By Nelson Schneider - 06/28/13 at 02:01 PM CT
Welcome to another look into the near future. The Summer Game Drought should be upon us in full-force, yet there are still a significant number of games releasing in July. July is also the home of the annual Steam Summer Sale and its absurdly huge discounts. I’m expecting to add almost every game on my Steam Wish List to my backlog this month, even though most of them are old(ish).
But what about NEW games?
July will be foisting a mere two licensed trash games upon the populace, both based on animated Summer movies: One involves a mutant speed snail, and the other one involves the incarnation of Communism in the 1980s. On top of those two abominations, we are also getting a new annual release of a game based on the worst sport in the world... in college.
July isn’t looking like a significant month for non-shovelware multi-platform releases. In fact, there is only one: A new ‘Dynasty Warriors’ game. Does anyone really care about this series enough to justify the continual sequels? Ports aren’t looking to be a significant source of ‘new’ games either, with the month-long PC exclusive, “DARK” getting a port to the Xbox 360.
Instead of multi-platform releases and ports, July is home to quite a few exclusive releases. Of course, two of these releases are compilations of old games: ‘Serious Sam’ for the shooter-loving Xbox 360 and ‘Metal Gear Solid’ for the Japanophiliac PlayStation 3. With all the compilations of old games flying around recently, it seems that Microsoft and Sony might be realizing that, like Nintendo, their best days are behind them.
Outside of compilations, the PC wins the exclusives battle for July, with two new games in two different genres: “The Raven,” an adventure game; and the delayed release (from last month) of “ShadowRun Returns,” a turn-based PCRPG. The only other console getting any exclusives in July is the PS3, with the release of the FMVRPG, “Time and Eternity.” In addition to being packed to the gills with moe, “Time and Eternity” promises to reinvigorate the flagging RPG genre with Full-Motion-Video-based gameplay, something that we have been deprived of since the halcyon days of FMV Adventure games on the Sega CD. (And if you think this sounds like praise, please have your sarcasm detector inspected.)
The handhelds aren’t faring much better in the realm of exclusives. The Vita is a complete no-show for July, while the 3DS is getting a delayed release of the shovelware vehicular combat game (delayed from last month), “Crash City Mayhem” as well as the fourth main-line ‘Shin Megami Tensei’ game. ‘MegaTen,’ as it is known to its fans, is an RPG franchise that has never seen the light of day outside of Japan (at least in its basic form – we in North America have still been subjected to the horrors of its spin-off series, ‘Persona’), yet has attracted a following through the use of fan-translations and ROM-hacks. It’s frustrating that both the newest ‘Glory of Heracles’ game and ‘Shin Megami Tensei’ game have come to handhelds, when their ROM-hacked ancestors were all made for real consoles, like the SNES. Of course, I have no love for ‘MegaTen’ thanks mostly to my awful experience with the original “Persona.” However, since “Shin Megami Tensei 4” looks to have a much more desirable setting and characters than the ‘Persona’ series (Feudal Japan > Modern Tokyo School), I would have been willing to give it a shot if it had been released on something other than a handheld.
The Summer Game Drought seems to be somewhat milder this year than it has in the past. Of course, for me, it’s still a full-on drought… and I’m completely fine with that. I don’t need a bunch of new games when the Steam Summer Sale will deluge me with slightly older games.
Backlog Embiggened: +0 (“ShadowRun Returns” was included in last month’s total)
Comments
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/14/13 at 03:45 AM CT
I hope the Steam version of Terraria gets the "Collector's Edition" treatment.
Chris Kavan - wrote on 07/04/13 at 12:45 PM CT
Just one game to add: Terrarria: Collector's Edition drops for Xbox360 and PS3 at the end of the month.
