The Spring Crush

It's been an annual rite of fall for gamers the world over to feel crushed by the barrage of games being released in the months of September and October. Those two months (and November to a lesser extent) regularly receive at least half the year's games, not to mention the lion's share of all the worthwhile games. This isn't to say that the rest of the year is a barren wasteland (well, unless you were looking for a game to play on your Gamecube) but the other months do often feel overlooked in favor of the pre-Christmas blitz. If gamers can do anything well as a whole, it's complain. And that we did. Message boards routinely featured pleas by cash- and time-strapped gamers for publishers to spread the games out across the calendar year.

I'm not so sure the entire calendar year is being used equally, but it seems that many in the industry have listened as we are going to see a lot of great games coming in the next 8 weeks.

Under the urging of nearly everyone who played the demo, I ordered my copy of Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords for the Nintendo DS yesterday. This particular game is unique in that it plays like a strategy-rpg, but uses a Bejeweled-style set of puzzle to settle combats. That game released yesterday.

Then, of course, there's Guitar Hero 2 for the X360 on April 3rd, The Darkness (made by the folks behind the exceptionally good Chronicles of Riddick) quite possibly on May 1st, and Forza Motorsport 2 on May 15th. There's also a very good chance that the new Colin McRae rally game could also release in early May.

Then, of course, there are all of the other Live Arcade games coming every Wednesday, not to mention Wii owners have Super Paper Mario to look forward to in April. PS3 owners have a bunch of impressive ports of games coming their way too in the next month. Hard to get excited about games that have been out on other platforms for over a year, but hey, at least they're getting something.

Anyway, the point is that I'm already starting to wonder how I'm going to find the time to work, train, and play all of these great games. Not to mention, you know, actually spend time with Kristin. It's going to be hard, but hopefully a little pain now will lessen the crush in the fall.