Too Many Games On the Horizon

There are times where gaming is a very, very expensive hobby. These next few months are that kind of time. Within the span of 48 days, there are five games coming out that I want to play at a cost of approximately $210 in total:

Professor Layton 10/17
Kirby's Return to Dream Land 10/24
Super Mario 3D Land 11/13
Zelda: Skyward Sword 11/20
Mario Kart 7 12/4

Now, I could go crazy and try and get all of them at once. That's just what the developers would like me to do. However, in order to get them, I'd have to start getting rid of other games, and I don't really want to do that.

This is the downside of gaming. It's the eternal struggle between what we want to play, how much time we have, and how much money we have to spend. It's a very odd, materialistic culture that grows. If you don't have the new game, what's wrong with you? Why haven't you played this new game?

If you decide to wait and pick up the game in a year, you're old news! You don't have an opportunity to join in the discussion, because you're late to the party and no one will discuss it with you. It's kind of a weird culture and one that I'm not entirely comfortable with.

So what I'm doing in these next couple of months is just picking out which games I want to play, and picking out which ones can wait. The only two that are must-have first-day purchases will be Kirby's Return to Dream Land and Super Mario 3D Land. As intrigued as I am by the London Life RPG in Professor Layton, that can wait. As much as the new Zelda makes me excited, I can wait. And Mario Kart 7 can sit for a bit.

This means, though, that my Games of the Year for 2011 will be incomplete. I can live with this. I've never pretended to be an exhaustive cataloger of all games that exist, just the ones that personally interest me. I'm sure I'm forgetting about games that are coming out, but that's OK. If I don't remember them, they won't exist for now.