February 2011: Financial Threshold Yellow

January gave me a breather, and I’ve used it wisely, short-lived though it was. February is a dangerous month for twitch games and RPG fans alike. Reality Pump is attempting to make amends after the poorly-designed, -ported, -received Two Worlds. Atlus expects to have another hit on its hands with Radiant Historia, a DS title I’ve been anticipating since its reveal.

On the twitch front, Marvel vs. Capcom returns after an 11-year absence. It’s button complexity has been toned down – popup is now a single button for all characters – but the volume of on-screen mayhem remains the same. Bulletstorm promises the same visual confusion to the uninitiated. People Can Fly have had success with the FPS genre in the past, including DLC for Gears of War. Here’s to continued trigger-happy success in late February.

My most-difficult decision is which platform to buy Marvel vs. Capcom 3 for, PS3 or 360, which I already have an arcade stick for.

Purchased:

• Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds (February 15) – If I hadn’t worked in an arcade during the initial Marvel vs. Capcom run, I would have sunk hundreds, perhaps thousands of quarters into the arcade machines. The hypercombos, chaining of air and ground attacks and colorful, insanely large cast of characters made previous installments a daily part of my life for a couple of years. I’m not hot on the change in controls – seems tailored towards gamepads – but I am willing to see how it pans out.
• Bulletstorm (February 22) – Being male and in to action and science fiction means I’m required to purchase Bulletstorm. Also, I’ve been promised a storm of bullets, facestomping, hugs and kisses. Sadly, with Epic Games behind People Can Fly, I expect the game to be over as soon as anything begins to happen plotwise.
• Radiant Historia (February 22) – Atlus has a long history of making top-notch RPGs. The company piled together minds from some of its best titles for Radiant Historia. Persona 3, Strange Journey and Etrian Odyssey alums joined forces like Captain Planet to create an epic time-traveling geo-political RPG.

Likely:

• de Blob 2 (February 22) – I purchased the original de Blob because I enjoyed the game in theory. In actuality, I still haven’t had a chance to play it. It’s one of the neglectedin-the-shrink-wrap titles. I’ll support the innovative gameplay again, it’s just a matter of when the purchase will be made.

Sorry:

• Test Drive Unlimited 2 (February – I’ve little interest in racing games these days.
• Two Worlds II (February – SouthPeak Interactive showed some impressive stuff behind the curtain at PAX East for Two Worlds II.  Unfortunately, the game was horribly unfinished at that point.  It’s been months since the console release but Reality Pump had tons of work to do. Early reviews lead me to believe that Reality Pump was given the resources to complete a solid PC port. The weariness remains.
• Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation (February 14) – A previously unreleased version of Dragon Quest seeing a full remake for the DS is difficult to pass up. But the sheer length of the franchise’s titles, the price of Square Enix DS games and fact that I only completed DQIX a few weeks ago means the completion to the Zenithia trilogy will have to wait.
• Killzone 3 (February 22) – I finally have a PS3, but I’m way behind in the franchise.