September 20 - September 24

Section: 

Sometimes it's tough for a variety of reasons to pick the Game of the Week. I know a number of you like to ascribe all kinds of hilarious and flatly incorrect theories to the crafting of GotW. It's an inelegant process, one where I look at the list of whatever is going to be released and make a relatively knee-jerk reaction about what stands out to me. What's the standard? The best game on the list? The most popular? The one with the best chance to succeed? The one I have the most to say about? The one I, personally, am most interested in?

Yep, all of those. And what applies this week won't apply next week. But, like I said, sometimes it's tough to pick. Maybe there are several good options. Maybe there are no good options. Maybe there's a good option, but frankly I just don't care about that option.

So, I'm grateful when a week comes along where there is only one choice. This is one of those weeks, one of the rare moments where it is trivially easy to choose and defend the choice. Civilization V is this week's Game of the Week. That's not opinion, folks. Them's just facts.

PC
- Sid Meier's Civilization V
- Darksiders

Xbox 360
- F1 2010
- DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue (XBLA)
- Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter (XBLA)

PS3
- F1 2010
- High Velocity Bowling
- DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue (PSN)

Wii
- Club Penguin Game Day!
- New Carnival Games

DS
- Dreamworks 2-in-1 Party Pack
- New Carnival Games
- Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City
- Farm Frenzy: Animal Country
- Jewels of the Tropical Lost Island
- Midnight Mysteries: The Edgar Allan Poe Conspiracy

Coming Soon

- Dead Rising 2 -- PC, 360, PS3 : September 28
- Fallout New Vegas -- PC, PS3, Xbox 360 : October 19
- Rock Band 3 -- Xbox 360, PS3 : October 26
- Fable 3 -- PC, Xbox 360 : October 26
- Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 -- PC, 360, PS3, Wii : October 26
- DC Universe Online : November 2
- Epic Mickey : November 30
- Little Big Planet 2 : January 18

Comments

Oh yeah! Civ 5! Been reading the strategy guide the past 2 days just for a fix. Can't wait!

My copy should ship tomorrow! I hope....

Damn, it's a shame the new DeathSpank is probably going to get sidelined for me. I really enjoyed the first one.

DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue (PSN)

Wait... what?

Should be getting my copy of Dead Rising 2 in the mail this week, that is if they haven't forgotten about me!

I got both PC releases this week on pre-load and ready to go

I cannot wait. This is going to be awesome.

The PSP is making a strong comeback this week!!!

Oh, wait ...

Oh man, I'm going on holiday end of Oct., but it's going to be awesome when I get back with Fable 3 and New Vegas waiting for me.

garion333 wrote:

The PSP is making a strong comeback this week!!!

Oh, wait ...

Big big week in PSP-land.

Some blockbuster titles dropping there. Personally I'm looking forward to ' 2', sequel to the highly successful ' '.

Top Stuff!

Pre-loaded Civ5 off steam and am itching to get playing.

I don't think I have been this excited about a Civ game since I bought my first PC and could "own" my copy rather than travel 30mins by bus to play it a mates house.

Bring on world domination!

I'm trying very hard to convince myself that I don't need Civ V. I have a bunch of good reasons (lack of time, lack of money, overloaded with game options already) but my resolve is weakening.

Wait...there's something out there to play OTHER than Minecraft?

The choice this week shows an obvious bias against Wii games. Clearly the GotW should have been New Carnival Games.

I usually find myself exasperated by "stuff that 'should've' been included in the first game" complaints, but I think the argument might actually hold water in the Deathspank sequel's case. They say it's coming out so soon because they developed it "concurrently" with the first one, which strikes me as code for "we didn't think we could get away with charging $30 for this game so we cut out half the content and called it a sequel so we could charge another $15 for it."

Not that I have a problem with that per se-- nothing wrong with breaking things up into smaller chunks where appropriate so that buyers can choose how much game they feel like buying-- but given the middling response the first game got, it seems like pushing the sequel back a year so that they could make some actual changes in response to criticism might've been a wiser choice than releasing what sounds by all accounts like more of the same.

I didn't care enough for the first Deathspank to even make the jump from the demo to paying for the game, and even most of the people I know who bought the first one don't exactly seem to be chomping at the bit for more quite this soon. I would've been more interested in a full-fledged sequel than what sounds like a glorified expansion pack.

