Moving target release dates kill me. Staggered release dates are worse. I’ve only recently realized how many games I’d expected to be playing by now that I’m still waiting for.
The one frontmost in my mind is Trine. The game has intrigued me since I first heard of it, but the fact that my wife and I would be able to play co-op and the fact that it’s $10 less on PSN made my choice of console easy. More than once, I’ve planned to go home on a Thursday evening and purchase the game. Sony is such a gametease, if you catch my analogy. It’s been available on Steam for weeks now, and still nobody has any hint as to when it will be released on the Playstation Network. I don’t blame Frozenbyte – it seems that Sony has decided to release it whenever they have an opening in their PSN release schedule. When Trine is out, I suspect that it will be exactly the type of co-op game that Linda and I will enjoy: half Mario Brothers, half Gauntlet, and half Braid.
The next game that I’m waiting to play is Street Fighter 4 for the PC. This one’s already out, and although I can blame the late PC release date on Capcom, I can blame the fact that I’m not currently playing on no one other than myself. The reason I wanted the PC version so badly is because I’ve got a SlikStik Fighter. While I absolutely suck at Street Fighter with a gamepad, I’m pretty damn good with actual arcade controls. I attribute this to having worked at an arcade in college and gotten lots of after-hours free practice at Street Fighter 2. Hoepfully my slow-ass DSL connection is good enough to play online without game-breaking lag.
My issue is that I’d never realized that my current PC doesn’t have a PS2 port, which the SlikStik requires to connect. I tried a PS2 > USB adapter, but the device wasn’t even recognised by Vista. This is when I figured out that the PS2 to USB adapter I had was simply changing the plug shape to match the outlet and not actually converting the signal. Fifteen dollars later, I’ve got a true adapter on order and I’m praying that it will work, or else my beloved SlikStik is now useless.
The third and final game that I’m waiting to play is Dragon Age: Origins. But wait, shouldn’t I have known that this game isn’t out until October? Yeah. But at some point, Bioware had been predicting a Spring release date and I preordered from Amazon, thinking I’d have it in weeks, not months. This is the only time I’ve ever preordered a game, and it’ll likely be the last time. Dragon Age looks amazing, and everything I hear about it amazes me even more. I hope that I’m not disappointed. In October.
