By Nelson Schneider - 11/27/16 at 02:09 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! Holiday crunch time is officially upon us, once again. Developers and publishers have pushed most of what they plan to push for the year, leaving us with a meager 12 releases in December. Let’s see if any of them are worth getting excited about!
Last minute shovelware is very light and also very non-licensed. “Stern Pinball Arcade” got pushed back – to no one’s sorrow – as did “We Sing.”
In ports and remasters, Sony is, surprisingly, only getting one: A port from PC to PS4 for “Deponia.” The rest of the porting is going to… Nintendo, of all outfits, with “Super Mario Maker” and “Dragon Quest 8” unnecessarily gracing the 3DS (who would want to play either of those games in 10-minute bursts?) and “Minecraft: Story Mode” getting a physical release on the officially-dead WiiU.
Of the three multi-plat releases, two are looking intriguing. “Steep” is, of course, an uninspired snowboarding game, while a new entry in the ‘Shantae’ platforming franchise and a new IP, “The Dwarves,” both have my attention.
Exclusives are shared equally between the PS4 and XBONE, and neither is anything I want. Sony is finally (maybe) going to release “The Last Guardian,” which is practically vaporware at this point, and Microsoft is getting a new ‘Dead Rising’ game from Capcom (which I doubt will stay exclusive to the XBONE for long).
Only one VR release in December, and it appears to be a terrible Ubisoft Party game with a supernatural theme: “Werewolves Within.” Clearly publishers weren’t quite ready for VR to launch… I mean, really, a PARTY game for VR?
Outside of the new ‘Shantae’ game and the fact that I find dwarves to be one of the most relatable Fantasy races, nothing in December looks appealing. It’s either crap or good stuff I’ve already played and still own on another platform. These platform divisions are ultimately one of the worst things for the thing the modern gaming industry has transformed into, as they bring nothing to the table but repetition and duplication, with no benefits for customers.
Backlog Embiggened: +2
Comments
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 12/03/16 at 01:14 PM CT
Well, have fun walking down memory lane to 2004.
dbarry_22 - wrote on 11/28/16 at 10:32 AM CT
Dragon Quest 8 for the 3DS not only has extra content not on the other version but you can speed up battles making it much easier to make progress in short bursts. I will be getting it, but that's a given for me.
