While Lost Planet 2 and Skate 3 are big releases this week, and the Batman: Arkham Asylum GOTY Edition (a game both Greg and I enjoyed last year) also drops, this week we feature the quirky 3D Dot Game Heroes and all its “Don’t Call it Zelda” gameplay. Yeah, it’s a PS3-exclusive, but what are you going to do? I’m just kinda looking at next week’s new release schedule and fearing for my brain, and wallet. So excuse me if I’m a bit distracted.

Happy belated Mothers Day to all the moms out there. Mothers Day tends to be a bit of a production for me, what with having three boys who are too young to show their appreciation for their mom, plus a tradition of visiting my wife’s extend family and my own mother. So, yeah, this is late by a bit. Anyways, as GamerPops, we have spouses, aka GamerMoms, who we need to appreciate, and also we need to help our young broods appreciate them as well. It is for that that we salute all moms, especially the ones with gaming kids and/or spouses. Hope you had a good one.

You know, for a company that saw a 21 percent drop in sales this year, Nintendo’s being pretty aggressive. They’ve basically claimed victory over the likes of Sony, and are now declaring Apple the “enemy of the future.” Granted, sales-wise, even with that big drop, The Big N are kicking a lot of butt still, but calling the war with Sony over might be a touch premature. Ok, portable-wise, that ship has sailed long ago, but the PS3 isn’t quite dead yet. What’s intriguing is Apple, and the newfound focus. True, the 20 different versions of the DS, and the new 3DS are specialized gaming machines that can’t do much else, whereas the iPhone makes calls, sends texts, browses the web, and all sorts of other coolness. So Nintendo should feel threatened. Even the iPod Touch is a threat cause it can play better in the younger demographic where the DS dominates. I still think the iPhone and iPod Touch are better served for casual or touch-based games, cause the motion controls and virtual d-pads just aren’t cutting it for me, but the App Store is doing a brisk business. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out, but I wonder if Nintendo isn’t doing a little bit of the classic “looking past” of Sony (to use a sporting analogy) while focusing on an opponent who maybe isn’t the threat they think they are.

Middle Son, who is 2 1/2, suddenly has a love of the DS. He can’t actually play any games, but he loves turning it on, holding the stylus, and pretending he’s playing. Plus, he watches the action going on. Yeah, I’m an awful parent. The cutest thing was when he took it to bed the other night, and I went into his room. He was zonked right out, DS still running (for those of  you curious, the title was WarioWare D.I.Y., which I’ll be reviewing very soon), with the handheld actually sitting on his head (kind of like a book would), music still playing. He REALLY wants to be like his big brother.

Not much else this week. This stupid cold thing keeps coming and going in our house. It’s not pretty.