The Glut, '09 Edition
The holiday season this year is getting started a bit early – September to be exact – with a rather massive glut of games that I’m personally very interested in. On top of the stuff I like there’s a ton of other great stuff coming in, but I’m not going to bother going on about them since they don’t particularly interest me. This post is mostly me working through what games I’m going to get on launch day – despite my ever growing backlog of titles – and which games I’ll be getting at a later date, hopefully after a price drop or three. These are in no particular order, just how they popped up on my Amazon wishlist. (Many of these have conflicting release date information, I'm using Amazon's dates for the time being)
NHL10/NHL2k10: Generally I pick up one NHL title at launch and then I’ll grab the other one much later on down the road. Last year it was NHL09, and the year before it was 2k8… this year, I don’t know yet. NHL09 was clearly the better of the titles last year, but NHL 2k10 is looking like a vast improvement over 2k9, so it might be a contender. This one will come down to which game plays better in the demo, with me biased towards NHL10 at the moment. Come September 15th, though, I will own one of these games.
IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey/Heroes Over Europe: I am a pilot, so my love for flight sims should come as no surprise. The current console generation has been sadly lacking in flight sims (Ace Combat 6 edging out HAWX in the end as the best so far… both Blazing Angels titles were abysmal, and Over-G was enjoyable, but forgettable), so the launch of two games billed as true sims coming out a week apart is a bit of a tough one. The IL-2 demo has been out for a bit, and plays beautifully. The arcade mode reminds me of Jane’s World War 2 game from the mid-90s (which I still play every now and again), and the sim mode is as unforgiving as you can get without being out and out frustrating (for the most part), but it’s also coming out on the same day as the NHL games and a week after Beatles Rock Band and a week before Halo 3: ODST… so… tough decision, really. Heroes Over Europe I’m interested in, but without a demo I’m not dropping $50 on a game whose predecessor (Heroes Over the Pacific) was rather crap. As a side note, though, if more publishers want to release titles at $50 instead of $60 (as both these games are), I will be more than happy to seriously contemplate purchasing your games on release day rather than waiting.
Beatles Rock Band/Lego Rock Band: Yes, I am excited about Lego Rock Band. No, I don’t have any kids, nephews or have friends with kids in the right age range. I also don’t care – I actually know most of the songs on the track list revealed so far, which is more than I can say for any Rock Band or Guiter Hero game released so far (except for Beatles Rock Band). I am not a musically inclined person, but I do love my Rock Band games… so a game where I actually know most of the songs? Sold! None of the band-centric Guitar Hero games so far have featured anyone I remotely care about, but the Beatles are actually very high on my list of favorite bands, so this is a no-brainer. Even if I only play the game off and on, like I do with Rock Band 2, it’ll be well worth every penny. Now bring on some Rock Band: Billy Joel and I’ll be thrilled (yes, I know Billy Joel is not a ‘band’… shut it)
Borderlands: The love-child of the RPG and FPS genres… perfect. Diablo as a first person shooter, that’s really all I need to know and I’m sold. I do wish there was some more character customization, but that’s a small price to pay for what should be an absurdly awesome loot-grind fest. The loot whore in me is already chomping at the bit.
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2: The first Marvel Ultimate Alliance was more fun than it had any right to be, and the sequel is apparently shaping up to be more of the same. That’s not a bad thing. Unfortunately it’s coming out right in the middle of the glut, so chances are it’ll be bumped back a bit. On the other hand, if Firestar is confirmed as a playable character I may just break down anyway. (Firestar has been my favorite character in the Marvel Universe since… forever). She’s appeared in a cutscene, but hasn’t been confirmed as a character yet. The thought of having a team of Deadpool, Songbird, Jean Gray and Firestar all together is… mind blowing.
Need for Speed: Shift/Forza 3: Of the two Forza 3 interests me more, due to how quickly Forza 2 grabbed me and made me its bitch. On the other hand, the whole reason I decided to track down racing games in the first place was the initial trailers for Need for Speed: Shift showing off it’s driver progression system (pro-tip: you want to make me interested in a game? Throw in an RPG-style progression system. Works every time). Shift, unfortunately, has the misfortune of coming out in the same week as the NHL games, and all the other games coming out in that time frame… which will almost certainly bump it. If I end up getting Marvel 2 then it’s definitely getting bumped. Forza 3, by comparison, only has to compete with Borderlands the week before it and Dragon Age the week after it… big competition to be sure, but the week buffer makes a huge difference. Also, the pre-order incentive for Forza 3 is downright sexy (and I’m not a car person by any stretch of the imagination).
Halo 3: ODST: This was initially going to be a ‘wait and see’ game, but the addition of Firefight mode bumped it up to a must-purchase for me. Also, I have a number of friends who I can hopefully join games with (a rather unique experience, unfortunately), so I look forward to taking advantage of the co-op experience of this game. I don’t own any of the Halo 3 map packs that aren’t free, too, so that goes a good way towards justifying the expense (and I’ll need those maps soon, for the Halo 3 league I’m in.)
Fallen Earth/Jumpgate Evolution: Both of these are MMOs, which is why they’re grouped together despite having no other common ground. Fallen Earth enters public beta next week, and that will decide whether or not I take a look at the full release in September. It also has to compete with Borderlands, which looks to be about the same in terms of gameplay/progression, but doesn’t have a monthly fee attached to it. Jumpgate Evolution keeps slipping backwards on the release schedule, and with no beta on the horizon it probably won’t even hit the market in 2009. Still, it’s a space combat game, which is a genre that’s even drier these days than the flight sim genre (Project Slypheed was pure crap). Barring Lucasarts reviving the X-Wing/TIE Fighter franchise (pleasepleasepleaseplease!), this is about the only game in the genre for the foreseeable future.
Dragon Age: Origins: I already have a pre-order down for the special edition, even though the marketing campaign for this game has been stupid. Bioware has long since earned my respect, and money, though, so I’m content to wait it out and ignore the trailers and screenshots for now. Initial previews have been less than glowing, unfortunately, but we’ll see where we stand come November.
That’s pretty much that. I’m sure as the holidays get closer a few more titles will crop up that perk my interest a bit. I may also get swept up in the hype machine, as I’m prone to do sometimes, on titles like Modern Warfare 2 and the like, but hopefully the crushing weight of my ever-growing backlog will keep me honest.
It’s going to be a very good holiday season.
Barring delays, this is how the list breaks down:
September 9 – Beatles Rock Band, Heroes Over Europe
September 15 – NHL10, NHL2k10, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, Need for Speed: Shift, IL-2 Strumovik: Birds of Prey
September 20 – Fallen Earth
September 22 – Halo 3: ODST
September 29 – Jumpgate Evolution
October 20 -- Borderlands
October 27 – Forza 3
November 3 – Lego Rock Band, Dragon Age