Oh, is Civ 5 this week? I'll be over here trying really, really hard to pretend I don't want it as badly as I do. Stupid old crappy computer that can't run games for crap. Stupid not having enough money to buy/build a new one. I'll download the demo when it comes out just to see if maybe I can run it on the lowest settings, but I'm not hopeful-- my rig doesn't quite meet even the minimum system requirements, let alone the recommended.

Unlock. Unlock. Unlock. Unlock. Unlock. Unlock. I just keep whispering that to myself while I stare at the Tuesday drop date on the calendar. UNLOCK DAMN YOU!

You forgot the release of Cladun for the PSP this week. It's downloadable only, but still it's going to be an interesting title.

hbi2k wrote:

Not that I have a problem with that per se-- nothing wrong with breaking things up into smaller chunks where appropriate so that buyers can choose how much game they feel like buying-- but given the middling response the first game got, it seems like pushing the sequel back a year so that they could make some actual changes in response to criticism might've been a wiser choice than releasing what sounds by all accounts like more of the same.

The problem with that line of thinking is that if the developed the game to be two $15 games, then unless the first one sells beyond their wildest dreams, they have to release the second one on schedule. Delaying a year would up the development costs by a huge margin, and they wouldn't be able to make money selling it for $15. Of course, they still couldn't sell it for $30, even if it had a ton of bonus content, without people coming to their offices with pitchforks and torches ready.

Really, this was the only option.

That said, I'm getting Civ V, and probably passing on Deathspank.

Drekk wrote:

Wait...there's something out there to play OTHER than Minecraft?

I'm still on Starcraft II, haven't even made it to the new 'craft yet.

LarryC wrote:

The choice this week shows an obvious bias against Wii games. Clearly the GotW should have been New Carnival Games.

Drekk wrote:

Wait...there's something out there to play OTHER than Minecraft?

Not really....

I'm very interested in Civ V, but I have zero impulse to get it at release.

I'm glad to see Darksiders come to PC, so I will wait to hear how well it's been ported.

Drekk wrote:

Wait...there's something out there to play OTHER than Minecraft?

Sure there is. But I'm reminded of the late, great Paul Newman, who said, "Why go out for hamburger when you have steak at home?"

Civ5 is game of the year, dammit!

paketep wrote:

Civ5 is game of the year, dammit!

*shh* You're right, but if you call it 4 months before the year is over the other games don't try as hard

Easy week this week, spend more of my slowly dwindling supply of spacebucks on Thongs of Virtue. Absolutely loved the first one, and the backlog of games is too great to even think about Civ5 at the moment.

Infyrnos wrote:

Easy week this week, spend more of my slowly dwindling supply of spacebucks on Thongs of Virtue. Absolutely loved the first one, and the backlog of games is too great to even think about Civ5 at the moment.

I hope the first one goes on sale soon with the release of the sequel.

I'm very tempted to buy Civ V now, but I read a review that said to take heed of the system requirements, which includes a recommended quad core cpu, so I'm gonna wait and see if it runs fine with a dual core before I pull the trigger.

While waiting, I might grab Thongs of Virtue. I really liked the first DeathSpank, and this looks like more of the same funny, stylized hack-n-slash gameplay.

I want Civ V, but the rational side of me keeps telling me to keep playing Civ IV until the inevitable "Civ V Complete" comes out later for twenty bucks.

edosan wrote:

I want Civ V, but the rational side of me keeps telling me to keep playing Civ IV until the inevitable "Civ V Complete" comes out later for twenty bucks.

That's exactly my thought process. Civ V looks like the Civ I want, but gold/platinum/complete versions are inevitable, it's actually worth waiting.

I wish the Australian version of Civ V on Steam wasn't so darn expensive. 2K do that with Borderlands too, making me a grumpy Aussie.

The really sad thing is I'll probably go right ahead and get it anyway.

kazriko wrote:

You forgot the release of Cladun for the PSP this week. It's downloadable only, but still it's going to be an interesting title.

Is that this week? Wow. NIS games just come out of nowhere.

Civ V isn't an option for me so I'm all about F1 2010 and DeathSpank this week.

I've got F1 shipping slow-boat so I'll be lucky if it even lands on my desk by Friday (not holding my breath), but you can bet that I'll be purchasing DeathSpank as soon as it shows up online.

DS is my favorite downloadable this year (though Lara Croft XBLA comes close), so the politics of the "so soon" sequel don't bother me in the least. Besides, I got close to 20 hrs out of the original and Thongs of Virtue has been reported to be 50% longer.

It's a sweet week for me in spite of the fact that I don't have the hardware for Civ V. Codemasters is my favorite racing developer this gen. and DeathSpank is just a barrel of fun.