October 24 - October 28

Section: 

At the beginning of the fall, it's fun to see release lists full of games again, but that joy does not hold and eventually the list seems corpulent and bloated. The thing is that all this stuff that you've never heard of and will never hear from again — it sells. 'Tis the time of year when how festive and fun your box is matters as much if not more than how good your game actually is.

I've been in the trenches on Black Fridays and the Saturday before Christmas — arguably the real biggest shopping day of the year. I know the look of manic desperation that shadows over the faces of temporarily claustrophobic shoppers as they make rapid-fire decisions on presents by swiping up the first shiny bauble that catches their eyes. I've had to reorder games like Monster High: Ghoul Spirit and Squinkies 2: Adventure Mall Surprize!, while critical darlings and fan favorites get lost in the shuffle.

Shovelware works.

My game of the week is Battlefield 3, which I recognize somewhat grudgingly. Truth is, I was never able to get the PC version of the beta to start out of the browser-based launcher, and I'm still not a fan of having to operate out of Origin. So let me go ahead and stop all of you champing at the bit to fire off angry quips about EA's delivery. I'm way ahead of you. But, to be honest, there's no game I'm looking forward to more this week. Dance Central 2 could be a quiet hit for Harmonix and hopefully Kinect Sports: Season 2 will give me a reason to use my Kinect again. But, Battlefield holds a special place in my heart, and I really hope that it's shaken out into something worth being excited about.

You know, once I can actually start the game.

PC
- ArcaniA - Fall of Setarrif
- Battlefield 3
- Dead Rising 2: Off the Record
- Disney Universe
- Family Vacation
- Stronghold 3
- Sword of the Stars II: Lords of Winter
- The Haunted: Hells Reach
- Ignite (download)
- Renegade Ops (download)

Xbox 360
- Battlefield 3
- Dance Central 2
- Disney Universe
- Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi
- Just Dance Kids 2
- Kinect Sports: Season Two
- Puss in Boots
- The Cursed Crusade
- The War of the Worlds (XBLA)
- Zombie Apocalypse: Never Die Alone (XBLA)
- Daytona USA (XBLA)

PS3
- Battlefield 3
- Disney Universe
- Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi
- Just Dance Kids 2
- Puss in Boots
- The House of the Dead: Overkill - Extended Cut
- Worms Crazy Golf (PSN)
- inFamous: Festival of Blood (PSN)
- PixelJunk SideScroller (PSN)

Wii
- Active Life: Magical Carnival
- Centipede: Infestation
- Just Dance Kids 2
- Kirby's Return to Dream Land
- Monster High: Ghoul Spirit
- Puss in Boots

Nintendo 3DS
- Captain America: Super Soldier
- Centipede: Infestation
- Nikoli's Pencil Puzzle
- Pokémon Rumble Blast
- Zoo Resort
- Academy: Checkers (eShop - $5)

PSP
- inviZimals: Shadow Zone

Nintendo DS
- I Spy Castle
- Monster High: Ghoul Spirit
- Puss in Boots
- Squinkies 2: Adventure Mall Surprize!
- Academy: Checkers (DSiWare - $5)

Comments

- Renegade Ops (download)

Pffft. How many weeks in a row now?

Edit: What's this now?

- PixelJunk SideScroller (PSN)

Whoa. Talk about under the radar for me.

Pretty sure there's a precedent for everything sucking and nothing getting the nod. Just sayin.

Personally, I've exceeded my annual video game purchasing budget by leaps and bounds in peripherals alone, so if I don't already have it, that's not likely to change.

garion333 wrote:

Pffft. How many weeks in a row now?

Bah beat me to it.

GF is picking up Kirby's Return to Dream Land today. The last co-op Wii game we tried was DKC Returns and that utterly decimated us around World 2. Hoping this is a return to to the great experiences we've had with New Super Mario, Galaxy 2 and Epic Yarn.

Battlefield 3 for the PC is already ordered and pre-loaded. I'm curious to see how Stronghold 3 shakes out. Loved the original back in the day, but the follow-ups never managed to grab me.

Certis wrote:

I'm curious to see how Stronghold 3 shakes out. Loved the original back in the day, but the follow-ups never managed to grab me.

I still play the original once in a while, but I skipped the sequel due to bad reviews. If Stronghold 3 turns out to be a good modernization of the original, I may pick it up during the upcoming holiday Steam sale.

For PS3 owners with a Move, I can recommend House of the Dead: Overkill if you haven't already played the Wii version. It's a fun, if way vulgar, rail shooter.

Certis wrote:

Battlefield 3 for the PC is already ordered and pre-loaded. I'm curious to see how Stronghold 3 shakes out. Loved the original back in the day, but the follow-ups never managed to grab me.

You remember when we were playing RO2 and I said I wasn't buying BF3 for a while. I lied.

stevenmack, I'm also looking forward to War of the Worlds. It looks surprisingly good.

