By Nelson Schneider - 03/07/13 at 03:53 PM CT

Welcome to another look into the near future. With March comes Spring! The long, cold, dead months of Winter have passed us by, leaving us with the promise of rebirth and renewal. The same can be said of videogame releases: March is the traditional release month for delayed games that missed their holiday deadlines. So in March, we’re getting the awesome-looking “Dragon’s Crown” and the long-awaited “Pikmin 3”… oh… no we’re not, as both of those games had their releases pushed back EVEN FURTHER. Oh well, let’s see if there’s anything salvageable amongst the rest of the crap…

Terrible licensed games and shovelware look to have been reproducing as prodigiously as the bunnies of the upcoming Easter/Vernal Equinox holiday. Every platform under the sun is getting a game based on “The Croods” (a CG movie about cavemen) and the aging HD Twins are getting a new ‘Naruto’ game (Is that annoying bastard STILL getting new episodes?). Not to be left out of the ‘Naruto’ fun, the 3DS is getting a different ‘Naruto’ game, this time with the term ‘SD’ in the title… that doesn’t stand for ‘Secure Digital,’ but ‘Super Deformed.’ You know a game is going to be ‘great’ with that in the title. The 3DS is also hogging the joy of yet another new ‘Monster High’ game aimed at tween girls, while the WiiU is enjoying a warmed-over port of the last ‘Spider-Man’ game that was released on every other platform last year. Speaking of warmed-over WiiU ports, the last ‘Need for Speed’ game is getting ported to WiiU as well! Outside of licensed drek aimed at kids, there is also a new multi-platform game based on “The Walking Dead” coming in March… only this time it’s a FPS, not an Adventure, and it’s not made by Telltale… thus it has little chance of not sucking.

As usual, the multi-platform non-licensed, non-shovelware releases are dominated by dark, gritty games with M ratings and some form of shooting involved. First-person fans are getting a drab military shooter sequel in the form of “Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2” and a sequel to the intriguing ‘Bioshock’ series. I have to admit, now that I have a Razer Hydra, which makes playing FPSes less painful than a kick in the nuts, I’m interested in getting into the ‘Bioshock’ series. Whether or not I decide to add “Bioshock Infinite” to my PC backlog depends entirely on how much I like the first “Bioshock” once I finally get around to buying it off Steam and playing through it. Third-person fans are getting a new game in the ultimate homoerotic dudebro franchise, ‘Army of Two,’ as well as a creatively-named reboot of the crusty old ‘Tomb Raider’ franchise called “Tomb Raider” (which makes it impossible to include a nice multi-platform link to the MJ database without dragging up all of the recent ports and compilations of the 5th Generation ‘Tomb Raider’ games). Outside of ‘shooten gaemz,’ the elderly “Final Fantasy 11” is getting a new expansion pack and sports fans can choose between a new annual “Tiger Woods PGA,” or a new annual “Major League Baseball,” or a new annual “Major League Baseball: THE SHOW” (as if that makes a difference).

March looks to have a surprisingly strong showing of exclusives across all of the major platforms… well maybe not the Xbox 360, which only has a new ‘Gears of War’ title to claim as its own… but I guess one game that targets the core Xbox 360 demographic is better than a bunch of terrible Kinect games that nobody likes. The PC is surprisingly getting TWO exclusives this month, though “DARK” will be coming to the Xbox 360 later on in the year. Maybe the stealth/vampire game can grab a cult following? The other big PC release is the 5th mainline ‘SimCity’ game, creatively-named, much like the new “Tomb Raider,” just “SimCity.” “SimCity” is coming to EA’s much-maligned Origin platform, so it’s guaranteed to have onerous, always-on DRM and plenty of server issues alongside dumbed-down gameplay! Sony is, once again, trotting out Kratos for a new ‘God of War’ game, this time a prequel, for the PS3. Sony also seems to want to get back into their old wheel house of catering to RPG fans by releasing two new exclusives in that genre this month: “Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory” and “Atelier Ayesha!” … Really, Sony? People complain that you went from the RPG titan to an RPG shrimp and the best you can come up with is two games that are BOTH covered in the vile fingerprints of GUST, Compile Heart, Idea Factory, and Nippon Ichi (a.k.a., the worst RPG developers/publishers of all time)? RPGs like these aren’t making the situation any better… instead these releases are like giving salt water to a man dying of thirst. Maybe Sony wants all of our RPG expectations to die agonizing deaths so we won’t expect anything of the PS4? And speaking of no expectations, has anyone seen the Vita library? If I get out my magnifying glass I can just make out the addition of a port of “Dead or Alive 5!” Finally, we come to Nintendo, who, much like Sony, doesn’t seem to get that it’s bad to have new hardware with few compatible games. While the 3DS is really picking up steam, with releases of a new 2.5D ‘Metroidvania’ in the form of “Castlevania: Lord of Shadows – Mirror of Fate,” a sequel to “Luigi’s Mansion,” and a new ‘Mysterious Pokemon Dung’ title, it’s also sharing the WiiU’s only exclusive, “Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate,” so it’s not really a WiiU exclusive, but is at least a Nintendo exclusive (and let’s not forget a completely niche, love-it-or-hate-it franchise that lives and dies via ad-hoc multi-player). Of course, the most exciting exclusive of the month is the long-awaited North American release of the spectacular “Pandora’s Tower,” performing one final, futile compression on the dead chest of the original Wii. While I have already played and reviewed the European version of this spectacular title, I felt compelled to ‘vote with my wallet’ and pre-order a domestic copy. It’s cheap! It’s amazing! Everyone who owns a Wii needs to buy it!

March looks to be living up to its reputation of rebirth with the number of reboots being released. Unfortunately, almost everything produced by the gaming industry seems to be reboots or sequels. How insane is it that “DARK” and “Pandora’s Tower” are the only new IPs being released this month? Of course the question of how much my backlog will grow is still up in the air. While I love “Pandora’s Tower,” it won’t be embiggening my backlog because I have already finished it. “Bioshock Infinite” might make my backlog grow if I like “Bioshock”… but should I then count “Bioshock” and “Bioshock 2” as embiggening agents? Some of Nintendo’s 3DS offering look quite compelling, like the new ‘Metroidvania’ and “Luigi’s Mansion” sequel… but I still don’t own, nor do I care to own, a 3DS. If Capcom was capable of releasing “Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate” (a game I have zero interest in) on both the 3DS and the WiiU, why can’t Nintendo and Konami do the same with these other titles? So, since I don’t know how much my backlog will grow based on March’s releases, I will instead consider it an abstraction.

Backlog Embiggened: ⊕