Summer Slump 2008

What do restaurant prep, surgeries, and break dancing have in common? You can do all of these things this summer thanks to new video game releases! Excited? Don’t be. Despite a handful of exceptions, the games this season has to offer us can be summarized in two words: ho and hum.

Wii brings us a few interesting options to relieve us from the blandness of summer’s gaming roster. For those of you that can’t get enough adorable RPG characters, Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo’s Dungeon has just been released. Moreover, on your days off from work, if you yearn to deal with more demanding jerks, fire up the heat by running a restaurant in Order Up! later this month.

In yet another exclamation point-riddled title that has just been released, We Love Golf! allows 2-D fighting to meet golf in a desperate attempt to make the sport seem more interesting than it actually is. Just when you thought Chun-Li’s Lightning Kick was great, she astonishes us all with her fierce backswing. Alternately, if you love boring sports but prefer obese plumbers, Mario Super Sluggers will be out by the end of August.

Nintendo has a few releases for the DS that don’t seem too shabby, either. Released in late-June, Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2 allows med students and sickos alike to delight in the wonders of cutting up the human body. If classic games are more your style, Gauntlet is making its way to the DS, as well as Final Fantasy IV (today), for the slightly less Chocobo-obsessed RPG player (not that it doesn’t have its fair share, with yellow, black, and fat chocobos alike).

Sparse compelling titles exist for the other consoles this summer. In early August, B-Boy for PS2 will surely get some “America’s Best Dance Crew” fans worming to the stores, while PS3’s Monster Madness: Grave Danger will satiate horror and shooter game enthusiasts alike. Soul Calibur IV for the PS3 and Xbox 360 is probably one of the safest bets overall for complete and utter kick-assery, especially with Yoda and Darth Vader making cameos, and with its July 29^th release date, you don’t have much longer to wait.

Does summer look entirely grim? Not necessarily. My advice would be to indulge in a few of the more intriguing titles, but get out and enjoy the beautiful weather, too. Since it won’t take much to top July and August, the cooler months this year might very well bring cooler releases, so save some of your gaming energy for this fall!