Pro-G's Monday Morning Rant

Are you going to play all the games you're interested in this Christmas?

Welcome to Pro-G's Monday Morning Rant, our latest regular feature where one of the team gets to vent their spleen on anything that annoys them about the wonderful world of gaming. No subject, no matter how taboo, will be free from our cutting comment and vicious vitriol. Got that Monday morning feeling? Read on, and brace yourself for a wake-up call.

I never play the National Lottery. I remember reading somewhere that the statistical difference between winning the lottery with a ticket you've bought, and just finding the winning ticket on the street, is so minuscule that there's no point in playing. But on Saturday afternoon I decided to cough up a quid and have a punt. You see, it was a triple rollover, with an estimated £18 million jackpot. £18 million. But that's not why I took time out of my busy weekend schedule to pop down my local corner shop for a lucky dip. No. I was forced into it by the games industry.

This November promises to be right up there with the busiest and best gaming months of all time. Here's a list of big games that have come out or are coming out in the next month: The Simpsons Game, TimeShift, Tony Hawk's Proving Ground, Tabula Rasa, Hellgate: London, Naruto: Rise of a Ninja, Smackdown Vs Raw 2008, Call of Duty 4, Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, Beowulf, Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction, Gears of War (PC), F.E.A.R. Files, Super Mario Galaxy, Viva Piñata (PC), Assassin's Creed, Rayman Raving Rabbids 2, Crysis, BlackSite, Silent Hill Origins, Guitar Hero III, Kane & Lynch, Scene It?, Ace Combat 6, Need for Speed: Prostreet, Mass Effect, Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, Unreal Tournament 3, Wipeout Pulse, Medal of Honor Heroes 2, Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, Uncharted, Link's Crossbow Training and Soldier of Fortune. And breathe.

Let's do some number crunching. That's 34 games in total. If you wanted to buy every single one of them on day of release, (we estimate that each will cost round about 40 quid - most will be more, some will be less), then we're talking about forking out £1360 on games in one month. Ouch.

Do I need another FPS? Yes I do.

Now obviously no-one in their right mind would buy all those games in a single month, because there is no human on this planet who has the time to play them all (except maybe Santa Claus, who has time bending abilities - at least that's what my parents told me when I asked them how he slides down every kid's chimney all in one night). But it does present an awful problem to most serious gamers - how the hell am I going to afford all the games I'm interested in this month?

For me, there are at least 10 games on that list that I'm really excited about. Call of Duty 4 looks fantastic. Tom tells me Ratchet & Clank is worth buying a PS3 for. I want Gears on PC for the Brumak fight, Super Mario Galaxy speaks for itself, Assassin's Creed is about as ambitious as it gets, Crysis may well be the best looking game of all time, Guitar Hero III helps pass the idle hours with non-games playing family and friends, Kane & Lynch looks like it might be as close to a movie as we've ever seen, Mass Effect because I loved KOTOR and finally UT3 because, well, Adam 'Exnor' McCann says UT is the ultimate multiplayer experience.

Us game journalists are lucky because publishers send us games to review (we love you publishers!). But if I was a typical hardcore gamer, I'd be logging into my internet banking hoping to find £400 from some magical plus column hitherto hidden to me by the Interweb quicker than you can snatch an old lady's purse from her handbag. And that list doesn't even include the stellar last couple of months we've had, during which I've pumped more hours into BioShock, Halo 3, Metroid Prime 3, Phantom Hourglass, PES 2008 (on 360) and The Orange Box than I care to work out properly.

That's not to say we're bathing in some magical games playing orgy here in Pro-G towers either. With so many amazing games coming out so quickly, it's hard to find the time to play those I'm most interested in. I would have loved to have reviewed Ratchet & Clank, but simply didn't have the time. We miss out too you know.

Game of the Year contenders seem to be arriving every week

So, back to the National Lottery. I played it because you're going to have to be a millionaire just to buy all the wicked games that are out this month. So here's my Monday Morning Rant: games industry - please stop bringing out such amazing games all at the same time. Gamers want to play them all, but can't afford them all. So in the end, they're forced to choose, and you may miss out on a sale because the release schedule is so crowded, or because your game hasn't got the exposure it deserves because the pack is so keenly contested in such a short space of time. Remember that forgotten season called the summer?

I know this is less of a problem for more casual gamers, who might only own one console and will probably only buy a few games a year, but I, as a more hardcore gamer who owns all the consoles, don't need Christmas to buy games. I'm all over them 365 days a year.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, no, I didn't win the lottery. I didn't even get a single number. I shouldn't be surprised. My brother tells me lucky dips are fixed. He may well have a point.