Fall is the Gamer Blockbuster Season

And this year, October takes the cake; for me at any rate. Let's see, this month we have Fallout: New Vegas, Fable 3, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, Vanquish, and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2. Son of a bitch...

Granted, I'm not exactly going to purchase all of them (although I've already purchased two of them), but that's a lot of gaming to deal with in one month! How the hell can I devote enough time to each of them? Particularly when one of them is a reboot of one of the longest running video game franchises of all time? How can I possibly devote a full experience when I have to worry about the others coming out right afterwards? What is the answer?

I can't. Pure and simple.

In the past, I have usually handled these situations in much the same way. You prioritize. In this case, the two games that I know I am going to play this month are Fable 3 and Fallout: New Vegas. The others I will get to, especially Castlevania. The others are like the icing on a delicious cake of pure gaming; they add a little something extra, but aren't the best part (at least for me, anyway).

Now, this list only really covers those two gaming platforms I care about (PC and Xbox). Not that I hate the PS3 or the Wii, it's just that I don't use those systems, so I don't keep up-to-date with their release calendar. I'm willing to bet good money that if you were to combine all the systems together, October would be impossible to wade through without tripping over a game that someone is drooling over.

For example: I have a good friend who *loved* Bioshock 1 and 2. Unfortunately, her boyfriend isn't the same kind of pushover I am. Since she's not the best of gamers (no offense!), particularly with first-person shooters, she loves to play vicariously through me. With Bioshock Infinite coming out, I have to keep the mop and bucket ready whenever she visits because she has to watch that trailer and things go downhill.

And it's not just October. Last month we had Halo: Reach (the puddle from that game alone could probably have powered the Hoover Dam for at least a week) and in the near future we've got Star Wars: The Old Republic, WoW: Cataclysm, Dead Space 2, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (EA, redeem thyself!), CoD: Black Ops... I could go on, but I'd probably hit my word limit for this blog.

Anyway, the long point of this, somewhat disjointed, article is that it really is a great time to be a gamer, but also, my wallet bleeds every fall.