In case you were unaware, May 21st has come and will soon go. It brought with it my 21st birthday, allowing me to legally drink and drive (on separate occasions). I also managed to snag these two gifts from Birthday Santa. Alan Wake and Split/Second.

May is indeed a terrible month for purchase conscious gamers as a number of high profile games were released on the same day. This leads me to believe that current management staff at several publishers should be handing in their badges and tweaking their resumes`. Red Dead: Redemption has been getting stellar reviews although it wasn’t near the top of my to-do list. Alan Wake’s psychological thrills and Split/Second’s pants washing pandemonium make for more hair raising excitement. I’m not too bothered as Hollowman is tackling Super Mario Galaxy 2 and I am still amiss on the first game’s campaign.

Which leaves me in an awkward position with my last gaming fling–Splinter Cell: Conviction. I admit, I was enthralled with it’s first few levels, but towards the end it began to drag on me. It was probably the fact that me and stealth share a less symbiotic relationship and more of a lackadaisical summer romance. I’m not one for getting into a room unnoticed if there isn’t a giant sign that says “hide here” or a dark corner for me to creep around. I admit I can’t think creatively about killing someone sneakily when I have the option to make them scream bloody murder.

I’m also trying to get better about my backlog. Here I’ve had Final Fantasy XIII since March and it’s still in shrink wrap. I guess I don’t have to think of it as a terrible purchase and more of an advanced gift that a time traveling version of myself left me for my birthday two months ago. I like that rationalization better.

While I’m at it let me gripe about the reviews Lost Planet 2 is getting. Now let me be forthwith that I’ve never had any issues with the controls in ANY recent Capcom title. I loved Lost Planet, Resident Evil 5, Dead Rising, and Devil May Cry 4– but there was always ONE thing that bothered me about each one of them. LP: being able to receive damage when you were knocked down. RE5: can’t think of anything major… DR: save system. DMC4: backtracking and frequent character switching when Dante > Nero (that’s two things which counts towards RE5 in this case). Nevertheless, the fact that LP2 is a co-op game doesn’t bother me too much. It’s the fact that I don’t know anyone who would touch the game with a ten foot pole. Word to the not so wise, I suggest you make sure there are four people in the world who like your game before you build it around 4-player co-op.

Other cool stuff: