So… for the first quarter of 2010, with a bit of help from GameFAQs:

(Note that this is for North America only)

Nintendo Wii

Jan. 26th: No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle
Jan. 26th: Tatsunoku vs. Capcom
Mar. 23rd: Sakura Wars: So Long My Love

Xbox 360

Jan. 5th: Bayonetta
Jan. 6th: Mass Effect 2
Feb. 9th: Bioshock 2
Feb. 9th: Dante’s Inferno
Feb. 23rd: Lost Planet 2
Mar. 2nd: Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Mar. 9th: Final Fantasy XIII

Playstation 3

Jan. 5th: Bayonetta
Feb. 2nd: Gran Tourismo 5
Feb. 9th: Bioshock 2
Feb. 9th: Dante’s Inferno
Feb. 23rd: Lost Planet 2
Mar. 2nd: Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Mar. 9th: Final Fantasy XIII

Nintendo DS

Feb. 16th: Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth
Mar. 17th: Pokemon Heart Gold/Soul Silver

Playstation Portable

Feb. 9th: Dante’s inferno

PC

Jan. 26th: Mass Effect 2
Feb. 2nd: The Sims 3: High End Loft Stuff
Feb. 9th: Bioshock 2
Mar. 2nd: Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Mar. 16th: Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight

I can remember when I first got a DS. It had already been out for about a year and a half and it just so happened that the first New Super Mario Bros. was on its way, promising an experience that mixes Mario’s new moves in an old 2D-style game.  Nevertheless I got it when I had the chance and loved every minute I spent with it. Being an 80’s kid that logged countless hours playing Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3, the game brought back many nostalgic moments from the plumber’s 8-bit glory days.

Despite this, I didn’t know what to think when Nintendo showcased New Super Mario Bros. Wii at this year’s E3 press conference. It could have been the fact that they spent all the time on boasting about 4-player simultaneous half co-op, half competitive multiplayer, but it really took me a while for this one to settle in… In fact, it was only yesterday that I actually was sold on the game by demoing it in single-player. (I’m really the only gamer in the household so it’s really hard to be sold on a game that only offers local multiplayer.) A couple of trade-ins later and I find myself headed home with the game’s bright-red box in hand, ready for yet another classic Mario experience.

Game Overview:
The actual storyline of course is just a shadow to the same old thing. Bowser comes, kidnaps Peach, starts terrorizing the Mushroom Kingdom, yadda yadda yadda… Nothing new there.  Okay, so now that we’re past that… New Super Mario Bros. Wii follows in the footsteps of its DS predecessor by offering a modern Mario game in a classic 2D environment. It’s the type of game that will no likely please just about everyone in one way or another… There’s really just no way I can describe this in greater detail.

How does it play?
With the exception of the mega mushroom, all of Mario’s moves from NSMB can be done here. The controls, assuming you’re using just the remote, (which if you’re like me is the only way to play a game like this) have been simplified down to something reminiscent of an NES game, with a few extra things that require you to shake or tilt the remote, such as spin-jumping or tilting a special kind of platform.  The game takes a lot out of Super Mario Bros. 3 in a way.  The game features the return of airship-style stages, replaces the SMW-style “reserve item” system from the first game with an inventory system similar to 3’s, and even brings back the Koopalings from a long leave-of-absence.  Yoshi also makes an appearance and controls much like he did in his debut nearly 19 years ago complete with gobbling berries, stomping out most enemies in 1 hit, and jumping off his back. (Many times causing him to make noble sacrifices so that Mario can complete his quest.)

Progression is similar to that as in the DS version; Worlds are set out into branching paths and each world contains a castle at the end and 1 or 2 towers along the way. Ghost houses, mushroom houses, warp cannons, and now even enemies that wander the map make a return in NSMBWii. Mario must jump, stomp, and slide his way through to the ever-so-classic flagpole at the end of each level, which obviously opens the way to the next level. He does have the help of a few new powerups along the way; The ice flower works much like the fire flower except that Mario can freeze enemies. This allows him to pick a frozen enemy up and toss it like a koopa shell. The propeller hat allows Mario to fly straight up with a shake of the remote, then slowly float back down. Penguin mario negates the effects of ice and also enhances his sliding ability.

