Okay, I'm Finally Back (Did you miss me?)

Well, it’s been a while since my last blog post and I’ve finally decided to stop being lazy and write something.

The winter drought, one of the hardest times of the year to be a gamer, is upon us. This is the time right after the steady stream of great games has finally run dry after the holiday season, leaving gamers out in the cold, and wanting more. This time is especially difficult if you have just purchased one of the recently launched consoles (PS3 or Wii). After the launch hysteria wears off, you begin to realize that there’s very few really worthwhile games coming out in the next couple of months

I am personally feeling the chill of the winter drought since I purchased a Wii at launch. After you finish the Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess, you begin to realize just how shallow the rest of the Wii’s launch lineup really was. I’m not saying the games were bad at all; it’s just that they don’t have much depth. Many games were just minigame collections designed to show off the Wii remote’s many motion based functions. January was met with WarioWare Smooth Moves, which was by far the best of the minigame collections, but it lacks staying power, and loses a bit of its novelty after a few hours and besides Sonic and the Secret Rings (which isn’t faring too well) February looks pretty bleak.

I’m not regretting my purchase (I’m sure things will heat up again soon) but I am thinking I should’ve waited a bit until a few more worthwhile games were released before buying it. But then again, I do have the Virtual Console to keep me entertained until the next big Wii game comes out.

The Playstation 3 is doing a bit better than the Wii after its rather weak launch lineup in which Resistance was the only game truly worth buying a PS3 for. January was bleak, but the excellent Virtua Fighter 5 has arrived to end the gaming drought for the PS3. In March, PS3 owners will see the release of the highly anticipated MotorStorm, which will likely be one of the first exclusive titles since Resistance really worth buying a PS3 for. Add to that some great multiplatform games (Rainbow Six Vegas, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and NBA Street Homecourt) and PS3 owners are just about finished with their gaming drought.

The Xbox 360 on the other hand has been keeping me very entertained during the winter drought. There have been some really great demos of Crackdown (which convinced me to purchase the final game) and NBA Street Homecourt released on the Xbox Live Marketplace to keep me entertained and I’ve still got the spillover from the holidays (Rainbow Six Vegas and Gears of War in particular) is keeping me very entertained. Lost Planet has kept many 360 gamers happy in January and Crackdown has arrived to save February.

On the subject of Crackdown, this game is great. It’s got an extremely fun single player campaign and the addition of drop in any time co op makes the whole experience so much better. Jumping from rooftop to rooftop as a super-powered agent never gets old even after doing it for hours in the demo, as well as crushing thugs with cars, sending them flying over balconies, blowing them sky high with a well placed grenade and blasting them up close with a shotgun. Oh, and did I mention there’s co op? Well, allow me to mention it again. Doing all of the above activities is twice as fun with a fellow supercop right alongside you. Oh yeah, and there’s the Halo 3 beta just sitting there, waiting to be played when it finally releases.

At the moment, the Xbox 360 is seeing the most of my play time, but that may change once I buy the Wii points needed to purchase Super Mario 64 and a classic controller (must…collect…stars…). But I rest assured that the Wii’s gaming drought will be over soon enough and I’ll have reason to strap my Wii remote onto my wrist and begin flailing my arms around like an idiot (I mean that in the best possible way…seriously) in the near future. And since I finally landed a decent job :D I might have the cash to drop on a PS3 sooner than I expected.