GAMERT (Gaming) Round Table

The holiday is almost here so surely that means extra time for gaming! What games do you plan on playing over the break? Anything new?

I will probably be leveling up some battle pets and being ganked in Pandaria.

--Diane

They released the early Ratchet & Clank games for the PS3. It's still in the wrapper sitting next to my console. I need to commit some serioud time falling in love with it again.

If I'm lucky, I'll FINALLY get some time to play my Epic Mickey. I've had it for a while and I never have time!!!

Getting some final playtesting in of my game Freedom: The Underground Railroad plus some great gaming with a wonderful social bluffing game: Coup and two games of of the dice chucking King of Tokyo.

Hit 90 last week, now rep grinding and random heroics...just got a new comp and totally digging playing WoW using all "ultra" settings :-)

Tal

We got a new card game called Timeline (both the Discoveries and Historical Events editions) and played it over the holiday. The "Discoveries" version is when things were found, not when they were built, so that threw us off a bit, but we enjoyed both.

Jenny

While I may have been "free" of my library-ly duties during the break, I spent a large proportion of it working my second job - helping patrons customers locate the games they wanted (or didn't know they wanted) at my local Gamestop.

That said, I also spent a fair amount of time "leveling" my switch-hitting SS (traded twice during an age 19 season where he was posting an OPS over 1.100!) in MLB The Show 2012.  Also decided to quit always making a long-range sneakthief in Skyrim and specced a smithing/enchanting axe-and-shield warrior with heavy armor specialties.

What games were people buying? I am always interested in what people are really playing on consoles. I think Far Cry 3 is the one I have heard about most. Our budget is sad, but I will probably be purchasing at least 5 more new games this spring.

I managed to get my mage to 90, my farm looks great!, and I am well on my way to more awesome pets and mounts! (Isn't that the point of WoW?)  I was ganked repeatedly during all of this yet I remain fairly sane. :)

--Diane

We actually don't have any dedicated budget for gaming at either my current or previous libraries, although the latter was made easier to bear by the presence of a long-standing (and not-poorly-funded) Gaming Society elsewhere in the school.

Unsurprisingly (and, to me, somewhat depressingly), Call of Duty: Black Ops II was by far the biggest seller, with Assassin's Creed III and Halo 4 likely the runners-up.  Madden 13 and NBA 2K13 were also extremely well-represented among the gifting populace, as well as a smattering of Skyrim (aided, no doubt, by a temporary price drop and the recent release of the second DLC: Dragonborn).  WWE 13 was another title that did well (a little too well in my store, as it sold out on both of the main consoles), while Just Dance 4 on both Wii and 360 was a heavy hitter.

Farcry 3 and the new Hitman game were somewhat underappreciated, I think, but that's likely because they came out so recently, and relatives have had Christmas lists since before said games were released.  Mostly through intentional steering by employees, Borderlands 2 didn't do too poorly, although it seems there's still a general reticence to purchase any FPS game without the words "call" or "duty" in the title.

There were also a larger-than-expected group of the "show me all your games under $20 and maybe I'll pick something" crowd before the 25th, which is usually something I expect more on the 26th-31st of the month (when they also showed up).  Most of them left with older CoD games or sports titles.

Incidentally, if you have a PS3 library, I definitely recommend the forthcoming Ni No Kuni (Wrath of the White Witch), which has both the animation/character designs and the story written by Studio Ghibli (who always does a nice job of blending childlike wonder with more mature themes into a package palatable for all ages).  It was originally due for release today, but I believe they pushed it back to the 22nd - it's been out in Japan for quite some time now, but they're taking their time on the localization/translation (hopefully putting as much polish into it as Disney did for the various Miyazaki films they imported in recent years).