A Gamer Guide to Battling the Summer Doldrums

-- Tour the Nazi Underground: You cannot tour Hitler's Bunker because what they did not blow up got covered over and buried, but there is a very extensive underground factory out at the airport that was used as the model for several games (including the bunker scenes in COD2) in Berlin that, if you slide E100 into the right palm, you could get a semi-guided tour of! What you need to do is discretely seek out one of the maintenance workers at the airport (the guys in the dark blue almost purple coveralls have full facility access).

Then there is the bunker complex outside of Munich, but that is off-limits and designated a dangerous area, which is of course why pretty much every member of the Munich Urban and Underground Exploration Club at the University in Munich has a photo of him or herself drinking a beer in the central tomb there. Just hit up one of their meetings and be really nice and we bet you could find a member or two willing to take you.

This facility was used in a number of games, so you should recognize the central tomb and the security area...

Or You Could Just Game...

Right so that was the easy route -- things to do in the real world that are games or gaming related... Now here is the harder route: selecting games from the Spring and Early Summer Lineups to get you through the Doldrums!

If the we did not include a game that you think should be there -- well, chalk it up to opinion? The games that made the list were chosen both because they are entertaining and because they each have a better-than-average replayability score. If you have enough of them, even though you have beaten them, by rotating through them you should be able to get through the Doldrums without too much boredom or pain!

The following releases should help a lot:

-- Alice: Madness Returns

-- Brink

-- Conduit 2

-- Dirt 3

-- Duke Nukem Forever

-- Dungeon Siege III

-- Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 3

-- Fable III

-- Fallout: New Vegas (with the DLC)

-- F.E.A.R. 3

-- Hearts of Iron 3: For the Motherland

-- Hunter: The Demon's Forge

-- Kung Fu Panda 2

-- L.A. Noire

-- LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean

-- Mortal Kombat

-- Naughty Bear Gold

-- Operations Flashpoint: Red River

-- Portal 2

-- Shadows of the Damned

-- Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition

-- The Sims 3: Generations

-- Valet Parking 1989

-- Virtua Tennis 4

And finally - IF you have NOT played the following games before, these will make a very excellent even splendorous addition to your library and your weekly game rotation list:

-- Assassins Creed Series (Any)

-- BioShock Series (Any)

-- Blur

-- Borderlands

-- Bulletstorm

-- COD Series (Any)

-- Dragon Age II

-- Fallout 3

-- Gears of War Series (Any)

-- GTA Series (Any)

-- Halo Series (Any)

-- Hitman: Blood Money

-- LEGO Star Wars III The Clone Wars

-- Mafia II

-- Mass Effect Series (Any)

-- MOH Series (Any)

-- Need for Speed Series (Most)

-- Oblivion

-- Red Dead Redemption

-- The Godfather Series (Any)

So there you have it -- holiday destinations and ideas, games you can play that have recently come out, and a list of suggested older games to play if you have yet to play them. And of course in addition to all of that, you can stay tuned to Gaming Update for your game news and word of any games that somehow managed to sneak in under the radar and actually released during the Doldrums!

Have a great summer!