My Games of 2012, Part 1

I have been putting this off and putting it off more than usual and that's mostly because I've been given the leisure to do so.  It is Game of the Year time, or at least, it -was-, but given that I use the voting over at a few forums, namely the Penny Arcade ones which didn't start until this week (Last Sunday, I believe), to make my list, I've just been stewing on it til tonight.  Tonight, I sat down, I opened a spreadsheet and input the games I'd played last year (well, 20 of them.  I played 21 friggin' new games last year) and began the arduous task of ordering them.  Ranking them from 20-1, wracking my brain the entire time over whether I wanted this game over that one or that game under this one.  Twenty Games is a -lot- of goddamn games, so it makes a hard decision that much more difficult, but I managed to come up with a list that I'm satisfied with even though it was damn rough putting it together.

2012 was a friggin' big year in gaming, because even as I perused the list of games to add to my own, I must've ticked off three or four games at least that I -could- own, that I -could- have played, that I sort of -wanted- to own and play, but there was just no damn time for it.  This last week and a half, I played over five of the games that ended up making my list and that's not because I was -waiting- to play them or anything, simply that it was opportune to do so.  I could swing playing them now and be able to give them a fair shake.  Granted, I did stray here and there last year playing games that I -couldn't- vote for (namely Final Fantasy XIII and Demon's Souls) but there were reasons for those (for the former, so I could appropriately judge FFXIII-2, and the latter because it's goddamn Demon's Souls) and most of these games that I played just recently weren't in my possession prior to December anyway.  Still, I'm stalling now, so I'm going to jump right in this.  As I have twenty games in my list, it's going to require quite a few posts, but I don't want to straggle them out too much.  This first post will have my bottom five, and perhaps tomorrow I'll cover a good portion of the next bit of it over a single post or maybe two.  Just to get them out there and get this done and dusted.

20.  Final Fantasy XIII-2

You're probably thinking, "Woah, hey Mogs, you hated Final Fantasy XIII-2!  Why is it on your Games of the Year list?"  And that is an entirely valid wonder to have.  Because I kind of wondered myself on whether or not it would even show up.  The only thing I had below it was MotorStorm RC (Because fuck that game, stupid goddamn drifting and grumble, grumble) and it would have been a simple matter to leave them -both- off my list, to only have 19 games to cover.  That probably would've been the wisest course to take, really, but there is something important to Final Fantasy XIII-2, much as I am begrudging to admit it.  Final Fantasy XIII-2 was Squeenix's attempt, a real honest attempt, to do all sorts of different things, to go wild after the wildly constrained Final Fantasy XIII, and to improve it.  That they failed miserably, utterly and completely is its own condemnation, but I do have to hand it to them for at least -trying- instead of directly going to the next numbered Final Fantasy game that A) won't be out for like two or three years at -best- and B) will be all sorts of different itself, possibly in good ways, possibly in bad ways, but not very likely to have a lot in common with XIII.

Final Fantasy XIII was a good game mired in bad decisions and Final Fantasy XIII-2 was a bad game dragging down good ideas.  They're victims of their own extreme natures, but that there was -something- good about XIII-2 is enough to qualify it for my list, even if it is the very bottom spot.  There is also a very small (read:  like huge) chance that the voice-work of Liam O'Brien and Laura Bailey in the same game did wonders for its playability when the actual game itself did not.  While it may a bit silly that I would hold either of those in that high regard, in some ways, there is something to be said for production values and the things associated with that, as even the most fun game could be dragged down by less-than-quality voice-overs for the simple fact that you do still have to listen to those at some point, much as you have to play a mini-game at some point (for, let's face it, like most games) or have to really take a look at some of the texture quality at some point.  It's all just to get a general opinion of a game and that is the name of the game here.

19.  Resistance:  Burning Skies

The fact that I played Resistance:  Burning Skies, got the Platinum trophy in it and reviewed it, yet I don't really remember a whole lot about it is probably a good indicator of why it went so low on my list.  At the end of the day, Burning Skies just wasn't a very memorable game one way or another.  It was decent in quality, neither good nor bad and I think that that's almost worse than being bad since it just leaves it to get forgotten as you move on to other games that actually invoke something in you, whether it is positive or negative.  It's only because I actually liked the game a little bit for not being bad that it topped FFXIII-2, for instance and otherwise it was just a game that existed, that I bought and played and then moved on from.    Really, for as much as I like Resistance as a series, that's quite an unfortunate turn of events, but is not, in itself a condemnation of the game.

