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By Nelson Schneider - 12/07/13 at 11:51 PM CT
Welcome to another look into the near future. The end-of-year trend of a single massively mainstream multi-platform release each month has come to an end. Indeed, releases in general seem to have ground to a halt as the shovelware developers have already blown their collective load and are just waiting for the cash to come pouring in (and since retailers have refused to allow returns of opened videogames for nearly 30 years, once it’s in, that money will be permanently trapped and used to craft yet MORE shovelware). Let’s take a look at the last minute stragglers that will make it out the door in 2013.
December is giving us a single piece of licensed crap, based on the ‘World Series of Poker.’ And it’s not even new, but a port from the Xbox Live Arcade!
Even in non-shovelware, “AAA” gaming land, there are only a few releases… and NONE of them are new! Instead, “Deadfall Adventures” is porting from PC to Xbox 360, “Painkiller: Hell & Damnation” is porting from PC and Xbox 360 to PS3, “Dementium II” is porting to Steam from the DS (how uncommon!), and “F1 2013” is giving up its life as a PC exclusive to join the 90% identical libraries of the PS3 and Xbox 360. Unfortunately for mainstream gamers who own WiiUs (all 3 of them?), no more ports are forthcoming to that system for the rest of the year. Of course, after much fanfare and brouhaha, the PS4 and XBONE seem to be getting as much nothing in December as the WiiU got last year. The final noteworthy multi-platform release is supposed to be the simultaneous Dreamcast (yes, really!)/WiiUWare/Steam/Xbox Live release of “Pier Solar and the Great Architects HD.” I say ‘supposed’ because developer Watermelon initially made rumblings that the HD remake would release sometime in Q4 2013, but nothing on their website ever changes, plus the game hasn’t appeared on Steam Greenlight yet. It seems that some versions of the game have had their release date changed to March 2014, while others are in the nebulous Hell of ‘TBA.’ Given Watermelon’s record for never getting anything done on time, I’m not holding out hope of seeing “Pier Solar HD” before the end of the year, in March, or even by the end of next year.
Out of all of the major platforms, only the PS3 is getting any noteworthy exclusives before 2013 ends. Specifically, it’s getting one last exclusive, “Gran Turismo 6,” which seems like it would have made more sense as a PS4 launch exclusive, but then, I don’t get paid the big bucks to make such sensible business decisions. The Xbox 360, in contrast, is getting a laughable compilation of ‘Naughty Bear’ games and DLC. The only significant handheld release is a joke RPG about a Curry God… which is coming to the Vita, so nobody will play it anyway.
December is looking like a barren wasteland of ports and apathy. I’d love to add “Pier Solar HD” to my backlog, but it ain’t happening. Outside of that, I know Nick will be getting “Gran Turismo 6” and obsessing over it for years, like he did with “Gran Turismo 5.” Fortunately, he doesn’t make the rest of the MJ crew play it with him. No extra backlog for me this month – and I’m perfectly happy with that!
Backlog Embiggened: +0
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