The Weekly Gamage: Holiday Lull

It’s that time again people, the holidays are approaching, every system has a game of the year candidate, and software releases have come to a complete halt. Not many of you may know this but there is a specific reason for this yearly pre-holiday lull.

You see, for the last month us game writers have been awash in an avalanche of the holiday blockbusters. With the likes of Prince of Persia and all those 360 launch titles clogging our to-play lists, this lull is a godsend to allow us to catch up before things start up again in January. To better visualize the game calender I have this time line broken down into the 6 seasons of the gaming year:

1. January-February-The Slow Start
Things get started slowly in the gaming year, these are a lot of games that have been delayed near the end of last year and this is when they get released. This period also has the possibility to deliver a few GOTY contenders and even eventual winners like Resident Evil 4 this year

2. March-May-The Early Rush
Some big titles drop here. It may not be nearly as big as the Thanksgiving rush, but it does provide it’s share of big titles. Look forward to Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess to drop in this period next year.

3. June-July-Silent Summer
Of the two major lulls this is the least bearable. A steady trickle of crappy game tie-ins to the summer blockbusters keep us just interested enough until things pick up again.

4. August-September-The Restart
Things get started up with a couple big games and a lot of decent ones prepping us for the big rush ahead. Games like Burnout Revenge drop here.

5. October-November-The Thanksgiving Rush
This is the big one, tens of AAA titles join some good filler to cause the sales boom the industry relies on to make up for less than stellar performance in previous periods. Things like Halo 2 cause long lines in this period.

6. December-Reviewer Recovery
This is what I was talking about before. Things trickle to a halt in early December and give us writers a chance to catch up.

Please note that a major console release will throw off these patterns in any season.

Just as some filler here’s a funny moment from this week:

The prettiest man I know is my math teacher Mr. Kong. His hair is always styled and shiny. Anyway, this week in class we were learning about the formula for compounding interest continuously for investments. The formula is Pert. Mr Kong told us to remember the formula with the acronym PERT, then exclaimed that he doesn’t know how he remembers that. Believe me that it was hilarious in person, you had to be there.

Looking ahead to what’s being released this week, it’s a ghost town. DOA 4 and King Kong for the PSP is about it. Instead of rushing out to buy Chaos Field for your lonely Gamecube look back at some games you may have overlooked throughout the year. It doubles as informing yourself to make fun of our upcoming game of the year picks.

In terms of actual news this week. The Family Entertainment Protection Act has now been officially filed, meaning it’s only some committee action away from me ripping into it. Look forward to that people, it’ll be great.

Also, Joystiq raised some interesting speculation about the next true Game Boy. They anticipate an upgrade to SNES style controls, complete Game Boy backwards compatibility, and detachable battery packs among their other hopes and wishes. May their dreams become all of ours, then come true.

To round things up two girls in the Boston area are attempting to sell sexual favors for an Xbox 360. Beats taking it from Microsoft.

That’s the Weekly Gamage, come back next week when I grab the gaming news, wrestle it to the ground and make it my bitch.

By Zack Rovinsky