May 2011. While we are doing house remodelling, I am feeling house-poor so I have been trying not to spend any cash on games, with some success.

Buzz

The buzz in May was dominated by the PSN outage which lasted for weeks. It started with outrage about Sony and then sort of dwindled into "can we have PSN back now?" Please!? (It wasnt really restored until June.)

The biggest game release of May was LA Noire. For several weeks that is all everyone was talking about, which seems appropriate for a game that has been in development for seven years. It doesn't sound like my kind of game but the facial technology sounds significant. Let's see what Rockstar does with it. Most games with such a long cycle are failures but this one sounds like it will be a hit.

Mortal Kombat got some attention. Clearly its a big brand with a loyal following though. I played MK back in the day in the arcades but fighting games are not my genre. Gore is really not my thang anymore either.

Brink also got a lot of attention but mostly negative. That's sad. Its a game that sounded interesting but like other multiplayer-only games will struggle to find a following given the immense sea of games out there.

With E3 at the start of June, lots of buzz about new titles. The Witcher 2 is one of those titles and folks really talked it up for both fans of the original game and a new audience. Im sure I will play it - after I finish the original Witcher. :) (Like Demon's Souls, I got bogged down in the original game because it requires actual thought and decisions. And the plot was like life; complex enough it was hard to follow.)

Other notable peeks included Dark Souls, the Demon's Souls sequel. Im excited for this simply because I think DS is such an original game from the design perspective. Instead of a huge world, it has a small world with a lot of detail in the combat. (No, I still havent finished DS.) And Crysis 2. All the talk got me curious about the original Crysis. I havent enjoyed any Crytek games but have been in the mood for some sci fi shooting...

Lots of expectation about the next system from Nintendo. The Wii 2? Expect the unexpected as they say.

Playing

To keep from buying anything new, I spent this month looking at my collection of unfinished games. My pile of shame so to speak. Now that I have a new HDD on my PC, I can fill it up with games so I did.

Kings Bounty, Sins of a Solar Empire, The Witcher, Batham: Arkham Asylum. And when Sony gets their store back up, I will finally get to play Little Big Planet and Infamous since those are now free.

For Kings Bounty I just played the "install and remember why I love Steam" game. The game installed on my Win7 x64 machine but when it runs it doesnt show the game screen, only the menus. To try to fix that I installed the 1.7 patch. After that the SecuROM DRM refuses to let the game even run. It complains that I have the wrong CD... Seem to recall that this game made me glad for Steam the first time I installed and played it. So I uninstalled it.

While I played KB a previously, it looks like if I want to finish it, it will cost me $35 to buy the game and 2 expansions on Steam... Hmmm.

To scratch my strategy itch this month, I played Sins of a Solar Empire for a week. I think the game is from 2009. I played it a while ago and got bored of it. Once again it kept my interest for a week... before I got bored of it. Just like Rome: Total War did the month before.

Most of my gaming this month was dedicated to Patapon 2 on my PSP. I love this game but cant seem to beat it! Argh. Having bought the game and the system for a trip to Mexico a few years ago, I played 15 hours or so originally. This time I was more focused, read some strategy wiki's and started over. I built up an much better army and played another 15-20 hours before getting stuck on a mission I cannot get past. Not sure if I will finish it this time either. (Man oh man I hate that Bean minigame.)

Bought

Despite my best intentions not to spend any money on games, Steam messed with my head. Curse you Steam Sales!

I picked up the original Crysis on PC for $8. I played it for a night or two. Looks great but didnt grab me. I think these games are too open-ended for me.

I also spend $20 on Men of War. An RTS that sounds great but I probably wont play because I cannot find anyone to play it with. Maybe someday. $20 to support small developers is never a bad thing.

I also looked at the demo of Shogun 2 - a remake of one of my top 10 games of all time. Pretty much the same Total War formula so I decided to pass even though it was on sale for $40. Boy it sure looks great though! Unfortunately the charm of the original game was how simple it was - this game ruins that with tons of new units and complexity. That turns these games into a job for me so I will pass for now.

I thought about reactivating my Star Trek Online subscription. Im missing sci-fi and really enjoyed the ships but I dont have the time for the MMO thing these days. I also got to thinking about the MMO formula and that cooled some of my enthusiasm.

Lastly I almost did my first pre-order ever. Steam was selling Space Marine with a free copy of Darksiders for $50. Relic is one of my favorite developers so I feel safe giving them my money and violating my "demo first" rule. I heard good things about Darksiders so I thought maybe... I would play it if I had it. I hadnt heard about SM before but after watching the videos this is my most anticipated game of 2011. The videos look insanely good! Wow, Im excited for this. After playing all of Relic's Warhammer 40K RTS games it will be interesting to play from a FPS perspective. No buzz at all about this though - that seems wrong.

Finished

Lots of great gaming this month but nothing finished... I continue to acquire games faster than I can complete them.