Oops, Life Happened

Quick apology for all... one or two of you who were looking forward to my "2014's Most Anticipated Games" post series. I've been done the list for a while now, but need to put some solid hours into writing/editing them. I'll have that time during the break in classes in a week and a half, but until then I have a mountain to climb of school work and midterms. It's been a crazy busy year so far with a lot of things on my plate and not exactly conducive to spending a lot of time writing on the internet about video games I want to play.

So it'll be mid-February by the time I get around to writing this list and games are starting to come out. Heck, some are even out! So, I thought I would write some words about them. A few were never going to be on my big list, but I'm still ecstatic for. Some were on the list, but will be available far too long to be discussed in a "most anticipated" feature. Some will be released, but I still think it'll be worth talking about them later.

So, to make up for my lack of tardiness, here's a quick, short list of some highlights of the first 45 days of 2014.

Banner Saga - PC - We've got two more chapters of this Viking-esque Oregon Trail Strategy RPG to be considered fully "released" and plenty could go wrong, but the first episode is leaving a pretty good, if a tad shaky, first impression. We'll see how this goes.

Bravely Default - 3DS - Bravely Default defies conventional wisdom. If you’re a big company making a spiritual sequel to a smaller game, you attach your big name franchise to it for that sequel to sell more copies. Except Bravely Default’s predecessor was the fantastic and overlooked Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light, so the shift to its own series is surprising. Maybe it says something about the health of Final Fantasy, but I think it says more about the possibility Bravely Default has to be a killer game and franchise going forward.

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc - Vita - A visual novel in the vein of Zero Escape and Ace Attorney. Interesting release that I plan to delve into right after this rough patch of school is over. VN’s aren’t really my thing, but a swarm of recommendations from friends for this game and its universal, glowing praise has certainly grabbed my interest.

Detective Grimoire - Mobile/PC - Not the best or most in depth adventure game I’ve ever played, but the unique art style, short play time, great use of the mobile interface, and its just approachability of its design makes it an easy recommendation.

Nidhogg - PC - A fantastic multiplayer game. I was able to get a bit of free time last month and attend a gaming event at my university. Nidhogg was there and people were freaking out about it. Didn’t matter if you played video games or not, everyone wanted to jump in. It’s been a long time (other than Samurai Gunn recently) that I’ve seen a game grab people quite like that.

Octodad: Dadliest Catch - PC - That Octodad guy. He’s got a good thing going, ya know? Nobody suspected that the game would have been anything less than a short, fun experience filled with wacky controls and humourous situations. And from what I’ve heard, it delivers exactly that.