As most gamers know, especially the degenerate ones like myself the holidays is a time for getting your friends and family shitty gifts while you squirrel away additional funds to keep up with the hellish video game release schedule. What you may or may not have noticed but it would appear that this week in particular could be the start and the end of the whole thing with every damn thing being pushed out. Ok, maybe thats a bit of an exaggeration, but this is easily, and in fact, the only week that really has a flux of noteworthy titles. Unfortunately that means I probably won’t get into the Upcoming Releases like I did this time of year last year, but I will let you know how things will be going for me this week and why. Sadly, it would seem however that the family is looking like they may come out winners this season due to lack of content!

Kirby's Epic Yarn

I already posted about this, but because Nintendo is weird and likes to do things on Sundays, this is already out but I’m still counting it this week. In a nut shell, it’s incredibly cute, and quite fun even though it is very clear that I’m not the intended audience for that game. This my friends is the power of Nintendo.

Vanquish

DJ Hero 2

I admit this as a guilty pleasure, I had some fun with the original but not enough to invest anymore time in it. That is until I played the demo for Dj Hero 2. The additional of freestyle crossfades and scratches created a situation that can be really rewarding when you pull something off that actually sounds good. I fluked it a couple times in the demo but I can imagine if you get really familiar with the songs you can do some really neat stuff.

Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2

I recently finished the original Ultimate Ninja Storm, and I really enjoyed the combat later in game when the opponents actually fought back, people aren’t really talking much about the adventure mode in UNS2 and I think that’s going to be the key to me getting through it in less time than it took the last one. This would appear to be good solid fun for Naruto fans.

Fallout New Vegas

And finally, and honestly least interesting to me, Fallout New Vegas, I won’t be picking this up tomorrow, it was weird, it seemed like the more information that trickled out about it the less interested I was in it. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Fallout 3, but there is something about this one that doesn’t smell right. I’m going to wait for the dust to settle, and most likely wait for a decent steam sale on this one.

That sums on this week though, a pretty good haul I must say… sadly, next week we’ve got Rock Band 3, and the week after I believe in Kinect, and Dance Central (oh come on, it’ll be hoot). Call of Duty shortly after that. And sadly, that’s it for these season folks. I’d still say this was a good year for gaming it just happened in March instead. Oh well I guess this is just going to help fun all the Rock Band pro mode gear I’m going to need to buy.

If you’ve been keeping up, you’ll remember that I had some concerns about the holiday season line up this year. Since then, both The Last Guardian (at no surprise to me), and Crysis 2 have been pushed back to 2011. So to recap (loosely) what is still coming that I’m at least moderately interested in.

We’ve got the hardware battle to think about, the girlfriend has been sold on Kinect, and specifically Dance Central, so that’ll be around, but to be honest, I may not be able to play that game due to pride constraints. I think move is interesting, I could play some of that, however… I have no interest in the launch titles at this point, on top of that, like all new tech, it’s going to take a while (I’d say almost a year), for developers to be able to deal with the hardware, while Move has an advantage here because one could assume that Wii developers have some experience here and would be able to get a head start on the learning curve, the disheartening part is that most of the good games on the Wii were made by Nintendo, I think the only exception is going to be Red Steel, a game I felt was limited only by the technical short comings of the Wii hardware. When this team makes a game for the Move I’ll pay attention, and perhaps some credit to Team Ninja for the upcoming work with “The Other M”.

Consoles

We’ve got the EA sports 11 line up, Football and Hockey are going to be bought for certain, that’s great because the franchise modes there can be a huge time sink if I can get into them. A few no brainers, Gran Turismo 5, Fallout: New Vegas, RockBand 3 (I still play RockBand or Guitar Hero a couple times a week). Vanquish won me over with the media bust about a month ago, and while I assumed I was going to pass on the upcoming Call of Duty offering, I don’t think I’ll be able to resist when the time comes. The upcoming Spiderman game has some potential, but I’ve got major concerns, that I’ll share in a focused post in the near future. Little Big Planet 2 will make an appearance. Maybe Max Payne 3 if it does actually make it out this year (I assume this one will be the next to be pushed into next year).

A couple Wii games worth thinking about, but it’s hard for me to get excited for a Wii game at this point, Metroid: The Other M, and Kirby Epic Yarn are on that list.

PC

Civ 5 should be a good time, and I’ll try Final Fantasy XIV when it comes out. Truthfully I’ll probably end up with fallout for PC in the end.

It sounds like a lot of games to play, but when I think of last year’s holiday season, there were games every week starting in September that were must buys, and then a couple more in the months that were compelling enough to consider buying. This is going to be a slow holiday for the hobbyist gamer like me. The kind of gamer who really gets into the single player of an experience and then moves on.

I mentioned about a month ago now that this spring has been unlike any I’d seen in terms of quality video game releases, most notably for me (and probably slightly different than many of the media outlets) Skate 3, Prince of Persia, and Super Mario Galaxy (review will be available when I finish it… suffice to say I’m really enjoying it). It seems from the e3 announcements that this trend is going to continue next year with most of the major releases (Killzone 3, Gears 3, Bulletstorm, Deus Ex, Red Faction, Ghost Recon, Rage, Dead Space 2, Brink, is that enough?) happening after the holidays with the exception of GT5. I think this is mostly likely related to the release of Kinect and Move in the fall… and I don’t know if it’s as sinister as this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the ‘triple A’ titles (at the very least the exclusives) were intentionally pushed back in an effort to starve us into making these hardware purchases. Since we’re on the topic, Kinect coverage impressed me more than I thought it would, and perhaps more importantly for Microsoft it thoroughly impressed my girlfriend. Impressed to the point of her being ready to pre-order it before the price has even been determined, and frankly I don’t think it would matter to her what it cost as long as she could also get her hands on dance central (kudos to Harmonix for selling a peripheral on Microsoft’s behalf). I think she was disappointed the DDR never made an appearance at my place, and will not sit by idly while it happens again.

As it stands today, there is really only 5 or 6 games on the home console (I add this because Star Craft 2, and Dragon Quest IX are on the immediate future agenda) I REALLY want to play before February. [Crysis 2, The Last Guardian (hasn't been pushed back yet... I expect it will be since there was no news at e3 about it..), Fallout: New Vegas, Rockband 3, the others are escaping me at the moment)]

Harkening back to afore mentioned post, I have played most everything on that list that I still intend to at this point apart from Trauma Team (shush already, I want to play it), and Alan Wake, both are actually en route via amazon as I type… so the question is, what am I going to do for the next 8 months or so before we get another hectic stretch like that. I’ve been finding shallow comfort in xbox DLC that I’ve missed during my time away from the console. ‘splosion man, shadow complex, and trials hd (I LOVE TRIALS GAMES!), but once those are gone what am I going to do for games? suggestions? Best case scenario I find an MMO to sink 1000 hours into but seeing as I’ve had my fill of World of Warcraft it seems, and I’ve tried pretty much every other major MMO that came out as they came out and they weren’t that interesting ergo I think it’s unlikely. Thanks to EA and Steam sales last week, I have decided to give Mass Effect, and Dragon Age another chance. Maybe in a less cluttered release schedule, I will be able to devote enough time for the games to ‘take off’ in a way that I find compelling enough to see through…

So yea… I’m not at all comfortable with the lack of games coming how am I going to spend my free time… trophy hunting?