October 3, 2011: wallet threat level dark

Like its predecessor Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls isn’t for everyone. But to those who it is for, it will be a dire and abiding wallet threat, not to mention a terrible time sink. The game diary begins today.

Then there’s Rage. Yeah. So in terms of big budget, AAA shooter franchises out this year, Resistance 3, Gears 3, and Rage have laid their cards on the table. Resistance 3 folded, Gears 3 threw down a pair of tens, and Rage reveals a jack high. Okay Battlefield and Modern Warfare, what do you guys got?

The downloadable Orcs Must Die is good, to be sure. But it’s no Toy Soldiers: Cold War. It’s about a Trenched. That’s frankly not a bad thing to be.

Activision follows up on last week’s X-Men game with this week’s Spider-Man game. Can they clear the bars that were the Thor and Captain America game before Batman: Arkham City likely closes the book on licensed superheroics?

Sony has a couple of dark horses this week. Payday: The Heist (pictured) is like Left 4 Dead meets Heat by way of Kane and Lynch 2 with a touch of Gears of War’s horde mode and an unabashed nod to the opening of The Dark Knight. Since it’s Sony Online, it will be available for the PC and PS3. And it looks like the Playstation Network will finally release the PS3 version of Eufloria, a lovely minimalist RTS built for the PC that should fit neatly into living rooms.