I may be in the minority here, but I’m more interested in Aliens: Colonial Marines. I have the first Borderlands and tried to like it, but playing it both co-op and single player, I just didn’t find it much fun. I understand why others like it though, but it’s not for me. I’m a huge Alien fan though, so I am at least interested in one of their games coming out. Whether it turns out great or not is beside the point right now though.

Cloud-gaming company OnLive has its lost founder, president, and CEO Steve Perlman, the firm has announced. Perlman left the Palo Alto, California company to pursue a “myriad of other projects,” though none of these were named.

The company also announced that Gary Lauder, managing director of Lauder Partners LLC, will become OnLive’s new chairman. In addition, former head of OnLive operations Charlie Jablonski will become OnLive’s COO and acting CEO.

“The new OnLive is emerging with greater financial security and a brighter outlook on the future,” reads a line from Lauder’s statement on the corporate shuffling. “OnLive is now positioned to execute against longer-term projects with our breakthrough technology, products and services.”

Earlier this month, rumors of OnLive’s death proved to be exaggerated. The company’s entire assets were sold, but the firm will continue as a newly formed outfit. All current OnLive initiatives remain uninterrupted, and the new company plans to rehire a “large percentage” of those previously affected.

Have you ever wondered what would happen if back in 1995, the developers behind Command & Conquer were to integrate Frank Keplacki’s industrial funk soundtrack in its actual gameplay mechanic? Developers Acquire ran with that possibly-strange train of thought, with the result being an oddity of a game called Orgarhythm.

In all seriousness, it’s not that hard to explain Orgarhythm’s gameplay, despite its unique look and genre fusion. You just have to assign commands to your tribal foot soldiers to protect your always-grooving God of Light avatar from harm via touchscreen buttons. After picking the commands, you then drag them on to the screen to position your units to attack oncoming monsters.

The action takes place from a top-down perspective, like a real-time strategy game. However, there’s not much in way of extreme micromanaging, like StarCraft or the aforementioned Command & Conquer games. You just have to use your elemental-themed minions against enemies with the opposite element, so that they don’t get hurt real bad (blue against red, red against yellow, and yellow against blue).

You can also choose different types of units to deploy. The standard melee troops will rush and attack enemies up-close, depending on where you send them to, while the archers will hit enemies hiding behind barricades and high-rise platforms. The catapult units take a while to volley rocks, but they deal huge damage.

Your God of Light can also cast spells if there’s some meter in his support gauge; it increases for each friendly and enemy unit that dies. His repertoire includes buffing the defence and attack strength of his followers, a healing spell, and a slow spell to render enemies in a temporary molasses-like state. If the gauge is maxed out, you can cast down a light of judgment spell that heals allies and kills enemies with bright lightning.

While this sounds like your God is well-armed, the real challenge is to take into account all of the action on-screen, while tapping commands in accordance to the beat of the background music. If you follow the rhythm, you’ll buff up your units and they can take/dish out more than usual. Visual cues to help you out include a rhythm wave that pulses on the centre of the screen and gets bigger if you time your taps just right.

Furthermore, tapping the commands consecutively in a row (tap-tap-tap), instead of pausing after each input (tap-pause-tap-pause-tap), will get you a bigger unit and buff bonus. Fail to follow the beat, and your army gets miniscule and weak.

In practice, this takes some time to get used to. While the first two stages on the single-player mode were easy for us to get into the groove to, we had a bit of trouble on the fourth stage, since its background music had a much faster tempo than usual. Luckily, the game’s AI makes sure that enemies don’t bum rush you as quickly as other units in other RTSs, giving you enough time to get into the rhythm, before issuing commands. Still, players can get overwhelmed with bad guys if they’re not paying attention.

Each of the four levels we played had their own end-of-level bosses. Using our quick rhythm skills and unit deployment, we bested a giant stone monolith that spits out rocks, a ziggurat with three different-coloured dragon heads corresponding to an element, and a stone horse demon-thing that’s quick on its feet and charges at you during intervals.

At this point in time, Orgarhythm is a weird creature of a title that warrants play — the closest comparison would be the Patapon series on the PSP. It’s hard to say whether it surpasses the aforementioned series on the gameplay front, but it’s got enough of a unique aesthetic tribal flavour. Plus, it’s got ad-hoc co-op and competitive play if you can get a buddy along for the beat-inducing ride.

Orgarhythm is out right now in Japan and Asia regions; the latter version is in English.

The MMORPG genre shows few signs of running out of steam, which is lucky for this week’s major release: Guild Wars 2. This online fantasy-themed PC game is the sequel to the episodic Guild Wars from developer ArenaNet.

Guild Wars 2 puts players into a persistent fantasy world that is driven by a range of dynamic events. ArenaNet global brand manager Chris Lye has spoken about subscription-based models in the past, citing that it may not be an optimal idea for today’s massively multiplayer online games. The game will cost money to buy, but will not require a monthly paid subscription to continue playing.

For those who prefer their fantasy RPGs in the offline world, Tales of Graces F may be more suitable. The latest entry in Namco Bandai’s long-running Tales series, the game is a PlayStation 3 port of the Wii Tales of Graces, and was released in North America earlier this year to positive reception.

The story takes place on Efinea, a planet dominated by three kingdoms that are competing for the right to rule. After losing a close friend, Asbel, the eldest son of a feudal lord, enlists in a knight’s academy in his kingdom’s capital to learn to better protect those he loves. Asbel’s father subsequently dies, and Asbel then takes his place.

Have more of a preference for sports games? Madden NFL 13 hits local stores this week, and has been cited as “the best version of the long-running franchise yet” in our GameSpot review. The game’s new Infinity engine, which allows procedurally generated animations to affect the outcome of plays, is chief among the in-game updates, as well as the inclusion of Kinect voice support before and during plays.

For the other games that are out this week, see the full list below:

August 28, 2012
Guild Wars 2 (PC)

August 29, 2012
Joe Danger 2: The Movie (360)
Rock Band Blitz (360)
WWE Wrestlefest (360)

August 30, 2012
Madden NFL 13 (PS3, 360)
Tales of Graces F (360)