2011′s second all-out avalanche of videogame releases is upon us, and it’s going to be the biggest we had in years. In case you aren’t familiar with the way we do things around here, “The Plan” isn’t supposed to cover all the decent games of the month, or even just those we’re going to pick up; it’s about the month’s most intriguing releases which is why, in an exciting month, we’ll usually list three or four. This November, we’re listing seven. Check out what they are past the break!

2nd: Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception (PS3)
4th: Sonic Generations (X360, PS3)
11th: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Multiplatform)
15th: Assassin’s Creed: Revelations (X360, PS3)
18th: Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii)
18th: Saints Row: The Third (Multiplatform)
25th: Rayman Origins (X360, PS3)

Everyone’s favourite PS3 exclusive returns with Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. On paper, the Uncharted series has the potential to produce one of my favourite games ever, but the below-par platforming and the mindless massacre of same-y nameless goons has left me wanting for much, much more, so far. Here’s to hoping Drake’s Deception finally lives up to that potential!

Like a moth to a flame, I’m drawn to Sonic games no matter how many times they’ve burned me in the past. They are my childhood and I’ll give ‘em a chance even if I full-well expect ‘em to be bad. However, after a slew of truly terrible releases, last year’s Sonic Colours was decent enough to make me think that the nostalgia-fueled Sonic Generations could actually be a solid game enjoyable by everyone. Don’t call it a comeback!

With Mass Effect 3 slipping to 2012, like I kinda predicted way back in my 2010 Recap / 2011 Expectations post, and Batman: Arkham City already out, there is only one game left to be insanely excited about and that game is none other than Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Now, games in the Elder Scrolls series habitually make you feel like they are going to be the best games of the decade right-before their release. They promise you the stars and once you play them, you realize that, maybe the engine is kinda ugly, the voice-acting is quite bland, the huge world is full of little glitches. I fully expect Skyrim to be ridiculously over-hyped on 11/11/11, then its stock dropping rapidly. Personally, I think it’s going to be a good game, I’ll certainly enjoy it for its ambition alone, but if you go in expecting the best game ever, it’ll probably frustrate you to no end.

My feelings on the Assassin’s Creed franchise are well documented, as is my disenchantment with Ubisoft‘s apparent desire to “milk” the franchise as much as possible. Assassin’s Creed was a solid concept that lacked a bit in the execution and Ubisoft worked well to address its shortcomings and build on its the strengths to release the excellent Assassin’s Creed II. Then, they tweaked AC II a little bit to release Brotherhood and I’m afraid they might be doing the same thing with Assassin’s Creed: Revelations. Even if that’s true, we’ll still get a technically great game, but fine-tuned retreads don’t gel that well with me. I hope Ubisoft surprises me with Revelations but, in case it doesn’t, I really hope they stop being afraid to get creative, take risks with the established formula, even if it works, push the story forward and give us an inspired Assassin’s Creed III next time around…

Ah, the Legend of Zelda series! What’s left to say about those gems, except that Twilight Princess wasn’t as good as Windwaker and Spirit Tracks was, in my eyes, a new low for Nintendo? Seriously though, it’s virtually impossible for Skyward Sword not to bring a smile to my face. It’s the first Zelda game designed for the Wii, I know it won’t be as cheap as Spirit Tracks and it’ll probably be fresher than Twilight; its look is definitely inspiring.

Closing up the month, we have another Ubisoft release and another comeback! Before the adorable Rabbids, their mindless minigames and their crazy success, that universe’s star was Rayman and he spent most of his time platforming. And it was time well spent! I hope we’ll be able to say the same about playing Rayman Origins, clearing the way for a resurgence of even more venerable platforming protagonists. Who will be next? I know the smart money is on Crash and the ironic/sarcastic bet on Bubsy, but my heart is rooting for that little bird from New Zealand Story. Loved that guy!

September, the time where we customarily get back to school, back to work, back to reality, back to gearing up to play some AAA titles! Let’s see what this month has in store for us, past the break!

