One of my new years resolutions is to only buy one full game every month. Generous enough you might say. Normally I'd agree... but looking across the gaming landscape from January to March there's so many good games that I foresee a number of awful choices ahead.
In February there's BioShock 2, Heavy Rain, Dead Rising 2, ModNation Racers and White Knight Chronicles. Anyone would think lots of companies wanted to get their delayed games out of the door before the end of the fiscal year. But anyway, I digress. February, it seems, will test my resolution.
In March there's the obvious: Final Fantasy XIII, God of War 3, Yakuza 3 and Gran Turismo 5. All of these are pretty much essential franchises. Ouch.
However, the biggest challenge facing me is only a few days away - both Darksiders and Bayonetta are released on the 8th of January. Both of these are new franchises and both of them have been getting amazing reviews. Unlike games which I have grown up with though, like Final Fantasy, I have no strong attachment to either. Bayonetta got 10 in Edge and 40/40 in Famitsu and has variously been called the next evolution of action games. Meanwhile Darksiders blends elements of Zelda and God of War with the Metroid-type structure that made Batman so compelling in the summer.
Ordinarily my genre preference would be for third--person adventure-type games over thirdperson fighting... A preference burned into my cortex by Zelda: A link to the past... However, for a game in a genre so moribund as the Devil May Cry/Ninja Gaiden style games to get such rave reviews means it must be something truly special - and lets not forget that Bayonetta appears to be the only SEGA game in years with that long-lost 'SEGA personality'. Saying that, it wasn't created by SEGA itself though, huh?
I do have to wonder, too, how all of these games can possibly make a profit for their publishers - don't get me wrong, I'm not worried for the welfare of huge profit-making organisations like this, but what does concern me is that some absolutely cracking franchises could get pretty lost in the mix. BioShock for instance is looking cracking but for the mass market consumer, is it an easy choice compared to the likes of of Dead Rising and it's Zombie smash-fest (for instance)? I'd hate to see a series with so much promise suffer because of poor scheduling... Because the simple fact is that more games are sold around Christmas than any other time. So while I'm pleased that we're getting so many great looking games, I do wonder about the publishers logic: Oh yes, lets move game X to the new year to avoid competition and still get our sales in before the end of the fiscal year, we're SO clever, big bonuses for all!
That made sense before the new year was looking so crowded... but now? Arguably the release schedule is more crowded than at Christmas at a time when far fewer casual purchases are made. So with games costing around £20 million to make, often more, and top tier titles needing about the same again in marketing spend, then just looking at the games above, basic maths will tell you it's simply not possible for all of those games to break even, let alone turn a profit.
There's a real danger then, that some of these games might not fair well in the coming storm - so enjoy them while they are here... I guarantee that you won't see a spring like this again for quite some time.
On that note then, I guess I'll be buying two games this week!
Happy new year.
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Although i find it very hard not to rush out and buy games on release day.
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