Burning Skies' only success, really was showing the world that First-Person games can be competently made and played on the Vita.  Because of the way it controlled, with just a little more polish Burning Skies could have been a good game, one that you would speak of when not specifically asked about it, but doing that seemed a little bit out of Nihilistic Studios' abilities.  It's very unfortunate that they then went on to be given the reigns to the Call of Duty game that was similarly tepidly received even though I'm assured that it controlled nicely as well.  Still, people know that the ability is there, we just need somebody that will capitalize on it.  Since Nihilistic is (thankfully) out of the way, having moved on to becoming a Mobile game studio, that leaves them out of the running to make anymore FPS games for anyone else that offers a quick buck.  Regardless, Burning Skies was definitely not a need-to-play title, but I urge you, if you have the opportunity (perhaps if it is free for Playstation Plus), try it out and see that FPS games work on it, because Burning Skies will tell you that, even if it won't tell you much else.

18.  Tales from Space:  Mutant Blobs Attack!!!

Speaking of things free on Playstation Plus, for a little while there, Tales from Space:  Mutant Blobs Attack!!! was one such title offered and I snapped it up, somewhat eager to see what the little title had to offer.  I knew nothing about it other than it was a rather charming little platformer with a touch of puzzle elements and, well, that is pretty much what I got.  Those impressions pretty much put everything on the tin and there's nothing at all wrong about that.  It does make it a bit hard to say much else about the game since...well, there's not a whole lot of depth to it, really.  Even the story, such as it is, is barely interspersed between chapters with no real dialogue, relying on some basic images to convey a basic story of the blob landing on the planet, getting bigger terrorizing everything and so on.

It's simplistic and that's most of its charm really - you navigate levels, eating whatever you can to make yourself bigger so that you can advance, and then you get to the end.  The next level has you eating more things so you can get even bigger and so on.  You start out as something that one might find on their desk and, in short order, are large enough to consider houses something to hop off of like stepping stones, chowing on cows for a snack and pulling in Helicopters for a good meal.  The presentation doesn't necessarily do the scale justice, but it's done well enough that, if you think about it for a moment, it really sinks in.  As it gets more and more complicated, however, as platformers and puzzlers tend to do, it becomes less and less fun, for me anyway, and for that reason, I didn't even bother finishing the second to last and last areas, since I just got overwhelmed with the puzzle elements and just found the levels to be a chore.  Still, it was fun while it lasted, as they say.

17.  Dynasty Warriors Next

If you're even a casual reader of Kupowered, you probably know that I was a man who enjoyed a good Warriors title.  I say 'was', however, since KOEI, in their infinite wisdom, decided it was a good idea to stop making disk-based games solely for the PS3 and solely for the NA region.  Yes, yes, there's that whole story about "Sony won't let us because blah blah blah", but it's a bunch of horseshit and I'll not hear anyone tell different.  As such, Dynasty Warriors Next is probably the last Warriors game I'll be able to enjoy unless they release any new titles for the Vita since their download sizes will probably not be the 11 gig monstrosities that One Piece:  Pirate Warriors, Warriors Orochi 3 and such have been.  Next was not quite the best send-off for the series, either.

While it aspired to be Handheld Dynasty Warriors 7 in a way, it ultimately didn't live up to that specifically because the replayability is mired in a randomized, barebones attempt at an Empires game that doesn't even accomplish a good shake at that.  Still, it -played- mostly like DW7 and that is a very, very good thing.  Beyond that, it kept my interest for a long, long time, though not anywhere near the 78+ hours that would have been required for at least one of the trophies, which would put me that much closer to the Platinum for it, a task which I have fully acknowledged will never happen.  Because I just am not about that.  I don't have that kind of time.  Clearly.  All in all, however, I liked Next even if my opinion of KOEI and all things Warriors has changed dramatically since.

