By Nelson Schneider - 11/30/14 at 01:30 PM CT
Welcome to another look into the near future. December is here, once again, to mark the coming of the “Holiday Season.” Not Christmas, because that would be exclusionary towards non-Christians (despite the fact that Christmas has never actually been about Christianity). It’s exasperating that our contemporary politically correct culture always needs to latch onto the most sterile and bland names for things. I’ll still be celebrating the ancient pre-Christian holiday of Yule and have already decorated a simulated pine tree with simulated sacrificial entrails.
What do gamers have to celebrate in December? How about A MONTH WITH NO SHOVELWARE?! Yes, it actually looks like it’s going to happen! There isn’t a single shovelware title slated for a December release as of yet (though that is still subject to change, as usual).
In fact, December’s releases are looking incredibly sparse overall, especially being the ever-important second Yule since the PS4 and XBONE released. Of course, while there may not be any shovelware, there are still ports. “Final Fantasy 13-2” (a.k.a., the sequel nobody asked for) is coming to Steam and “Terraria” is hitting the PS4 and XBONE.
Out of the whopping two multi-platform releases for December, NEITHER of them are shooters for a change. Instead, there’s a hardcore car nut racing game, “The Crew,” and an 8th Gen sequel in the long-in-the-tooth ‘Tomb Raider’ franchise.
In exclusives, Steam is getting a rather low-budget-looking adventure game, “Myths of Orion.” Sony is getting PS3 and PS4 versions of the latest in the inexplicably-still-ongoing fighting franchise ‘Guilty Gear,’ and a PS3 remaster of some ‘Kingdom Hearts’ crap. Then there’s Nintendo, with separate WiiU and 3DS compilations of the formerly-digital-only ‘NES Remix’ games, as well as a full-blown spin-off of the rather lame Captain Toad stages from “Super Mario 3D World,” “Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker.”
All in all, December looks like a pretty bleak month. I’ll probably grab the WiiU “NES Remix Pack” just to see what all the fuss is about, but other than that, the uninspired mix of ports, sequels, and spin-offs doesn’t capture my interest.
Backlog Embiggened: +1
