The month of May holds two of my most anticipated soundtrack releases this year: Indiana Jones And The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of The Patriots Original Soundtracks.  A new Indy soundtrack in nearly twenty years *and* a new (and possibly final) entry into my favorite video game series of all time.  My ears are yearning something incredible.

The domestic release of Bangai-O Spirits got pushed back to August, so it'll be just one game this month, and I believe we're all hoping it'll make its target release: Bionic Commando Rearmed.  Also.... how many of you are planning on joining the Wii Fit program?  How many of you are ALREADY on said program? :)

On the home video front, it's Rambo.  I'm actually surprised I don't own any of the films in the series yet, so maybe I'll just pick up the The Complete Collector's Set and call it a day.

Since I'm liquidating the HD-DVD collection, I've been picking up most of them on blu-ray if I can find them on sale, and luckily I found V For Vendetta on sale at the WB Store.  Also, on blu-ray I'm getting Bee Movie and, because Amazon had them fairly cheap, National Treasure 1 and 2.

As for regular DVD, other than looking for a great deal on Law & Order SVU seasons 3-6, I am so eager to pick up the anamorphic widescreen release of Mystery Science Theater 3000 The Movie next week.  About time it got re-released, and in better quality too!

As for retail games, other than possibly buying The World Ends With You (it is on its way from Gamefly now), I'll be picking up Lost Planet Colonies on 360.  Who knows what digital releases on the PSN, XBLA, or VC will come out that I'll buy.

I don't know if I want Bionic Commando Rearmed or not.  I guess I'll play the demo and decide from that first.

As for Wii Fit, the novelty factor interests me, but I've got Mario Kart Wii and GTAIV that should keep me busy enough.  For $90, I'm not sure Wii Fit will be worth the cost.  If I want to get 'fit', I'll just go swimming for the summer.

Gamewise, I'm keenly interested in CrossworDS and SNK Arcade Classics Volume 1. That said, however, most of my free money this month is going towards trying to find a refurbished 60GB PS3 in time for MGS4. Sod Sony's idea of the 80GB offering 'good enough' PS2 emulation. If important games, like Subsistence, glitch at all, it's flat-out not 'good enough'.

Edit: Oh, and regarding Wii Fit...two issues. Money (see above), and space. I've had to move my Wii into my room because my nephews aren't the gentlest beings toward technology. And my room isn't what you'd call large - the bed almost takes up half of the available space. Maybe when they're older.

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Definite:

Metal Gear Solid 4 Guns of the Patriots Original Soundtrack
Death Smiles Original Soundtrack
Valkyria Chronicles Original Sound Track
Sekaiju no MeiQ 2 *shoou no seihai* Super Arrange Version

Maybe:

Echochrome Original Soundtrack
Konami Addiction ~For Electro Lovers~

-Mike

Definitely the Indiana Jones score... and I'm probably gonna pick up Lost Odyssey too, just a few months late. Right now I'm working on Metroid Prime 3 and that's been keeping me busy (even if there are sections that are tempting to me to throw the remote through the television).

I just wanted to add that echochrome may well be bought tomorrow.  The demo is pretty fun.  Anyone else try it?

i know it was actually released in april, but i just ordered WILD EARTH: AFRICAN SAFARI for Wii. it looks to be a fun 2-player land version of Endless Ocean. anyone else have it already?

I'll save Wii Fit for the Mrs.' birthday, and Mario Kart Wii for mine (or maybe Father's Day, unless they can find Opoona, which OMG)

Chaos Wars looks tasty, as does Summon Night for the DS.  I'd much rather prefer Atlus to give us at least a month or two between such stellar releases.  It's hard on a man's wallet!

...if I can track down a copy of Arcana Heart I might pick that one up as well.

Castle of Shikigami III
Wii Fit preordered at Nintendo World

The year was not specified, so I'll choose May of 2508.

Star Wars is still quite popular and the X-Wing comes out this month. Not the game. The X-Wing spacecraft. It's surprisingly cheap, since there are now automated factories that make factories for specific jobs. There are a lot of courses to choose from. I'll probably be heading to Neptune first, for target practice. After that I'll go to the obstacle course way out in the Oort Cloud. For combat missions, though, we have to jump to another galaxy.

The last edition of Super Mario Bros. had defective warp pipes. They would lead to pirahna plants and many people were killed. The programmer responsible for creating the virus was found and sent into the sun. We don't hang 'em high - we let 'em fry. This May, SMB is being rereleased with the proper warp pipes installed, that lead to other areas, rather than hungry jaws. I'm not buying the game, since there is no way to install it in my home. Instead, I have to buy the equivalent of a 'time share'.

The Legend of Zelda World Maker is coming out and this new edition is the same as the old, but it adds the ability to make more than one quest. It also adds Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link, which was overlooked in the previous editions. The Gerudo Valley Glitch has been fixed as well. Many gamers have perished when Epona failed to leap over the ravine. Now Epona always makes the jump.

It looks like just CDs for me this month.  I'll put these in order of enthusiasm:

I'm definitely getting Indiana Jones & the Crystal Skull soundtrack on the 20th.  It's John Williams and Indiana Jones.  What else is there to say?

Then there's the Lost double disc soundtrack for season 3 coming out on the 6th.  I've been a little lukewarm on the music of Lost since it frequently has that island horror vibe going, but there are some really great themes otherwise so it's still worth getting.

Next is the Speed Racer soundtrack, again on the 6th.  I haven't even seen the trailer for this, but it's Michael Giacchino so I will probably have to get it regardless.  I'm seriously wondering what it's going to be like since I would have expected something electronic but he's usually all about live musicians.  We'll see.

