By Nelson Schneider - 08/02/15 at 01:20 PM CT
It’s August! Happy Birthday to me! Or not… especially if I wanted a new game or two as gifts (which I do NOT, looking at the releases below).
After a month of absence in July, the shovelware has returned in droves. The undisputed King of Shovelware would have to be the third rendition of “Disney Infinity,” which cleverly attempts to sell videogames by getting kids hooked on a series of collectable, overpriced figurines. Aside from that, there are a lot of licensed shovelware exclusives, which is mind-blowing in that it undermines the general purpose of shovelware to saturate the market with releases on every platform. The PS4 is getting a new ‘One Piece’ game, while the 3DS is getting a whopping THREE licensed games based on the ‘Paddington Bear’ movie (a little late on that one, guys), the ‘Garfield’ comic strip (which has been irrelevant for years), and tiny-robot battling anime ‘LBX.’ All that exclusive shovelware is really going to hurt the 3DS’ showing in the realm of legit exclusives this month! Finally, the world of annual sports franchises has once again squeezed a ‘Madden Football’ out of its colon, and it’s still cross-generational!
The trend of supreme laziness that is ports and remasters is still going strong in the 8th Gen, now with unexpected platforms, like the 3DS getting in on the ‘fun.’ The PS4 and XBONE are getting a ‘definitive edition’ of “Dishonored” as well as compilations of ‘Toy Soldier’ games. The PS3 (yes 3) is getting a compilation of ‘Syberia’ games, and the PS4 is getting a remaster of “Helldivers,” while the XBONE is getting a “Gears of War” remaster (which will be coming to Windows 10 a bit later) and the Rare compilation that had me facepalming at E3, “Rare Replay.” Finally, the 3DS will be getting a remaster of “Etrian Odyssey 2,” which originally appeared on the old DS.
After all that shovelware and remasterbation, the exclusives for the month are grim and slim pickings. At least they’re better than the nothing we got last month. Steam is getting a new turn-based Strategy game entitled “Crookz: The Big Heist” (and you can tell it will be quality because of the ‘z’). Sony will be the home of three exclusive releases in August, “Until Dawn” – a ‘Chris Would Love That’ game if ever there was one – for PS4, and a couple of Visual Novels for PS3/Vita: “Steins;Gate” (don’t think about the punctuation) and “XBLAZE: Lost Memories.” The XBONE and WiiU are, once again, getting zilch.
Handheld exclusives aren’t anything to get excited about either. The 3DS lost all of its games to the curse of shovelware and remasters, leaving the Vita with a single exclusive all to itself: an overloaded loli-fest RPG entitled “Dungeon Travelers 2.” You may not want to believe me, but a certain other gaming database site is listing “Dungeon Travelers 2” as a ‘WRPG.’ Yeah… That makes sense.
Nooooothing for me again this month… and I don’t care! I’m sure something(s) will appear on Steam by surprise that catch my interest, but the current state of “AAA” games and consoles is just dreadful. The WiiU and XBONE are done, but hopefully the PS4 can pull itself up by its bootstraps before the 9th Gen comes a-knocking.
Backlog Embiggened: +0
Comments
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 08/06/15 at 10:35 PM CT
You lie, Chris. You NEVER wait for price drops to buy "AAA" games, you sellout!
Chris Kavan - wrote on 08/04/15 at 09:12 PM CT
I will totally get Until Dawn - probably in about a year when the price drops, but it's looking good!
