By Nelson Schneider - 09/25/16 at 02:01 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! October is nearly upon us, which means that the official start of the Holiday Shopping Season is just a week away. We can look forward to three solid months of constant commercial bombardment and cluttered release schedules, all in the name of confusing grandparents into buying little Timmy the wrong gift for Christmas. It’s like game publishers haven’t heard of return policies and gift cards…
Shovelware is pretty bad again this month, with 7 titles looming before us. Now that Disney is out of the game dev/pub business, they’ve got Namco-Bandai working on their next effort, “Disney Magical World 2” (and it REALLY pisses me off that every Disney game needs to have ‘Disney’ in the title, apparently). Someone at BigBen apparently thinks these terrible ‘Sherlock Holmes’ titles are worthy of being released on more platforms. Warner Bros. wants PS4 owners to re-buy every ‘LEGO Harry Potter’ game in a compilation. And, of course, Ubisoft is being Ubisoft and will be giving us yet another un-asked-for, un-needed ‘Just Dance’ title. Then there’s a new ‘Batman’ title and a new ‘Dragon Ball’ (not Z!) title for those who just can’t get enough. Only one annual Sports release is hitting in October, though: ‘WWE Wrestling.’
8th Gen ports and remasters are also remaining vigorous into the Holiday Shopping Season. Perhaps most notably, “The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim” is getting a Super-Special Awesome Edition, and while console users get the privilege of re-buying it, PC users get it for free (if they already own “Skyrim’s” Legendary Edition). ‘Darksiders’ and ‘Rocksmith’ are also getting the typical remaster treatment, while ‘Corpse Party’ is getting a full-blown reboot. “Warhammer: End Times – Vermintide” is losing its PC exclusivity, while “Tropico 5” will find a new home on the PS4, as will “Rise of the Tomb Raider,” which is losing its XBONE timed exclusivity. The 3DS is getting a compilation of ‘Azure Striker Gunvolt’ titles, while PS4 and WiiU are getting compilations of the excellent (and formerly digital-only) ‘Steamworld’ games. Finally, Atari (delenda est) is bringing not one, but two volumes of terrible 2nd Gen games to PS4 and XBONE… because apparently they think the graphics whores who own PS4 and XBONE consoles love terrible old Atari games.
Legit multi-platform releases are led by… “Farming Simulator 17!” And it doesn’t get much better from there, folks. EA is doubling-down with a ‘Titanfall’ sequel that literally nobody asked for, as well as a confusingly-named sequel in their ‘Battlefield’ online FPS deathmatch franchise, “Battlefield 1,” which is just as stupid as naming the third Xbox the Xbox One. Activision is also joining the ‘fun’ with a new ‘Skylanders’ toy-selling engine. People who enjoy videogames of real-life activities can look forward to snowboarding in “Infinite Air” and riding ATVs in “ATV Renegades.” The best bet for mainstream gamers, though, looks to be the third sequel in the ‘Mafia’ franchise. Yeah, it’s not a good month…
In exclusives this month, Sony looks to be absolutely dominating… yet it’s purely a numbers game, as the quality just isn’t there… or anywhere, really. PC is getting “SnookerWorld” and “Civilization 6,” but you can bet that ‘Civ’ won’t stay exclusive for long.
The PS4 and Vita are getting Visual Novel, “Root Letter;” Hack ‘n Slash, “Exist Archive: The Other Side of the Sky;” and less-terrible-than-usual-but-still-terrible Square Enix RPG, “World of Final Fantasy.” The PS4 is further getting “Earth’s Dawn,” “Aragami,” and possibly-awesome “Dragon Quest Builders,” while the Vita is getting more ‘Nep-Nep,’ more ‘Criminal Girls,’ and “Yomawari: Night Alone,” proving it to be the dedicated gaming device for unrepentant pedophiles.
Microsoft is bringing “Gears of War 4”… and nothing else. Pathetic. Nintendo is likewise bringing “Paper Mario: Color Splash,” which further degenerates that once great spinoff IP from RPG to Action. Nintendo fans have been bent out of shape about it since it was announced, so I doubt it will sell very well. I’ll certainly be skipping it, as “Super Paper Mario” killed the series for me. Also pathetic.
And now we’ve got something new to consider! We’re definitely living in The Future, as a number of VR-only titles are beginning to dribble forth. For October, it looks like Sony is releasing their entire load for PlayStation VR’s launch… but nothing here looks particularly compelling: ‘Batman’ shovelware, a tech demo, a ‘Cinematic’ Adventure… that also happens to be episodic, and PvP deathmatches. The only redeeming thing here is the fact that the PVP deathmatch game, “RIGS: Mechanized Combat League,” involves mechs of some sort.
Bleh. Another month, more crap. If I didn’t already own “Steamworld Dig” and have plans to buy “Steamworld Heist” on… Steam… the “Steamworld Collection” would definitely be appealing. It also looks like Square Enix might be doing something a little bit right (more like less-wrong) with “World of Final Fantasy” and “Dragon Quest Builders,” but a couple of throw-away spinoffs aren’t going to convince me to buy a console that actively pisses me off just thinking about it… especially when there’s no way to know whether or not those titles will go multi-plat in a few months or a year.
Backlog Embiggened: +0
Comments
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 10/02/16 at 02:53 PM CT
Hey, DB, long time, no see!
My main qualms with those three games are:
DQB: It's still basically Minecraft, which is synonymous with "waste of time."
WoFF: I'm already playing FF Record Keeper on Android, so I'm not really up for another nostalgia bomb from Square Enix with very little substance of its own.
PM:CS: They lost me as Super Paper Mario. When these were still RPGs, they were great, but Miyamoto's really lost his touch lately.
dbarry_22 - wrote on 09/27/16 at 05:08 PM CT
I actually have hopes for World of Final Fantasy. I'll probably be disappointed, we shall see. I'll eventually be getting Dragon Quest Builders and Paper Mario: Color Smash. Too many games to little time!
