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Posted By Shaun K. about 5 months, 4 weeks ago
Thumb Wars: Episode 17: The Games of 2013 – Part 1,
Episode 17: The Games of 2013 Part One
Welcome back to the show where we introduce the debate and you continue it. This week’s topic: Shaun & Taylor begin the first of a two-part examination of some of the more anticipated upcoming games of 2013.
Thumb Wars is a weekly show hosted/produced by Shaun Kronenfeld dedicated to starting and encouraging dialogue and debate on a wide variety of topics within the video game industry. Look for a new Thumbs Wars every Sunday. Comments, opinions, and thoughts are not only welcome, they are the entire point. Feel free to follow Shaun on Twitter @bigred_13 if you feel so inclined.
I totally know what you mean about “The Last of Us.” I’m not feeling that state about post-apocalyptic stories, but I’ve been feeling this way about zombies for YEARS; the Walking Dead episodes seem to be the sole exception after half a decade of loathing the ever-prevalent stuff.
As for my most anticipated titles, I’m going with Dragon Age 3, Rome 2 Total War, and Injustice: Gods Among Us. The former two are simply sequels to franchises I already enjoy, but Injustice is easily my most anticipated title of the coming year. I’ve taken on a huge interest in the DCU over the past year (long story short, I finally developed a proper understanding of Superman and things took off from there), plus it looks like a pretty fun game in its own right.
Well, okay, I will make a note about Dragon Age 3. One of the things I’m looking forward to the most is that it apparently involves the management of one’s own castle. The bits in Dragon Age Awakening that involved ruling your subjects was one of my favourite parts of the entire franchise and I really hope such aspects come to the forefront once again.
Personally i’m looking for the 2 ShadowRun games, and Dragon age 3 because i’m such a Bioware fan girls… (yeah i admit it) I’m curious they will do that open world thing, if they do it ebcause Bioware enver really did that… and well i’m on Zevox, i don,t really lile them eighter i like my RPG to focum more on story than exploration… but eh will see
edit: oh forgot… look forward for biosock infinite too
The games that I am stoked for next year are:
BioShock Infinite
Ni No Kuni (Seriously, I need this game, like..NOW)
SimCity
I would say SP: Stick of Truth, but that has been pushed to 2014 due to THQ having severe financial problems.
StarCraft 2: HOTS
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate for Wii U
And of course, first party Nintendo titles we don’t know about yet.
Of all the games you guys listed, I am most anticipating Ni No Kuni and Tomb Raider. I do like The Last of Us, but I’m not quite that excited for it. Even though I’ve played both Dragon Age Origins and 2, I’m not much of a Dragon Age fan so I’m not that anticipated for Dragon Age 3. I do have to agree with Zevox about Puppeteer; it looks interesting but it doesn’t scream must-have for me either.
Dragon Age 3 – I’m looking forward to it, but I really, really hope that the whole “open-world” thing does not come to pass. I do not like sandbox, Bethesda-style game design, at all. I feel it creates too much of a quantity-over-quality situation with games, with the game needing so much content to fill its oversized world that that content inevitably ends up much shallower than it would otherwise be. To come off Dragon Age 2, which I thought was great, and switch to that complete opposite style, would disappoint me immensely.
Oh, and come on Shaun, Sonic Chronicles was good. Not Bioware’s best by any means, but it had a lot of good humor and was just plain fun to play. Certainly the best Sonic game to come out in between Adventure 2 and Colors.
Ni no Kuni – Looking forward to it. I’m always up for a good JRPG.
Tomb Raider, The Last of Us – No interest.
Puppeteer – Eh, might give it a try. I like good platformers, and this one does seem creative and unique. Not something that immediately jumps out as a must-have for me though.
As for games you guys didn’t talk about, one that comes to mind quickly is BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma. I’m very interested in seeing where the story goes, as well as in the gameplay. Four new characters have been announced, which I’m definitely looking forward to trying out, and some of the gameplay changes sound like good ideas, such as replacing the almost-never-used gold bursts with this new Overdrive system. I will say though that I’m not a fan of the changes to the art style, but I am partially reserving judgment there, since I’ve been much more bothered by it in the concept art I’ve seen than I have been in the screenshots of actual gameplay.
Another one is Fire Emblem: Awakening, because it’s been much too long since we had a new Fire Emblem game. I like that this one has the branching promotions concept from Sacred Stones back, and especially that the support conversations are back – their removal was my one big complaint about Radiant Dawn.
And of course, Tales of Xillia. While Graces disappointed me story-wise compared to its predecessors (Vesperia, Abyss), I still very much like the series, and am hoping they can recapture that high quality of writing they had before. And even if they can’t, the gameplay is still damn good – improved, even, if they continue with the changes made in Graces.