Too many good games this Fall

I'm looking out at the release calendar for this Fall and it's looking mighty full of games I want to play.   As of right now, the games I'm looking forward are:

• Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 2: Innocent Sin
• Batman: Arkham City
• Atelier Totori: The Adventure of Arland
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
• Uncharted 3
• Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary
• Gears of War 3
• Assassin's Creed: Revelations
• Resistance 3
• Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten
• Driver: San Francisco
• God of War Origins Collection

That's a lot of games.

How am I going to play all of those?  Geez.

What I want to see in the next Assassin's Creed

So a new Assassin's Creed is coming soon (November to be specific) and while the core gameplay hasn't changed there's been tweak and changes that have had major impacts to the overall feel of the game.

Going forward, here's some changes I'd like to see in future games.

• Bring back the Kingdom - The first game had this rather huge area that you had to travel through to get to and from each major city.   There was a number of viewpoints, Templars, and flags to collect there.   It was a huge wide open space that made the game feel rather large.   For the impatient, once you had traveled to a particular city you could fast travel but I liked knowing that I could ride through the kingdom.  With the exception of a single road at one point in the ACII (which I actually really liked), the game never let you travel from city to city.  And since ACB was all in a single city, well there you go.
• Add difficulty levels - Let's face it, Assassin's Creed is easy.  It would be nice if the game had additional difficulty level or maybe even a New Game + option.  The full sync addition to the missions in ACB was a really nice addition, but why no Achievements/Trophies for my electronic bragging rights?
• Try to stay historically accurate (aka - Don't get too crazy) - The War Machines from Brotherhood provided an interesting diversion, but it started to take the series in a bit of a, "Hey that's not in my history books" direction.
• Bring back the investigations - I don't necessarily mean that you need to have it quite as rigid as it was in the first game, but every once in a while (more so in AC II), you'd get a contract with no rhyme or reason and somehow you know exactly where they would be and what they would be doing.   I actually liked doing some of that find out myself.
• Pickpocketing - I used to be able to pickpocket.  Bumping to people is all fine and good for small change but I want to be able to take that nice shiny dagger they have in their belt.
• More Cities - Rome was nice, and it was huge, but I kinda wanted to be able to go to other places (and travel to get there).
• More side missions - I love all the hidden catacombs and places that you can explore in ACII and ACB.  Keep that stuff coming.
• Keep the flashbacks coming - I loved the bits with Altaïr in ACII and the sidestory with Cristina in Brotherhood.  Let's have more of that please, maybe some Desmond backstory would be interesting.
• 100% Sync Achievement/Trophy - There should be an achievement/trophy for this.  And while we are at it, how about a bonus cutscene or something.

Of course, I also want them to continue the great story and gameplay, but I think the above would help.

Cleaning house

I was cleaning up and putting away some games and I realized I have quite a few duplicates of games.   More than I actually thought I did.  Why?

For years I was a PC only gamer. Consoles were for the unwashed masses.  The only people who gamed on them were kids, or uneducated adults who couldn't find their way around an autoexec file.

PC gaming controls were better, the graphics were better, the customization was better, the multiplayer was better, everything was better on the PC.

However, there were a few titles here and there that made me consider getting a console, that is, until they actually released a PC port.

Those days have long since passed and I now embrace all forms of gaming, from consoles, to handhelds, to smartphones and of course, the PC.  But as a result of my stance against console gaming, I had picked up a few titles that, once I began collecting console games, I ended up getting another console copy.

Which takes me to my dilemma.  Most of the duplicates I have were ported to the PC and while they may actually look better on the PC due to higher resolution, they generally don't control as well, as they were designed with a controller in mind and they are, in some cases, a pain to run.

I do generally frown on eliminating titles from my collection as I have done it in the past and always regretted it, but this time is different as I am not ridding myself of the title completely, just the duplicate copy.   So what should I do?  Should I get rid of the duplicate copies?  Or keep them for posterity's sake?

In case you are wondering, here's the duplicate game list:

• 007: Nightfire (this one I could arguably keep as the PC game differs in content from the console)
• American McGee's Alice (I now have a copy of this with my Alice Madness Returns on the PS3)
• Assassin's Creed (Extra content on the PC! Who hoo!)
• Call of Duty 2
• Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
• Darkened Skye (I can't even get this to run on XP/Vista)
• Dune 2000 (This is one where I think I should get rid of the console version)
• Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind + Expansions
• Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion + Expansions
• Fable
• Final Fantasy VII
• Final Fantasy VIII
• Grand Theft Auto III
• Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
• Gun
• Half-Life 2 (This is the CE version just FYI)
• Half-Life 2: Episode 1
• Halo: Combat Evolved
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
• Jade Empire
• Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy
• Metal Gear Solid
• Oni
• Red Faction
• Star Wars Episode 1 Racer
• Star Wars Rogue Squadron
• Tomb Raider
• Tomb Raider II

It would pain me to do so, but there's alot of those that I know I'll never play, so I feel like I should just be done with them.

What do you think?

Wow, just, wow...

This tech looks amazing...