Review of the Year 2010: July

Ah summertime – the period where game developers assume we gamers all down tools and partake in activities such as ‘going outside’, and ‘heading abroad’. They are clearly barmy, but it’s lead to the phrase we all know and love; the ‘summer drought’, where we are fed little gaming scraps whilst looking longingly at the feast that is November.

The most important news for July is that I joined the TSA team, with my first task being to run around the PlayStation Beta rooms and play-test all that Sony had to offer (it’s a hard life).  We also got a hands on with Halo Reach; a European exclusive hands on with Top Gun; SOCOM 4 was delayed until 2011; ‘WhatIsIcarus.com’ was launched; The Daily Star made up, and then retracted a story regarding ‘Grand Theft Rothbury’; Kinect’s pricing was announced to a sharp intake of breath; the first Dragon Age 2 screens emerged after weeks of rumours, and there was lots of ‘Kinect won’t work while you are sitting/standing/surfing/ riding a jet powered, monkey navigated speed boat’.

Actual game releases weren’t too bad, considering what we are used to during the summer months.  Crackdown 2 gave us more skills for kills, and whilst it was remarkably similar to the original is that really such a bad thing?  Those glowing orbs haunt my dreams even to this day.  Hydro Thunder Hurricane proved that ‘downloadable title’ doesn’t have to mean ‘low budget with reduced content’ (although we would have liked even more).  Dragon Quest IX took the DS by storm with its epically long story, mass of content and amazing Jedwood TV adverts.  What?  Toy Story 3 stood out from the crowd for being a movie tie-in you wouldn’t actually want to burn with fire – colour us shocked!

Elsewhere the world continued to be on its backside.  The Deepwater Horizon oil spill ploughed on until it was finally capped in the middle of the month.  Rumour has it that the subsequent cheque BP had to write required so many zeroes at the end it took a twelve man team seven days to write it.  IT girl Paris Hilton was arrested for allegedly smoking a cigarette of dubious odour.  I believe in the end she was released without charge, which I shall refrain from commenting on.  Raoul Moat went on a shooting spree, then into hiding for several days.  It all ended with a tense stand-off before Moat shot himself and died.  It later emerged he had requested Psychiatric help beforehand but was denied.  Some sporting event ended too…kick-ball or something.  Spain defeated the Netherlands in what seemed like a wrestling match at some points.  England started slowly, and ended going backwards.

Weather went a bit mental, with extremely high temperatures of 31.7 °C, followed by heavier wind than a room full of lentil curry eaters.  It also rained a fair bit.  As I live ‘oop North’ all I saw was grey.