By Nelson Schneider - 04/30/17 at 04:29 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! May is continuing the downpour of Spring releases that started last month. Shall we see if the garden has started to blossom?
Shovelware weeds are starting to poke their noses out of the dirt. There’s plenty of variety too! There’s two licenses superhero pieces of shovelware, “Injustice 2” for DC fans and Telltale’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” serial Adventure for Marvel fans. For those who aren’t into licensed shovelware based on fiction IPs, there’s a new annual release in the “Official Motocross Game.” Lastly, there are two new releases in that shovelware archetype that is just so casual that it’s inconceivable they can make any money: “Cooking Mama: Sweet Shop” for 3DS and “Baila Latino” (which means ‘Latin dance’ en español) for PS4.
Once again, there are plenty of ports and remasters. “Lock’s Quest,” which was supposed to come to PS4 and XBONE last month, is leading the way, along with “Darksiders” for WiiU, “Tropico 5” for XBONE, and “Guilty Gear Xrd” for PS4. Nintendo’s new Switch hybrid device will be joining in on the remaster ‘fun’ with ports of “Disgaea 5” and “Ultra Street Fighter 2.”
May is getting just as many legit multi-platform releases as April, with a hefty 7 titles. “RiME,” “Portal Knights,” and “World to the West” all share an Actiony/Adventury pedigree and cartoony visuals, which guarantees that none of them will be particularly successful in the current market. Then there’s bland, generic, ‘Cinematic’ FPS, “Prey” and a sci-fi ‘Dark Souls’ clone, “The Surge,” which will both probably sell extremely well to the tasteless gamers of today. While the other multi-plats in May will grace every platform possible, the horribly-titled “Birthdays: The Beginning” will only be coming to PC and PS4, and looks like the kind of weird life Simulation that would have really grabbed my attention – then really pissed me off – in the SNES era… like “Sim Earth.” Finally, for those who don’t like any kind of fantastical elements in their games, be they cartoony or grimdark, there’s a new entry in the ‘FlatOut’ racing series.
Sony is the only hardware manufacturer with exclusives to speak of this month. Oddly, the much-maligned Vita will be getting more releases than the stupidly-popular PS4. What is going on!? Anyway, the PS4 is getting a new ‘Samurai Warriors’ musou game and sharing joint custody with the Vita of “Akiba’s Beat,’ sequel to inane Beat ‘em Up, “Akiba’s Trip,” the nearly-unpronounceable “Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception,” and “Summon Night 6” (which strikes me as remarkable, as I don’t remember 5 other ‘Summon Night’ games existing). The Vita itself will also get Roguelike (yuck) “Operation Babel: New Tokyo Legacy” and Visual Novel (yuck) “Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds.” The only non-Sony exclusive coming in May is a new ‘Fire Emblem’ for the 3DS. Good old Nintendo, still trying to sabotage their new handheld/console by releasing games exclusively for the 3DS… Clearly the lessons of the WiiU have already been forgotten.
VR finally has a couple new titles coming in May. Perhaps the most exciting VR title to ever appear at E3, “Star Trek: Bridge Crew” is coming to both PC and PlayStation VR, while PSVR is getting exclusive access to “Farpoint,” a new Survival IP that is NOT based on the ‘Star Trek’ episode “Encounter at Farpoint.”
I really want to play “Star Trek: Bridge Crew” with the rest of the MJ Crew, but unfortunately, none of us have VR headsets or want to sink that amount of money into VR headsets for ONE GAME. “RiME” and “World to the West” both look like the type of experience I could enjoy, so I’ll probably pick them up on Steam once they get really cheap. In general, May looks to be a pretty good month, compared to the norm, so gamers can stock-up on new releases to get them through the looming Summer Game Drought.
Backlog Embiggened: +3
