The Summer Drought 2012
Flood warnings, winter coats worn over shorts and t-shirt,
depressed England football fans and a shortage of new and interesting video
games - summer is here at last! Each and every year, the British rainy season
(June - August) is accompanied by an uninspired smattering of new video games
that has most of us reaching for the backlog or just going straight to bed after
dinner, every day for three months.
With the comparative riches of autumn and winter still
months away, here are the games that I hope will provide sustenance through the
most barren season in the gaming calendar.
Last year's summer drought can be found here.
1. The Last of the
Must-plays
I started Final
Fantasy Theatrhythm earlier this week and am greatly enjoying it. It has reminded
me of how much I once loved the series, a fondness that has lessened over
recent years, showering me with nostalgia and some of the finest music to grace
a video game. The gameplay isn't up to much - it's basically Elite Beat Agents
- but all those extras and unlockables should keep me going well into the
summer.
I had mixed feelings about Max Payne 3. On the one hand it tells a brutal and riveting story,
filled with interesting characters and bursting with Rockstar style and
panache. On the other, it is a hugely repetitive game with combat mechanics
that have hardly changed in ten years. Despite its issues, no sooner had I
finished it than I found myself drawn back in, this time playing it on hard. It
continues to grow on me and is the ideal companion for Cinebeat, offering some
exit wounds and head trauma to balance out all the rhythmical saccharine.
I still don't own a copy of Dragon's Dogma, as it continues to stubbornly stick to a £35 ($55)
price point, despite being nearly two months old. If there is a reduction in
price – about a tenner should do it - then I can definitely see myself spending
a lot of time with it this summer, whoring off pawns, avoiding wolves and
scaling ogre chins.
2. Catching up
with 2012
I have already indulged in the majority of the games from
the first half that interested me, so there isn't much
left to catch up on. The Witcher 2
is the only reason I can find to dust off my 360 in an uninspired year of Halo
More and Bing, though if I get my dose of medieval fantasy via Dragon's Dogma then
I may be putting this off for a few more months. Lollipop Chainsaw looks juvenile, unpolished and clumsy but then so
were No More Heroes and Shadows of the Damned, two titles
I thoroughly enjoyed. I find that Suda 51 games lack refinement and feature 90%
too many cock jokes, but they always entertain. I just wish Lollipop Chainsaw
were a bit more Grange Hill and less Saved by the Vampire Slayer.
PING |
3. Trophying
I still enjoy trophies but their importance has certainly
diminished. I'm happy to report that I didn't vomit after finishing Maximum
Payne 3 with only half a dozen cups and I won't panic if I go the whole year
without adding a Platinum to my tally. That being said, I can guarantee that
the just-announced trophy patch for Metal
Gear Solid 4 will have me returning to Old Snake in a hurry, having not
touched it since 2008. War has changed, and it now comes with trophies.
4. Pon the Replay
I moved on from Batman
Arkham City quicker than I would've liked. I beat it in a rush, with
Uncharted 3, Modern Warfare 3 and Skyrim breathing down its neck, twatting bad
guys hard and fast, ignoring side missions and abandoning the combat rooms just
as I was starting to get the hang of their brutal ballet. If time permits, I'll
consider replaying it this summer, perhaps downloading the Harley Quinn DLC for
extra impetus, and re-introduce the scum of Gotham City to Bruce Wayne's ample
forearms.
Having revisited Burnout Paradise for a day last week, my
craving for the games I played in 2009 continues as I
contemplate a trip back to Mars with Red
Faction Guerrilla. Chances are it won't last very long, as three years is
likely to have made those rough edges appear even rougher, but I'm sure the
demolition will keep me entertained for a couple of hours, at least until I
figure out the most efficient way of making a pylon collapse onto a space goat.
5. Finding a use
for my VITA
In my house, the VITA is fighting an uphill battle to
stay relevant. The one thing I’m most looking forward to in this, the first
year of Vita, is PSone classic
support, so that I may play Final Fantasy VII, VIII and IX. When fifteen year
old games are the best thing going for your new hardware, then you are probably
in trouble. Sound Shapes looks
interesting and will be a guaranteed purchase, but it's not exactly a
compelling reason to go Vita. Jet Set
Radio lends itself to the platform but is a ten year old game from a company
that has a reputation for putting little love into its retro re-releases, so I
won’t be getting too excited.
I'm sure Lightning is about to say something priceless |
6. The Backlog
My pile of unplayeds includes a number of games from the
last three years but only four of them have a realistic chance of getting
un-unplayed within the next two or three months. Metal Gear Solid 2 is the last game standing of the MGS HD triumvirate
and I'm likely to give it a spin sooner rather than later, getting it out of
the way in advance of the aforementioned MGS4 trophy patch. I tried playing Castlevania: Lords of Shadow last
weekend but Belmont's head is far too small for his body and the whole thing
was a bit lacklustre, even if I did appreciate the setting. I really should
crack on with Deus Ex Human Revolution
which I've been putting off for nine months, though if it’s a time sink that I'm
after then I'm more likely to plump for Final
Fantasy XIII-2. My expectations are pretty low so hopefully I should be
able to avoid disappointment, even if I'm already cringing at the god awful
characters and dialogue that I know is waiting for me.
7. On the DL
This summer, I shall be chasing bright lights down an
electronica tube and solving puzzles in a Favela in order to stop a monster
from getting off his tits, on frogs. PSN will be home to both Dyad (lights) and Papo & Yo (off tits) over the next few weeks, with the latter being
featured as part of the PSN Play summer campaign. They both look fascinating
and I intend on downloading the pair. I've been avidly following Papo & Yo since earlier this year but Dyad is more of a
mystery to me, having only stumbled upon it in the last few weeks thanks to a
couple of trailers. Once Bethesda decides to stop punishing PS3 owners, I'll
also be downloading Skyrim: Dawnguard
but I reckon we'll be nearing the end of the year before Live stops hogging all
the fun.
The only summer game that really excites me is Counter Strike. Other than that, I'll just be working on my backlog while replaying Pokemon and Kotor.
ReplyDeletehad no idea that the PS3 was getting CS until I saw it as part of the PSN Play campaign. I might have to give it a look. Cheers
DeleteDefinitely man, a lot of people at Trip's club are planning to get it too, so I got a feeling there will be a lot of game nights with those. And if you can't make those with the time differences, I'm sure I'll be playing it enough that we'll get a few games together.
DeleteSounds good. I'll definitely be up for some games if I end up buying CS
DeleteThe new look is great. Very nice.
ReplyDeleteI'm still thinking about switching my Vita over to EU so I can play Foosball and Rugby. It's almost lucky I erased hundreds of hours of Unite progress, actually, since it's given the poor Vita something to do.
It's funny, I would give Arkham Asylum Game of the Decade, hands down, for the 2001-2010 era, but somehow Arkham City feels hollow. When I play a game for hours, and realize that I'll never be any better at anything than I am now, because there's no skill set to be developed (or the skillset is so old and tired that all I'm proving is that I remember how to play 1976-1995), I have a lot of trouble maintaining interest.
Cheers. I still want to add a few bits and bobs and re-do the "About Me" page but I'm hoping to keep it relatively clutter free.
DeleteI felt that the nuances of the combat in BAC came out in the challenges as opposed to the campaign, though I agree that once you've mastered the all-inclusive combos there isn't really anywhere else to go. The brawling is much better in the controlled environment of the challenge rooms as opposed to the story mode, which never gave me a reason to rely on anything more that short, brutal and far less interesting combos. Overall, I didn't like City as much as Asylum, as it lacked the focus that made Asylum such an engrossing experience.