Unfortunately, I haven’t had the opportunity to try multiplayer yet, though I’m confident that one day I’ll be able to give it a spin… I just need people that I can actually play it with.

Pros:

Cons:

• Stale story. Seriously… I don’t know how many ways you can conjure up a story that has the same result… Princess gets kidnapped, plumber sets off to save her.

Do I Like It?
It’s… Mario, and it’s a Mario that just about everyone can relate to.  The presentation is a nice mix of old and new and controls with a similar style to that of the older Mario games. As I said before, I wasn’t sure how much I was going to like this game until I was able to try it out for myself, and once I did it was golden. This game is a must-buy.

Who should buy it?
Everyone that has a Wii. I’m not saying this as a fanboy, or a Nintendork, or an old-school gamer. There is something that will please just about everyone in this game unless you absolutely hate platformers… Or old-school games. (I have yet to be given a valid reason as to why someone should hate an old-school game, though.) People who grew up with an NES will like it for its single-player gameplay, and maybe the young ones will like the multiplayer aspects.

First Impression: Very Good. At this point I don’t think Nintendo could have done better… aside from the story.

But, without further ado, here are some of the games you can expect between now and the end of the year:

(Note: The following list is only for North America)

Xbox 360
Oct 13th: Brutal Legend
Oct 27th: DJ Hero
Oct 27th: Forza Motorsport 3
Oct 27th: Tekken 6
Oct 29th: GTA4: The Ballad of Gay Tony

Nov 3rd: Band Hero
Nov 10th: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Nov 17th: Assassin’s Creed II
Nov 17th: Left 4 Dead 2

Dec 22nd: Guitar Hero: Van Halen

Playstation 3
Sept 29th: Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2

Oct 13th: Brutal Legend
Oct 20th: Ratchet & Clank: A Crack In Time
Oct 27th: DJ Hero
Oct 27th: Tekken 6

Nov 3rd: Band Hero
Nov 3rd: Lego Rock Band
Nov 10th: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Nov 17th: Assassins Creed II

Dec 22nd: Guitar Hero: Van Halen

Wii
Sept 29th: Dead Space Extraction

Oct 4th: Wii Fit Plus
Oct 6th: Spore Hero
Oct 13th: Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games
Oct 27th: DJ Hero

Nov 3rd: Band Hero
Nov 3rd: Lego Rock Band
Nov 3rd: Rabbids Go Home
Nov 3rd: Silent Hill: Shattered Memories
Nov 10th: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Reflex
Nov 15th: New Super Mario Bros. Wii
Nov 27th: Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles

Dec 22nd: Guitar Hero: Van Halen
Dec 26th: Final Fantasy Chrystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers

(I also believe that Tatsunoku vs. Capcom is supposed to fit in somewhere here, unless I missed something.)

Nintendo DS
Sept 29th: Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days

Oct 6th: Spore Hero Arena
Oct 12th:  Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky
Oct 13th: Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games

Nov 3rd: Lego Rock Band
Nov 10th: Band Hero
Nov 10th: Call of Duty Modern Warfare: Mobilized

Dec 7th: The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

PSP
Oct 1st: PSPGo [Hardware]
Oct 1st: Gran Tourismo
Oct 1st: Shin Megami Tensei: Persona
Oct 13th: Half Minute Hero
Oct 20th: Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars

Nov 17th: Little Big Planet

(And yes, that’s it for now.)

PC
Oct 13th: Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga
Oct 22nd: Windows 7 [Operating System]

Nov 10th: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Nov 17th: Left 4 Dead 2

Yes, this is real footage of me playing Dissidia. I haven’t played it much since Zidane is only level 1 here (I recorded this for a friend, actually) but you can see just how I fail so far.

