Down to Eight...

The console backlog is now down to eight. For the record, I haven't had a console backlog of less than 15 for going on four years now. In theory, I hope to be able to knock off several other titles in the coming weeks because the Fourth Quarter Surge is upon us. For whatever idiotic reason, game houses release everything they possible can (and some things they shouldn't) from October through December. The idea being to hit the Christmas rush.

The result is people only buying two or three of the 15 available AAA titles. The result from that is the incorrect assumption that certain games are bad because they didn't move units. For example, look at Quake 4 from last year. That was an A- game all around, and a generally fantastic action-fest. But it released the same day as GUN, Call of Duty 2, F.E.A.R., and about four other big name titles and Activision utterly abandoned it. This happens every year and no one ever seeks to change it, which speaks to the utter stupidity among corporate executives.

I already see two games on store shelves I desperately want, but I'm holding back to focus on the remaining eight. Unfortunately for my timetable, two of them are role-playing games (namely Jade Empire and Dark Cloud 2) which means each one could command weeks worth of my attention. The others though I should be able to knock out with a few days worth of concerted effort each. I sincerely want to go into 2007 with as few of these hanging around my neck as possible because as busy as this year was, it pales in comparison to what I know is coming soon enough.

In the meantime, I'll have the rest of my Love Boat saga completed this week (left my notes at home, so I'll have to pick them up at lunch), along with having a few DVD reviews here and there. My Fair Lady goes out of town on Friday and doesn't return until late Sunday so there will be gaming and movie-watching aplenty at Casa de Skim this coming weekend. Later...