Game Season Approaches

After what seems like a drought of epic proportions, the holiday releases are gradually going to thump their way out. Yay!

What I'm looking forward to:

Fallout 3 - once again, the Australian OFLC needs an R rating for interactive entertainment. I watched the ABC's "Q&A" when the subject was brought up, and ended up furious that people could be so heavily, forcefully opinionated and ignorant at the same time. Makes me wonder whether it's worth watching on *any* subject, if everyone's just going to make stuff up, and then argue that (what they made up) is bad.

Saints Row 2 - I don't know about you, but while GTA IV was "good", I *seriously* fought the urge to skip the cutscenes. Every previous GTA game was entertaining in the cutscenes, and I actually looked forward to them. GTA IV - not at all. I'm hoping Saints Row is more of the over-the-top fun of Vice City or San Andreas; I really liked the original, despite its flaws (Invisible Car!).

Far Cry 2 - I read a developer interview on GamaSutra with the developer (Ubisoft Montreal,  Crytek are doing Crysis these days) about how they were really shooting for "open world, open story" and might have a completely massive failure: I really hope they pull it off. I'll be playing it to find out.

Stalker: Clear Skies - I didn't actually finish Stalker, so I might go spend the next few weeks doing that. Loved it, early bugs and all.

Geometry Wars 2 - cheating, because I'm actually playing this already and it's great!

Battlefield: Bad Company - I thought that the earlier Battlefield version for the 360 was superior to the PC Battlefield 2 in many ways. (Controversially, I had the same impression of Xbox Operation Flashpoint vs PC Flashpoint - sometimes a game just *works* on a console). I just saw this is already out, so I'm there!

Too Human - Wasn't really interested, and I played the demo with some reluctance, but it was surprisingly engaging (I didn't think it'd grab me at all, but it did). The reviews haven't been stellar, but I enjoyed the 1GB's worth.

Force Unleashed - Possibly not for the reason you think- I want so see if there's an easter egg where I can get shot by Baltar (geddit!?)