February is the worst month of the year. It’s the month when we’ve all just paid off big sums from our credit cards so January’s wages look pitiful. We’re reaching the end of our resolve with that new year fitness regime and many of us inevitably fall off the sobriety bandwagon that we mounted after our alcohol-soaked Christmas period. Luckily, it’s the shortest month of the year so we can just keep our heads down and power through it.
It was a strong month for mediocre game releases with Mario Sports Mix, Nail’d, Test Drive Unlimited 2 and Two Worlds 2 all hitting shelves. There were some real gems to be found though, Bulletstorm came out this month, as did Marvel Vs Capcom 3, Kirby’s Epic Yarn (EU) and Killzone 3. Stacking and The Undergarden were released as downloadables too so the digital stores didn’t fare too badly either.
TheSixthAxis published 509 stories in February, with plenty of news about the Nintendo 3DS’ Japanese launch. We reported the strong opening weekend sales and the decent launch game reviews for that console – a situation which seemed to lose its momentum fairly rapidly.
[drop2]Other big gaming news saw us report on Gran Turismo 5’s phenominal six week sales figures (over 6 million) and the release of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, which we were one of the first gaming sites to look at. We also saw the first rumours of a Syndicate reboot and heard that sales of Enslaved had been underwhelming.Proper news in February was dominated by what went on to become known as the “Arab Spring”. Protesters organised a March starting from Tahrir Square in Egypt to protest the rule of President Mubarak, world leaders lined up to make increasingly strong suggestions for what their old mate Mubarak might want to do with his political career and other populations in the region looked on and decided that democracy might be nice to try. You know, for a little change from all the dictatorships.
Back in Europe, Silvio Berlusconi was in a spot of bother after it was alleged that he’d had sexual relations with a prostitute. That would be a political disaster for any other serving politician but to make matters worse, the prostitute was under age at the time too. That trial is ongoing but if all previous evidence is to be believed, he’ll either get off on appeal or his party will change the law just before his verdict comes in.
The weather outside was windy. Lots of stuff blew over and we all moaned about how gusty it was. Typically, the North got the worst of it with the North West of England and Northern Ireland suffering from many felled trees and flooded roads. As the month progressed, though, it got quite mild bringing an end to the wintery weather.
We’ll be back with March’s review tomorrow, join us and remember what the world was like all those months ago.
tonyyeb
No mention of Pippa’s arse in this round-up :P
Omac_brother
Stacking! Ah the memories…
gaffers101
Totally forgot about Stacking, I’ve still not got round to playing it. Must put that right over Christmas.
gideon1451
My brother was obsessed with the demo of the game, I’ve never had a go.
shields_t
Eugh, Test Drive Unlimited 2.
MayContainEvil
That is probably the creepiest game ever made.
jimmy-google
I’m sure littlebigplanet 2 was released in Jan or Feb but hasn’t got a mention
kjkg
January. Someone (maybe you) mentioned it yesterday and I had a look. Was definetly January.
kjkg
definitely
colossalblue
yep, it was January but it didn’t show up on the list I used in place of my memory.
Mickey2010
Wow it’s literally that long since Nail’d came out? i remeber that and TSDU2 been on Zavvi a month later for £17.99 2 months later Nail’d was a £10! it may shock you all but i thought Nail’d was fun
Dan Lee
I thought nail’d was fun, but surrounded by so many other annoying issues.
shields_t
As I mentioned in the forums the other dat, I bought TDU2 for about £8 and still feel violated.
Mickey2010
Haha yeah i played about an hour or so of TDU2 and gave it to my brother for his birthday it was awful!
And yeah i liked Nail’D it was fun at times
shields_t
I’d divorce a family member if they gave me TDU2 for my birthday ;-)
kjkg
It’s funny when you read these things and you realise how quickly time seems to have passed. February was slightly underwhelming as a whole though, wasn’t it!
SpikeyMikey23
Really enjoyed KZ3’s campaign. The MP wasn’t a patch on KZ2. And…. am I the only one who thought stacking was proper pants? Boring as hell etc etc
Youles
Same – tried Stacking after hearing good things however seemed to be an RPG for kids. Also, unless I missed something, walking around looking for someone with no clue as to where they were got boring, fast.
MayContainEvil
Yeah Stacking wasn’t really my thing, the gameplay was all a bit vague and the undeniable charms couldn’t quite make up for it. Still worth buying at the price I got it for, I’m sure I will eventually find someone who loves it.
MICKY17
Loved KZ3 so much I decided to plat it. I thought the MP was excellent and better than KZ2. Didn’t buy into the Bulletstorm hype, it just looked really immature and OTT, but I guess that was the point.
Forrest_01
Bulletstorm is/was brilliant – If you can get past all of the obscenity, there is a really strong shooter at its core & the leash is ace.
Youles
I thought the KZ3 MP was better and more balanced. With KZ2, the higher the rank the better the unlocks seemed to be, so jumping in for a casual game against hardcore players with higher ranks was impossible – they were natuarally better but also had better “stuff”. Mostly that invisible cloak thing.
bacon_nuts
I still got sniped a bunch by invisible snipers in KZ3. Raged the hell out of me… The single player in that game wasn’t as good as KZ2 in my opinion either, bit disappointed there overall.
Youles
Really, I didn’t notice it as much in KZ3, perhaps I was just lucky.
Armonster9000
It was a good month
Jim Hargreaves
Stacking was easily the best game of February.
kjkg
Yip, Yip, Yip.
Don’t know how it fared on the PSN charts but deserved to be up there at the top.