By Nelson Schneider - 11/03/12 at 02:23 PM CT
Welcome to another look into the near future. The holiday build-up continues this month as developers endeavor to get as many titles as possible onto the shelves of bricks & mortar retailers in time for Black Friday.
The overwhelming assault of licensed games continues, with the immense list of titles playable on every viable platform (as well as dead platforms like the Wii, DS, and PSP) stacking up to form the foundation for a veritable Tower of Babel to confuse, coerce, and appeal to buyers’ worst judgment. In November we’re getting games based on Nickelodeon TV horrors like “Big Time Rush,” “Bubble Guppies,” “Dora the Explora,” and “Victorious.” Not to be left behind, Cartoon Network is contributing a portion of awfulness as well, with new “Ben 10” and “Adventure Time” titles. Outside of those two big IP mills, November will also see new releases covering “Dragon Ball Z,” “NASCAR,” “Winx Club,” “The History Channel,” “LEGO Lord of the Rings,” “Monster High,” “Power Rangers” (those guys are STILL around?!), the upcoming “Rise of the Guardians” holiday-themed movie, two titles starring Mickey Mouse (the most vehemently protected IP of all time), and a “Harry Potter” themed spell simulator. I can only say one thing about ALL of these games: Eww.
In the realm of non-licensed games, the impending holiday season is bringing out the shovelware in full force as well. The consoles are getting “Deer Drive Legends,” “Karaoke Joysound,” and “The Hip Hop Dance Experience” (should this be a dance game or a shooter of some sort?), while the handhelds are getting the Fuzzy Felt-inspired “Freakyforms Deluxe,” “Poptropica Adventures,” and the deceitfully-titled generic puzzle game “Cradle of Egypt 2.”
Sports fans are out of luck this month, with no new multi-platform releases. Perhaps instead of feeding their love of ball-chasing, they could introduce themselves to real videogaming by revisiting the classic SHMUP genre with “Under Defeat HD” or experiencing some games from a time when system prowess was still measured in bits with “Midway Arcade Origins” (Over 30 games on a disc with a MSRP of $30? Nintendo and Sony should take a look at this when considering emulation prices in their online shops!).
Racing fans, on the other hand, can choose between the dubious-looking “F1 Race Stars,” the great-looking “Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed,” or the incredible-looking “LittleBigPlanet Karting,” which is just one of Sony’s big-time exclusives this month.
Besides “LBP Karting,” Sony is also releasing their long-time-coming clone of Nintendo’s ‘Smash Bros.’ series in “PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale,” as well as a couple of ignore-worthy handheld RPGs that will only appeal to the craven fans of their respective franchises: “Ragnarok Tactics” and “Persona 4: Golden.”
Strangely, the only Xbox 360 exclusive to release this month is “Halo 4.” Of course, that’s really all MS needs to keep Xbox fanboys engaged and frothing. Heck, this franchise is the only reason the Xbox brand exists! At least the Xbox is sharing in the multi-platform release of the next “Hitman” game.
The most noteworthy batch of game releases for November, however, is tied directly to the new console releasing in November: The WiiU. The WiiU’s launch library is evenly divided into three categories: exclusives, multi-platform releases, and crap. Aside from the variety of day-late-and-dollar-short ports of older PS3 and Xbox 360 games, the WiiU is sharing “Scribblenauts Unlimited” with the 3DS and PC and the newest entry in the chronically over-exposed wartime FPS franchise, “Call of Duty,” with the PS3, Xbox 360, and PC. And this new console wouldn’t be worthy of the ‘Wii’ moniker without a variety of shovelware and non-games, so it’s getting “ESPN Sports Connection,” “Game Party Champions,” “Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2013” (How sad is it that exergames now think they need annual releases? They must think they’re regular sports games!), “Sing Party,” and the pack-in tech-demo collection, “NintendoLand.” On the other side of the coin, the WiiU is launching with a handful of exclusives that look either really good or like they have at least had some decent effort put into them: “Rabbids Land,” (with a 3DS companion game), “New Super Mario Bros. U,” “Tank! Tank! Tank! ,” and “ZombieU.”
Other than the WiiU, Nintendo doesn’t have much in the way of noteworthy releases. The 3DS is only getting two non-shovelware titles: a new “Harvest Moon,” and a new “Paper Mario.” Neither of these games is exciting enough to renew my interest in those franchises, nor to kindle any interest in buying a 3DS.
November looks to be the first month in a long, long time that my backlog is going to get fed waaay too much. With Sony providing “LittleBigPlanet Karting” and “All-Stars Battle Royale,” Nintendo providing “NintendoLand” (I don’t really want this game, but it comes with the Deluxe WiiU Bundle, and I wanted the bigger system memory and Gamepad charging dock) and “NSMBU,” and Sega providing a new entry in their “Sonic and All-Stars” kart-racing series, I won’t have to worry about being bored throughout the holiday season. Not only that, but with all the multi-player games that will be moving onto my backlog this month, the MeltedJoystick crew can finally stop scraping the bottom of the barrel for our weekly co-op sessions. I don’t know about Chris and Nick, but I’ve been getting tired of the taste of the gaming equivalent of wood chips.
Backlog Embiggened: +5
