Welcome back to the GearGames weekly video game release feature here at Gear Diary! The irony of a game with a title of FINAL Fantasy reaching its 13th franchise entry (not to mention numerous spin-offs and add-ons) is not lost, yet the high quality of most of the games helps fans cut Square Enix some slack. Those fans are being tested again with the release of Final Fantasy XIII, which is coming for both the XBOX360 as well as the PS3. The ‘tests’ in this case are related to the fact that the graphics on the XBOX360 version are significantly scaled back from the PS3 version due to the PS3 using the much larger Blu-Ray disk for storage (for those keeping score expect a Force 5 Nerdstorm on Wednesday). Also, the game itself has been criticized for having very slow pacing and being extremely linear and removing many of the key features of previous games.

The other big news is the official arrival of the ‘worst DRM system ever’ – Ubisoft brings their hit game Assassin’s Creed II to the PC this week, and with it a requirement for constant internet connection – even if you are playing offline! The DRM has reportedly already been broken by hackers, but expect this trend to continue. There are a few other games coming out this week, so check out the list!

• Final Fantasy XIII
• BioShock 2: Sinclair Solutions Test Pack
• Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition

• Final Fantasy XIII
• BioShock 2: Sinclair Solutions Test Pack
• Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition
• Yakuza 3

• Calling
• Mega Man 10

• BlazBlue Portable

• Foto Showdown

• Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II – Chaos Rising
• Assassin’s Creed II
• Rise of Prussia
• BioShock 2: Sinclair Solutions Test Pack
• Order of War: Challenge
• Battle of the Immortals

Some notes from last week:

• Battlefield: Bad Company 2

- Very good shooter that bests Modern Warfare’s limited single player and gives it a good run in terms of multiplayer.

• Major League Baseball 2K10

- Better than last year … but that isn’t saying much.

• MLB 10: The Show

- If you love baseball games and have a PS3, THIS is the game to get.

• Alice in Wonderland
• Lunar: Silver Star Harmony

- Decent remake of the console classic that fails to transcend and ends up average.

• Dante’s Inferno

- Take a mediocre game and give it worse visuals and worse controls and you get … this.

• Supreme Commander 2

- Solid sequel that has some nice additions and changes, but fails to reach the heights of the original.

What games am I playing now? Here is a sampling:

• PC: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic – had to see if it would run on my netbook … and guess what – it does!
• PC: Dungeon Lords – on sale at Impulse for $5 … I just had to grab it.
• PC: Greed – Black Border – not a bad little hack-n-slash game so far.

So what are you playing? Chime in below!

Enjoy gaming!