I like fighting games more nowadays, but I’m always shy around them. I’m a fairly average gamer in skill as it is, but it’s fighting games especially that I don’t do well in. All the unique button combinations and techniques were always difficult to grasp. After constant beatdowns at the hands of my friends in Street Fighter II I thought I’d never bother with it again… until many years later (around 5 or so years ago) when I borrowed my friend’s copy of Soul Calibur II. I think I held onto it for months until I finally got my own copy of the game and gave it back to him, but still… Although I got quite decent playing, I’m still stuck in the realm of fighting mediocrity.

And here’s might be why, using Dissidia: Final Fantasy as my basis for this.

1.) I always play the easiest/high tier characters
Let me get this out of the way first; I’m not a Cloud nor a Final Fantasy VII fan, but I tend to run him a lot if I go through Dissidia’s arcade mode… why? Because he’s just so darn easy to use. I can start a bravery attack from far out and likely catch my enemy off guard… same goes with his HP attacks. Plus, his unique trait is to be able to smash his enemy like a baseball, all the way to the other side of the stage. You can just mash away if cloud in the early going, with the occasional dodge thrown in; It’s not really that hard.

Cloud is my highest level character so far, maybe because I did his story on my bonus day, but still. He’s easy to use.  Fortunately I’m not alone on this, since multiplayer matches are riddled with Cloud everywhere, even if it’s partly to do with his rabid fanboyism that I oh-so-dislike.

Yet, I’m still not that good with him.

2.) I always play on the easier difficulties
Even moreso in Dissidia is the fact that I already find the slightly higher level fights to be fairly difficult. (Though, because this is more of an RPG Fighter than a normal fighter the situation is kind of different.) I spend most of my time earning PP in normal arcade mode because of the fact that I find it easier. That, or when I’m not grinding I’ll shoot the enemy down a couple of levels and just have some fun beating on them.  I usually don’t take up a great challenge all that often.

3.) I’m a button masher

Yes, it’s true.  When it comes to FPSes, I spray.  When it comes to fighters, I mash.  Whenever it’s time to attack I start mashing the circle button, or the square button, or whatever button I need to mash to get whatever done. I’m not even paying attention as to whether or not I actually have to press the button or not. All I know is… I know which button to press… just not when. (Unless, of course, it’s an EX burst)

4.) I use spam attacks

You know how I like to fight? I pick Ryu and it’s all obvious from there. Hadouken! Hadouken! Hadouken! Hadouken! Shoryuken! (Whoops) Pretty much the same thing in Dissidia. Once again with Cloud, I use his aerial attack that initiates a chase all the time. Attack, if miss attack again, hit, chase, attack again, rinse, repeat, etc… It’s quite sad. Same goes with Terra and Blizzara. Attack, attack again, attack again, attack again, etc… I’m starting to think that Terra can be quite cheap in that sense, too

5.) I fail at comboing
And finally, this probably goes without saying that if I mash and spam, I can’t combo. Well… sometimes I can; I once found a basic little air combo while playing Melty Blood: Act Cadenza but that’s about it. I can maybe pull off two attacks in a row, but that’s it. I’m too busy spamming Terra’s Blizzara to care though.

So yeah, that’s the skinny.  I suck at fighters. Dissidia is a different beast of its kind, though, and you can’t compare it directly to other fighters, but the same basic elements apply. It doesn’t matter that you can air-dash around massive environments and sent people a hundred feet in the air with a single buster sword swing.  Still, I have fun with Dissidia, despite my suckage.

I’m getting better at it, anyway.

Select posts from A Gamer’s Mind will now be featured on the Xanga-run blog Hardest Level. What I’m saying by this is that editors from Hardest Level will scan this blog, maybe select 2-3 posts a week, and syndicate them on the front page with a link back here.  This in turn provides for more exposure for the blog in general, beyond the occasional pingback/trackback that we might get.  That, and the posts are being syndicated on a community that gets quite a bit of traffic.

This in turn means you might see me get a bit more creative and try to keep the blog to its goal of portraying the gaming culture.  I have a lot of spare time on my hands these days, so it’s time to hop to it!

E3 has come and gone, EVO 2009 and well underway, and people have gone away for the summer. However, I’m still here for the most part, wasting away in front of the computer…

…Speaking of which, let’s talk about my computer.

