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Shop Watch April 2010

By Russ | April 5, 2010 at 9:32 pm

Sure, the month begins with the Borderlands expansions seeing a retail release, and Nier hops around beating the crap outta stuff, but really it’s the softcore animu nerd porn that is the high – and low – point of April.

To start off, I have to apologize for some bad writing.  These columns are normally terrible examples of the English language, but last month I told you to buy a game at your leisure in case it turns out rare or bargain bin fodder.  Ha!  What lousy advice to give.  I do apologize.

This month I’ll tell you to buy a game to appease the great axe-wielding Hittite thunder god Teshub.  This advice makes more sense.

Titles street-date April 6

Borderlands Double Game Add-on Pack, published by 2K Games (360, PC).  If you don’t like downloading the content from Xbox Live, you can buy it in disc form.  This contains the Zombie Island and Underdome add-ons.

Titles shipping April 20

Monster Hunter 3, published by Capcom (Wii).  The Wii gets ready to do what every red-blooded male since the dawn of time has loved to do: play video games.  Specifically about slaughtering giant dinosaurs the size of mountains, and then eating them.  And wearing them.  There is a version packaged with a remade classic controller for $20 more.  The controller is supposed to be bad-ass.

Titles shipping April 27

Nier, published by Square-Enix (360, PS3). Nier features some dude beating the snot out of mechanical golems, or what we in the 21st century refer to as “robots”.  There are a lot of games out this month whose focus is slaughtering giant enemies.

That’s not a complaint.  Slaughter away.

Record of Agarest War: The Really Naughty Limited Edition, published by Aksys (360, available for download for PS3).

Things that do not embed well. Get it?

The game’s actually some fusion of a dating sim and RPG where the player generates tots by banging stereotypes.  Then the player takes control of the grown-up tot and does it again.  Perhaps in a way most Oedipal.

Some Advice:  Check to see if a game is offered elsewhere before you buy its limited edition directly from the dealer.  I could have saved $22 on the Sakura Wars LE.

Last month’s Spectral Force for the DS was available at GameStop for $20 upon launch, meaning that the game technically hit the bargain bin the moment it came out.

The Agarest limited edition is funny, but it’s a $30 game sold with the bonuses to inflate the price.  It might be a collector’s item down the road.  PS3 owners are whining about getting shafted by the lack of a disc release, but the game is supposedly going to be $20 less expensive and comes with all the DLC that normally has to be bought off of Live.  The game is planned to be released without the bonus content later down the road, like BlazBlue was.  Besides, PS3 owners also don’t have to worry about smudging up the disc and the items; PS3 owner only have to worry about smudging up their controllers.

The Future:  3D Dot Game Heroes.  Again, preorder it now while retailers are still offering the $40 price.  Last Rebellion was $40 for a long time, before it suddenly jumped to $50.  Pre-ordering the game will guarantee the price at many retailers.  The rest of the year is hazy and needs to shape the hell up.

All retail games (with the exception of those marked as street-dated) will be in stores one day after their release. Release dates also tend to be shipping dates. All release dates are subject to change.  Games available for download will have varying release. The views of this column do not reflect the views of RPG Land.

Topics: Shop Watch