By Nelson Schneider - 01/29/17 at 04:45 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! February is still Winter, and it’s still horribly cold and unpleasant here at the MJ HQ, but that’s okay, because we can sit inside where it’s warm and play videogames… can’t we? Are there any new videogames coming in February that we’ll want to play? Let’s hope so!
Three pieces of licensed shovelware start us out this month. Chris can’t stop salivating over Telltale Games’ take on his favorite TV show, zombie-schlock “The Walking Dead,” which is getting a new installment. Anime fans are also getting yet another ‘Naruto Shippuden’ game as well as a new Musou game based on the ‘Berserk’ manga.
In the realm of ports and remasters, things are relatively sedate compared to how they have been recently. The PS4 is getting a physical release of “Pac-Man Championship Edition 2” (to go with last year’s physical release on XBONE) as well as a port of “Earthlock: Festival of Magic.” The 3DS is getting a version of “Yoshi’s Woolly World,” just to rub some salt in the late WiiU’s wounds. Meanwhile, XBONE and Windows are getting ports of “Halo Wars 2.”
Four legit multi-plats are releasing in February, all in a diverse array of genres, allowing everyone to have a chance at something new. Fans of bland, boring military shooters can look forward to “Sniper Elite 4.” Fans of racing and/or motorcycles can look forward to “Ride 2.” Fans of eating and wallowing in their own excrement can look forward to “For Honor,” which looks like an attempt at combining everything bad about ‘Dark Souls’ with everything bad about Ubisoft. Finally, those with refined tastes can look forward to the long-time-coming spiritual successor to “Planescape: Torment,” “Torment: Tides of Numenera,” which, surprisingly, won’t be PC exclusive.
The few exclusives coming are mostly abysmal (though Steam can still surprise us, hopefully). Poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor-man’s ‘Elder Scrolls’ clone, “Boyar” is finally coming out of Steam Early Access, and looks like a cruel joke. “Nioh” is a samurai-era ‘Souls’ clone, and thus is a cruel joke on PS4 owners. “Horizon: Zero Dawn” has the most potential of this month’s exclusives, but just doesn’t get me hyped, despite being a Sandbox game with a unique setting featuring robo-dinosaurs in a post-apocalyptic world. Finally, the 3DS is getting “Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns,” for those who just can’t get enough ‘Harvest Moon’-style pastoral simulations.
The VR tap looks like it has been turned-off for the time being. Nothing new is on the horizon for those who spent big bucks on a headset or received one as a holiday gift. VR has the potential to be great, but with release schedules like this, it won’t survive for long.
If I had a PS4 and if I enjoyed playing TPSes with a dual-analog controller, “Horizon: Zero Dawn” would catch my interest. But I don’t! Instead “Torment: Tides of Numenera” is my lone bite of backlog food for the month. I’ll be grabbing it off Steam once it gets cheap enough (and judging by how long it took “Pillars of Eternity” to get cheap enough, I could be waiting for some time).
Backlog Embiggened: +1
Comments
Chris Kavan - wrote on 02/01/17 at 05:49 PM CT
I'm going to wait, but I have a feeling that eventually I'll get around to Horizon: Zero Dawn. And during an excellent Steam sale sometime down the line, I'm sure Torment will join my ever-expanding Steam backlog.
