Published October 3, 2007

I've been a little worried about the games coming out this fall. It's not the quality, it's the quantity. There are too many of them. This might be a problem. Yes, really.

I knew pretty much all the folks on my friends list were going to buy Halo® 3. But with skate. launching shortly before, I was really worried that … well, nobody would notice. I was happy to be proven wrong! It's done my heart good to see so many people on my friends list skating (and often together). Clearly, they budgeted their money so they could take home both games. And I really want a lot of people to play the game. I loved it.

There's a new skater in town, and I'm glad it didn't get ignored.

But with one hurdle taken care of, I can think of a few other games that are in similar danger of being overshadowed. I know ACE COMBAT® 6: Fires of Liberation™ will get plenty of attention, but one of my pet fave franchises will be making its Xbox 360™ debut with Thrillville™: Off the Rails™ about the same time. When The Orange Box hits, it's sweetly weird, weirdly sweet Beautiful Katamari™ that could get overlooked.

Alas, nobody's promising free cookies with every copy of Beautiful Katamari.

And then there's TimeShift™. That poor game—and all its potentially clever ideas of stopping and even rewinding time to bring something new to first-person combat games—has bounced between different publishers and been built and rebuilt for so long that a lot of gamers probably don't even know who's making it any more. (For the record, it's still being developed by Saber Interactive, and the publishing duties have turned over to Sierra.) It's rare that a game travels through such a long and winding development period, so I'm really curious to see how it finally turns out, to see if it can live up to its potential. But guess what? It's slated to hit retail shelves just a week before the powerhouse of Call of Duty® 4: Modern Warfare™. Uh oh. After all this time, will TimeShift be a victim of … poor timing?

This screen is a good analogy for what TimeShift has been through.

It's a sad fact that every gamer only has so many hours and so many dollars to support their favorite hobby. I just hope that the game you buy and love doesn't accidentally overshadow a game that might really surprise you.

Article by Dan Amrich, Senior Editor, Official Xbox Magazine
Gamertag: Dan OXM