So Summer is coming to a close. The trees are changing. The weather is getting colder. Students everywhere are gnashing their teeth and cursing the onward progress of time as they are marched into the cold embrace of education. For me, however, it means one thing: the great gaming gluttony will soon begin! We’re almost to the holiday season and will shortly have a wide selection of games to look forward to. Truly it is a magical time. Unless you are my wallet. Then it is significantly less awesome. Sure a load of games have been delayed to next year (I’m looking at you, Batman), but there are still plenty to keep you going as the weather gets colder and going outside sounds like more and more of an insurmountable task.

So with the close of the year just around the corner, I’m checking out some of the big releases that are coming my way. These are some pretty much guaranteed purchases for me…

Pillars of Eternity

Baldur’s Gate has been mentioned a lot on this site recently. Sure it has almost entirely by me, but that’s beside the point. The point is that Obsidian, developer of such incredible RPGs as Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights 2, are bringing us another game in the expanding genre of “old school highly immersive top-down RPGs” or OSHITRPGs (I’m sure that’ll catch on). Pillars of Eternity looks to be more of the same from this excellent developer, and its success on Kickstarter has only provided the marketing springboard it needed to make it a really popular release this winter. However, there are warning signs in sight. Rumours of the beta being more buggy than usual, especially this close to release (which still hasn’t been finalised as anything less vague than “Winter 2015″) mean that this is a likely game to join those in Delayed-to-2015-Land.

Dragon Age: Inquisition

Look, we all know the troubles that have befallen former fan favourite developer BioWare in recent years. They have had success during the holiday season before, such as late 2009/early 2010, which saw the release of the much loved Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2, both of which won multiple awards, enjoyed massive sales, and were almost immediate hits with both fans and critics alike was followed by, ironically, the highly anticipated Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3, which were two of the most hotly anticipated and woefully underwhelming sequels outside of the Die Hard movie series. Where Dragon Age: Origins was a carefully crafted evolution of the CRPG formula that made BioWare famous, Dragon Age 2 was rushed, sloppy, and repetitive. Where the original had options, the sequel had none. With rumours surfacing of the publisher (EA, shockingly enough) forcing the game to be released prematurely, BioWare’s favour with their fans quickly plummeted. So it is no surprise that BioWare are pulling out all the stops to get the third entry in the series right. The racial choices are back. There are some big names lending their voices to the characters. Old favourites seem set to return. BioWare may have one last chance to win back the fans who have felt scorned by their previous releases, but with so much talent still at the company, I have to think they’ll do everything they can to bring their fans rushing back.

Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth

This isn’t the first time I’ve talked about Atlus’ upcoming entry in the Persona series and, gods willing, it won’t be the last. If you’re not familiar with the series but are a fan of JRPGs, I cannot recommend it enough. My previous preview of the game has all the info you need to make you just as excited as I am, but there is a very interesting development in this entry that could mean good things for European fans of Persona while we eagerly await the release of Persona 5 in Japan. Though Japan has had Persona Q since April, it isn’t hitting US shores until late November with Europe getting it just a few days later. This breaks Atlus’ tradition of releasing their games in Japan then the US sometime the following year and Europe when they can be bothered to get around to it. Maybe they’ve recognised the growth of the JRPG market in England (Persona 4: Golden was a huge hit on the Vita in the UK, massively driving sales of the handheld) and want to capitalise on it. Or maybe they’ve just gotten tired of me sending them drunken texts begging them not to ignore me anymore. Either way, I am happy that I’ll be playing this quirky entry in what is easily my favourite RPG series before my friends in the States have the chance to post their spoilers on Facebook.

The Sims 4

What’s that? You’re saying that The Sims are girl games and I, as my picture below abundantly demonstrates, am the pinnacle of masculinity? Well, here is the thing: everyone loves The Sims. You do. I do. Your grandmother who thinks video games are a waste of time does. It’s impossible to resist. Whether you’re looking to build a house as grand as your own ambitions or torment people with your nearly godlike power, The Sims has been the game series that has given you the chance to do it without actually having to leave the house or be overtly creepy.

The Sims 4 looks poised to be the game to let you do all that and more, though I do continually get annoyed at the developer for hitting the reset button on all the expansions, expecting you to hand over even more money every few months if you want to have all the features in the game. However, my ego craves the opportunity to lord my power over as many people as possible so, even as you read this, I’m likely buried deep in my own virtual world, performing a variety of immoral Machiavellian machinations upon its unsuspecting populace.

Or maybe I’ll be getting a job. That’s also possible.

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