The calls asking if we have sports games at the shop tend to start three weeks before they’re released and stop two days before they’re released. The best part? Not carrying them so we don’t lose buckets of money.

People are DESPERATE to play pretend football, especially, and the only way we can be sure of selling the games is by taking pre-orders. And nobody pre-orders. The only way stocking sports games could be less attractive is if the cases came with free jail rape.

HALO 1.7: ODST – In other news, we received ODST nearly a week before release, officially. Unofficially, we received it on November 15, 2001, when Halo 1 came out, a date that also roughly coincides with the end of the golden age of gaming. Yes, the dream team of Bungie and Microsoft are so deathly afraid of alienating their core audience that they won’t even improve the sluggish look speed. You have to go into the options screen and make the game playable all by yourself.

And that two hour campaign to make the Halo 3 Ultimate 1337 Map Pack value up to $60? Imagine a six-inch wide middle finger doing unspeakable things to Mickey Mouse and you have a good idea where we stand on this turd. Sure to delight the hardcore fans, but then again so do shiny blue bottle caps.

Kingdom Hearts: 358/2+27X5 Days – Does for Kingdom Hearts what Crisis Core did for Final Fantasy; Turns it into a miserable fucking grindfest through environments that might have been put to decent use in an actual RPG. Tells the story of the KH universe’s Raiden, Roxas, for all the yaoi fangirls who give a shit.

Square-Not Square keeps doing better and better things with the DS’s 3D graphics, which means this game is somewhere near peak PS1 visuals. Which counts for… what, exactly? Also, you’re kind of a passive observer to the story this time around, meaning you’re only really catching glimpses of what made the other games interactive.

Another interesting Square attempt at a modular experience system makes it worth a rental, but only if you’re really, really into Kingdom Hearts AND yaoi (kids: Google it!)