1590: Deluge

Why is it that the moment you know you’re not going to have very much money on hand — like, say, when you lose your job — that all the awesome things suddenly come out and vie for your hard-earned?

Sod’s law, I guess.

Considering a lot of people seem to consider gaming is going through a bit of a “dry spell” at the moment, there sure is one hell of a lot of things that I want to play that have either come out recently or are about to come out.

One of the chief games I’m interested in is Nintendo’s Mario Kart 8, which is looking like a stonker, if you’ll pardon the ’90s parlance. I haven’t loved the last few Mario Karts — though granted, I didn’t play the 3DS one — and have instead preferred the company of games like Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed, which is a truly excellent game filled with Sega fanservice. Mario Kart 8, meanwhile, is looking like it will be a return to form for the series — from my perspective, anyway — with some creative tracks, some astonishingly good music, all recorded with live instruments, and the usual array of multiplayer funtimes. I’m looking forward to getting together with friends and having an evening of throwing shells at one another.

Aside from that, though, there’s a glut of great RPGs that are dropping around the same time. On Vita, there’s Conception II, which I’d very much like to play at some point but haven’t downloaded yet, plus Demon Gaze, which I’ve been loving. On PS3, there’s Drakengard 3, which is next on the list after I finish with The Witch and the Hundred Knight and Demon Gaze, and which I’m rather excited about as it’s from the same people who did Nier, one of my favourite games of all time. I already have a copy of that ready to go and it’s taking all my willpower to not just shove it in the PlayStation right now and start playing. But I am waiting until it can have my full attention.

Then there’s Monster Monpiece, the fun-looking card-battling game for Vita that features the notorious “rubbing” minigame in which you power up your monster girl cards by rubbing your Vita until… well, there’s no two ways about it: some of their clothes fall off. Aside from the pervy aspect — which, to be perfectly and unabashedly blunt, has me intrigued — the card battling gameplay looks solid and interesting, and a friend of mine who played the Japanese version seemed to have a lot of fun with it, so I’m definitely interested in giving it some time.

I’m sure there’s more I haven’t thought of, and this isn’t even considering the most recent big triple-A release Watch Dogs, which sounds like it has ended up slightly disappointing a few people. I probably wasn’t going to pick it up anyway, but it’s a bit of a shame to see a game that’s been hyped to absolute buggery for the last fuck-knows-how-long turn out to be received in a rather more lukewarm manner than its developers and publishers intended.

Well, with all this gaming goodness dropping now, I know at least I won’t be bored while I’m twiddling my thumbs in my house waiting to hear back from all the jobs I’ve applied for…