Alright so this summer hasn't really seen me play too many games, I've pretty much just stuck with playing NHL 2K11 after we released it, and the rest of the time has been dedicated to Starcraft II, a game I'm now addicted to. That said, it looks like the gaming lull is finally ending this September with the following releases.
 

1. HAWX 2 - I played the original HAWX with an old AceCombat.net friend of mine (fan site for the game I used to run), and enjoyed it quite a bit. The missions were pretty fun, and a few of them had some inventive sequences to make the experience feel nice and varied. It doesn't have quite the same "magic" that games like Ace Combat 04, and Ace Combat 5 had, but it's a good arcade flight combat game.
2. Halo: Reach - So I played Halo ODST last year, and really enjoyed the coop campaign, and (horde) mode or whatever the heck they called it in Halo. Going back and playing it now it definitely feels like the Halo series is aging, so I'm really hoping they freshened things up for this release cause otherwise I might be left dissapointed. Btw, I thought Nathan Fillion being in the game was awesome though, not to mention all the other notable sci fi actors.
3. Final Fantasy XIV - Ok, so this game's art style, and direction in general was a complete dissapointment to me, I don't even want to know how much money I sunk into Final Fantasy XI for what was mostly an unsatisfying grind of an experience. But as someone whose all time favorite game is FFVI, I have that terrible itch to play any numbered Final Fantasy game that comes out. So I'm going to give this a shot, I'm hoping I can enjoy it more than Star Trek Online, and it might actually be advantageous that the game has a new "stamina" system preventing people from simply sinking time into it to get ahead. I always felt the problem with MMO's is that it wasn't a game of skill, it was a competition to see who could invest the most time. (over generalizing here)
4. NHL 11 / NHL Slapshot - I am likely to break down at some point this month and buy both of these, I grew up a huge Wayne Gretzky fan (from Edmonton), and seeing is how I bought all 4 Sony releases of Gretzky hockey, I can't see why I'd pass NHL Slapshot up.
5. LOTR Aragorn's Quest - I'm definitely more excited for the Snowblind developed LOTR game on the horizon, but this still looks like something that has potential to me, I'm not a huge fan of the more "kiddish" looking graphics, but if it ends up being something fun with a bit more depth than say "Lego Star Wars" than I could be tempted, especially as something to try out the PS Move with. We'll see though, for now it's just on my radar.
   

Alright so this summer hasn't really seen me play too many games, I've pretty much just stuck with playing NHL 2K11 after we released it, and the rest of the time has been dedicated to Starcraft II, a game I'm now addicted to. That said, it looks like the gaming lull is finally ending this September with the following releases.
 

1. HAWX 2 - I played the original HAWX with an old AceCombat.net friend of mine (fan site for the game I used to run), and enjoyed it quite a bit. The missions were pretty fun, and a few of them had some inventive sequences to make the experience feel nice and varied. It doesn't have quite the same "magic" that games like Ace Combat 04, and Ace Combat 5 had, but it's a good arcade flight combat game.
2. Halo: Reach - So I played Halo ODST last year, and really enjoyed the coop campaign, and (horde) mode or whatever the heck they called it in Halo. Going back and playing it now it definitely feels like the Halo series is aging, so I'm really hoping they freshened things up for this release cause otherwise I might be left dissapointed. Btw, I thought Nathan Fillion being in the game was awesome though, not to mention all the other notable sci fi actors.
3. Final Fantasy XIV - Ok, so this game's art style, and direction in general was a complete dissapointment to me, I don't even want to know how much money I sunk into Final Fantasy XI for what was mostly an unsatisfying grind of an experience. But as someone whose all time favorite game is FFVI, I have that terrible itch to play any numbered Final Fantasy game that comes out. So I'm going to give this a shot, I'm hoping I can enjoy it more than Star Trek Online, and it might actually be advantageous that the game has a new "stamina" system preventing people from simply sinking time into it to get ahead. I always felt the problem with MMO's is that it wasn't a game of skill, it was a competition to see who could invest the most time. (over generalizing here)
4. NHL 11 / NHL Slapshot - I am likely to break down at some point this month and buy both of these, I grew up a huge Wayne Gretzky fan (from Edmonton), and seeing is how I bought all 4 Sony releases of Gretzky hockey, I can't see why I'd pass NHL Slapshot up.
5. LOTR Aragorn's Quest - I'm definitely more excited for the Snowblind developed LOTR game on the horizon, but this still looks like something that has potential to me, I'm not a huge fan of the more "kiddish" looking graphics, but if it ends up being something fun with a bit more depth than say "Lego Star Wars" than I could be tempted, especially as something to try out the PS Move with. We'll see though, for now it's just on my radar.
   

I might give Two Worlds II a shot. The first was terrible but this could be better, waiting for the reviews first though.

FYI, I played  LOTR Aragorn's Quest at PAX a week ago and it was garbage.  Very simple with inaccurate controls granted we were using the Move but we still controlled the characters with an analog stick.

• So far Hawx 2 has been a bit of a disappointment, just DID NOT have fun playing it.
• Halo Reach I loved, even more than expected, although it probably is mostly to do with my addiction to FPS Multiplayer XP Point systems.
• Final Fantasy XIV I bought, but haven't installed yet
• NHL 11 I've been impressed with, NHL Slapshot I have not been
• LOTR Aragorn's Quest, I took Fleshribbon's advice and didn't buy it.