6th: Disgaea 4 (PS3)
30th: FIFA 12 (Multiplatform)

There was a time, back in the PSX era, where turn-based RPGs were coming out at frenetic intervals, and most of them were pretty okay to boot! Sadly, that time is long gone, but we still get the odd gem every now and again; and when you say “odd” & “turn-based” in the same sentence there’s a fair chance you’re talking about the Disgaea series. Indeed, Disgaea 4 is coming overseas and it should be wacky enough to offset the hint of genre-fatigue I’ve been feeling lately.

September also signals the return to the bleachers for most football aficionados, and, although we usually have to wait until mid-October for the newest round of football videogames, this time we’ll get our fix pretty close to the Champions League openers. With 2.5 FIFAs that were clearly better than their PES counterparts, I feel it’s high time to stop talking about the series’ dramatic comeback and start labeling it as the undisputed king for this generation of consoles. That’s not to say I’ll stop checking out PES altogether, much like I didn’t stop checking FIFA even when it was downright abysmal, but I’m fairly certain that FIFA 12 will be the people’s choice this season.

And, yes, as timeless as a chainsaw to the face might be for some, that’s pretty much it for me! See you in an even more exciting October!

Cats & kittens, it’s already February: the most playful month of the year! Granted, most of its playfulness is attributed to Valentine’s Day, but these new, less racy, but still interesting games you can play in your bedroom do have their own part. Click past the break for their names and my quick thoughts!

18th: Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars (Multiplatform)
18th: Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (X360, PS3)
22nd: de Blob 2 (Multiplatform)

As I’ve mentioned before and as silly as it might sound, the Lego [Insert Film License Here] series is actually pretty great! The Clone Wars focuses on the well-received animated series of the same name and the most interesting thing about it just might be that the portable versions are shaping up quite well. As a two-player experience, I’ll probably end up recommending this one over New Super Mario Bros. once again.

Fighting games like Marvel vs. Capcom 3, usually put me in the awkward spot where I’m too good to have fun playing them with my friends, but too n00b to make it online. And it is awkward, because they’re really meant to be played with other humans. Still, I feel that simply seeing all those beloved and despised characters co-existing once again will be a treat, even if the matchmaking isn’t fair enough to make online play enjoyable. And, of course, if you are a hardcore fan of fighting games, Marvel vs. Capcom certainly has you covered.

Lastly, De Blob was a rather clever platformer for the Wii, with a pretty great development history. It was successful enough to warrant a sequel, probably because there doesn’t exist a playable Call of Duty game on the Wii for you lot to blindly buy instead. The sequel is multiplatform, however, so, if it bombs, I am blaming you and your BLOPS.

That does it for this month’s plan! As far as our posting schedule goes, we’ll have a piece covering the rest of the month’s videogame releases, then a review around Valentine’s Day and another one to close out February. Stay tuned to find out if I’m talking about text or video reviews, and if they’re for games that actually came out in 2011!

- Samus’ Valentine by Katrin Auch

‘Tis the season to be jolly, but it’s also about time to finalize your shopping lists for 2010! Because, let’s face it, there is nothing more seasonal than rampant consumerism. Let’s find out if we are expecting any worthy last-minute additions, after the break!

3rd: Donkey Kong Country Returns (Wii)
7th: World of Warcraft: Cataclysm (PC)
??: Back to the Future: The Game (PC, PS3)

We have Retro studios taking good care of another Nintendo license, Blizzard unleashing the third WoW expansion to its legion of addicts (in which, apparently, my dad is a ranking officer) and, most importantly, Telltale bringing us a fresh new Back to the Future story.

And yes, that’s this month’s gaming highlight. We don’t know the exact release date, we don’t know if it’s going to be pretty okay like Sam & Max, kinda great like Tales of Monkey Island, or unabashedly bad like Poker Night at The Inventory but we do know one thing: This is heavy.

In case you couldn’t get enough of my Metroid: Other M video review, or I was talking way too fast for your poor human ears, there’s a slightly remixed version of the transcript available over at Ciao.

