September 5 - September 9

Section: 

Apologies for the late Week Ahead as we exit this long Labor Day weekend here in the US. It is a melancholy time, of course, as the official end of summer signals back to school, the end of wearing white and a bunch of arty movies filling the local googolplex. On the other hand, it does mean that the fall video game season is now officially on.

There are, admittedly, a lot of interesting games to choose from this week, including Dead Island, Resistance 3, StarFox 64 3D, Men of War:Vietnam and Driver: San Francisco. But, for my money, if Relic is releasing a new game in the Warhammer 40K universe then I'm going to give them my attention and probably my money.

I am, however, reaching that point where I'm starting to make tough decisions about games that may have to wait until next year because there are just too many games releasing that I want over the next month or two. A game like Dead Island or Resistance 3 released in June is a game I may have taken a chance on, but right now they are barely a blip on the radar.

PC
- Dead Island
- Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12: The Masters
- Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine
- Men of War: Vietnam
- Rock of Ages (download)

Xbox 360
- Dead Island
- Driver: San Francisco
- Rise of Nightmares
- Rugby World Cup 2011
- Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine
- Skydrift (XBLA)

PlayStation 3
- Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine
- Dead Island
- Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten
- Driver: San Francisco
- Resistance 3
- Skydrift (PSN)
- BloodRayne: Betrayal (PSN)

Wii
- Driver: San Francisco

Nintendo 3DS
- Driver: Renegade
- Star Fox 64 3D
- Puzzle Rocks (eShop)
- DotMan (eShop)

Nintendo DS
- DotMan (eShop - $1.99)
- Puzzle Rocks (DSiWare - $4.99)

Comments

Oh man, MOW Vietnam is this week also? What to do?

Well, I will definitely be getting Disgaea 4 and Rock of Ages. The question is will I force myself to finish DXHR before I allow myself to dive into Disgaea? I might need that kick in the butt to get me motivated to finish DX.

Anybody checking out Resistance 3? It should be en route shortly from GameFly and I'd love to play around with some of the co-op modes.

Argh... I totally spaced out on Disgaea 4. Poor, poor wallet.

Here's an important release: King of Dragon Pass is being released on the iPhone.

For those who don't know this game, it's a classic Mac/PC game where you play a clan of people in a magical world over several generations. It's different from Civ or other strategy games in that there is no micromanagement, and it has lots and lots of story elements. It reads extremely well, and has very nice art to illustrate the story.

It's getting released on Sept 8, according to the developer blog, for $10. Well worth the money!

My original plan was to limit myself to just Star Fox and Gears of War 3, but Warhammer and Resistance 3 are looking mighty tempting.

I'm glad to see Resistance 3 is garnering some pretty positive reviews. I still won't pick it up this week, as I'm engrossed in other things, but I'll definitely pick it up in awhile. If anything, it'll surely be $40 in some Thanksgiving sales.

SHOW ME WHAT PASSES FOR FURY AMONGST YOUR MISBEGOTTEN GAMES!

Nathaniel wrote:

Here's an important release: King of Dragon Pass is being released on the iPhone.

Excellent! I've been checking in on the progress of the iOS version at infrequent intervals, and it's great to know the release is imminent.

I still have my copy of the original game. I got really good at the season-to-season business of managing a clan, but things always went weirdly wrong when I attempted heroquesting.

Nothing really to threaten my pile discipline, thankfully. Dead Island looks good, though, and Rise of Nightmares seems fun but since I neither own a Kinect nor have seen any reviews for it, well, you get the picture.

Nathaniel wrote:

Here's an important release: King of Dragon Pass is being released on the iPhone.

For those who don't know this game, it's a classic Mac/PC game where you play a clan of people in a magical world over several generations. It's different from Civ or other strategy games in that there is no micromanagement, and it has lots and lots of story elements. It reads extremely well, and has very nice art to illustrate the story.

It's getting released on Sept 8, according to the developer blog, for $10. Well worth the money!

Echo.
I got to help Beta-test the iOS implementation and it has been fantastic. Really hard to put down and pretty much rock solid from the start. Haven't put as much time into the release-candidate versions that were put out, but that's only because Minecraft.

Trashie wrote:

Anybody checking out Resistance 3? It should be en route shortly from GameFly and I'd love to play around with some of the co-op modes.

Adam Sessler posted a very positive video blog about it. I wasn't paying attention to it because I felt burned by R2, but now that it's getting this sort of praise ...

Surely Starfox deserves it for the milestone of being an actual game on the 3DS.

El-Taco-the-Rogue wrote:

Surely Starfox deserves it for the milestone of being an actual game on the 3DS.

Except it's a re-release, and not anything actually new, sadly. So far the biggest games on 3DS are both re-releases.

I've been having a blast with Space Marine. I haven't had this much fun with a game since Deux Ex Human Revolution! Sadly, that seems to be how this fall will go.

Nevin73 wrote:

I've been having a blast with Space Marine. I haven't had this much fun with a game since Deux Ex Human Revolution! Sadly, that seems to be how this fall will go.

Yeah, life sucks.

Nathaniel wrote:

Here's an important release: King of Dragon Pass is being released on the iPhone.

For those who don't know this game, it's a classic Mac/PC game where you play a clan of people in a magical world over several generations. It's different from Civ or other strategy games in that there is no micromanagement, and it has lots and lots of story elements. It reads extremely well, and has very nice art to illustrate the story.

It's getting released on Sept 8, according to the developer blog, for $10. Well worth the money!

Like Rezzy, I was one of the beta testers. It's an excellent port - quite possibly better than the PC version.

Sorry for the thread necro, but this the closest we have for a Rise of Nightmares Catch-All, and I wanted to share my experience with the game.

It was a weird game, and really really short. After the opening / tutorial level, I woke up on a train and my character's wife was nagging him about alcohol or something. Then she left the train car and I followed her. When I got up near the front of the train, at one point a dead guy slammed his face into the window on the door to the next car and then slumped down leaving a bloody hand and face print.

So, like any sane person, I turned around and went as far in the opposite direction as I could. Nothing followed me, so I sat down in the rearmost car to wait for the train to stop so I could get even farther from whatever was killing people up near the front of the train.

Like I said, nothing followed me, and there was no reason to ever go any closer to whatever was killing people. So I guess I won. Weird game. Really short.

hbi2k wrote:

Sorry for the thread necro, but this the closest we have for a Rise of Nightmares Catch-All, and I wanted to share my experience with the game.

It was a weird game, and really really short. After the opening / tutorial level, I woke up on a train and my character's wife was nagging him about alcohol or something. Then she left the train car and I followed her. When I got up near the front of the train, at one point a dead guy slammed his face into the window on the door to the next car and then slumped down leaving a bloody hand and face print.

So, like any sane person, I turned around and went as far in the opposite direction as I could. Nothing followed me, so I sat down in the rearmost car to wait for the train to stop so I could get even farther from whatever was killing people up near the front of the train.

Like I said, nothing followed me, and there was no reason to ever go any closer to whatever was killing people. So I guess I won. Weird game. Really short.

Without looking at the list above I figured that an experience as silly sounding (for a whole game) as what you described had to be a free game. Wikipedia says it's a kinect game and that you didn't even get to the end of the first paragraph in the plot section.

Well, that's as far as my character got, because I decided to play the game as a sane person and not an idiot.

I mean, it's sad that he'll need to find a new wife, but there were plenty of pretty girls on the train. I'm sure some of them will survive.

I think I like my ending better than wherever the version where you enter the train car full of blood like an idiot goes.