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Angst! Rage! Epic House Cleaning! It's all on this week's Backloggers Anonymous!
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Page 105
My expectations have been lowered.
I wrote a sneak preview around E3 last year expressing my concerns over Dead Space 3. Now that I’ve had a chance to play DS 3 for myself I can say that the perceived problems I had with the game don’t seem to be problems at all. Unfortunately, I now have a whole new set of issues with the way this title is shaping up, and the decision to shift towards third person shooter territory sits at the top of the list.
In the great tradition of wonderful trash, Platinum Games nails it again.
If you’ve been asking for more from your games, then Anarchy Reigns might be just what you need. It’s got more racial stereotypes, more campy dialogue, more leotard-clad dominatrixes, and more ridiculous fighting than you could ever need. If you want to groan at the thought of all of these disgusting and tired gaming fallbacks being crammed together, take heart! The entire crazy package is a total goof and it’s pulled off perfectly in one of the greatest send-ups of video game tropes ever made that’s also genuinely fun.
Well, it’s a party game…
For better or worse, Ubisoft shows up at most new consoles on day one like an excited but clueless child on the first day of school: brand new pencils, lunch box, and folders, but also torn jeans, hole-y sneakers, unkempt hair, and the same mustard-stained shirt they wear every week. Hey kid, did you get yourself ready for launch day in the dark? With the Nintendo Wii U, Ubisoft is looking sharp with a range of heavy hitters like Assassin’s Creed 3, to new creative new work like ZombiU, and then you have their recurring badge of mediocrity in the form of Rabbids Land. The Rabbids have made a zany name for themselves over the years and their newest outing is more akin to games like Mario Party than anything else. I can say after spending some time with it that it’s not a great game, but it’s not terrible. Rabbids Land is a party game, and that’s that.
Don’t sleep on Nintendo’s latest strategy game.
The Nintendo 3DS is getting its fair share of great looking games in 2013. With games like Luigi’s Mansion 2, Animal Crossing, and Pokemon X and Y all coming out this year, there will be plenty for 3DS owners to get their hands on. Sooner than all of those comes the niche, but respected strategy game Fire Emblem: Awakening, the latest in a long series of strategy titles exclusive to Nintendo’s consoles. What I can tell you from my hands-on with the game is that not only is there a great game on the horizon, but it might just be one of the best 3DS games yet.
The moment you've been waiting for!
Looking back over an entire year, it’s hard to tell which games are going to stand out through the years that follow. Which titles are people going to continue to talk about, get nostalgic over, and load up to replay next a decade from now? Maybe we had a few of those this year, but only time will tell. Perhaps we will look back on what we voted to be the very best of 2012 and our monocles will spin in amazement at our ageless judgment. Or maybe we’ll all laugh and wonder what we were thinking.
Not everyone on the internet was happy about yesterday's Nintendo Direct.
This week's PB & Jason focuses on two things: Ni no Kuni and Wednesday's Nintendo Direct. Expect to hear my evolving viewpoint on Level 5 and Studio Ghibli's hotly anticipated RPG in the next few weeks. Before I get ahead of myself, plan for an episode where I mostly rant about the media's editorials in response to yesterday's Nintendo Direct. Click through for the listening and download links!
Our picks for the best on each console in 2012.
It’s pretty tough to own every console out there these days. Luckily for the average consumer, there are a lot of the same games available on PS3, Xbox 360, and now even Wii U. Each of these pieces of hardware also has its own unique set of releases; some of them are exclusive and others just feel like they belong to one console more than the others. Then there are the portable systems that offer distinctive experiences from each other in almost every game available. So, whether you feel inclined to take sides in the “Console War” or are happy to just play great games on great systems, we’ve picked the best experiences from 2012 on each platform.
My Despair signifies Telltales Triumph.
With four episodes under Telltale’s belt, episode five was meant to cap off the season in an appropriate and satisfying fashion. Episode four left off with a huge cliffhanger that set a grim tone for this last episode. If anything, I was worried that the episode might not deliver. Endings are always a touchy subject (am I right, Mass Effect fans?). However, I was glad because Episode Five – No Time Left hit all of the marks that it was supposed to, and then some.
What were our favorites in each genre in 2012?
It was sure tough to follow the fantastic year of gaming we had in 2011, but 2012 did a bang up job of holding its own with plenty of amazing releases and some big industry changes to boot. As the current console generation appears to finally be wrapping up, we welcomed the Wii U on the scene as well as Sony’s newest flashy handheld. Game makers continued to stretch what’s possible from the Xbox 360 and PS3 while the PC seems to be roaring back into prominence thanks to Steam and other download services. Yet, despite some developers’ mastery of the current hardware, not every game released was worth spending your money or time on. The fact that there are plenty of sloppy and poorly made games being pumped out makes the ones that really wow us that much more noteworthy. And there were definitely tons of games to get excited about!