My Dell Inspiron 2200

Yes, this is what my computer looked like before it started to fall apart; While I still played mediocre free Korean MMOs (see the screenshot again.) despite still being involved in the community today, before I had to buy a USB headset because my audio jacks fried, and before I had to borrow my friend’s monitor because my knuckles met with the screen and cracked it.

Yep, that was my faithful, beat-up laptop… until about four days ago.  Now it’s time to introduce you to my new baby:

My new laptop, The Toshiba L300

I can tell you this much: It’s nice to have all this desk space again. Even if the laptop was crap I’d be happy, but this one’s pretty damn good, and it wasn’t all that pricey either. Here’s just a quick overview of what this has. Of course it’s not gaming quality, but for now it gets the job done:

CPU: AMD Athlon Dual Core 2.0GHz
RAM: A whopping 4 gigabytes worth! (It`s so nice not to have to page stuff back and forth)
HDD: 250GB (AFAIK the brand doesn’t really matter. Laptop HDs aren’t that great to begin with.)
Video: ATI Radeon 3100, 256MB shared, Pixel shader 3.0, Vertex shader 3.0. Can actually play good games.
Optical: CD-RW/DVD-RW
OS: Vista Home Premium SP2
Other stuff no one cares about: WiFi b/g/draft-N compatible, 100mbit Ethernet, 56k modem, (They STILL make these things?!) Built-in webcam, built-in SD/MS card reader (SDHC supported)

I wasn’t initially going to get the Toshiba. There was an Acer laptop that I wanted that was about 30 bucks less but it was gone before I could get the chance to buy it. I ended up on the Toshiba because I overheard one of the sales reps saying that it was one of his preferred brands; That, and for an extra 30 bucks I got Home Premium instead of Home Basic, which also means I might be able to get a free upgrade to Windows 7, and an extra gigabyte of RAM. It was worth it.

Of course, this means one thing: I CAN ACTUALLY PLAY GAMES THAT OTHER PEOPLE PLAY. Of course, most of the games I’ve been wanting to play are by Valve, so here’s what I’ve been playing:

Portal: I actually bought Portal a while ago because I found out that I might be able to get it to run, albeit very slowly, on my old computer; It didn’t work, and so it sat there on my Steam account unplayed, undownloaded, unloved. After getting all of my stuff transferred from the old computer, the first thing I did was download this and start playing it; And I’ve had fun with it so far.  However, I haven’t been playing this as much as…

Team Fortress 2: Oh yes. I loved playing Team Fortress Classic. I knew my computer couldn’t run TF2 and was sad that I couldn’t play this. I ended up buying this after acquiring this computer and have gotten immersed in it… although for the most part I suck. I’m not all that bad, though. Earlier today I joined a fellow member from Maple Towers and started kicking some serious ass; I went in as a Heavy while he stayed back as a Medic and kept me healed. Needless to say I was bowling over people quite well; It’s the first time in a long time that I’ve finished anything with a positive KD; Although back in TFC my K:D would be absolutely unbelievable with the Heavy.

There’s not much else I want to talk about tonight; My mind is a bit fatigued. If I’m going to say something however, I’m once again going to point to OCRemix. If you remember I gave props to the guys who did the remix album for Tales of Phantasia and Symphonia: Summoning of Spirits.  Just today a remix album was released for another game I can relate to; Final Fantasy 4, titled “Echoes of Betrayal, Light of Redemption.”  I haven’t been able to listen to it yet since I just downloaded it, but if SoS was anything, I would really suggest checking this one out, too.

Anyway, that’s all for now. To close this post out, here’s a video of crash compilations… with some very good dubbing utilizing TF2 voices:

If it’s one thing that many older gamer remembers, it’s the little stores back in the days that sold video games, allowed you to trade them in, and whatnot.  Even in today’s age where game retail seems to be dominated by GameStop/EB Games, these small stores still exist.  One said store is GameDeals, a little second hand store in New Westminster (suburban Vancouver) situated within walking distance from Columbia Station along the Expo line.

