor private racing with your PSN friends, but Taku Imasaki, the producer of the North American release of the game, confirmed that they are working on adding that in a future update. Sepaking of updates, the lead director of the Gran Turismo series at Polyphony Digital, Kazunori Yamauchi, has said that vehicle damage will be coming to Gran Turismo 5 Prologue as an update, and that GT5P will eventually reach the full functionality of Gran Turismo 5, but with fewer tracks and cars. So, maybe buyers of Prologue will get a discount on the full game when it comes out, but probably not knowing Sony. Anyways, demo or not, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue looks quite awesome, but it definitely isn't for everyone. Remember, this game will be released as both a retail Blu-ray and as a download from the all-new Playstation Store. Both versions cost $40 and offer the same content, but the PS Store version will be a 2 GB or so download and will make you download the GT TV videos from the internet to view them. The Blu-ray edition will include all of the GT TV videos available at launch on the disc for instant viewing.

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