Last week, I got off easy; I got away with only putting four of that pretty large list of notables in the title. With the games releasing this week, it looks like that's not possible. This is how you know it's the holidays.

That said, there are plenty of good games that came out last week, coming out this week, and will come out in the upcoming weeks. Console allegiances be damned; we're all gamers, and let's enjoy all these games. Defense Forces need not apply. Support good games!

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Akira_EX via www.joystiq.com »

In quite possibly the oddest crossover this year (excluding Mario and Sonic in the same games for the first time.. ever), Tales of Symphonia's protagonist, the dual-wielding Lloyd Irving, in addition to being a cameo in Symphonia sequel Knights of Ratatoskr, is confirmed to be a playable character in Namco Bandai's Soul Calibur Legends. He's sporting a new mature-looking look.

I'm thoroughly surprised.

Akira_EX via www.siliconera.com »

"Namco Bandai Games America sent us new gallery from SoulCalibur Legends, a game developed exclusively for the Nintendo Wii and scheduled to be released this winter. Using the Wii Remote and Nunchuk, players perform moves and combos using orchestrated slashes and movements. The game follows the 16th century adventures of Siegfried and Soulcalibur characters, as they find themselves on a quest for ultimate power in order to save an empire from destruction."

tidus04 via www.gamershell.com »

"What's changed this time round is that the next-gen platforms have network infrastructure already in place," commented Soul Calibur IV's director Katsutoshi Sasaki while chatting with EGM magazine."We've heard from fans that they really want the game to be online, so we figured that, with the current environment, we really couldn't make SC4 without online play.""

mistermostyn via www.gamersquad.com »