Then we have the Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian soundtrack on the 13th.  I wanted to like Harry Gregson-Williams' score for the last Narnia movie, but I wasn't that impressed.  It was decent enough (except for the horrible modern singing over the WWII bombing of London), but not everything it could have been.  I'm hoping Prince Caspian wows me, but it could be about the same.

Honorable mention goes to the Mission: Impossible fourth season DVD set on the 13th which I fully intend to get just as soon as I buy the first three -- whenever that is -- the National Treasure 2 DVD on the 20th which I intend to rent since the first was entertaining enough but not worth buying, and the 24 season one special edition DVD set -- also on the 20th -- that is calling my name but I hope to resist buying.  I must remain strong!

My selections from May 2008's releases:

DVDs:
[None]

CDs:
Sekaiju no Meikyuu II: Shoou no Seihai Super Arrange Version
Valkyria of the Battlefield Original Soundtrack
METAL GEAR SOLID 4 GUNS OF THE PATRIOTS ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACKS
Echochrome Original Soundtrack [maybe -- I need to play the full game first to see if I like it]

Games:
-echocrome (PSP)
-Wii Fit [maybe -- not sure if I'd use it enough to justify $90]
-Bionic Commando: Rearmed (360) [assuming it's coming out in May -- though I suppose it doesn't really matter since I won't be buying a 360 for a long time, but I still want this one badly and will get it once I finally do have a 360]

Like SonicPanda, I'm probably finally going to spring for a PS3 this month.
Don't know which version I'm getting yet though. I still have my PS2 so I guess the Backwards Compatibility issue isn't too important, but if the image quality of PS2 games is significantly increased on a PS3, I might go for the old versions.
If not, it'll be the 40GB one, since it's cheapest and all.

You could get the MGS4 bundle, which has MGS4, Dualshock3, backwards compatibility, and an 80GB hard drive.  Considering most games install now, a bigger HD might not be such a bad thing.

Just CDs for me as well:

Sekaiju no Meikyuu II Super Arrange Version
Mana Khemia 2
Metal Gear Solid 4

I ordered the Extra - Live Vol. 1 CD late April and should be getting that soon.

Thanks, but I live in Japan and they don't have the 80GB version here.
The MGS3 Bundle will come with the 40GB version and will therefore not be backwards compatible.
Also, if I just pick one up second-hand and get MGS4 separately I'll be MUCH cheaper off, even if I get the limited edition of the game.

but yeah, the installing thing is kinda bothering me, so maybe the 20GB version won't be enough....

I'm surprised that my 40GB system is already down to just about 25.  I didn't even bother checking how much I actually started with out of the box, but I don't even have a whole lot of stuff on the drive.  No photos, music or videos; just my save file of Call of Duty 4 (about 750 KB), COD4's map expansion (358 MB), Crash Bandicoot 1 and 2 from the PSN store (about 100 MB each), and Metal Gear Online (1.5 GB).  I guess the GTAIV 3.5 GB install bumped up the total a bit, but that still only comes out to about, what, 5.6 GB used?  Can the PS3's OS really be using nine whole gigs already?

This is very likely for the PS3 OS and PS1 OS.  The Xbox 360 hard drive also has space "missing" from its quoted size.

The 360 and most likely the PS3 uses some GBs for streaming purposes.

i'm surprised someone with the kind of money you have didn't opt for the 60 or 80 gig model..

Last I heard, Angela mentioned that her PS3 was actually loaned to her, so it's not technically hers.

Nah, the 40GB is my own.  Money did play a bit of a factor (no, I'm not so exorbitantly rich that I don't ever think about price), but I ultimately chose the 40GB, because of the supposedly better build. (Cooler running and less power-consumption chips.)  Backwards compatibility wasn't a deal breaker for me, and I figured I would never need such a vast amount of GB space.  But like Ryu says, now that more games are imposing mandatory installs (it's said that MGS4 is going to require 5GB), it looks like I may have to invest in an external drive sometime down the line.

Reading things like that make me feel really glad that the only things I need to do to play the games I like are: put the cart in my console, turn it on, enjoy.

.

Thirded.  The DS is among the last havens for current gen pop-in-and-play quality gaming.  Even the PSP imposes those damned firmware updates from time to time.

Angela yells, "Objection!" at me.

Oops! *does his Winston Payne surprise impression*

I missed your announcement that you had gotten your own PS3. 

At least, the PS3 uses standard hard drives, so you can replace it fairly easily.

Just picked up Crosswords DS, and I'm a tad disappointed with it. Input takes a while to register, and it doesn't like the way I write some letters. I thought Brain Age had great handwriting recognition, so I'm surprised they didn't implement that engine for this release.

The crossword clues on the harder difficulties are generally good. I mainly do crosswords to expand my vocabulary, and in that respect it's really, really, really...good.

The game also includes anagrams and word searches. Anagrams are fun, though I often end up having to guess the last few words since they're, you know, not real words. Seriously what the heck is a "yar"?

I checked out the demo on the Nintendo Channel, and I had a decent time.  I'm not into Crosswords enough to buy it, but I thought it was good enough, and probably the only demo they had up there that was any fun.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/ … ar&x=0&y=0

Ridiculous.  I'd prefer picross or sudoku.

Maybe you're not 'exorbitantly rich' but i think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn't think you're 'fairly wealthy'.

Anyway i meant it as a compliment so bleh.

F*ckin' HAZE!!!

Although by saying it I've pushed the release date back another 2 or 3 months

Don't know much about the game, but they have really annoying online advertisement. "Administering Nectar"... yeah, I really don't give.

Yeah, the "story element" of the game hasn't been much of a selling point for me, but neither was TimeSplitters'. I'm hoping the gameplay will at least be on par with the latter. That's not asking too much, I think.