It’s pretty much what you’d hear in the video, but it does contain some different takes and brand new comments, such as:

Some further comments:

• Writing the text review after the script is much weirder than the other way around.
• Despite having about six thousand words between them, I still didn’t manage to talk about how Other M actually raised my opinion of the Prime Trilogy and even Metal Gear Solid 4! I find that Other M and MGS4 fail for a lot of the same reasons, but even Hideo Kojima knew enough about story structure to resolve his plot-lines, albeit haphazardly, and get the hero to confront the villains, even if the showdowns sometimes were anticlimactic. And, he even makes most of his cutscenes skippable!
• Rewatching the video always cracks me up, if only because I find my efforts to talk slowly as hilarious as they are ineffective.

Metroid switches development houses once again, as Team Ninja tries to provide some insight on Samus’ past and we wonder if they could have failed more epically.

Featuring monologues, monotones and many destruction sequences.

I really need to work on my ridiculously slow editing speed, not only because I’d like to get my opinions out to you guys faster, but also because I force myself into a media blackout until I get the review done. This, in turn, is bad, not only because I do enjoy my Zero Punctuations but also because I end up feeling guilty anyway if I make the same joke as someone else. And, it turns out, Yahtzee opens up with the same crack as I. Sorry!

Of course, by the time I get to that opening joke, Yahtzee’s review is already over, so maybe I also need to work on making these videos shorter?

Nah, I know you guys come here for the most impossibly detailed reviews this side of Alpha Centauri.

Speaking of games with Sid Meier‘s name in them, will I get to Civilization 5 before November? Time will tell!

Cats & kittens, you may have noticed it’s October already, which means the season is kicking into high gear for most popular sports and football video-games will be taking center stage. But that’s not all October has in store for us, let’s have a look after the break!

1st: FIFA 11 (Multiplatform)
7th: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (X360, PS3)
8th: NBA Jam (Wii)
29th: Fable 3 (X360)
29th: Football Manager 2011 (PC)
29th: Rock Band 3 (X360, PS3, Wii)
29th: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 (Multiplatform)

That’s my longest list yet and it doesn’t even include mildly intriguing titles such as the new Professor Layton or games I’ll pick up because they used to be good and I’m too sentimental, like PES 2011.

This month also marked the release of a certain fast-talking web-show host, some years back. By the way, we’ll definitely have two new episodes this month, maybe three if the stars align correctly. Here’s to a spectacular October!

The summer draught is officially over and we finally have a good selection of games to look forward to! These past months sure went by fast, as if someone kept clicking the days away, thinking…

3rd: Metroid: Other M (Wii)
10th: Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions (X360/PS3/Wii/DS)
24th: Civilization V (PC)
24th: Dead Rising 2 (X360/PS3/PC)
24th: Metal Gear Solid Rising (PS3/X360/PC)

In other September news, Sony promptly tries to get into the “motion gaming” market Nintendo created 4 years ago with Move and I think Beyoncé is releasing a new remix of a popular ballad of hers, called Halo: Reach, or something.

Here’s to a great September!

It’s been a long time coming, but the video version is finally up: Join the JRT Show as I critique one of the holiday season’s heaviest hitters, Nintendo‘s return to its oldest franchise, New Super Mario Bros. Wii for the Nintendo Wii! Featuring dragons, mushrooms and pillow-fights.

This episode has been at 95% since early December, so there exist a couple of dated comments, but NSMB Wii is still going strong in the charts; I figure the review can still be helpful. The sound should be clearer than usual, but there are a couple of instances near the end where it fluctuates out of its own volition. You’d think it’d be easy to fix, but it only appears at the final encode and not while editing, so I suspect metaphysical shenanigans. Probably one of those damn Boos.

Next review will be of a much fresher release and it will be up… soon!

One of the hottest titles this holiday season and the biggest Shigeru Miyamoto release in a long while, I take a look at Nintendo‘s New Super Mario Bros. Wii for the Nintendo Wii.

As the seminal (PC) gaming connoisseurs over at RPS might put it, my analysis starts a bit like:

It’s hard to believe it’s been more than three years since my review of the DS version. I think that my writing style has changed a bit, but I have an innate aversion to looking at my older pieces for too long, so I can’t say for sure.