16.  Sound Shapes

I had a lot of fun with Sound Shapes, and in my opinion it was a pretty neat little game, even if 'little' ended up being quite the descriptor.  I'm not sure what gave me the impression, but I expected there to be full albums (which, admittedly would be three songs/stages) as DLC to accompany the post-release of the game and it was only a year later when the game got -anything-.  It was not Album DLC either, but simply new tools to use for music in the creation tool which, while welcome, did nothing to extend the actual -game- itself.  In all reality, that was Sound Shapes' biggest fault in that it just was entirely too short, especially for the build the game had going behind it.  The online community reflected that in dying off fairly shortly, or perhaps that's just me being bitter because the level I created only got 4 plays and none of them were from anyone that reads this, I don't think.  I even showed if off here, though that's only the visual side to it, not the audio, which I thought was pretty good!

Still, Sound Shapes was a fantastic little thing for what it was, and that's really what counts.  The levels were fun and varied, the music was wonderful to listen to, and the package was fully there, even if it was a bit too easy outside of the challenge levels.  If there had just been a little more to it - maybe a couple more albums, it would've rated much higher in public opinion, I think and it would've kept interest for a lot longer than it did.  It's another case of "great while it lasted" and if only it had lasted a bit longer.  If only.  I could say it again and again, but the fact of the matter was that it just wasn't and still isn't.  Maybe the community's put together something fantastic in the meantime, but I'm not sure and I probably won't be finding out since the 1 gig and change of space that Sound Shapes needs is being used up by something else that I'm actually playing.

So that was the bottom five games of my list.  That...that was pretty much the easy part.  It was everything after this where things pretty much got harder and harder to pick as it went along, and I ended up surprising myself quite a few times when faced with all the options I had.  It wasn't like some years where I had x, y and z games that were -my- games, where the rest, I just enjoyed in some form.  No, there were quite a few games that were -my- games, and it was hard putting them in order, though I think I did so in a satisfactory manner.  Hopefully by the end of all this, I'll feel the same way, because man, I'm sure I can regret it and I fear that I might because of how close it was.  Still, that's something we'll have to see about!

Review: Resistance: Burning Skies

(This is where the Main Theme would go.  Nobody has it on Youtube.  Fancy that.)

At first, I didn't think that I would be able to fully review Resistance:  Burning Skies, and in fact didn't set out to do so tonight, but as I talked about it, it became more and more clear that, despite having only played the game twice through (barring the final boss fight because -screw that-), I haven't touched the Multi-player because it requires me to mess with my router's settings which is something I shouldn't have to do on a portable game, and it's been about a week since I actually played it last, what with E3 going on. Still, as I typed more and more about the game, I realized that I had familiarized myself with it enough that I believe I can do it justice via review.  All of the above doesn't speak very highly for it, but I would advise you not to take my admittedly overly-cavalier approach to starting this post for the game somewhat as a statement of the game in a negative light.  Just that I cannot paint an overly positive picture for it, despite really really wanting to.  Which is an unfortunate statement of fact, because whether I want to believe it or not, Resistance:  Burning Skies offers nothing but a minutely satisfying, yet infinitely forgettable experience over the course of a day or so of your time.

Taking control over yet another new protagonist in the Resistance series, (which is admittedly appropriate for what amounts to a side-story) Players find themselves controlling a New York Firefighter named Tom Riley who responds to seeing abominations wielding high-tech rifles like anyone else would - by slamming an axe into the first alien face he finds and turning said rifle against the hoards.  Snark and badassery of the statement aside, that is....almost pretty much literally how the game begins.  Riley with two of his fellow firemen spot a fire starting at the local power plant and respond.  Upon arriving, Riley instructs his men to grab the CO2 tanks while grabbing the trusty fire axe himself to smash in the doors - a mechanic that seems silly to include when you realize that 98% of the doors you will encounter in the game cannot be smashed down with an axe.  Not even because they are metal or anything, just, they're Silent Hill doors - there for the express purpose of being there.

