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Shop Watch May 2012

By Russ | May 13, 2012 at 2:59 pm

This month’s lateness brought to you by vacation.  Vacation – Oh why do we not meet more often.

I was at a convention earlier this weekend and saw something both interesting and confusing.  Someone had taken it upon themselves to release roms of games which had not received a North American release with “North American” cover art in the cartridges for the system of intended release.  In other words, Sweet Home, a Japanese-release only horror game for the NES, was available to buy at this convention, but it was not an import.  The game had a Nintendo-style game case, cover art, and would play in a NES.  It was both very geeky in a good way, and very confusing in a digital rights way.

Now if someone were to buy that game for, say, $50 from a dude at a convention; I think someone would pay $5 for an actual release on of our many digital download services.

Titles shipping the week of May 13

Diablo III, published by Activision Blizzard (PC).   What?  Another Diablo clone? Ah, I kid.  Blizzard’s other long-awaited sequel makes its debut this week.  It will no doubt smash records and do hideous things to your available time.  A collector’s edition is available.

Game of Thrones, published by Atlus (360, PC, PS3).  Atlus brings the recent TV show based on the not-so-recent novels to video game form.  Oddly, this will be one of the very few, if not the first, games Atlus does not release in Japan.  A collector’s edition is available.

Titles shipping the week of May 20

Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland, published by NISA (PS3).  The finale of the Arland-set series of games arrives this week.  Social interaction and Alchemy mixes take center stage of this game.  A collector’s edition is available.

Dragon’s Dogma, published by Capcom (360, PS3).  If you haven’t had the opportunity to try the demo for this game, I urge you to do so immediately.  The demo blew me away on many levels with its fast-paced gameplay, very deep character creator, and the sight of a little girl in chain mail donkey punching a griffin.

Some Advice:  If there’s a collector’s edition you are interested in this month, pre-order the game if you have not done so.  All three companies are very good about limited/collector’s edition being limited and collectible.

Everything else will be much cheaper later.

The Future: The Last Story hits in July; Persona 4: The Golden arrives in October; and Ni no Kuni still needs to be in my hands at this moment.

All release dates are subject to change.  Games available for download will have varying or staggered release dates. The views of this column do not reflect the views of RPG Land.  This column brought to you by Kingdom Hearts Math: Does this Sh!# Ever End?

Topics: Shop Watch