Are you ready for some new games? After a particularly dry December, gamemakers have returned from the holidays with… a mostly dry January. But there’s still a few gems to be found in the next four weeks. At least, we hope they’ll be gems…
John Scalzo
Editor-In-Chief
January will definitely be a slow start to 2012 and I imagine you’ll see a lot of repetition of Gotham City Impostors, Silent Hill HD Collection, and Final Fantasy XIII-2 in this article. And all of those games look fine. But the one title I’m really ready for is the return of NFL Blitz. I only have a passing familiarity with the original arcade game and its many sequels, but I always had fun dropping a few quarters into a Blitz machine back in my youth. This is especially true in 2012 as I’m mighty sick of sports sims.
I’m also mildly curious about NeverDead. After all, this is a game where you rip off your limbs and throw them at your enemies. That kind of wackiness will make NeverDead the greatest game ever or the latest addition to the “WTF?” canon.
Nicole Kline
Senior Editor
There’s nothing at all going on for me this month except Final Fantasy XIII-2! I am so excited I’ve actually re-started the first game and am playing through it as we speak. I can’t wait to see what Square Enix has updated from the first game, which I absolutely adored. I know that I am in the minority here, but I can’t help it – I fell in love with Lightning, Paradigm Shifting, and Gran Pulse. Maybe they fixed one of the only things I couldn’t stand in that game, and made the Eidolons a little better! I guess we’ll see when the game drops January 31. Until then, don’t bother me… I’m hunting down Cactuar. Oh, and this is probably the first Christmas ever that I didn’t get a single video game (gasp!), so I’m going to hit up some GameStop sales and try to pick up a few games I missed that I’ve been itching for, including El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron, Hexyz Force, and Last Rebellion. That’s more like a scavenger hunt than a shopping list…
Ryan Littlefield
Podcast Producer
On the Warp Zoned Podcast, it became fairly commonplace for us to troll each other by humming this theme, and I’m going to recreate that with the release of Final Fantasy XIII-2 in January. Senior Editor Nicole Kline knows that I’m super skeptical of this game after the amount that I spread my distaste for Final Fantasy XIII, but at the same time, I suppose I could give XIII-2 a shot – after all, this is supposed to be a “proper” mending to rectify the questionably poor reception of the first game. Meh, I’ll just see what Nicole says. If she doesn’t like it, then I’ll buy it.
Gotham City Impostors will probably be a good time, especially since Batman games can basically do no wrong in this era. Silent Hill HD Collection may be an eventual purchase, just so I can see what I’ve been missing out on for so long, in glorious high definition, and with trophies. January is a slow month, though! Wow.
Brian Bishop
Staff Writer
One of the games of January stands out like a beacon of JRPG goodness in a storm of relative mediocrity: Final Fantasy XIII-2. Now, I’m going to expect a lot of people to just call BS on it, but there was always a special place for XIII in my heart, linearity aside. If Square Enix keeps their promises, then XIII-2 should rectify that with some non-linear joy. But other than that, I don’t think I’m seeing much from the upcoming month that really jumps out at me.
Andrew Rainnie
Staff Writer
Well, being from the UK, all those games (save Gotham City Impostors and the Silent Hill HD Collection) get released in February, and none of them appeal to me. And alas, I have no money to buy them, either. I imagine I’ll be playing my Christmas presents of Skyward Sword (I just saw the Robin/Zelda Williams advert – love it) and Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, and then possibly Assassin’s Creed: Revelations if I pick it up in the sales, as well as catching up on the year of gaming I’ve missed while traveling.
Continue on to the next page for a complete look at the January release schedule.
