PixelVixen707

Previews are a mug’s game. A much-hyped spectacular that’s years in the making can score preview after gallery after puff piece, keeping its grip on the “enthusiast press” while the journos privileged to get a peek talk up every innovation, while cutting them slack for every flaw. The anticipation is stoked and the fever hits an impossible pitch - until a perfectly adequate game like Dark Sector or Too Human finds itself ground under a critic’s heel while the pump-primed fans rail on, doubling-down on their dignity.

It embarrasses us all. So while I want to give you, my darling readers, some kind of Fall preview, I’m conflicted. It’s no fair to render judgment on games I haven’t played. But if I don’t, what’s the point?

So here’s my plan: I’m going to list the biggest titles of the fall. I’m going to give my own judgment-cum-guesses, which will be negative and skeptical. Then I’ll pair it with a gushing, unsubstantiated quote from the gaming press.

I give you … FALL 2008. The AUTUMNING.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Sept. 16): Call me crazy, but I missed the first Star Wars trilogy and snoozed through the second, and the thought of another game filling in the ever-narrower gap between the two does not excite me. While I’m a fan of universe-building, Star Wars strikes me as one of those universes that gets duller the more you learn about it. As for the game - great physics effects only take you so far, and the linear “march from here to there, killing everyone in your path” level design looks so last-gen.

Adoring quote: “I don’t mean to make anyone uncomfortable, but good Lord, this gets me hard. … Whatever your console, this trailer will convince you it’s going to be awesome.” - Owen Good, Kotaku

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (Sept. 18): Many MMOGs have tried to face down World of Warcraft, but none have done it by sticking the word “war” right in the title, and moving it ahead of “world.” How could they fail? I have yet to try the Beta, but I worry that the worldwide warfare and intensity it promises won’t appeal beyond a hardcore niche. Warcraft is popular, not for its “war,” but because it’s cute and soothing and sometimes, pink. My secret fear is that when the real WOW-killer shows up, it’ll be Hello Kitty with PvP.

Adoring quote: “Warhammer Online feels like the next great game of Realm vs. Realm combat and we can’t wait for the Waaaagggghhh! to truly get started.” – Allen “Deslyn” Rausch, Gamespy

Fracture (Oct. 7): A LucasArts title that has nothing to do with Star Wars, Fracture is a shooter where someone sank half the budget into making the ground quake. Remember when LucasArts’ original properties were Grim Fandango and Monkey Island? This thing stars Jet Brody as he wages war on the Republic of Pacifica. If Tim Schafer were behind it, that would actually be funny.

Adoring quote: “As the crowd of gaming press shivered in anticipation we tried valiantly to maintain a healthy air of skepticism. Of course, this skepticism lasted only until President of LucasArts Jim Ward rolled the Fracture trailer. About three dozen battle-hardened gaming editors gazed in stunned silence as we witnessed the first (and most literal) tectonic shift in gameplay that LucasArts has planned for that new-fangled next-gen technology.” – Gabe Graziani, GameSpy

Saints Row 2 (Oct. 14): Here’s one I’ll definitely skip. I’m a born-and-bred urbanista who’s logged time on both coasts. I love the chaos of the city; I admire Grand Theft Auto’s mature attempts to encompass it. The first Saints Row, by contrast, was Grand Theft Auto for the Insane Clown Posse set, a fake fantasy of a metropolis inflated for the imaginations of suburban tweeners who see those skyscrapers on the horizon and dream about thugging large and rolling their ho’s and smoking their 40’s, and blinging Tera Patrick. They probably think there is a neighborhood named Black Bottom somewhere. I despise them all.

Adoring quote: “We can tell already that it will easily accomplish its goal of being one of the most purely fun and entertaining games to be released in the genre so far.” – Luke Mitchell, Palgn

Fable 2 (Oct. 21): To be fair, when everyone else railed at Fable for disappointing them with eight hours of linear gameplay, I took the $20 used copy I’d found and spent a pleasant weekend making myself a bad boy and getting medieval on my four wives. Still, there’s something a little too … cute and self-adoring about Peter Molyneux’s work, and a little too twee about his worlds. And did I mention this one has a dog?

Adoring quote: “Getting hitched is one of the main aspects of Fable 2 - and yes, if you were wondering, the game supports same-sex marriage - though you need to make sure it’s for the right reasons, as divorce results in you losing half of your loot.” - Sam Kennedy, 1up. Thank you Mr. Kennedy, but I don’t need your judgment on whether my gay marriage is “serious.” I married Mr. Slave because he taught me how to care, and he taught me how to love.

Fallout 3 (Oct. 28): Appreciate them though I do, Fallout 1 and 2 never gripped me like Planescape: Torment; I’ll take a wordy plot over desert nihilism any day. And taken to a 3-D engine, you lose the fascinating hold that an isometric view can have on the imagination. Likely too you won’t be able to stumble right into the endgame and get pummeled by a mutation five minutes after rolling your first character. I’ll sit back and let the lifelong fans tell me if this stokes their formative fascination with a hero who’s cast into an unforgiving, barren world. I’ll be busy reading Zach’s stack of Walking Dead.

Adoring quote: “Unless Bethesda has the greatest PR team of all time and has been successfully burying some massive flaw I’m not sure I can see a circumstance in which this doesn’t win Game of the Year, even over Spore and The Force Unleashed.” When Danny Willis at Gamestar wrote this, those other titles hadn’t shipped yet either.

Gears of War 2 (Nov. 7): The paintball-pace and tactical considerations aren’t for me; I’m a run-and-gun gal. (In Team Fortress 2, I’m usually the Scout). By November I may just be sick of TF 2 and ready to give this a fair shake. But the hype will kill them if this sequel just delivers more of the same – remember Halo 2?

Adoring quote: “[The multiplayer is] so intense that our fingernails actually dug into the controller’s plastic. Sorry about that, Microsoft.” - Preview in The Official XBox Magazine. Lucky you’ve never had sex, boys – you could really hurt someone!

Left 4 Dead (Nov. 14): Closing out the fall hype season we have Valve’s Left 4 Dead. I don’t have the heart to pick on anything Valve has done. They treat me like a grown-up, and it’s the Counter-Strike Engine, so … I’ll leave you with my own premature, adoring quote. “Valve will have done it again! Get ready to scrape the brains out from under your fingernails, ‘cause there is no doubt at all that Left 4 Dead will be zombitacular!”