The First segment of the game entails you being swiftly removed from your teammates by an inexplicably weak floor and then running around while looking for the fire that needs fighting (spoiler:  you do not fight fires) and your fellow men.  Upon finding one, he is swiftly jumped by a Chimeran and while they struggle, Riley gets there just in time to kill the Chimera -after- he kills the firefighter with abnormally bad senses.  This is where the game teaches you that you can use your axe as a melee attack, and this is also the first of many, many, many times when the game simply fails to make Riley feel like a character whatsoever.  Sure, he checks if his friend is alive, but he then picks up the Bullseye rifle and knows how to use it despite being a simple Firefighter.  Have you even -seen- a Bullseye rifle?  Because this is -not- something anyone, especially in the 50s, is going to be able to pick up and just -know- how to use without some sort of coaching and/or fumbling with it, all of which can simply be taken care of in a half-minute cutscene or something.  Hell, even a bit of monologue going "The....-hell- is this?" would've sufficed.  But, much like the rest of the game, it simply assumes that you are not new to this whole FPS thing and as such, doesn't treat you like it, simply taking you through the bulk of things without a worry.

Well, there is -one- thing that transpires whenever you acquire a new weapon for the first time.  You will get a brief description and such that will inform you how to use the secondary fire of the weapon and then, assuming you simply can't read and learn, it will show you a short grainy "classic-style" video showing off the actual usage of the secondary effect.  Because "Tap the enemy to tag them", "Swipe the screen to load a crossbow bolt" and "tap where you want a grenade to fire" (among others) is....apparently hard to get across in so many words that you need a 10-second video showing you just how to do it.  I would've much rather had a refresher on the fact that shooting the Chimeran tanks on their backs causes them to overheat and explode, or, uh, again, simply Riley being a character instead of a glorified avatar of shooting everything in sight with no real input or anything.

Of course, that isn't to say that Riley does -nothing- but shoot during the game, as he does in fact have some dialogue and development through the story.  The problem is simply that it is too little stretched too far with little to no context for the most of it.  At the barest bones of the framework of Burning Skies, the game is about Riley looking for his family so he can grab them and get the -hell- out.  Where?  Who knows.  Riley will figure that out when he finds them.  Or...rather, when he finds them and there aren't Chimera nearby to kill, in said case, he will simply tell them to run away, thus splitting with them yet again despite completing his main objective.  It's fairly jarring to realize that half the game is playing catch-up with a woman and a young girl despite having access to an armory in your backpack and a pretty good sense on how to get around despite everything being blown to hell and back  However, I can at least say that it stays consistent within the narrative of the game and there is a payoff towards the end, but telling just what kind would be a really big spoiler clearly.

So where you can obviously see that the game falls flat in terms of narrative and story and character and development and all that, the exact opposite is to be said for the gameplay portion of the game.  Burning Skies (I am trying -really hard- not to abbreviate it as BS, because that's too far) is a fully-realized handheld First-Person-Shooter, and this is exactly the kind of confirmation you want in your new system which touts that it will be able to do just that.  It's not perfect in a sense, because I got really tired of touching a precise spot on the right side of the screen to axe a Chimera in the face and similarly accidentally touched the touch screen quite a few times, causing my Carbine Rifle to needlessly launch a grenade usually right in my face, but those are minor gripes that could easily be fixed by being a little wiser with how you map controls.  However, moving, aiming, firing and the like all work as they should, meaning that when it comes to the 'big boy' FPS games that will come around (assuming Declassified will see at least a decent port job and Bioshock for Vita still happens, etc. etc.), you can expect the real deal.  Of course, you all know that I enjoy the Resistance series and the previous statement might lead to thinking that I do not consider Resistance as a 'big boy' series, but I do....I just, again, don't really count Burning Skies in.

When telling of the game to someone else, I came across the realization that I just didn't think Burning Skies felt like a Resistance game.  I can't put my finger on just why, because certainly you have the same type of arsenal (with Resistance 1's Weapon wheel eeeee~), you're fighting against the Chimera, and the aesthetic is really similar.  I don't remember the first two Resistance games being -overly- cinematic, though certainly Burning Skies clear lack of real narrative might lend it to feeling like it could be any game.  Perhaps that's it, that I simply feel you could take the bulk of the game, switch out the enemies with a different type, change the setting and you would have an entirely different game by virtue of it having nothing to even remotely connect it to the franchise.  The story can more or less remain untouched - a firefighter fights to rescue his family in the midst of a(n) alien invasion, zombie assault, etc. and the game ensues while changing in the proper nouns here and there.  Maybe that's a little over-simplistic and/or could be applied to any 'good' game, but I think you get what I'm trying to put down.

