2007-03-30

A Delightful Drought

[Originally posted on 1Up.com]


There is a real drought of Wii releases at the moment, especially here in Europe where we have yet to see titles such as Trauma Center and Elebits (renamed Eledees for some strange reason) and Super Paper Mario hasn't even been given a release date yet. I had forgotten how few and far between the releases of quality games are when new hardware is released. This brings back memories of when the GameCube first came out. Back then I was quite happy (well fairly happy) to just play Luigi's Mansion and Rogue Squadron 2 for the first six months and then pick up Pikmin and Star Fox Adventure as the next two which lasted me another several months.

Now, during the last year, my acquisition of new games has grown to a ridiculous number, where I'm constantly picking up more titles than I'll ever have time to finish. I have over fifty PS2 and GameCube games lying unplayed or mostly-unfinished that I really want to get to.

So let's see, the gaming schedule for 2007... I'd like to finish Paper Mario: TTYD before Super Paper Mario comes out, so that should be pretty early on in the year. Then there's Mercenaries 2 on it's way, so I should play through the first Mercenaries game, which I have lying around... Devil May Cry 4 was recently announced as coming to the Xbox 360, so I should give the first three games a go. Battalion Wars II is on the horizion, got to go back and finish the first game... I'd like to play through Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones before Assassin's Creed or I'll probably never go back to it... Super Mario Galaxy is the second game from the team that made Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat, that game deserves some more of my time... In May Spiderman 3 will be out in theaters and a game to go with it, considering the high quality of the previous three games, this one is set to be really good, and something I'll want to pickup, maybe I should give Ultimate Spiderman another shot... Then there's Mass Effect, Metroid Prime 3, Smash Brothers Brawl... The list goes on and on.

A few other choice picks of games I have on my To-Do list include: Shadow of the Colossus, God of War 2, Burnout: Revenge & Dominator, Mark of Kri, Hitman: Blood Money, Bully, Metal Gear Solid 1,2 and 3, Viewtiful Joe 2, Disgea 1 and 2, Yakuza and Majoras' Mask.

Those are some of the ones I haven't really started playing, then there is a bunch that I would like to go back an finish including: Viewtiful Joe, Okami, XIII, Rez, Guitar Hero 1 and 2, Katamari Damacy, Black and Ocarina of Time. Oh, and don't get me started on all the GBA\DS\PSP games I have left to finish... but those are in competition with other mobile media which is another discussion all together.

On top of that I've recently obtained an Xbox 360 and so there are a bunch of games on that platform that have piqued my interest as well. So far I've acquired Geometry Wars, Alien Hominid HD, Condemned, Dead or Alive 4, Gears of War, and last and definitely not least, the game I'm focusing on at the moment, The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, which I'm sure will consume many an hour of my time. Considering that Hondana told me he has put more than 200 hours into it, and finished Twilight Princess in just 28 where my end time was 77 hours. By that logic I could be "stuck" in Oblivion in excess of 550 hours... considering I play on average 1½ hours per day, and Oblivion will crash on me every now an then (at which point I usually play some Live Arcade game instead) I will probably not spend more than 7 hours per week on it (At the time of writing, I've had the game for 4 weeks and I've spend 24 hours with it, so that's even a bit less). So 550 divided by 7 is 78 weeks! That's one and a half year!

So as I see it, there is no hurry in releasing new games. Take your time and make them excellent dear developers! I'll have no problem keeping myself busy with my game reserves. Oh, and did I mention that there are a few Virtual Console games I've been meaning to play too...

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