Bit by Bit: March 4-10

The storm has now passed.  While there are a steady amount of game releases coming in the next few weeks, nothing will compare to the amount of games that were released this past Tuesday.  Expect there to be quite at least one or two Launch Stations a week until April.  This week I will be previewing Mario Party 9 and Silent Hill: Downpour.  If I can complete Mass Effect: Infiltrator this coming week, I will be putting up my review next Friday.  A few things that you can expect in the coming week.  Enough talk about what will be coming next week, let us look back at the week that was.

Game of the Week

There should be no surprise that my Game of the Week is Mass Effect 3.  So far I am 11 hours in to the game and it is just amazing.  The combat is best it has ever been.  The story resonates in everything you do from the pivotal story missions to even the side missions.  Every task in the game gives you resources for you to use in building an army to take down the Reapers.  It is also amazing how Mass Effect 3 pulls from the expanded universe content.  You meet Kahlee Sanders, a pivotal character in the Mass Effect: Revelation novel.  You can now find Aria in the Purgatory night club on the Citadel as she had to flee Omega during the events in the Mass Effect: Invasion comic.  The scale of the environments in the game is incredible.  Just seeing the Turian home world of Palaven while fighting on the Turian moon or Reapers destroy Vancouver as Shepard and Anderson make their escape are just breathtaking even on my family's standard-definition TV.  I cannot wait to sink more hours into completing everything this game has to offer in the coming weeks.  Ever since I watched Mass Effect 2's incredible cliffhanger ending, I have been waiting for Mass Effect 3 and so far it delivers in spades.  

Most Anticipated Game of the Week

The more I see, read and hear of the new SSX, the more I want to play it.  The demo is just not enough to satisfy me.  I want to get the full game, but I need to conserve my cash at the moment.  I bought quite a bit of games these last few weeks and I need to save some money for Kid Icarus Uprising and Xenoblade Chronicles, which both release in the coming weeks.  So unfortunately I will have to postpone picking up SSX for the time being, but it remain high on the games I need to pick up in the future.

Video of the Week

Last Friday, I finally became a backer of Double Fine's new adventure game that they have been raising money for on Kickstarter for the past month.  The deadline to back the project is this coming Tuesday.  If you want to support Tim Schafer and his talented team at Double Fine in their new adventure game, you better do so in the coming days.  As a reminder to those who read this blog, my Video of the Week is the latest update video from Tim Schafer himself.  So let me pass it off to Tim and hope you can support this amazing studio in their new project.