Something else you might notice is the complete lack of screenshots in the post.  Generally, I like to break up the wall of text with pictures of the game so that you might be brought in a bit easier.  However, the reason this review doesn't have any screenshots is for the simple fact that the Screenshot function is disabled for the game.  Why?  I don't know.  It's frustrating to high-hell because, honestly, some parts of the game look -good- and I would love to show them off, as well as show off perhaps some of the weapons or something else, and some people might like to screenshot their screens at the end of a particularly good multiplayer match.  Yet there is...well....no way to do so.  And while I could do as I do with other games and grab from IGN, I'm specifically not doing that because A) I am entirely too lazy to do that right now and B) I shouldn't -have- to, which is the point I'm illustrating.  There is, from what I can see, no reason why the Screenshot feature, something some of us enjoy a lot, can't be used with the game, so for similar reasons (I.E. No good reason) I will simply not post screenshots.  Sucks, but there it is.

Something else that bugs me about the fast-tracking of the narrative throughout the entire game is the way the game shows off the upgrade system, which is possibly one of the silliest, dumbest things I've seen in two weeks, and this is coming from a guy who is currently reading the SomethingAwful Xenogears Let's Play by The Dark ID and just got past the part where the furry pink mascot character grew 50 feet tall and kicked the shit out of a similarly gigantic robot.  I'm sorry if you absolutely abhor spoilers, but this part of the game is something that I am going to spoil for you because there is no tactful way to get around doing it otherwise and this is something that needs said.  At a certain point in the game, Riley, along with Ellie Martinez, Riley's somewhat love-interest in the game (yes he is married, who cares apparently) come across a truck that has a crate of strange grey cubes in it.  Holding it around her gun, Ellie has a straight-up Knife+Gun=KnifeGun moment and slams the cube against her Carbine rifle which adds a bigger Grenade Launcher and a scope to it and no, I don't know what the hell.  Handing that rifle to her buddy Mac, she retrieves two more cubes, tosses Riley one (where you then receive the upgrading tutorial) and similarly upgrades her own Carbine.

I just don't know.  I mean, granted, there is a whole bunch of weird alien shit around (including weird aliens everywhere) and there is likely weirder things afoot by virtue of that alone, but the pure Idiot Savant feel of the moment knocks it out of the park in the believability factor.  On top of that, that isn't -even- how the Grey Tech works.  As in, that is straight up false advertisement up ins because one piece of Grey Tech can only add -one- upgrade to a weapon (and I would assume the manner in which Ellie and Mac's rifles were updated were by adding a scope and increasing grenade damage, not like they use either) and the way the animation has it work is that it kind of breaks into paper-thin slices of...blue...laser....things and then summarily disappears.  Granted, this is in the upgrade menu but you can -clearly- see where I am coming from here.  I don't think I have to really say much more on that subject.  Because I think I have sufficiently expressed my moment of sighing and rubbing my forehead with these two paragraphs.

Despite....that....and the overall weak structure to the narrative, it is at least there in a token effort, perhaps even a little more, and -does- get better towards the end (in fact, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they made the ending sequences first) to the point where it does start to get genuinely good in that.  Not fantastic, it's not going to win any story awards, nor even get in the running, but it gets -better-, which is something to attach to at least.  And as I said, the actual gameplay portion of the game is quite solid, definitely carrying the game.  To add to that, the actual weapons in it are by and large fantastic, with the Mule (literally a double barrel shotgun whose secondary attack is to launch a napalm arrow from the crossbow set-up attached to the top of it) being one of the better weapons period in recent memory.  So it's not that the game is -bad-, nor should we focus on the negative points as I believe I may have, but the game doesn't brain you again and again with the fact, nor even the idea that it is great, so it's hard to say that it is.

