I’ve been in somewhat of a gaming slump as of late, not having had the free time of summer to indulge in one of my favorite distractions. All of that looks like it’s about to change, however, with quite a few great releases in November.

I was lucky enough to get in to the Resistance 2 beta (well, not that lucky, thousands of people were accepted) and enjoyed the shit out of it. I didn’t have a ps3 at launch and missed the boat on the original Resistance, so the sequel wasn’t even on my radar. From the inventive cooperative mode to the usual fare of deathmatch, team deathmatch, and objective-based team games, Resistance 2 looks like it’s going to have tons of replay value, which is always a plus in the era of $60 games.

Besides R2, Valkyria Chronicles and Gears of War 2 also come out this week. Valkyria Chronicles, like R2, wasn’t even on my radar, but thanks to a great demo, now I’ve got to play through it at some point as well. I absolutely hate Japanese RPGs with all of my black heart, but I do enjoy the occasional strategy title, and this one is a good mix of both (leaning more towards strategy) with a cool art style. My only gripe with the demo (other than it being too short) is that the voice acting is pretty poor and unenthusiastic. Gears of War 2, well, I’m honestly not all that excited about. The first was a good game, but I sucked at the online portion of it and didn’t play it all that much. I don’t really care about the storyline in video games, so I could care less how musclebound protagonist and his crew of misfits progress against the alien horde. I’m mainly thinking about picking it up because I know some of my friends will play it online. Also coming out this month is Left 4 Dead, Valve’s new post-apocalyptic co-op zombie shooter. Post-apocalypse, co-op, and zombies: three great tastes that will hopefully taste great together.

Now if I could only put the rent off for a while and forget about the last half of this semester…