January is never really a big month in terms of new releases, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a January this bad in the three or so years I’ve been editing Kotaku. Absolutely crazy. Considering we have two new major consoles on the market with, let’s face it, not many games to play, it’s insanity.
I wonder why that is? There were a handful of big games released early last year and the year before. Did they disappoint in terms of sales? Who knows. All I know is this month has been completely dead. There is one game coming out this week. One single game.
I guess I can’t really complain. I’m having a blast just playing catch up with a bunch of games. I’m actually playing Dark Souls right now! What are you guys and girls doing in the midst of this drought?
Kickbeat (PC)
What is it? It’s a rhythm game with a kung-fu theme.
Should you care? Apparently it’s not too bad! I actually love rhythm games more than anything. Are we ever going to see another Elite Beat Agents?
Comments
31 responses to “This Week In Games: There Are No Games!”
quite happy for a quiet week… finished beyond yesterday… going to start on getting through some older games like infamous… also just picked up mario galaxy for the hell of it so want to try and play that
The calm before the storm. The perfect time to go back and complete unfinished games, last gen ain’t dead yet.
I’m actually playing through Dark Souls again as well in preparation for March. I also started FF XIV, but only to play through the story mainly. I’m actually grateful for the break, February and March have about 6 or 7 games I want coming out…
Are you on Twitter? Me, Ben and a couple of other guys are sort of playing through Dark Souls together and tweeting about it and stuff.
Started the original Prototype (that is some old pile of shame) this last weekend. But gave up after about 6 hours. Frustration abounds in that game despite how cool it is. So late yesterday I plugged in Red Faction Armageddon. Surprised at how much I’m enjoying Red Faction so far – so I think I may actually finish this one.
Ha! I dare you to find all floating orbs in Prototype. I DARE you!
Um- I think I’ll pass on that. I grabbed around 60 just messing about bit it’s not as fun as it was in games like Crackdown.
God. Prototype got SO annoying when those big stunlock monsters came into play. The game plays like one big juvenile empowerment fantasy up until the point that it introduces monsters who knock you around like a fucking pinball, taking all that empowerment away in one fell swoop. Combat goes from being a joy to a being a chore. That’s pretty much a death-knell for my enjoyment of a game. I really kind of want to finish the game for story purposes, but I may have to go and use a trainer or something so I can just skip past all that tedious combat busywork it puts you through.
Heh. And as for ‘old games’ in the pile of shame… I still have to finish Advent Rising. I got so close to the end when I first played it, years ago when it was still new. It was good! But as time has gone by, it has become increasingly dated, making it increasingly unappealing.
I’m so playing that this week.
I got up to the point where you lose all your powers and then they still thrown masses of those wonderful beasties at you. I died 3 times, the last I actually was able to use 2 of them to repelnish my life but still could not complete the section and decided the frustration was only going to grow.
Kickbeat isn’t bad but holy hell the included soundtrack is very shitty (at least to where I’m at in the story). Give my Hatsune Miku Project Diva f any day!
I hope no new big games come out this month,
i need a break period to save for more games after i had to rape and pillage my bank account around christmas
I’m about halfway through Diablo 3. Still kinda wish I had some other co-op players who won’t skip dialogue.
If you heard/read the dialogue you’ll quickly be glad they are skipping it.
Hear the dialogue and face the TERROOAAAR!
So it’s a little campy, so what? It’s a fantasy game, I expect that.
D2 and D1 were never THAT campy. It takes it to a new level.
D3’s story was the worst part about it. None of the subtlety and world building that existed in D1 and D2.
It was like being force fed horse shit with glitter sprinkles.
Didn’t D2 have a cow level?
Yeah. d3 has a unicorn rainbow level though.
Oh yeah. Cows standing on their back legs and swinging weapons at you? Pfft, I expected that from a game with this much dark atmosphere. But unicorns? Come on, that’s too far. We’re trying to take this game serious!
Both of those levels were tongue in cheek. What i’m referring to is how a lot of the D2/1 story was actually built on through quests, environment and progression. The occurrences and pacing in the story is much more subtle.
Where as D3 is very up front, obvious, and spells every thing out for the player. They treated their audience like an idiot with the story.
