Hard Choices

With this holiday season's glut of gaming goodness, we have come to the time where we need to make hard choices about where to spend our hard earned cash. I assume you earn your cash, it's possible you steal it or inherited it. I really have no idea.

Even if we weren't on the precipice of not one, but two console launches, there would be so many titles coming out in the fall months to render your wallet near weightless. I say two console launches, but truth be told, I have no fucking idea what to call the PS3 launch. I mean, yes, technically, on the 17th of November, the PS3 will be available for purchase, provided you can find a store or person that has one to actually sell you. Target, Best Buy, Walmart, Circuit City and EB/Gamestop account for roughly 10,000 stores in the US which means a grand total of 4, yes that's correct, 4 PS3's per store at launch. 4, as in the number of fingers on your hand after trying to trim your thumbnail with a table saw. The thought that you could be the baddest motherfucker on the planet, someone who is willing to do the hard wait in line time and have your intentions thwarted by a group of people small enough to fit in a Civic hatchback leaves me feeling like this PS3 launch is just some silly PR stunt so that Sony can say they launched in November, for all that fucking matters.

I am curious to know if there is someone out there who actually thinks they'll get a PS3 at launch. I mean, I don't know anyone who actually wants one, much less is foolish enough to think they'll actually get one. I don't doubt that there are people out there planning to get in line a good week or so prior to launch day to ensure they get ushered into this brave new world of next generation tomfoolery, but I'll be damned if I know any of 'em. Personally, I couldn't tell you one game launching with the PS3, so even if I had no plans for the week leading up to the 17th, I'm not sure what I'd play on the blasted thing once I got it home. I dunno, maybe watch the Fifth Element on Blu-ray? Fuck if I know. I seem to remember the warrior cry of Riiiidge Raaaaacer let loose during E3, so I can assume racing on ridges, or possibly Ruffles, will be available.

We have already spoken of the Wii and my unbridled enthusiasm for it. It too represents a significant outlay of cash, of which we have also already spoken. Every week, Friday to be specific, I call my local Gamestop to inquire as to the status of preorders. I already know the answer, as I'm not so foolish as to believe that news of Gamestop taking preorders will first come to me from my local store, rather than the raging fires of the Intraweeb. I feel foolish calling like this, not because I already know the answer and am desperately clinging to hope, but because in my mind, they know it's me. They're sitting, timing their day by my call and then, after hanging up, they laugh and laugh and laugh, possibly taking a Wii preorder from some other customer at the same time. Truth be told, they have no idea who I am, despite that store being the only store I buy from, and many purchases at that. This is the strange, narcissistic world I live in.

When I called today, they told me they'd know about preorders in about a week and a half. Take it for what it's worth. I give it more creedence than usual, as that would be about a month out from launch and that has a level of symmetry I can latch on and cling to for dear life.

We have spoken of the gaming moritorium, however I am asking for a reprieve so that I may purchase Marvel Ultimate Alliance for the 360. I know that I had spoken before about buying this for the Wii, and it pains me to not have this be the means with which I support the new console, however this game is setting my gaming cabal afire with comic book geekery. For Christ's sake, we are discussing how much we would pay to purchase the Great Lakes Avengers. For the record, I have called dibs on Monkey Joe. The promise of online coop and not just coop, but competetive coop, by which I can let Bones pummel the Mandarin's henchmen to near death with Captain America, only to have me and Ghost Rider come in at the last moment and, with a flick of my hellish chains, steal his kills, is too much to resist. I have instead, decided to purchase the next instance of Splinter Cell for the Wii, rather than the 360 as I am quite possibly the worst online Splinter Cell player in the history of digital entertainment. Besides, Ubisoft is supporting the Wii with a fervor I am unaccustomed to seeing for Nintendo products, so it only makes sense that I return the favor. I played the first Splinter Cell on the 'Cube and found it neck snappingly delightful.

Between these games, Zelda, Guitar Hero 2, the next Super Monkey Ball outing, possibly Rayman: Raving Rabbids, possibly Call of Duty 3 and possibly Gears of War, we're talking a momentous amount of cash. So much, that I may have to actually depend on family members to provide me with these games as holiday offerings. This scares me, as traditionally, my mother-in-law does all of her shopping at garage sales and I fear what she would return with were I to send her out to find monkey balls.