On the Horizon (Salve for Grumpy Gamer)

If you've read my blog in the last few weeks, you
might think that I'm a lonely, jaded gaming curmudgeon
who is never satisfied by anything less than
perfection. While it's true that the recent spate of
Xbox 360 demos have left me with a serious aftertaste
of total indifference, my gaming passion still burns
intensely. I would love nothing more than to be
impressed by all the new games coming out at the start
of 2008. Sadly, I've just been disappointed so far.

I should mention that I have a lot of optimism for
March, a month which holds a few tantalizing
treasures for me. First we have Army of Two, EA
Montreal's intriguing take on a co-op shooter that is
set to be shipped on March 4th. My curiousity and
expectations have been piqued enough so far that,
barring absolutely dismal review scores, I will likely
be picking this up to play with my co-op buddies.

The coming month will also see the release of Rainbox
Six: Vegas 2. What more can be said about the sequel
to my favourite 360 game? Funnily enough, were I just
a casual fan of the series, I would summarily dismiss
this as a cynical cash-in sequel. In all honesty,
Ubisoft Montreal has not reinvented the wheel. It's
what I like to call an "engine sequel" as opposed to a
generational one. The devs are using the same
technology for the sequel and it's just a matter of
creating new content, tweaking game play and adding on
the bells and whistled they left out the first time
around. That said, I hope RS: V2 makes a more
memorable splash as a "1.5" sequel than Ubisoft's last
effort, GRAW 2.


Finally, news of the upcoming DLC for Mass Effect has
renewed my interest in replaying the game even more.
Well, I've been sprinting my level 52 Shepherd through
all the main story missions even since I got my new TV
but these new downloadable side quests will breathe
some life into the game should I decide to start a new
Shepherd from scratch. The first installment is
touting 90-minutes of new story, which has me a little
confused. If by "story" they mean actual game play
time, then these downloadable episodes will be fairly
short affairs. They will be definitely longer than the
generic side missions included in the core game, but
several magnitudes shorter than a main mission planet.
We'll know when we know, I suppose. The brightest spot
of this news, in my opinion, is the 400 MS points
price point.

Oh, and I was also pleasantly surprised by the Might and Magic Dark Messiah: Elements demo. Yes, this thing was released back in December however the full release is drawing near and I'm impressed enough to give it a shot should the reviews come in favourable. More impressions to come.