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January Releases

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Sheesh. Like December, January snuck up on me and I’m just now getting the new releases up for January 2013. Happy New Year!

Not a whole lot going on this month (except if you’re a PC gamer, I guess). Without much comment, here are the releases:

Week of January 8th
Anarchy Reigns

Week of January 15th
DMC: Devil May Cry

Week of January 22nd
Heavy Fire: Shattered Spear

Week of January 29th
Hitman Trilogy HD Premium Edition

No Nintendo Wii U releases for January.

No Nintendo Wii releases for January.

No Nintendo 3DS releases for January.

No Nintendo DS releases for January.

Week of January 15th
The Cave – First day purchase for me.

Week of January 22nd
Heavy Fire: Shattered Spear

Week of January 29th
Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed
Omerta: City of Gangster
Company of Heroes 2

Week of January 1st
WRC FIA World Rally Championship

Week of January 8th
Anarchy Reigns

Week of January 15th
DMC: Devil May Cry

Week of January 22nd
Heavy Fire: Shattered Spear
Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch

No new Sony PS Vita releases for January.

No new Sony PSP releases for January. I will officially be retiring the PSP from the monthly releases this month, with the Nintendo DS to follow shortly thereafter.

What are you picking up?

(Note: As always, all Amazon.com links have our affiliate code embedded in them. If you purchase something through our link, we get a little commission. It’s appreciated.)

Weekend Holiday Gaming

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We’re coming up on what for most people in the U.S. will be an extended Holiday weekend, a time when many will be celebrating their winter holiday of choice (for us, it’s Christmas) and exchanging gifts, visiting with family and, for us gamers, increasing the stack of games to be played in the upcoming year.

I usually use the week between Christmas and New Years to catch up on all the games I’ve started or wanted to play during the year. It’s also at this time when I think back about what games were my favorite games to play, or as we call them around here, Fun Game of the Year. So I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me to at least sample everything I know came out this year that was high quality.

So as far as stacking games, I’ll be adding a whole new console to our family’s repetoire (we’ll get to that in a later post) and adding games to my Steam library during the dreaded Steam Sale. But I’ll also be heading out of town for a while, so that will limit what I can play to portable devices and my laptop (which is anything but) portable.

When I get back, I’d like to finally wrap up Mass Effect 3 (and all its DLC), the Mr. Torgue DLC for Borderlands 2, The Walking Dead and Deus Ex. And maybe, just maybe reactivate my EVE Online account. GULP.

But for now, I’m keeping it simple over the weekend. I hope to get a little PC gaming in during the Holiday downtime including more Diablo 3 and my huge Steam library. What will you be playing?

In My Hands

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It’s actually been in my hands for a couple weeks now but with holidays and Borderlands 2, I just haven’t had a chance to play it. I’m going to remedy that tonight.

Video Games and Marketing

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Video game marketing and TV commercials have come a long way since I’ve been a gamer. We’ve gone from these “corny” Zelda commercials (I say “corny” lovingly, because at the time I thought they were pretty awesome) to having a “World Premier Trailer” show up during an NBA playoff game. We’ve gone

As I’ve been thinking about it, I’ve also been thinking a little about marketing these games to kids. To be fair, those Zelda commercials were targeted to kids (albeit older kids) and maybe that’s why, twenty-five years later, they appear corny to my jaded eyes. But now, during the holiday season, I have become more acutely aware of how kids are targeted from all sides with commercials and marketing geared specifically for their attention. And it works. With the date of a hot new game release approaching, you can bet that the promotional efforts for the game will seemingly become more amplified. It seems like every time you walk into electronics section at Wal-Mart and other major stores, there are employees and displays with various products to offer as a promotion resource for the latest new videogame. If I were a kid, how could I resist.

They are effective. I recently read this good article by JP Sherman at the Escapist and suggest everyone go read. What struck me the most telling was that web advertising is still the wild frontier. While there is hardly any marketing of violent video games to kid audiences, websites that kids frequent still routinely show ads for M-rated games. Even shows that cater to the younger teenagers have decreased their advertising of violent video games, which was a surprise to me.

In the end, it’s still about monitoring not only the content our kids are consuming, but what is on the periphery as well. We let our kids use sites like Kizi, which houses tons of flash-based games, but the ads are still troublesome. We still look to find ways to let them have fun online but maintain that safety net at the same time.

I’d love to hear any techniques you guys use. Or sites you have found to be mostly safe.

December Releases

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December creeped up on me and before I even realized it, the first Tuesday of the month had passed and I hadn’t poste the monthly releases. And BOY what a doozy December is. Decembers in general are weak for video game releases, but this year is particularly anemic.

Week of December 4th
Far Cry 3

Week of December 11th
The Walking Dead

Week of December 4th
Marvel Avengers: Battle For Earth

Week of December 11th
007 Legends

No new Nintendo Wii releases.

No new Nintendo 3DS releases.

No new Nintendo DS releases.

Week of December 4th
Far Cry 3
Sniper Elite V2

Week of December 11th
Haunted

Week of December 4th
Far Cry 3

Week of December 11th
The Walking Dead

Week of December 25th
WRC FIA World Rally Championship

Week of December 18th
Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed

No new Sony PSP releases.

What are you picking up?

(Note: As always, all Amazon.com links have our affiliate code embedded in them. If you purchase something through our link, we get a little commission. It’s appreciated.)

In My Weekend Gaming Digital Hands

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So I have been in Atlanta all week on business, working 12+ hour days and eating like a king for five straight days (oh, and a ride in the corporate jet). But long days like that on the road leave little time for my hands to touch gaming keyboards, so I’m looking forward to seeing my beautiful wife and kids again, and once they’re all comfortably tucked away in bed, getting a little “me time” with Borderlands 2 and Mr. Torgues Campaign of Carnage.

What will you be playing this weekend?

Beautiful Skyrim

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James pointed me to a post over at the PC Gamer Blog showing off some STUNNING enhancements that are possible with Skyrim.

It’s no surprise that the modding community was going to tear into Skyrim and tweak every nook and cranny and really improve upon it. Bethesda and Steam facilitated that, to their credit. But I’m actually beyond amazed what has already taken place.

What has me more interested is what the PC Gamer writer says: “Keep in mind that when that grass fills the screen Unreal reports framerates as low as 5 fps, so super-modded Skyrim isn’t always playable. But think of it as a preview of the near-future.” This is what really excites me. The near future. I’m still torn between becoming a full-time PC gamer and a console gamer. But the thought of what the next Xbox or Playstation is going to be capable of makes the graphics whore in me giddy beyond belief.

Seriously, just look at these beautiful images. Now to pick one for the new PC background.

Weekend Gaming

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Another weekend is upon us! This one snuck up on me all of a sudden. This weekend is a bye week for both of my football teams, so I’m looking at quite a bit of gaming time.

Borderlands 2 continues to consume the bulk of my gaming time, but I think (at least Mordecai told me) that we are gearing up for the final mission. That means that we either barrel through and finish up the game (until more DLC drops) or we become completionists and start mopping up all the side-quests (even the level 5 stuff we forgot to do weeks ago). With Halo 4 already out, I have a feeling we’ll be finishing up Borderlands 2 sooner rather than later.

When the main TV isn’t available for 360’ing, I plan on doing a little PC gaming. Maybe hop back into Diablo 3 for a look around or maybe something unplayed in Steam.

What gaming are you doing this weekend?