The Good

• The Controls are solid - Burning Skies is most definitely a First-Person Shooter with no corners cut gameplay-wise
• The selection of weapons are fantastic
• Seriously did you read above?  A shotgun with a napalm crossbow attached
• The story bits, characterization and such get better towards the end
• By virtue of being a good FPS game in gameplay mechanics, it's enjoyable to play, even leisurely
• Knocking faces (and heads) off with the Fireaxe is incredibly satisfying

The Bad

• Doesn't necessarily feel like a Resistance Game
• Story is poor as is the overall structuring
• The Final Boss fight is -awful-
• That Grey Tech scene
• Ellie, on top of being an idiot savant, can teleport around like a partner character from two decades ago
• No Screenshot feature
• Multiplayer requires you to fiddle with your router and such, thus suggesting the MP is not suggested for, uh, mobile play

Mogs Says

The big question surrounding Burning Skies is "Is it worth $40?" to which I have to answer that question -with- a question.  Do you want a comprehensive FPS experience on your Vita (and/or proof-of-concept that it is totally possible) without pesky story or the like getting in the way?  Or do you want an actual, tangible part of the Resistance series?  If the answer is the former, then yes, probably, and definitely catch it if you see it for less out there.  However, if you're looking for the latter, an actual Resistance game on the go, then I have to say that I think you're out of luck.  Not that it isn't a decent to good game, just that it is really not a Resistance game, no matter what the enemies and weapons say.  Just why that is, I can't pin down, but I assure you that's what I think.

I Pre-Ordered Five Games Today

In the extended campaign of assaulting a rotting horse, I am once again going to stake just how goddamn confused and worried I am about 2012.  Last night, knowing that I would be heading into GameStop today, I put pencil to post-it to leave a little reminder for myself on what games I'm looking out for that come out this year.  That list comprised of seven games, and that fact still does not fail to amaze me because of how most years go for me, as you might know if you read this blog fairly regularly.  It's not that I am very very picky, it's just that I usually narrow the games that are coming out to things I absolutely want, since the rest can usually be picked up later for less (even as a New product, which I try to buy when I can).  So, come Game of the Year tally time, I end up scraping my purchases together to produce a list of ten or twelve games that I bought that year to rate, rather than being games that I could hand-pick from my acquisitions and rate.  I'm not sure that I'll have that option this year.

The list, for those of you who are curious (though you might know it already) is:  Sleeping Dogs, Lollipop Chainsaw, Resistance:  Burning Skies, Gravity Rush (pre-ordered before today, hence why it's not on the receipt), LittleBigPlanet Vita, LittleBigPlanet Karting, and Persona 4: Golden.  You might notice Sleeping Dogs and LittleBigPlanet Karting are absent from my pre-order receipt and this is both so that I didn't spend $35 in one swing just pre-ordering games, and because I don't know if I'll have $60 to throw down both times for the games when they come out.  Make no mistake:  I crave them, but slightly less than the other games, which means that they rest on the precipice of purchasing, rather than falling from it to my waiting arms.  If I can swing it, there is no doubt that they will be mine, especially Sleeping Dogs, since as you might know I am kind of excited for it.

Now, the more observant of you might also notice that the above receipt contains a game that was not on the list I wrote up before heading to GameStop.  Ragnarok Odyssey, which I have also expressed desire for was pretty far from my mind when I was thinking up this list, purely because I am only now familiarizing myself with the idea of being able to buy it.  Yet, while going down my laundry list of pre-orders for the Vita, I asked "Can you take pre-orders for Persona 4: Golden yet?" to which the clerk, Leo, replied "Oh yeah, I got you covered there."  He then went on to say, "We're also taking pre-orders for Ragnarok Odyssey, if you're interested in that." to which I said, "Oh, Leo you're killing me.  Yes, put money on it, please."  Suddenly, my list had eight games on it, and then something flashed through my head, letting a chill of dread climb down through my spine.  "Do you have a release date for Metal Gear Rising:  Revengeance yet?", I inquired.  "Yeah...let's see.  Actually exactly a month from now."

