It’s a shame that we have to start with January, since it’s such a boring month, particularly when it comes to games. Everyone’s getting back to the grind after the holiday period, but there are very few releases to get excited about. Why couldn’t we start with June, where we had E3? Or November, where all of the games released? January is like the first hour of your day – when you’ve woken up, the coffee isn’t quite working, and you’re getting ready for work after time off.
I bet it was cold, too. I’m obligated to talk about the weather (it’s tradition in these posts) and now I’m getting myself a bit angry because I’m thinking about how cold and rainy January is, and how cold it is right now, and that January is the next month so it’s going to be cold for another couple of months at least. In fact, let this rather handy video from the Met Office do a much better job of telling you how cold it was than I could ever do:
Year-on-year we write this series, and unfortunately have to mention the ongoing conflict across the world – this year was no different. There’s simply too much to talk about in January, but one act of heroism which should be mentioned is the final act of Aitzaz Hasan, a schoolboy who saved the lives of potentially hundreds of needless victims as he tackled a suicide bomber outside of his school. Even then, this one death was completely needless; just as the others which usually end up as statistics in news reports rather than what they should be remembered as: people who didn’t deserve to die.
In gaming news, which shouldn’t get as real as that last paragraph, we saw the first hints of LittleBigPlanet 3 and Alien: Isolation, and then Evolve was announced. That last one still isn’t here yet though. PlayStation Now – Sony’s cloud-based game streaming service was also unveiled. PSN went down due to maintenance, which shouldn’t really be news given the frequency of it happening. Sony announced quite a lot in the January lull, also confirming the PS Vita Slim‘s UK release date.
PlayStation Now was perhaps the biggest news of the month then, as we finally found out about Sony’s real Gaikai strategy after they had bought them a while back. Of course, it’s obvious that a form of this technology also powers remote play, but we all know it’s not real streaming until you include the “cloud” buzzword in there. So, basically you could now leave your games in the sky and they would rain down into your PS4 so you could play them. This technology is expensive which is why the games cost so much to rent. Makes sense, doesn’t it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCyAT9PBgEc
There was actually a decent number of releases compared to the usually-barren month of January, though most of these came in the form of indie games such as Don’t Starve, Nidhogg, The Banner Saga, OlliOlli, Broken Age Act 1, and Octodad: Dadliest Catch. There were also a few HD remasters, such as Assassin’s Creed Liberation HD and Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition. Exciting, huh? Just wait until you read about November…
No, you’re not getting to read about November now. I’m sorry if I made it seem that way, but that’s not how it works. You’re going to have to wait until December 30th for that privilege. Spoilers: it was a great month for video games, unlike boring old January. God, what a boring and cold month, so boring that I’m running out of words to write about it.
Can we skip January this year?
Lieutenant Fatman
Certainly a very quiet month for games, but I had a lot of fun with Don’t Starve.
gazzagb
I’d forgotten about Liberation HD, hopefully it will appear in the Steam sales later this week. Need to get Tomb Raider too, that might be fairly cheap now on PS4.
bunimomike
Don’t think I’ve read such a miserable sounding article on TSA.
Merry Christmas! :-)
Blair Inglis
I tried my best.