December 15 - December 21

Section: 

It may be Star Citizen that has been the biggest, brightest star in the revitalization of PC space sims, and its $66.6 million dollars of funding raised sort of boggles my mind. Meanwhile this week's game of the week, Elite: Dangerous, has quietly been making a name as a venerable space sim itself, and it gets out of the gate first with a fully launched product, while Chris Roberts slowly trickles new features out.

It is, otherwise, a fairly quiet-looking week, with a number of niche-y titles smattered across the various platforms, but clearly the thunder of the fall season has now fully calmed. All told, looking back, it felt like a little bit of a disappointing fall gaming season, with a marginal showing by big-name franchises and nothing that really stepped in to land as the quintessential game of the year. The only real standout so far has been Dragon Age: Inquisition, but it's been in a class by itself for the fall of 2014.

Not terribly surprising for the PS4 and Xbox One's first fall flying solo as the primary gaming machines. On the upside, it gives us the console cycle's mature years to look forward to, even if that might not really be kicking in until 2016.

PC
- Elite: Dangerous (download)
- Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (download)
- Lisa (download)
- SunAge: Battle for Elysium (download)
- bit Dungeon II (download)
- Clash of Puppets (download)
- The King of Fighters '98 Ultimate Match Final Edition (download - $15)
- Rime Berta (download)
- Marvin's Mitterns (download)

PS4
- Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-
- Tetris Ultimate (download)
- Loadout (download - free-to-play)
- Super Mega Baseball (download)

Xbox One
- Tetris Ultimate (download)
- Kalimba (download)

PS3
- Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-
- Super Mega Baseball (download)

Wii U
- Meme Run (download)
- Blok Drop x Twisted Fusion (download)

Vita
- Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee HD (download)

3DS
- Toys vs. Monsters (download)

Comments

Approaching Infinity also just came out for PC.

All told, looking back, it felt like a little bit of a disappointing fall gaming season, with a marginal showing by big-name franchises and nothing that really stepped in to land as the quintessential game of the year. The only real standout so far has been Dragon Age: Inquisition, but it's been in a class by itself for the fall of 2014.

I know Unity and Destiny weren't quite as big as expected, but I'm still looking forward to going back to try Mordor once I'm done in Thedas. Also there were the normally expected shooters this year, probably?

Meanwhile, the Other Console and That Handheld had a pretty good fall release season. Granted, fewer throats were slit, fewer prostitutes run over, fewer cities threatened with nuclear devastation, and I'm not sure anyone at all got their skin glitched off.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Meanwhile, the Other Console and That Handheld had a pretty good fall release season. Granted, fewer throats were slit, fewer prostitutes run over, fewer cities threatened with nuclear devastation, and I'm not sure anyone at all got their skin glitched off.

+1

So not REAL games then.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Meanwhile, the Other Console and That Handheld had a pretty good fall release season. Granted, fewer throats were slit, fewer prostitutes run over, fewer cities threatened with nuclear devastation, and I'm not sure anyone at all got their skin glitched off.

I'm sure someone will come up with a Luigi meme that'll make up for all of that.

Certis wrote:

So not REAL games then.

Yeah. Can a fake gamer girl like me at least come to the year-end party?

ClockworkHouse wrote:
Certis wrote:

So not REAL games then.

Yeah. Can a fake gamer girl like me at least come to the year-end party?

Only if you threaten a few cities with nuclear devastation to prove you're into REAL games.

SunAge: Battle for Elysium (download)

I wonder how hard it was to resist the urge to pick that.

Certis wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:
Certis wrote:

So not REAL games then.

Yeah. Can a fake gamer girl like me at least come to the year-end party?

Only if you threaten a few cities with nuclear devastation to prove you're into REAL games.

Bummer. I spent all this time perfecting my naked torture attacks in Bayonetta and it turns out I'm nurturing the wrong skillset.

I'm just glad we finally get an Ultimate version of Tetris, because 30 years of non-ultimate versions clearly was not enough.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

I'm just glad we finally get an Ultimate version of Tetris, because 30 years of non-ultimate versions clearly was not enough.

Maybe now it'll finally start moving some copies.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

I'm just glad we finally get an Ultimate version of Tetris, because 30 years of non-ultimate versions clearly was not enough.

+1. I grew tired of penultimate Tetris a while ago. What the franchise really needs is a "blast" variant with RPG hooks and micro transactions.

Tetris Ultimate is just the PS4/Xbox One director's cut version of Tetris. The up-rezzed assets are nice, but I think I'll just wait for Tetris Origins if it ends up being as good as the previews at E3.

At some point I hope somebody will focus on how the orange L-shaped piece was only added originally to pander to special interests.

#ethicsinshapeturning

ClockworkHouse wrote:
Certis wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:
Certis wrote:

So not REAL games then.

Yeah. Can a fake gamer girl like me at least come to the year-end party?

Only if you threaten a few cities with nuclear devastation to prove you're into REAL games.

