I was updating my wishlist (in the panel on the right there) and I noticed of how good the next couple months are going to be, and I’m not sure how it is going to play out.

At this point, I more or less spend all of my game time, live on twitch channel, the only exception is if I only have a few minutes, (which at this time I spend with Binding of Isaac, or a turn or two with Total War Shogun 2), and to be honest, I love it, we’ve had some awesome people coming through hanging out and chatting about games it really does provide me with a new vehicle to talk about the games I’m playing, and in most ways it is much better than the blog because it’s interactive, and spontaneous and that’s awesome, but it puts me in a bit of a hard spot when it comes to how I allocate my game time. Most of the time I feel compelled to play something through to completion before moving on to the next thing, and I think next month I may run into issues doing that because I tend to play new releases and this is really the first time since I started casting that I’m going to hit a game that is going to run me into a new release of a game that I’d really like to play where it’s not really possible to get through it.

I have high hopes for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, it seems like an action rpg that hits all the right notes with me, I’m expecting good story, good character development (in terms of ability), and skill based action combat, all in a (seldom used) colorful cartoony setting. It’s a direction I’d like to see some more RPGs go and so I really hope this game does well even if it’s not flawless.

Reckoning will be quick on the heels of a Final Fantasy XIII-2 release that I’ve been waiting for (talking about on my stream a lot). When I finished with FF13 I didn’t feel as though I was done with that world (even after finishing a second playthough of the game on the stream), and despite its well documented shortcomings I enjoyed. It sounds like some of that stuff has been addressed in a not so meaningful way, and they sort of threw some systems on top of it to sate the masses of FF fans who were offended by its last release, but to be honest, I don’t know that I’ve ever hated a final fantasy game (I totally avoided 10-2, that might have been the one that breaks this statement), for me it’s always been the story that pushes me through the many hours of content, and I expect there to be a good story here, but with ‘sequel expectations’ I imagine it will be a little watered downed (this is total speculation on my part, I haven’t heard a thing that actually suggests that is the case).

I recently replayed FF13 on stream to get ready for this release, and there was quite a few viewers that were around for the most of it, I expect some of them will be back for 13-2, and if you’re not one of those people you should be! Come hang out and watch me get my ass kicked

In any case, the point is, I may be doing a little switching between Reckoning and FF13-2 depending on my mood, if it doesn’t work I’ll likely just stick with one and go back aftewards (and probably start over). With any luck I’ll have them both done by the time Mass Effect 3 releases and we won’t have any further issues. On that note, my Mass Effect 2 refresher run is in progress, and will continue tonight! Come on by my twitch channel and hang out!

Portal 2 is out today, and I’m going to be all over it. If you’ve been following the blog, you know ps3 is my go to platform, but I generally prefer the digital download route of acquiring games. Portal 2 has created a big dilemma for me but I eventually settled on going out and getting the PS3 version, since it comes with a steam copy anyway, it would be silly of me not too.

I didn’t even finish the original portal in fact I was quite late to that game in general, and it did feel dated when I did get around to it. I loved the concept and the humor though in the parts I did see. Maybe I’ll hammer my way through it today before I get into the sequel.

I will be passing on Mortal Kombat as tempted as I am, fighting games just aren’t fun if you don’t have a rival and I really don’t have one at this point as I mentioned in my Tekken and Super Street Fighter IV articles.

It seems like it’s been forever since I’ve been able to write about games, apart from little big planet 2 it has been horrendously dry… That dry spell is about to come to an end however, on the 22nd we’re scheduled to get Bulletstorm and Killzone 3, both of which have demos out for you to kick the tires on if you see fit.

I had a great time with the Bulletstorm demo, it’s action packed, the weapons were fun, and the combo system sparks some creativity in your carnage which I can appreciate. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to take pride in a leaderboard simple because I don’t have the dedication to get into the top percentile of any game’s user base, so I hope there is more to the story than the demo leads me to believe because shooters with score screens at the end of the level historically don’t do very well in my eyes (example, vanquish).

I played like 5 minutes of the Killzone demo, it’s just multiplayer/bots so you know what you’re getting there, more of their warzone mode, in my limited play time I did see anything new really. I play games like that for the single player anyway so I didn’t really learn anything from the demo apart from that it looks pretty good.

Anyway, I’m kind of excited to have some games on the plate.