Movie industry watchers like to talk about how the summer blockbuster season seems to start earlier every year. The same can be said about the holiday rush for video games. Used to be most of the big titles hit in October and November, but now September has been commandeered as a prime time to push games as well.
This year the annual blitz starts right after labour day weekend, with retailers scheduled to crowd shelves with a quartet of big-name games, including Techland and Deep Silver’s zombie adventure Dead Island (you may remember its artsy, emotional trailer, which made waves this past spring), Relic and THQ’s chainsword-happy action RPG Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine, a new chapter in Ubisoft’s open-world action driving franchise dubbed Driver: San Francisco, and the third entry in the PlayStation 3-exclusive alternate history sci-fi shooter series Resistance, which will see players taking a violent, visceral road trip across an alien-occupied America.
Just a couple of days later turn-based strategy-loving PC gamers can will get their hands on Ubisoft and Black Hole Games’ fantasy-themed Might & Magic: Heroes VI, while Nintendo 3DS owners will have a chance to take to space in stereoscopic style with Star Fox 64 3DS.
September marches on with a pair of Japanese role-playing games—Level 5’s White Knight Chronicles II for PlayStation 3 and Atlus’ Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 2 Innocent Sin for PlayStation Portable—as well as a several compilations, including a roundup of the first three Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell titles re-mastered for HD screens, Sony Computer Entertainment Japan’s seminal Ico and Shadow of the Colossus games bundled together for the PlayStation 3, and both God of War games for PSP repackaged for PlayStation 3 under the banner God of War Origins Collection.
But September’s heaviest hitter will no doubt be Gears of War 3. Purportedly the final entry in Epic Games’ beloved meaty-man, sci-fi shooter saga, it promises the longest campaign of the series, the broadest multiplayer, and a resolution to the franchise’s sprawling narrative. Xbox 360 gamers can take it home on September 20th.
October will kick off with id Software’s long awaited shooter Rage, which excited people when it was first announced a couple of years ago but has since cooled after a spate of reports questioning whether it will be much different—or any better—than popular apocalyptic shooter Borderlands. A reboot of Sony’s popular Twisted Metal franchise will launch the same day, October 4th.
Turn10's Forza Motorsport 4, which arrives exclusively on Xbox 360 on October 11th, offers up hundreds of cars, scores of courses, and, for the first time in the franchise, support for Kinect control. If you don't own Microsoft's console or your racing tastes tend toward more European flavours, give Codemasters' F1 2011, which is also slated to hit stores around this time, a shot.
A trio of kids games—Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure, the multiplayer-centric Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One, and MediEval Moves: Deadmund’s Quest (a PlayStation Move adventure that hopes to resurrect Sony's aging kid-friendly franchise)—will arrive the week of October 18th, along with Batman: Arkham City, Warner Bros. and Rocksteady’s follow-up to what many people have called the best game based on a comic book ever made. But I’m sure the developers aren’t feeling any pressure.
And then comes Battlefield 3 on October 25th. One of the biggest releases of the year, Electronic Arts and developer DICE have strategically positioned the release of this wildly realistic modern shooter just a couple of weeks before the 2011 entry in the First-Person-Military-Shooter-Franchise-that-Shall-Not-be-Named (well, at least not for another couple of paragraphs). Even with this head start and outrageously high expectations among core games I doubt it will triumph in overall sales, but look for it to dominate the charts for at least a couple of weeks and potentially take a little wind out of the sails of Activision’s monster bang-bang.
Also on October 25th: Konami’s Silent Hill Downpour and Atlus’ King of Fighters XIII. Going up against EA’s giant shooter seems ill-advised, but it’s likely an example of the gaming world equivalent of counter-programming. These two Japanese publishers are offering survival horror and fast-action fighting alternatives for mature gamers who are all shooter-ed out.