Bummer. I spent all this time perfecting my naked torture attacks in Bayonetta and it turns out I'm nurturing the wrong skillset.

I found your problem.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
Certis wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:
Certis wrote:

So not REAL games then.

Yeah. Can a fake gamer girl like me at least come to the year-end party?

Only if you threaten a few cities with nuclear devastation to prove you're into REAL games.

Bummer. I spent all this time perfecting my naked torture attacks in Bayonetta and it turns out I'm nurturing the wrong skillset.

Naked torture? This year-end party sounds different than I expected! Is there like a sign-up sheet or something?

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

At some point I hope somebody will focus on how the orange L-shaped piece was only added originally to pander to special interests.

#ethicsinshapeturning

The game is clearly hetero-cis-biased. The straight pieces are entirely overpowered.

doubtingthomas396 wrote:
MilkmanDanimal wrote:

At some point I hope somebody will focus on how the orange L-shaped piece was only added originally to pander to special interests.

#ethicsinshapeturning

The game is clearly hetero-cis-biased. The straight pieces are entirely overpowered.

doubtingthomas396 wrote:
MilkmanDanimal wrote:

I'm just glad we finally get an Ultimate version of Tetris, because 30 years of non-ultimate versions clearly was not enough.

+1. I grew tired of penultimate Tetris a while ago. What the franchise really needs is a "blast" variant with RPG hooks and micro transactions.

I'm pretty sure that would've happened already if the license hadn't changed hands from EA to Ubisoft a year or two ago.

shoptroll wrote:

I'm pretty sure that would've happened already if the license hadn't changed hands from EA to Ubisoft a year or two ago.

Wait. Published by Ubisoft?

*searches*

Aha. Ok. Found a screenshot. Looks like you're right.

IMAGE(http://i1267.photobucket.com/albums/jj541/pyxistyx2013/ubisoft-tetris_zpsa4a656a0.jpg)

doubtingthomas396 wrote:
MilkmanDanimal wrote:

At some point I hope somebody will focus on how the orange L-shaped piece was only added originally to pander to special interests.

#ethicsinshapeturning

The game is clearly hetero-cis-biased. The straight pieces are entirely overpowered.

The straight white piece, no less.

Munch's Oddysee is a likely purchase.

I was completely excited about Elite Dangerous... Until they took the single player out. Now it's just "meh." I might get it when it gets really cheap.

Certis wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:
Certis wrote:

So not REAL games then.

Yeah. Can a fake gamer girl like me at least come to the year-end party?

Only if you threaten a few cities with nuclear devastation to prove you're into REAL games.

Gandhi wrote:

Our games are backed with NUCLEAR WEAPONS!

But that baseball isn't just mega... it's super mega!

.

wordsmythe wrote:
Certis wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:
Certis wrote:

So not REAL games then.

Yeah. Can a fake gamer girl like me at least come to the year-end party?

Only if you threaten a few cities with nuclear devastation to prove you're into REAL games.

Gandhi wrote:

Our games are backed with NUCLEAR WEAPONS!

A. Glad to see Civ meets the "Real Game" test.

B. Welcome, Gandhi! Hit me up on Steam for some Civ MP...

Felix Threepaper wrote:

.

wordsmythe wrote:
Certis wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:
Certis wrote:

So not REAL games then.

Yeah. Can a fake gamer girl like me at least come to the year-end party?

Only if you threaten a few cities with nuclear devastation to prove you're into REAL games.

Gandhi wrote:

Our games are backed with NUCLEAR WEAPONS!

A. Glad to see Civ meets the "Real Game" test.

B. Welcome, Gandhi! Hit me up on Steam for some Civ MP...

Everyone knows there is only one true "Real Game".

Certis wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:
Certis wrote:

So not REAL games then.

Yeah. Can a fake gamer girl like me at least come to the year-end party?

Only if you threaten a few cities with nuclear devastation to prove you're into REAL games.

You laugh now, but it's only a hop skip and a jump to go from bomb threats on studios and airplanes carrying executives...

pyxistyx wrote:

Aha. Ok. Found a screenshot. Looks like you're right.

Excellent

ClockworkHouse wrote:
Certis wrote:

So not REAL games then.

Yeah. Can a fake gamer girl like me at least come to the year-end party?

That's pretty much why I stopped listening to the podcast ages ago. Not Nintendo-specific* but just the crew's generally snarky and dismissive attitude of anything that wasn't Sony/MS-type AAA. It's like it was a joke, but they told it to themselves so often it became true.

[size=10]*Though I did see footage of Yoshi's Woolly World the other day, and suddenly I'm looking at the prices of a Wii U—if YWW isn't the pushover that Kirby's Epic Yarn was, and a new Paper Mario comes out, I may have to get a Wii U.[/size]

I was being sarcastic, juuuuuuuust in case you weren't picking up on that. We're normally being accused of loving indie darlings TOO MUCH and dismissing AAA games so I guess this is a refreshing change of pace.