You’ve probably spent the last couple of months catching up on backlog, but fear not, because it looks like this month is going to be anything but slow. It doesn’t matter on which platform you spend most of your time playing, but let’s start with what’s in store for the gaming minority.
Mac gamers, rejoice. In a twist of fate, Bioshock: Infinite will be available as a digital download for OS X at the end of this month — in the same year as the game’s PC release. Only a few publishers have made this happen in the past (Blizzard, for one, on the same day as PC), and it’s heart-warming just to be aware of the fact that Mac users will be playing a relatively new game and not a three year-old port of Half-Life 2 this year.
The PC has a few ports coming to it this month as well, including the wonderfully typo-filled Mortal Kombat: Komplete Edition (the first in the series to grace the platform since 1997’s Mortal Kombat 4), Guacamelee! Gold Edition (the critically acclaimed Playstation Vita game) and Hideo Kojima-produced Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (the PC port of a 2010 console game). It’s absolutely strange that there hasn’t been a Mortal Kombat game on PC for a while, given that the original and its subsequent sequels were big hits on the platform. On some level, PC gamers are on the same boat as the “gaming minority” previously alluded to — perhaps mocking Mac users wasn’t the greatest idea. I mean, they’re not going to have the last laugh or anything (there are several multi-platform releases that will see a day-one PC release) just yet, but PC gamers will take this as a sign of the inevitable apocalypse.
On the triple-A front, we’ve got some really solid releases this month: Ubisoft-published Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist (a game in which Michael Ironside’s voice will be conspicuously absent) and Rayman Legends, Saints Row IV (with Deep Silver taking up publishing duties this time around), Capcom’s Lost Planet 3, the franchise-milking Bureau: XCOM Declassified and Suda 51’s Killer is Dead. Save for the last game on that list (Suda, like more Japanese developers is reluctant to venture into the PC space), the rest will appear on all major platforms. If the Wii-U happens to be your gaming console of choice, both the Ubisoft releases are great picks. There are a couple of talking points here as well. First, there’s the case of Splinter Cell protagonist Sam Fisher being voiced by actor Eric Johnson (in an effort to reach out to a newer, younger audience) — in essence, Splinter Cell fans are Michael Ironside fans unless they’re playing the game on mute. It will be interesting to see how the final product will be received, with Johnson’s work sure to attract a lot of unnecessary scrutiny. The second item on the list is Saints Row IV, a game that Indian gamers will be forced to import or purchase online. Saints Row 3 was a reasonably big hit, and for a long time, the only real alternative to GTA. Let’s not forget that awesome co-op mode either. Saints Row IV promises more over-the-top nonsense than its predecessor, so fans of open-world games can get their fix before GTA V comes along next month.
