Organized Chaos

Gamers were spoiled a bit this summer, as the typical slow time for companies was anything but with solid titles on all systems.

However, we’ve been in the lull for several weeks, and the next batch of great titles still is a few months away. This was never more evident than when I took a recent trip to the nearby Gamestop.

I traded in five titles, and with my Edge Card 10 percent increase for trade-ins, I received more than $115 in store credit. A quick scouring of the used games on the PlayStation 3 side led to meandering to the Nintendo Wii section. Then back to PS3, then back to Wii and so forth.

In the end, there was nothing that grabbed my attention. So I paid for reservations on Resistance 2 and Call of Duty: World at War, both of which will be released in November. I’m hedging on my Call of Duty reservation, as the series returns to the World War II genre, which is way overplayed.

A decent throng of games is set for release in September. The brunt of the action ramps up in October on all platforms.

PS3 owners were treated to Ratchet and Clank: Quest for Booty, which is available for download on the PlayStation Network for $15. The next game in the popular franchise is a four-hour adventure bridging the gap between Tools of Destruction and the next edition due out in late 2009.

For the Wii faithful you have Mario Super Sluggers in stores this week. This game is arcade at its best, mirrored in Mario Strikers style with over-thetop action and fun for all. And, of course, the Xbox 360 folk have a constant array of updates on Xbox Live to tide them over until their lives are lost in Gears of War 2.

Here’s a glance at top titles tentatively set for release over the next three months. I say tentatively because you never know when games will be delayed.

To prove this point, the 360 exclusive Left 4 Dead, featuring loveable zombies, was pushed back to late November. This is one of those titles that hopefully will be ported to the PS3 because it looks pretty good. Other 360 exclusives include the new batch of Scene It trivia (Oct. 28) and the highly anticipated Gears of War 2 (Nov. 7).

Sony combats those releases with the MotorStorm sequel (Oct. 7) and Resistance 2 (Nov. 4).

And Nintendo has Wii Ware games, with many enticing choices to be had each week.

Games set for release on multiple platforms that are grabbing headlines are Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Sept. 16), Spider Man: Web of Shadows (Oct. 21), Fallout 3 (Oct. 28) and the next Call of Duty (Nov. 11).

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