The bigger crime of D3 though was it was a horrendously bad story relative to D2 and D1 as well.
Play it single-player the first time around for the story and the easiness. I don’t know if the AH still exists but you always used to be able to buy a full set of god gear for the price of five minutes worth of mob-mashing. (Stupid imbalance.) I heard they’re getting rid of that, dunno when.
Save co-op for when it’s actually harder and the game doesn’t consist of each player competing to see if they can actually get some monsters on the screen before they die thanks to the AOE flung everywhere.
But sometimes the game really drags on and gets repetitive. Even with a second player you’re moving at an even pace instead of having to back peddle to wait for your F-U attack or heal spell/potion to recharge.
and bosses are annoying by yourself. Especially since all have a one-hit kill attack and you spend most of your time dodging. With another player you can take turns kiting and attacking.
Dude, I don’t want to be that guy, but Diablo 3 is really, really easy (even on Inferno). You should be fine in SP, especially on normal.
It’s only easy because death is just an annoyance. It’s a forced pause moment where you can be revived at the same spot, with more resources, only losing a couple of bucks worth of equipment repair. If death always restarted you back at the checkpoint, with all progress wiped and the dungeon re-generated, people would find it more difficult.
Might be able to go back and finish the Campaign for GTA V now. Finished all of the Xbone releases, getting kinda bored with CoD Ghosts Multi, should really do a run-through of Nightmare Mode on Dead Rising 3.
Nightmare is fun but it’s a little easy. You can save at the toilets but it’s more fun if you try and complete it as one run with no saves.
I’m getting annoyed. I know we just had the big season with Christmas and all that, but I’m disappointed that there have been no decent (or crappy) PS4/Xbone releases to buy. My PS4 is collecting dust while my PS3 has been used to play older games like Dragon Ball: Raging Blast 2 & Gundam vs Gundam: Extreme VS. Even my 3DS has gotten more playtime thanks to Super Mario Bros 3 finally hitting the eShop
Love me some rhythm games too, probably in my favourite 3 genres next to RPG and adventure. Anyone with a 3DS looking for a game to play that likes their rhythm games, both Harmoknight and Rhythm Thief are great titles to pick up, Rhythm Thief especially, think Professor Layton with singing and dancing… ok maybe don’t think that but it is definitely some of the most fun I had playing through it, and the presentation, story and cinematics etc. are top notch.
I’ve got back in to Sleeping Dogs this weekend. Never got far the first time around.
Also some Minecraft, AC4 and Just Cause 2 will probably round out my gaming week.
Actually picked up MGR: Revengeance on Saturday (inspired by the recent PC release). Hadn’t played it since it came out, when I got to the Mistral fight and gave up in frustration. On Saturday, I restarted from scratch, learned how to parry, and found the upgrade menu for the first time. From the start until after Mistral, I died once to rocket-launchers while focusing on two gears. Next death was to the black crocodiles in the sewers. Amazing how much fun a game can be when you learn the mechanics properly… despite the lacklustre “tutorials”.
From Shacknews:
PC
A Wizard’s Lizard (download – $15)
Blackguards (download – $40)
Insurgency (download)
KickBeat (download)
Might & Magic X: Legacy
PlayStation 3
Lucifer Ring (download – PSone Import)
Vita
OlliOlli (download)
They released the two big new consoles before the game publishers seem to have been really ready to get the games out to support them (whether this is due to the publishers over-optimistically telling Sony and Microsoft things like “Sure, Watch Dogs will totally be ready in time!” or Sony and Microsoft saying “eh, we got to launch before Christmas and we’ll just sell the games later”, who knows?). With mature consoles, there would definitely be post-Christmas releases but it’s pretty clear that it’s the generation changeover that is screwing up the release schedule.
Even for PC and Wii U, since so many releases are multiplatform these days the delay in getting stuff ready for PS4/XBone are holding up games. Also for Wii U the fact that hardly anyone cares is kind of holding up developers from releasing stuff for it…
It is odd, though. Most years I seem to get a new game in January (fond memories of the original Darksiders, for example) but obviously there’s nothing doing at the moment although I have a pretty long “highly anticipated” list this year (whereas not so much last year).