No one could have believed, that in the last days of the month of October, that xbox live was being watched from the timeless worlds of...well here. No one could have dreamed that I was scrutinising the new release list, as some one with a microscope would scrutinise a....really small release list. Few men even considered the possibility that a side scrolling platform game was a fitting medium for a classic science fiction novel.

And yet, across the gulf of the interwebs, minds only vaguely less mundane than ours, regarded my wallet with envious eyes.

And slowly, surely, used our leftover microsoft points against us...

...also Renegade Ops looks like it might be worth a look

Elysium wrote:

Squinkies 2: Adventure Mall Surprize!

My first thought was that you had made this up on the spot. Apparently not.

Fall of Setarrif, huh? Maybe I'll pick it up someday when it's on sale. Arcania had a lot of potential, but it turned into a bug-ridden slog. Still, I gave it a shot; I gave up on it about 2/3rd of the way through, when trying to import my Steam save game files to my new computer caused it not to launch. It works fine on a clean install, but there's no way in hell I'm replaying all of that.

MeatMan wrote:
Certis wrote:

I'm curious to see how Stronghold 3 shakes out. Loved the original back in the day, but the follow-ups never managed to grab me.

I still play the original once in a while, but I skipped the sequel due to bad reviews. If Stronghold 3 turns out to be a good modernization of the original, I may pick it up during the upcoming holiday Steam sale.

Me too. Stronghold 2 was pretty good, though the scripting in some of the missions could be brutal.

Though with Skyrim around the corner and Forza 4 STILL needing some of my quality time, I'll be waiting for the winter doldrums before I jump in. Unless, that is, I hear it's kick-ass. Then I'm doomed.

Super excited for the release of Pokemon Rumble Blast. I will try and remember to pick that up at work tomorrow.

Daytona USA will remind me how bad I am at coming in first place in that game. Zombie Apocalypse was ok, but I don't think a sequel is warranted without some serious changes to the monotony and repetition. Smash TV with zombies sounds like it should be cool, but, it kind of missed the mark somewhere.

I am very excited to see Sword of the Stars 2, Stronghold 3 and Take On Helicopters.

I have BF3 pre-ordered, but I'm not sure what the server situation in Asia is going to be like. I believe BF3 will have legs, so I won't feel bad about putting off playing for a bit.

But yeah, SotS2 looks like a space sim-lover's wet dream. That combat is straight-up sexy.

Stronghold 3 could be very good or very bad. I loved Stronghold: Crusader and building castles to defend against the infidels. I'm hoping Stronghold 3 lives up to that legacy.

Take on Helicopters is absent from your list, but I think it deserves a spot. It promises to be the kind of flight sim I'm looking for: one that accurately does helicopters, looks pretty and has a story to keep me involved. This should be a game that I can pick up every once in a while and play for 20-30 minutes at a time.

What's all this "shaking out" talk?

Battlefield 3 for PC for me this week. Interested to hear impressions of PixelJunk Sidescroller and will probably pick up Daytona USA at some point. Dayyyyytoooooonaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Is Renegade Ops ever really being released on PC? It's kind of ridiculous at this point.

BNice wrote:

Is Renegade Ops ever really being released on PC? It's kind of ridiculous at this point.

Wait, isn't it releasing tomorrow on Steam?

And if Origin doesn't suck, hog memory or CPU, and work as good as Steam... Maybe I'll bite on BF3 at Christmas.

I'm only interested in the InFamous DLC, thankfully.

I'm really into Arkham City (despite not having touched the story yet, beyond the intro bits that you have to do!), haven't finished Driver, need to put some serious time into Gears 3 online, haven't started Dark Souls, or Space Marine yet...the list goes on.

I actually took a personal day today to go crazy on BF3. So far, so good. Game runs in all high settings at 1600*900 on my GTX 550 Ti and looks beautiful.

Really disappointed in the single player so far though. I usually like to finish a game first before diving into multiplayer, but the quicktime events have been so stupid and distracting that it's driven me away.

Oh well, back to multiplayer.

Itsathief wrote:
BNice wrote:

Is Renegade Ops ever really being released on PC? It's kind of ridiculous at this point.

Wait, isn't it releasing tomorrow on Steam?

And if Origin doesn't suck, hog memory or CPU, and work as good as Steam... Maybe I'll bite on BF3 at Christmas.

It's been delayed a couple of times. This last time it was delayed merely hours before unlocking. We don't believe it will ever release.

Woot! Kirby's return to Dreamland!

So, so, so looking forward to this one.

doubtingthomas396 wrote:

Woot! Kirby's return to Dreamland!

So, so, so looking forward to this one.

Ooh, I missed that one. That will be a Christmas present for my daughter. Yes. My daughter. Not me.

Mario in a couple of weeks...that will make it all better. Please god, make it all better.

I have to say that even with the free games, I'm starting to regret my 3DS purchase

There just isnt any games for it