Just recently, GameDeals’ manager Brian Hughes finished a five episode series in conjunction with Dissapointed People centered around their store that was presented by ScrewAttack:

Although I’m sitting on the fence as to whether I actually liked the series or not, as soon as I found out that it was a real video game store in Metro Vancouver, I literally left to check it out.

Walking into the store to me was like walking into a ScrewAttack feature; If you’ve seen the series, you already know what it looks like.  This really is a true gamer’s store, covered wall-to-wall with gaming memorabilia, fanart, various trinkets, and games and systems that go all the way back to the Atari 2600. The prized possession of GameDeals, it seems, is the fact that they were able to get their hands on the limited edition Megaman 9 box. If you’ve got money to spend, they’re selling it for $500.  To be honest, I thought I’d never see that box with my own eyes; I just did today.

You can find just about every current gaming mag you can think of here, plus they have tons of merchandise, including their own t-shirts that they sell for 10 bucks. (They’re the same ones that you see in the video.)

Contrary to what you might think by watching the final episode above, the staff here are competent and are all nice.  I was browsing around the store when the owner, Brian Hughes, walked in and such. As I went to buy a t-shirt for myself along with a copy of the latest Nintendo Power I cracked a joke from the series.  When I told Brian that I had actually found out about the store through their ScrewAttack feature, he literally said “You’ve gotta be shitting me!” It seems that he wasn’t expecting the store’s popularity to rise. I told him what I thought about the series and how I wasn’t sure if I really liked it or not, and that ScrewAttack had quite a big community: I’m sure he’ll gain a handful of new customers as a result.  There actually was one member of the SA community that had already been there and didn’t realize it.

One other thing I found amusing about the store was the fact that they had cheeky signs in all their display cases that had some amusing lines such as this:

“She bangs! She bangs!”

Another interesting fact is that in April of 2007, a couple of thieves broke into the store overnight. The security cameras inside the store caught the whole ordeal, and after Hughes looked at the videotape, he put it all together and uploaded the camera footage to YouTube.  The robbery made local headlines and the criminal was actually found and arrested.  The story has a happy ending for both sides, though, as the criminal turned his life around afterwards and even paid for the store’s losses after getting out of jail and rehab.

GameDeals is the type of store that’s by gamers, for gamers. You can walk in there and feel like you’ve walked into a place where you’re already known and welcome, and I would highly recommended this place. If you live in Metro Vancouver and still need incentive to go, a lot of the new games they’ve gotten are significantly cheaper here than they are at department stores and retail chains.  Go check ‘em out!

It seems that Sony keeps on thinking of ways to show just how much they fail.

When they’re not launching their newest systems to lackluster launches, they’re relaunching them with features that nobody cares about. When they deny a rumor, they come back and reveal that it’s true by the end of the week.

…And when SCEA finally started selling Playstation Network prepaid cards in Canadian retailers, the cards were bogus.

In a goof-up of epic proportions, Sony mixed up their initial shipments of PSN prepaid cards, except those going to EB Games. I have no idea how or why this would make a difference since all retailers technically use the same system, but apparently certain cards only work at certain retailers, and the cards that apparently were supposed to go to Rogers Plus stores ended up at 7-11 and Best Buy/Future Shop.  However, the cards were stocked anyway and as a result, cards purchased from anywhere in Canada except EB Games, although recognized by the Playstation Store as activated, are giving a “The funds could not be added to your wallet” error due to them not being activated properly.

Fortunately, both Sony and the retailers are starting to catch onto this critical error. Over on the Official PlayStation Forums, people affected by the problem are reporting that both parties are cooperating. Sony is asking for proof of purchase to be faxed to them, and others have reported that they had gone back to Best Buy, explained what was going on, and were actually able to get a refund. (Yes, a refund on a non-refundable product) Those same people have also said that the managers have had the bogus cards pulled off the shelves.

