Namco/Bandai and developer Spike are planning on releasing two new Dragon Ball Z titles this Fall. One, Dragon Ball Raging Blast 2, takes last year's high-impact console fighter and not only tweaks some of the controls, but gives it a bit of a face-lift as well.

The new visual style of Raging Blast 2 still follows the cel-shaded nature of most console-DBZ titles, but with subtle changes that really make the characters pop and feel more substantial. In the past, Dragon Ball Z games have done a lot to keep the look of the characters close to the show’s style, and they have done a great job at it, but there is something about the slightly different look found in Raging Blast 2 that puts those past games to shame. It's hard to tell exactly what it is, but the characters just seem to pop more.

As for the game's core functionality, the fighting, this feels pretty much the same as the previous title. So fans of Raging Blast's controls are sure to find this sequel's handling a pleasure. What I did find interesting was a bullet point on the game's fact sheet claiming the game would take you out of the fight scenes as little as possible. “The story unfolds during battle, keeping you immersed in the action at all times." Exactly how Raging Blast 2 will handle this is unclear right now, but I suspect it will involve in-game cinimatics with the character models acting out the scenes instead of, like past games, simply telling you what happened or telling the story in other ways outside of the fights.

Raging Blast 2 also boasts a huge roster, though the advertised 90 playable characters count each transformation of a character separately. As a result, characters like Goku, Vegeta and Freeza who have multiple stages will actually count as three or four fighters. It is slated for release on both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

The other title being made by Spike is Dragon Ball Z: Tenkaichi Tag Team which lets you take part in 2 vs. 2 battles for the first time in a Dragon Ball game. This PSP title lets you fight against either several A.I. controlled characters, or take on friends via ad-hoc connection. In Tenkaichi Tag Team, you can choose from and customize 70 different characters in both the single player and multiplayer games.

Tag Team's Single-player campaign is called "Dragon Walker" and it takes you through key battles across the entire series; so you can expect major battles with Vegeta, Freeza, Cell and Majin Buu. It also offers other standard modes like Training, Versus and Survival.

While the number of Dragon Ball Z games have lessened over the years, what has been coming out lately has still been something most fans should enjoy. It looks like these two newest games are going to continue that trend.