As the summer now begins to wane, and the creeping fingers of fall grasp the countryside, the release schedule begins to get a little busier. The release of Madden is always the unnoficial start of Videogame Season, and shows like this week’s Tokyo Game Show always produce lots of nice previews and info.

Eurogamer’s “Digital Foundry” (uh huh) has done an analysis of Uncharted 2 preview multiplayer code. I’ll be honest with you – I typically don’t care for these comparison articles. DF writes up a periodic “shootout” detailing the minute differences between 360 and PS3 cross-platform games. Ostensibly these exist for the Educated Consumer Who Owns Both Platforms to make an informed decision; really they are a classic case of losing the forest for the trees (or, if I’m being less charitable, Concern Trolling). Typically the differences are so small as to be rendered (ha!) moot by any number of other external factors, including but not limited to: whether or not you are part of the 50% of HD console users who have the wrong cables, whether or not your display sucks, whether or not your display is calibrated, whether or not there’s sunlight entering the room, whether or not your glasses are smudged… etc. I still maintain that if you find yourself regularly using the terms “quincunx” or “occlusion” in your online game discussions, you probably ought to relax and just try to enjoy yourself a little more, rather than continuing to Cry Havoc and Let Slip the Pixels of War. (Now, back in the day, when you compared the Amiga version of Speedball 2 against the Atari ST version, those were some notable differences.) Anyhow, as a purely academic exercise, it’s an interesting read to see how Naughty Dog manages to push a PS3 exclusive to crazy heights, as Uncharted 2 seems like a technical tour de force. [link > Eurogamer]

Halo ODST drops from orbit this week. Much discussion on whether it is an engaging, full-fledged sequel [link > IGN] or a fluffed-up expansion pack [link > Ars Technica]. Of course, this title is review-proof, and fanboys will buy or ignore it regardless of what anyone says.

The Zune HD has games. It also has ads. Full-length, commercial video ads that play before the app launches. This is DOA. [link > Joystiq]

Looks like the Wii will almost certainly get a price drop next week, to $200. Nintendo is seeing their sales drop off (from great heights, mind you) in a slightly scary way. It’ll probably be $199 USD as well as $199 CAD. The number 200 is one of those mystical price points. [link > TechCrunch]

Trine (for PSN) came out in Europe, but not here. WTF. How much effort can it take to translate from European to North American? The languages are practically identical. (On a related note, worldwide licensing needs to figure it’s shit out across multiple industries – software, music, all of it. Content providers wonder why all those kids won’t stop the downloadin’ in Canada. It’s because they won’t sell us things in a timely way. My international friends in distant-yet-English-speaking countries know whereof I speak.)