Sony has not released an official statement regarding the issue, and there is no word that they will.  I advise my fellow Canadians looking to buy a PSN card to do so from EB games, as the are the only ones that seem to be working. If you have already bought a card from 7-11, Best Buy, or Future Shop that does not work, you can call SCEA Consumer Support at 1-800-345-7669.

UPDATED: SCEA has been manually adding the balance to peoples’ accounts for those that have bought a non-working Playstation Network card. Here’s what you have to do:

1. Call the support line as noted. Give them your PSN ID, the card’s code, and where you bought it. They’ll give you a service request number and a number to fax copies of your card and receipt to.
2. Scan the your receipt and both sides of the card, print them out, write “Attn: Tech Team” along with your service request number, name, phone number, PSN ID and associated ID on the printout.  Fax all of this to the number that they give you. (If you don’t have a fax machine at home, you can go to a UPS store or other courier and it’ll only cost you around two bucks.
3. They will call you back in a day or two to let you know that they’ve added the balance to your account, given that everything checks out correctly.

Update 2: I had faxed them a copy of my bogus card and receipt and they manually added the $20 to my account. That’s quite a relief.

Anyway, it’s that time again. Let’s take a look at what to expect from the gaming industry in the next quarter:

Again, help is always appreciated identify worthy games-to-come

NORTH AMERICA

Xbox 360:
July 1st: King of Fighters 98: Ultimate Match
July 20th: King of Fighters XII
July 22nd: TMNT: Turtles in Time Re-shelled
July 28th: Gears of War 2: All Fronts Collection
Possibly near the end of July: Marvel vs. Capcom 2
August 14th: Madden NFL 10
August 25th: Batman: Arkham Asylum
September 1st: Guitar Hero 5
September 8th: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, NHL 10
September 9th: The Beatles: Rock Band
September 22nd: Halo 3 ODST

Playstation 3:
July 20th: King of Fighters XII
August 14th: Madden NFL 10
August 25th: Batman: Arkham Asylum
September 1st: Guitar Hero 5
September 8th: NHL 10, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2
September 9th: The Beatles: Rock Band
September 22nd: Need for Speed Shift, Katamari Forever

Wii:
July 7th: Tales of Monkey Island
July 26th: Wii Sports Resort
August 14th: Madden NFL 10
August 24th: Metroid Prime Trilogy
September 1st: Guitar Hero 5
September 9th: The Beatles: Rock Band
September 15th: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, NHL 2K10
September 29th: Dead Space Extraction

Nintendo DS:
Today: Megaman Starforce 3: Black Ace/Red Joker
August 24th: Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box
Sometime in July/August: Flipnote Studio (DSiWare)
September 1st: Duke Nukem Trilogy: Critical Mass
September 15th: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, Scribblenauts
September 29th: Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days

Playstation Portable:
August 25th: Dissidia: Final Fantasy
September 1st: Duke Nukem Trilogy: Critical Mass, Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny
September 8th: Disgaea: Dark Hero Days
September 15th: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2
September 22nd: SMT: Persona, Need for Speed Shift
October 1st: PSP Go

PC:
Today: GTA PC Trilogy
July 1st: Street Fighter IV (Fight pad bundle on the 7th)
July 7th: Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 1
August 25th: Batman: Arkham Asylum
September 27th: Need for Speed Shift

EUROPE:

Xbox 360:
August 28th: Batman: Arkham Asylum
September 9th: The Beatles: Rock Band
September 17th: Need for Speed Shift
September 22nd: Halo 3 ODST
September 24th: Metal Gear Solid Rising
September 25th: Dead Rising 2, Tekken 6

Playstation 3:
August 28th: Batman: Arkham Asylum
September 9th: The Beatles: Rock Band
September 18th: Need for Speed Shift
September 25th: Dead Rising 2, Gran Tourismo 5

Wii:
July 10th: The Conduit
July 24th: Wii Sports Resort
September 9th: The Beatles: Rock Band
September 25th: Red Steel 2 (Remember for this that WMP is MANDATORY for this game.)

Nintendo DS:
September 25th: Professor Layton and Pandora’s Box
This is seriously the only thing coming out on the DS in Europe in the next three months that actually looks good.

