January 28 - February 1

Section: 

There are a lot of games coming out this week, the vast majority of which are downloadable, independent titles that I've frankly never heard of. Odds are pretty good that there are some real diamonds in the rough somewhere in this cavalcade of small developer efforts, but I couldn't possibly tell you what your eye should turn lustily toward at this point. Maybe someday people will say, "I remember where I was when Retrovirus or Dungeonland was released into this world," but for now I'm plainly and admittedly ignorant.

I'm still sifting through the most random of games for something to play until some of the big games of spring hit. And so between half-hearted bouts of Defense Grid's latest DLC and Minecraft, my thoughts are beginning to turn toward PAX East in late March. There's something about buying plane tickets for a big event that makes it feel 73% more real than it did before. The moment I have an itinerary I'm ready to pack my bags and get going.

So far what we know about our PAX schedule is that the GWJCC Live show will be Sunday, March 24th at 12:30pm in the Arachnid theater and we will be joined by Jeff Green and Justin McElroy. The GWJ Slap and Tickle will be on Friday evening (likely 7:30 pm) at the Seaport Hotel's Tamo bar. There will be a lot of more official-sounding announcements as we actually get closer to the event.

PC
- Antichamber (download)
- Dungeonland (download)
- Heavy Fire: Shattered Spear
- Omerta: City of Gangsters
- Proteus (download)
- Retrovirus (download)
- Skulls of the Shogun (download)
- Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed (download)
- Wizardry Online (free-to-play)

Xbox 360
- Heavy Fire: Shattered Spear
- Hitman: HD Trilogy
- Skulls of the Shogun (XBLA)

PS3
- Everyone Sing (PSN)
- Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (PS2 Classics)
- Heavy Fire: Shattered Spear
- Hitman: HD Trilogy

Vita
- Let's Fish! Hooked On (PSN)

DS
- 99Moves (DSiWare)

Comments

Hmm. Any word on Wizardry Online? Does it compare at all to the classic Wizardry experience?

I played Antichamber at PAX East and was thoroughly confused. I kind of want to get it just for the mindscrewiness factor, but I probably won't get it right away what with Ni no Kuni burning a hole in my free time.

Antichamber's the only thing of interest on that list for me (well, that and Skulls of the Shogun but since it'll be a cold day in hell before I upgrade to windows 8 I'll just have to wait until the inevitable Steam version).

Aside from that though, Ni no Kuni is out this week in the UK so that'll do just fine.

Tanglebones wrote:

Hmm. Any word on Wizardry Online? Does it compare at all to the classic Wizardry experience?

The screenshots yell "generic South Korean Free to Play MMO" to me.

IMAGE(http://www.mmofront.com/images2/wizardry-online-en2.jpg)

From the website:

Wizardry Online is the most hardcore fantasy MMO ever created. The difficulty level is insane. The dungeons are brutal. There is no auto-healing. Your crimes taint your soul. Your allies could betray you at any moment. And when you die, you die forever.

IMAGE(http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/4558/29356687.gif)

"Your crimes taint your soul" is a good tagline for any game. Nintendo should use that for Pikmin 3, considering how many Pikmin I've murdered.

I has a sad. Though ye olde Wizardry is roughly that punishing

Elysium wrote:

From the website:

Wizardry Online is the most hardcore fantasy MMO ever created. The difficulty level is insane. The dungeons are brutal. There is no auto-healing. Your crimes taint your soul. Your allies could betray you at any moment. And when you die, you die forever.

IMAGE(http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/4558/29356687.gif)

Finally, an MMO that sounds interesting.

I don't understand why Indie Game: The Movie got picked for the release of the week. I can't say there was much competition, but it would have been satisfying to see some cover art for a game I had never heard of before.

S0LIDARITY wrote:

I don't understand why Indie Game: The Movie got picked for the release of the week. I can't say there was much competition, but it would have been satisfying to see some cover art for a game I had never heard of before.

IMAGE(https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT-IbluZ8FvJ-int7SwvH35NaIoJDjyIoZ-onHKJ-O-z8dE9Bui_w)

Thanks Tanglebones, I can continue my day without googling random game titles now. That cover is also incredible. If forced to guess, I would say that's a still from a Rebecca Black video.

Oh, that "Dragonborn" DLC for Skyrim is out for PC on the 5th as well. Forgot about that.

stevenmack wrote:

Antichamber's the only thing of interest on that list for me (well, that and Skulls of the Shogun but since it'll be a cold day in hell before I upgrade to windows 8 I'll just have to wait until the inevitable Steam version).

Aside from that though, Ni no Kuni is out this week in the UK so that'll do just fine.

Tanglebones wrote:

Hmm. Any word on Wizardry Online? Does it compare at all to the classic Wizardry experience?

The screenshots yell "generic South Korean Free to Play MMO" to me.

IMAGE(http://www.mmofront.com/images2/wizardry-online-en2.jpg)

Aren't they usually a bit more colorful? That one's painted like a Polish or Russian title. Or a Dutch master's?

Antichamber and Skulls of the Shogun are immediately inter... Oh wait, Skulls is a Windows 8 exclusive? Sorry, let me try again:

Antichamber is immediately interesting. I'll have to look into some of these other PC releases to see if they warrant attention.

Why is every Korean game pedophile fantasy material?

Omerta for me. I played the demo and quite enjoyed it.

TheGameguru wrote:

Why is every Korean game pedophile fantasy material?

/me backs away from the thread

TheGameguru wrote:

Why is every Korean game pedophile fantasy material?

Because.. everyone.. in..

You don't want to know the answer, son. No one does.

TheGameguru wrote:

Why is every Korean game pedophile fantasy material?

I thought the only one sexualized in that shot were adults. My eyes tend to gloss over the oversized chipmunk beasts, though.

Emphasis mine:

wizardry site wrote:

"Thirty years in the making, Wizardry Online is a Free to Play, hardcore fantasy MMORPG."

and the prize for most exaggerated/misleading development time goes to...

I put a couple of hours into the Wizardry Online beta back when they were giving away codes on Twitter. It was a'ight. It didn't hit the "Dark Souls as MMO" chord that the marketing materials so eagerly imply, but I appreciated the effort.

Omerta looks great, but I'll wait on it. Looks like another perfect week to chip away at my pile of shame

Heavy Fire: Shattered Spear

I looked up some videos. Holy sh*t that's bad. I didn't think those kind of games were released anymore honestly.

psoplayer wrote:

Antichamber and Skulls of the Shogun are immediately inter... Oh wait, Skulls is a Windows 8 exclusive? Sorry, let me try again:

Antichamber is immediately interesting. I'll have to look into some of these other PC releases to see if they warrant attention.

Really? Microsoft is starting that crap again?!

At least with Win7/Vista the directX stuff made it semi-believable that you couldn't run a few things on XP, despite people hacking them to run anyway. But what possible reason could a Win8 exclusive have except to try to force people to buy it?

Yup, it's even sadder than the DX10 nonsense the first time around.

I'm still highly disappointed that they didn't bother continuing to port Halo games over to Windows as flagships of the GFWL platform. I'm sure the Vista exclusivity of Halo 2 PC hurt the sales numbers enough that bringing Halo 3 to PC didn't make financial sense when you just looked at it on paper. Then as a side effect GFWL stagnates and becomes relegated to little more than a running joke among PC gamers, leaving the door wide open for Steam's near monopoly.

I don't know how much money Microsoft sent their way, if at all, but my understanding of it is that they went W8 with it to make it compatible for mp play across all platforms.

Upon further investigation, Proteus looks pretty neat. It will have a place on ye olde wishlist at the very least.