Ffffuuu-  I grit my teeth against the news and as he asked if I had anything else to pre-order, perhaps Revengeance after all, I heaved a heavy little sigh and shook my head.  "No Leo, that's all for today.  I'm already cutting games off my list and I didn't even remember those two before now."  After I pre-ordered the five games only (knowing that Gravity Rush, already ordered, made six), I shared the rest of the games with him and he chuckled a little, saying "Yeah, this year is just brutal in releases."  It's only about now that I can wonder just how people who have a 360, Wii, and/or 3DS as well keep up with it all since it's all I can to to keep up with my Vita and PS3, both monetarily and where it concerns time.  God help us all if one of Sony's E3 reveals is a, no -the- firmware update that allows PSOne Emulation because with Final Fantasy 7, 8 and Xenogears already on my account, plus a desire to jump into those, I will be fucked.  In a way, I hope they do that since it'll quiet a lot of complaints and be a big deal (always a nice buzz generated when you get to say "Presto!  New functionality right now!  For free!") for the Vita and Sony both, but I dread such a time terribly.

I've pretty much run out of words at this point.  Between what I've bought already, and the nine games that I will get, provided I have the scratch to do so, I'm already ready for Game of the Year time; my list will be no challenge in filling up.  (Ordering yes, but still)  And yet, this is only for games that I know about.  Games that have been announced and are in my mind at least semi-regularly.  I shudder to think that there are other games that I for-Goddamnit, Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale is slated for the Holiday season.  Ten.  Ten goddamn games.  And yet, through it all, even as I, someone who barely buys a lot of games, pre-ordered four Vita games (with a fifth one done already) that will likely be out sooner rather than later (LBP, Gravity Rush in June, P4G in the 'Fall', likely with Ragnarok, Resistance this month), and in fact, turned down pre-ordering others (Warrior's Lair for instance) people continue to smugly state that the Vita has nothing coming out for it and is totally doomed despite being out for only three months.  Some fuckin' people, I tell you.

Upcoming Purchases: April-June

As I have pointed out several times, to the point where it's almost a running theme for 2012, there are simply just too many games out already, as well as games that are -going- to come out.  While I've barely weathered the storm of games that are out (indeed, I missed Binary Domain, which I hope to grab at some point, as well as the whole Warriors Orochi 3 fiasco), there's still a veritable juggernaut of games as a collective on the horizon, both near and far, and, much like trying to play Shadow of the Colossus on a time limit, I'm not sure just how many of these things I will be able to encounter and conquer which is a bit worrisome.  It's a completely different scenario from last year, really and I'm not quite sure if too much is better than too little or vice versa.  Still, that's not the matter at hand; that matter being deciding just what games to get, what's a necessity, which of these colossi that I -must- slay, as opposed to the ones I can let wander for a time when I -have- time.

For several reasons, the Vita is the beast that I look to feed first, and Resistance:  Burning Skies looks to be the first game in line to do just this.  Wikipedia states that it's going to release on May 29th, GameStop says the 30th, but either way, it's slated up first in way of something that I 'need' to get.  It -haunts- me that I never made time for Resistance 3, nor have I secured a copy for myself, but in my defense, I had to be a little spendthrift at the end of the year (and still do, really) and because of that and the other titles I'm looking forward to, I just couldn't really fit it in.  As I've said times before, the Vita's portability and reliability (at least, the reliability I feel when I play it for extended periods of time without worry) make it my preferred gaming machine, and the Resistance series is one of which I am certainly a fan.  Were Resistance:  Retribution for PSP available for purchase on the Vita, I likely would have snatched it up by now, but that it isn't is a blessing still.

I don't know a lot about Burning Skies, nor do I need to.  The Chimera are on Earth at a time between Resistance 1 and 3, but not necessarily during 2's events and our protagonist in alien slaughter is a firefighter, as is denoted by the expert usage of a fire axe; a crucial element of the game, apparently.  This is basically all I know, and this is pretty much all you need to know about Resistance:  Burning Skies, much less any -other- FPS out there, because you're looking at, in a best circumstance scenario, a game where the story evolves over the course of the game to become more than simple or, in a worst case scenario, a half-hearted reason for indiscriminate destruction.  Either or works just fine, I assure you, and whether Burning Skies offers the former or the latter (I would bet on the former, of course), it should be a fun little romp as 1 and 2 were for me.  Especially so if anyone who worked on 3 has a hand in the Vita's incarnation, as 3 is apparently the best of the bunch, which makes it all the more painful to not play.

