I’m sure for many gamers the week of February 27th 2012 is a painful one. Simply put, it’s not the week that contains the coveted date of Mass Effect 3’s release. Don’t worry folks! The video game industry will ease the suffering of waiting a week with... uhm... snowboarding. And robots. Lots of robots.

Remember. Release dates are quite literally made at the whims of the publisher.  The following are subject to change without any warning.

Honorable Mention

SSX (Xbox 360, PS3)

Tuesday February 28, 2012

The king of snowboarding games returns sans any subtitles for a gajillion percent more probability of confusion with the original SSX that came out 12 years ago. But aside from veteran gamers, who else would be confused by the title? The SSX series has been dormant for five years now with the last one being SSX Blur for the Wii, which fell victim to Wii’s early days of motion control gimmickry.

Continuing the series’ tradition of insane, physics-defying snowboarding stunts, SSX ups the ante by giving you access to nine mountain ranges, each having multiple slopes. These ranges include the Alps, the Himalayas, the Patagonia, and even Antarctica. Each range offers several modes for you to conquer. The trick event tasks you with successfully pulling off stunts on your way down while the race events have you racing down the mountain against other boarders. The new Survival mode can only be played on certain slopes. Collectively known in the SSX lore as the nine Deadly Descents, these slopes add an element of danger such as having to outrace an avalanche or forcing you to get to lower altitude quickly before the lack of oxygen knocks you out. Although the Survival mode can only be played here, these Deadly Descents slopes can be chosen for trick events as well as the racing events.

Feeding on people’s psychological need to outdo their friends, SSX features RiderNet. This feature constantly reminds you how much better your friends are doing on every slope. Need for Speed has implemented a similar function in their latest entries and have proven to be very popular.

February of 2012 has oddly become the month of genre revivals. Like Twisted Metal, no can pinpoint why the snowboarding genre has gone dormant, although SSX Blur certainly didn’t help. Like the car combat genre, perhaps all the snowboarding genre needed is the one undisputable king to lead the pack. Will this SSX pick up that mantle again, which it wore so proudly only a console generation ago?

Binary Domain (Xbox 360, PS3)

Tuesday February 28, 2012

You know what enemy type hasn’t been en vogue lately? Robots. Evil, homicidal, out to kill people kind of robots. Thankfully Binary Domain will be filling in that need for us this year.

In 2080, technology has allowed us to create androids, robots that can easily pass as a human. Unfortunately one of these android generating corporations has taken it upon themselves to take over the world, or something like that, with their creations. Have no fear! You and your three squadmates, which you get to choose from a pool of five each with their own loadouts, can stop them, one bullet riddled robot at a time.

This third person, cover based shooter plays very much like Gears of War except with robots, but it does feature a rather strange, Bioware-esque relationship system between you and your squadmates. Certain dialogue options gets you either brownie points with your fellow compadres or whatever the opposite of brownie points are. Get them to like you, and they’ll follow the orders you give them like fire now or cover me. Oddly enough, these orders can be issued by your voice via a headset or manually via your controller in case you’re not in the mood to shout at your TV.

Given the choice between robots, military flunkies, zombies, and terrorist, I’d gladly pick robots as my choice of fodder for the hail of flying bullets out of my totally futuristic machine gun. It could be because I am fairly sick and tired of having to shoot at the other three options, but the very idea of just shooting robots really takes me back to my other favorite, robot hating video game, Vanquish.

Coming This Week

Monday February 27, 2012

PokePark 2: Wonders Beyond (Wii)

Let’s face it. The main line Pokemon will never show up on the console. We’ll just have to be content with these offshoots. Like the previous PokePark game, this hybrid adventure and mini-game collection game has you playing as Pikachu, Tepig, Snivy, and Oshawott as they go around befriending other Pokemons to stop a villainous plot involving kidnapping Pokemons with cake. Yup. Cake.

Tuesday February 28, 2012

Mortal Kombat Komplete Edition (Xbox 360, PS3)

We can all thank Street Fighter for this unfortunate trend of the “Super” versions of fighting games that inevitably comes out within a year or so of the original. This one includes all 4 DLC fighters – Freddie Krugger, Skarlet, Kenshi, and Rain – 15 skins, three original fatalities for Scorpion, Sub-Zero, and Reptile, some Mortal Kombat music including the Mortal Kombat song from the first Mortal Kombat movie (you know the one). Happy Kombating!

Hyperdimension Neptunia Mk-II (PS3)

I haven’t used my OFJ (Only From Japan) moniker in a while. Then I saw this little gem on the list of releases. The first Hyperdimension Neptunia tells the tale of the console wars in the world of Gameindustri. In this sequel, a new threat known as Arfoire has captured the leaders of the four CPUs (basically nations). Now it’s up to their younger sisters to band together and free their sisters from this criminal in classic Japanese role playing game style featuring skimpily dressed girls that look underage but supposedly isn’t. OFJ man. OFJ.

Late to the Party

• Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2 (3DS) 2/28/2012

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