Upcoming Games: June

You realize it’s almost June, right? Summer will soon be here, which means game releases will slow to a crawl in the weird belief that the target market of most games, students, don’t want to play video games when they don’t have school.

This dichotomy has bothered me for years. You’d think summer would be up there with Christmas in terms of video game releases, because most young people would get a job mowing lawns for pennies an hour, and then spend them on a fancy new video game. As opposed to January, when they’ve got a million games to play anyway and no time for them.

It’s baffling. But that doesn’t mean nothing’s being released in June; in fact, depending on your interests, there are definitely some pretty snazzy new releases on the horizon. Personally, I’m all about the Harry P, but your mileage can, and probably should, vary.

June 1rst:
-The rather poorly received Alpha Protocol is, somehow, next weeks marquee release. Assuming you can get past the fact that the actual studio thought it should be canceled, you might be able to have some fun with it.
-For those of you who love FOOTBALL!, Natural Motion’s quasi-revolutionary NFL-less football game, Backbreaker, releases. I know you’re ecstatic, especially considering the internet consensus seems to be “no matter how good it is, it’ll be 10$ by the time Madden comes out and everyone forgets about it, I’ll get it then.”
-Atlus fanboy moment: Hexyz Force, for the PSP, releases this week. I know nothing about it because I don’t have a PSP, but I figure I should mention it because <3 Atlus.

June 8th:
-You big release for the month, I’m told, is Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, or Hideo Kojima’s continued attempt to troll everyone into letting him make a game he wants to make. Unfortunately for him but perhaps fortunately for you, he’s the kind of troll who comes into a thread to post “Lol butts” and then realizes he has a normal, rational opinion, and expresses it.
-Lazy journalism time: I’ve seen Naughty Bear around a lot, mostly on Destructoid. Apparently the commercials were funny, or something. Personally, it reminds me of Fairytale Fights in name only, and I really, honestly don’t know anything about either of them.
–Green Day: Rock Band. I just threw up in my mouth. Bring me Rush Rock Band (new single on June 1st! That’s tomorrow, don’tcha know!) and we can talk, Harmonix.
-In case you’ve gotten tired of your Mega Man Collection and your Mega Man X Collection, you can soon get the Mega Man Zero Collection. Actually, from the very little I played of Mega Man Zero the First, it seemed like it had some pretty neat ideas, so I won’t rag on it too much. But…seriously, I didn’t think enough people cared for it to become a collection.

June 15th:
-Cough.
-No, really. There are no releases I found worth a damn. Except, like, Toy Story 3 the Movie the Game. Which you don’t care about.

June 22nd:
–Transformers: War for Cybertron is trying really, really hard to be this year’s Arkham Asylum (which I didn’t care for, actually. Fun fact), and not this year’s AvP reboot. I have no opinion. Transformers is not my license. Sure, I had a couple cars, and the movie was an abortion, but that’s as far as it goes.
-If you like really generic, poorly localized JRPGs, Arc Rise Fantasia *has your number*. Then again, you could just buy a game off the PS2 bargain rack and probably have as much fun for 10% of the price.
–Sin and Punishment: Star Successor releases on the weekend. I don’t know quite how to feel about it, never having played the original. You get the feeling I don’t care about any of these games, I imagine. It’s because I don’t. This is a month I’mma skip.

June 29th:
-Until we get to the month’s classic release. The game to end all games. I’m talking, of course, about Lego Harry Potter. You might think I’m fucking batshit, but I loved the first Harry P game, and this seems the closest thing to my absolute dream game: an open ended, Bully-esque Harry Potter game, set perhaps before Harry gets there. Like, you have no idea how excited I would be.
-Oh, right, there are other games this week. Like Singularity. Which I always get mixed up with Dark Void, which is probably a bad time for it. It’s a pretty snazzy looking FPS, though, and if you pre-order it you get Prototype free (from some places), which counts for something.
-Finally, we have the pseudo-MMO gunplay of All Points Bulletin. Which looks neat, and has a very unique pricing model, but isn’t my cup of tea. So instead of boring you with semantics, I’m going to leave you with a Lego Harry P video. Woo!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDmFaZsmVG4&hl=en_US&fs=1&]