I’ve been in a really strange place, gaming-wise lately. It’s like I’m holding my breath, waiting for the deluge of holiday titles to hit.
I haven’t been playing any PC games (including MMOs) because of an RSI-ish injury to my arm. Keyboarding for too long starts to hurt a lot, and sadly I have to save my ‘good hours’ for work. I went to the doc yesterday and he gave me some drugs, so hopefully that problem will be in the past soon enough.
Over in console land, I picked up Need For Speed: Shift for the PS3 but (yeah, I’m whining at this point) the same arm injury causes my fingers to go numb (in a skin-deep way) on my left hand. I think because they’re numb I jam the shoulder buttons too hard when I brake (which you do a lot) in Need For Speed: Shift. Whatever the cause, playing that game for a weekend left me feeling like I’d crushed my finger with a hammer, so THAT was off the table.
So I moved on to Halo ODST on the 360, which I can play as much as I want to… but I’m just not feeling it. I jump in and play for 30 minutes or so and jump out. Put it this way… everyone says the campaign is 5-6 hours. I got ODST on launch day and haven’t finished the campaign yet. I know people love this game; I’m just not one of them. At least not yet. But then, I didn’t love Halo 3 either. I guess when so much emphasis is directed at multiplayer, the single player campaign is gonna slip some.
Anyway, I have gaming ennui!
/emo
Why? Because next week, Demon’s Souls is coming out for the PS3 and I’ve been looking forward to it since a friend played, and raved about, the import version. It’s supposed to be a pretty difficult game, which honestly isn’t often my style, but this time I’m ready to embrace the challenge…for a week.
Why for a week? Because the following week Uncharted 2 and Brutal Legend both come out. I loved Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and the reviews of the sequel have been universally positive. I can’t wait to play! And after sampling the Brutal Legend demo, I’m eager to play it, too. Though I’ll admit, part of why I’m buying this at launch is just to support Tim Schafer, who finally seems to be getting the recognition he deserves.
And then the week after that (the 20th?), Borderlands comes out. With a high co-op factor, it is again a game I want to play at launch. It’s no good playing a co-op game 6 months after it’s come out, right? Either no one will be playing, or everyone that IS playing will be uber compared to you. So I gotta get that.
But that’s 4 games in 3 weeks. That’s stupid… there’s no way I can play games that fast. And yet I’m still gonna do it, budget be damned. We’ll just go without heat for a few weeks. We have blankets!
And then there’s Dragon Age: Origins coming out on November 3rd… and that looks like it’ll own me for a while. I’ll need to clear my calendar for that one. Heck, I was thinking I had some breathing room in there but I guess that’s just two weeks after Borderlands. /sigh
I guess if there’s a good time to not be able to game on the PC, we’re coming up to it (though I had planned on getting Borderlands on the PC, I guess I’ll go Xbox 360 instead, given the circumstances). I just wish next week would arrive so I can get going!
In the meanwhile, I’m finding I really miss Fallen Earth, of all the MMOs I play. Maybe because I was in full swing playing it when I had to curtail PC gaming? Or maybe it’s just an unpolished jewel? Not sure, really.
A whole bunch of holiday titles slipped into 2010, and there are still this many great games coming out (I certainly haven’t mentioned them all). Can you imagine if they’d all launched 4th quarter 2009!?
So what’s everyone else buying between now and, say, Thanksgiving. Any plans?
Many people seem to find something special in Fallen Earth, I wondered about that recently. So you are not alone!
I do not have many plans to buy games in near future, GW2 for sure, but this is still far far away. Siege of Mirkwood, though I am not too enthusiast about MMOs in general at the moment. I have not checked Dragon Age yet, but I read some pretty good things about it here and elsewhere.
Games you might not have on your radar, but which I highly recommend:
1.) King’s Bounty expansion “The Armored Princess”. I loved King’s Bounty, I am sure Princess Amelie will not disappoint me either. 🙂
2.) Mount & Blade’s multiplayer expansion “Warband”: Currently beta-testing, not only the multiplayer part is interesting, some extras and stuff for the singleplayer part are part of the package, too. Who can resist mounted medieval warfare? I can’t! 🙂
If you cannot play because of this really awful RSI-style injury (I feel with you! :(), consider picking up Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden or Codex Alera series, really good fantasy stuff to read and enjoy. I also recommend “The Painted Man” by Peter V. Brett, it might be called “The Warded Man” in the USA.
Funny, I plan on playing Borderlands a few months after it comes out. There are just too many multiplayer titles to play around the same time, which most of my friends will be busy with (that and Halloween season = busy for geeks). With Left4Dead2 coming on its heels and my plan to dig into Fallen Earth around the same time– I’m looking forward to Borderlands, but I’ll probably buy it after Christmas.
Missing the high pop of general players during release, that won’t matter much to me. As a co-op game, I’ll play it just like L4D: friends-only.
Despite all the games I’ve picked up recently (check out my blog for the rundown), there are a few titles I’m looking forward to before the end of the year. Assassin’s Creed 2, Final Fantasy XIII, Lego Rock Band (MORE LEGO!!), God of War III (this game looks AMAZING), Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack In Time, Super Mario Bros. Wii (multiplayer Mario!), Rabbids go Home! (I love the Raving Rabbids series), and I could have sworn there were rumors of a new Zelda, but that might not be until next year. Oye, Pete! Just like you, it’s going to be a tough fall for time management!!
Are you getting Borderlands on PC or 360? Talyn and I already have it preordered on 360.
I might consider the PC version if my computer wasn’t so old. And I’m used to playing shooters on console, anyway.
I *had* been planning on the PC version, but now I don’t know… No sense getting the PC version if I can’t play it! I haven’t pre-ordered it either way, since if I was going PC I’d do a digital edition.
I’m in a strange place with gaming, too. I reactivated my WoW account, deactivated Champions Online, and really want a good console RPG experience that I think only Square can give me. I want a really good Final Fantasy game, but there’s not one I really want to delve into right now. I like PvPing on my Priest (which is why I reactived WoW in the first place), but there’s something missing. I think that’s narrative.
Any good recommendations on high quality jRPGs these days before FFXIII comes out?
In my honest opinion after buying and playing the import version of Demon’s Souls, don’t get it unless you’re prepared for unrelenting difficulty. You’ll save money that way. 🙂
Thanks for the warning, Victor. I keep hearing how difficult it is and that’s part of what has me interested, actually. When I put up my blog post about what a difficult, frustrating game Demon’s Souls is, you can giggle at me for not listening. 🙂
Oh, and Prof Beej, the only JPRG that springs to mind would be Lost Odyssey on the 360. I’ve heard pretty good things about that one (sorry I didn’t reply sooner!)