The second volley in the new year's release of highly anticipated video games happens Monday night at midnight,
when several stores will be open to sell Dante's Inferno and BioShock 2 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Most Gamestop stores in Minnesota will be open late for the release, and, as usual, any 24-hour Wal-Mart store will have the games out at 12:01 a.m., too. Best Buy, which didn't open at midnight for the big release of Mass Effect 2 a few weeks ago, touted that it would be open for the two new titles, but -- oddly -- only its Minnesota stores in Willmar and Rochester (South) are among the 70 nationwide doing so, according to the retailer.
Are the two new games worth the bother? My and others' early take on Dante's Inferno is that it's a solid but unspectacular adventure (beyond cool backgrounds) that's more like a God of War ripoff than the original poem that inspired it. BioShock 2 wasn't sent out early to most reviewers, but the few who have played it pretty much agree that it's a fantastic follow-up but might lack the innovative splash of the original. But it's impossible to get past the pre-release hype on most titles. The recent Bayonetta, MX vs. ATV Reflex and Army of Two: The 40th Day were all supposed to be incredible, but I found them to be lame. And, frankly, I'm still enjoying Mass Effect 2, which actually did live up to the hype. I'm hoping to be able to put it down long enough to try BioShock 2.