If Wikipedia and/or GameStop are to be believed, June is exactly what I didn't want, and as I type this I feel a very real sensation of fear for that month.  Not only is the game above, Lollipop Chainsaw, slated to release on June 12th, but so is the next game I want to talk about, where GameStop also places the last game I'll talk about for this go in the month, though it is assuredly not official yet.  Regardless, I suppose I'll simply have to suck it up and manage, somehow, because of all three games, I'm definitely not going to skip any of them, and assuredly not Lollipop Chainsaw.  You might know if you're a faithful reader, but if not, then let me paint a picture:  I am really, really excited for this friggin' game.  Not for the obvious reasons of course, but for the simple fact that this looks like one of the most absurd things to come out this year and I am all over that shit.  That it involves zombies which I am admittedly on a kick of lately is pretty much just a happy accident; after all, I wasn't doing much talking about Dead Souls way back in August.

I pretty much just love everything I've seen about the game individually as well as a whole.  Juliet Sterling, a cheerleader for San Romero High School, seems to be the only hope of the local life.  Armed with a chainsaw adorned with pink decorations and hearts, the true spirit and moves of a cheerleader, and the voice talents of Tara Strong, she seems to be the best bet San Romero has against the zombie outbreak.  And of course, not only is she deadly, but she's very stylish as well, which is quite evident if you watch the Debut Trailer in one of the above links.  (Seriously, go do that now.  I'm waiting.)  Also she gets a grenade launcher (among other attachments, presumably) for her chainsaw at some point.  No matter what, I cannot reiterate that point enough times - a chainsaw with a grenade launcher.  There is absolutely no reason I could fathom not wanting this game, and I only fear my ability to play it when I get it, rather than waiting for the embrace of Fall.

Slated to release the same day as Lollipop Chainsaw, as I said above, Gravity Rush could not be more different.  Though they both tout quite nice, different art styles and female protagonists, that's where the similarities end as Gravity Rush trades Lollipop Chainsaw's campy, absurd approach to unabashed violence against the undead for something more serious and game play that revolves around the ability to control gravity to combat, solve puzzles, and just get around.  It's uniquely interesting on several levels and I've commented on it before, so to say I'm interested in it is restating the obvious in such a way that stating the obvious is obvious is-nevermind.  People who've messed around with the demo say that the useage of the gravity mechanic is a good one, and it's certainly one I look forward to bending to my own whims to explore whatever amount of world they give me to do so.

Like with Burning Skies, I don't know a whole lot about Gravity Rush beyond the basics, so playing it will assuredly be a gem as it begins to unfold for me.  Since I -want- this type of game to succeed that's what I hope it will do; I hope that it will offer a presentation so slick, combined with a good story that I won't want to put it down.  I hope the mechanics are solid and enjoyable, that they don't make ridiculous usage of the Vita's extra features but rather implements them in fairly natural ways as many other games have managed to do so far.  And I hope that it creates characters that are compelling and well-written, so that when I get it and play it, I can say as much here so that maybe it'll sway someone else into buying the game, because this type of game will sell on word of mouth alone, I'm sure.  Am I hoping for a lot?  Assuredly, but I am excited for it and use that to justify it; hopefully that level is well-placed.

I'm sure I don't have to say anything beyond "It's LittleBigPlanet.  On the Vita."  It's apparently out on the 27th of June, according to GameStop, but that's not solid in the least, and I would put money on it being a quite different date.  At least, I'm hoping for it.  Because all of my money, etc. etc.

So that is the foreseeable future in terms of my gaming purchases.  I'm sure there's plenty of others that could be on here, and it certainly doesn't include games that are already out, but there's a whole lotta game for this year, even beyond what I've featured here.  With any luck, we'll see the other games and a window for them as well, so I can make yet another post lamenting the overflow we're all suffering from.  Also as a random side-note, this post is late because halfway through it, my internet cut out.  I'd set it back to 11-something to make sure it hits yesterday, but I'm going to post tonight too, so it'll be fine.