Are you ready for some football? Yes friends, football season is almost upon us, and despite some rumblings of contract disputes and strikes, I’m still pretty excited for football to resume.

Part of my excitement is fueled by this month’s release of NCAA ’09, which for the first time ever will feature an online dynasty mode. For the first time, you’ll be able to do more than just play a few random games online with your friends; now you’ll be able to build your own college football dynasty as you compete online. It’s a feature that’s been desired by fans for a long time, so it has a lot of expectations to live up to, and we’ll give you all the details and info starting July 15^th (assuming we get our GameFly copy quickly enough). To be honest, everything else this month pales in comparison to the triumphant return of football, but to be fair it’s not the only game in town.

The real-time strategy genre takes another stab at the consoles this month with Civilization Revolution. This console-specific version of the popular Civilization games simplifies a lot of elements while retaining the core components that make the Civilization games so compelling. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for all of our Civilization coverage.

Other notables releasing this month is We Golf from Camelot studios, the studios behind the very popular Mario Golf games. While we haven’t had a chance to try this new golfing game on the Wii just yet, but I have discovered that the swing system will not be a simple one to one motion-control like in Wii Sports Golf; so it remains to be seen whether or not this is the golf game Wii owners have been waiting for. We’ll have our full impressions and review later this month. Also, coming at the tail end of July is Soulcaliber IV. This first true next-gen version of the popular fighting game also features guest appearances from Darth Vadar, Yoda, and a character from the upcoming Force Unleashed game.

Overshadowing everything else this month, however, is E3 in Los Angeles. Expectations are high for this year’s annual trade show. Speculation is running rampant as to whether or not Microsoft will announce a motion controller for the Xbox 360, what new games Nintendo has up their sleeves for the holidays this year that they haven’t announced yet, and what plans Sony has to help propel the Playstation 3 ahead of its rivals. A ton of games will be on hand, including the hotly anticipated Gears of War 2, Resistance 2, and many more, as well as (hopefully) sneak peeks of the next Bioshock, Fable 2, and more. EA will have plenty to display as well, from the twentieth anniversary edition of Madden to this year’s Tiger Woods, which on the Wii will feature true one-to-one motion controls (which has a lot of golf fanatics drooling with anticipation). We may also see some of Ubisoft’s upcoming games, from the new IP HAWX to the new version of the Prince of Persia. We’ll do our best to cover as much of the new released from E3 as we can this year, so keep it locked on the Playbox for all the latest E3 updates that we can gather.

Between our regular reviewing schedule and all that’s happening with E3, this is going to be one busy month, but as is the case every year with E3 (even in its much diminished form), it’s an exciting month as we finally get to hear each of the big three’s plans for the upcoming year and get some good looks at the biggest games releasing this year. Also, don’t forget to check out the Mii Fit blog on the Playbox and find out how my thirty day experiment with Wii Fit turned out.

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