Playstation Portable:
September 11th: Dissidia: Final Fantasy
September 18th: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2
September 25th: Gran Tourismo PSP
October 2nd: PSP Go

PC:
July 3rd: Street Fighter IV, World of Goo
August 28th: Batman: Arkham Asylum
September 18th: Need for Speed Shift

JAPAN:

Xbox 360:
July 30th: Gears of War 2 (Wow… this late?)
September 24th: Halo 3 ODST
Most of the good Japanese stuff are just existing games being relaunched as platinum titles.

Playstation 3:
September 17th: Tales of Vesperia
Once again, most of the good stuff is just be relaunched as greatest hits titles.

Wii:
July 23rd: Punch-Out!!
August 1st: Monster Hunter 3
August 6th: EA Sports Active
September 17th: House of the Dead: Overkill

Nintendo DS:
July 11th: Dragon Quest IX: Hoshizora no Mamoribito
August 6th: Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood (You mean they actually went through with localizing that piece of shit?)
September 12th: Pokemon Heart Gold/Soul Silver

Playstation Portable:
July 2nd: Hatsune Miku: Project Diva (Yes, I know…)
July 16th: Ys I & II
August 6th: Tales of VS. (a.k.a. the date that Namco Bandai says they have no intention of localizing the game anywhere outside Japan, as usual.)

PC:
July 2nd: Street Fighter IV
There’s also a crapton of other PC games that I don’t think I could care about on this side of the Pacific, although with my understanding of Japanese I have to laugh because a lot of them seem to be part of the “Eroge Text Adventure” genre.

That rounds out the games to watch for this quarter, and hopefully Arkham Asylum won’t end up in my Q4 post three months from now. This is only a warmup for what’s to come, though.  Come the fourth quarter, everything’s gonna be jam packed!

Nintendo’s press conference was pretty much rattling off game after game after game, a lot of which the core gamer will enjoy.  There’s a full list of what they announced after the jump, but be warned, it’s LONG.

• New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii – Holiday 2009)
• Wii Fit Plus (Wii – Fall 2009)
• Wii Sports Resort with WiiMotionPlus (Wii – July 26th)
• PGA Tour 10 with WiiMotionPlus (Wii)
• Grand Slam Tennis with WiiMotionPlus (Wii)
• Virtua Tennis 2009 with WiiMotionPlus (Wii)
• Red Steel 2 (Wii) – Note that this game is going to be WiiMotionPlus exclusive.
• Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers (Wii)
• Some new Kingdom Hearts game that I wasn’t able to catch the name on. (DS)
• Mario and Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story (DS – Fall 2009)
• Golden Sun DS (DS – 2010)
• Women’s Murder Club: Games of Passion (DS)
• Cop: The Pursuit (DS)
• Style-Savvy (DS)
• Flipnote Studio a.k.a. Moving Memo (DSiWare – Summer 2009)
• Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again (DSiWare – June 8th)
• WarioWare: Do It Yourself (DSiWare)
• DSi Camera Facebook functionality
• The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (DS)
• Wii Vitality Sensor (Wii)
• Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)
• The Conduit (Wii – June)
• Resident Evil: The Dark Side Chronicles (Wii)
• Dead Space Extraction (Wii)
• Metroid: Other M (Wii)

The ones I’m personally excited about are bolded, but right now all that’s going through my mind right now is, “Holy shit it’s a new Golden Sun!” That’s definitely something I’ve been waiting for for a while.  The concept of four player co-op in New Super Mario Bros. Wii also looks really cool.  Although I didn’t really get into Super Mario Galaxy, I’ll probably give it another shot with Galaxy 2, and I nearly creamed myself when I saw the trailer for Metroid: Other M.

WarioWare:DIY is something I’m looking forward to, mainly because of the fact that the game is based upon your own creations. That should be really cool. Same goes with the new Mario vs. DK that’s going to be coming out on DSiWare this coming Monday.

But Nintendo seriously redeemed themselves after last year’s conference. Definitely a strong showing this year, and hopefully they will keep this up for years to come.