Today is the beginning of the week and as the QJ staff struggle to fit through the office door after a long weekend you, our faithful readers and gamers get to come home to a wealth of releases this week. This week we can see some big titles coming to the PSP, Nintendo DS and the original Xbox, but as a slight disappointment to owners of Microsoft's next generation console there will be no Xbox 360 releases this week.

If you find yourself very bored with no new X360 releases this week you may just have to brave it and buy a portable game to satisfy your needs and with plenty of PSP and DS titles hitting the shelves this week you'll be spoilt for choice. Or maybe an Xbox title takes your fancy? Don't worry next generation console fans, with the Wii and the PS3 well on their way it won't be that long until we'll see three next generation consoles on this list! We'll stop teasing you now, here's the cross-console release list for week beginning Monday October 9.

Nintendo DS:
10/09/06 - Clubhouse Games
10/09/06 - Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties
10/10/06 - Avatar: The Last Airbender
10/10/06 - Crash Boom Bang!
10/10/06 - Monster Bomber
10/10/06 - Scooby Doo! Who's Watching Who?
10/12/06 - Disney's American Dragon: Jake Long, Attack of the Dark Dragon

Sony PSP:
10/09/06 - Family Feud
10/09/06 - Mortal Kombat Unchained
10/10/06 - Avatar: The Last Airbender
10/10/06 - Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning

Xbox:
10/09/06 Mortal Kombat Armageddon
10/10/06 Avatar: The Last Airbender
10/10/06 Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning

The holidays are fast approaching. And since Christmas is geared primarily to the young 'uns (and kids at heart), game developers are lining up all the kiddie-related titles as early as October. At least parents and their kids will have a healthy choice of wholesome games to play during the holiday vacations.

Here are the games coming out October 9 (hey that's tomorrow!):

Avatar: The Last Airbender - from Nickelodeon's cartoon with the same name. Play as Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Toph, and save the world from the evil Fire Nation. For those children who are so into the whole martial arts scene... Ki-ya!

Crash Boom Bang! - orangey-furred Crash and the weird gang are back! It's not just a screen scroller, it's also got tons of mini-games to choose from. Expect endless hours of fun. This is also for the peculiar kids who like kicking crates.

Monster Bomber - for the first time, kids don't have to flick boogers at each other for fun! In this game, the players are expected to fling colored balls to the upper screen. Once the right colored ball hits a particular monster, boom! It disappears. It looks like a high paced-game. Recommended for kids who ate too much candy last night.

Scooby-Doo! Who's Watching Who? - We are! The big brown dog and the gang of misfits enter the DS with another adventure. The bad guys won't win because of those pesky kids.

Clubhouse Games - The only game targeting the adult audience. Forty-two games in one. Need we say more? Yeah...a chat feature. A game to play while the kids are sleeping or playing one of the games above.

Monster Bomber is a puzzle game that challenges you to power up and fling different colored balls on the touch screen to hit rapidly descending, multi-colored monsters on the top screen. By destroying all monsters you move to another stage. But if they get their paws on you first, it's game over!

The game is said to be a hybrid of Space Invaders and Bust-A-Move. On the top screen, monsters of varying colors float around and make their way steadily down to a shield barrier at the bottom portion of the top screen. On the touch screen, there are a few colored wells corresponding to the colors of the monsters. Your mission is to blow up the monsters with a corresponding colored ball from the bottom by tapping the colored wells with the stylus. This generates a colored ball. Using your stylus, you can fling the ball upward at the target monsters on the top screen.

The complete game features are:

• Use the stylus to power up different colored balls and directionally launch them at the same colored monsters on the top screen
• Two single player modes - Scenario (choose your path through a total of 20 stages with multiple objectives in each) and Survival (eliminate as many monsters as possible)
• Use power-ups that affect the playfield, balls and monsters to gain temporary advantages
• Avoid power-down items that can hinder your progress
• Trigger chain attacks and explosions to destroy large numbers of monsters at once
• Five different monsters in varying colors have different characteristics that affect how you can beat them
• Avoid multiple obstacles like rotating walls and black holes
• Local wireless play for up to 4 players
• DS Download play - 4 players can play with just one Monster Bomber Game Card

Sounds like fun? The trailer looks even better!

Download: [Monster Bomber Trailer]

Majesco given out a press release outlining what games they will be showcasing next week at E3. One of the additions is a game we thought we'd never see outside of Japan, Cooking Mama. Keep reading for the games.

Guilty Gear Judgement (PSP)
Guilty Gear Judgement will be a two-in-one game. The UMD will contain both Guilty Gear X2 #Reload and a new side-scrolling adventure game. The Guilty Gear series is well known as one of the deepest fighting series' on the market.

MechAssault: Phantom War (DS)
Based on the best-selling game for the Xbox, MechAssault: Phantom War will let you use over 20 vehicles with fully upgradeable weapons. The game is a third person shooter in a sci-fi setting.

Monster Bomber (DS)
In Monster Bomber DS you will use the touchscreen to fling coloured balls upwards to bomb monsters. If the monsters reach you, you lose.

Cooking Mama (DS)
Cooking Mama is a quirky Japanese title in which you... cook. There are over 76 recipes to make in the game by using your stylus to chop, slice, dice, etc. You can even exchange recipes with other people by linking up with them. Could this be the next Trauma Center?