LOOKING ahead to holiday releases

Since the 360 launched, between Sept and Dec there were at least 8-10 games I wanted

and much like everyone else, i'd have to weed out what i really really wanted from what I was just interested in and go through that process of elimination.

This year though for the first time it looks like for me, this holiday season is money in the bank. The game i was most interested in, Gears of War 3 has been put on the shelf for this holiday season so Microsoft could focus on launching Kinect. I'm not buying Kinect, it's an expensive add-on toy and it'll need to prove itself before i shell out a rediculous 150 bucks for it. There are no games I want to play for Kinect's launch and with it's performance robbing of the 360's CPU, it remains to be proven what kind of quality of game we're going to see. For 150 bucks I can buy a Wii if i want to play catoonish mini-games. Looking back over console history, add-ons such as this rarely get much support to justify the money for the add-on. So Kinect is out for me, 150 bucks in the bank (well actually more like 210 since the games are 60 bucks a pop too unlike wii's cheaper game price point).

September the only mega release is Halo and i'm done with halo. The single player is solid but short, they bank on people playing the multiplayer to make it have legs and I never liked Halo multiplayer. Since there are no other interesting titles releasing in September due to Halo's blast radius, september is money in the bank. Although Dead Rising 2 was bumped from August to September recently so i guess there's a potential purchase but DR2 hasn't really gripped me so far.

October has a few titles i'm interested in , Fallout 3 New Vegas but i'll most likely wait and buy the inevitable GOTY edition a year later that includes all the DLC. So that leaves me buying Fable 3 the end of Oct. The only other really interesting title in october is Medal of Honor but i've never been into that series and this one's not really drawing me to it.

November has all the Kinect nonsense which i'm passing on. The latest COD is releasing but after the clusterfuck that was CODMW2 multiplayer and rumors of pay to play, activision can shove their next cod game. Assassins Creed Brotherhoold comes out and I have liked the series but this game comes a year after the last one which means it's a lot of recycled content and probalby most of the effort has been put into a multiplayer mode the game didn't need. Seriously, was anyone asking for Assassins Creed Multiplayer?. I'm betting there will be a lot of Assassins Creed 2.5 comments on this one and it'll be nothing more than a full priced expansion pack.  If that's the case i'll wait until i can get it for 39 bucks like two months later.  So i'll probably pass on this too. So November is looking like money in the bank.

Overall unless something else appears in the release window, Fable 3 is the single title that i'm buying between September and January. I guess i'll take the time to clear out my game rack of games i've picked up over the past year on clearance sales for the sake of gamescore improvement. And i still have Fallout 3 that needs my attention and that's a long game.

Looking ahead to the first quarter of 2011 though, we have Rage, Crysis 2, Arkham Asylum 2, Bulet Storm, Homefront and Ghost Recon all in the first 3 months. Guess i'll start saving now.