GameSided Roundtable: Pick Just One Of These Upcoming Games
Greetings! This is our weekly GameSided Roundtable feature, where our writers converge to provide their opinions, wishes, statements or critical thought on one general topic centered around video games. Sometimes it can be funny, sometimes it can be serious. Contemporary, classic; we hope to cover a wide variety of things in this segment as a group. If you wish to submit an idea for a GameSided Roundtable discussion topic, you can leave me an email at: daniel.george@fansided.com.
Forward from the Editor: I’ve brought it up on countless pieces over the past month, but man, is October one hellish month. Just look at all the games coming out right before Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, in an ill-advised attempt to avoid its sales by facing off against 25+ other titles being released. And that was before Dragon Age: Inquisition and Battlefield Hardline were delayed!
This week’s GameSided Roundtable question comes from staff writer Eric Chrisman, who asks us this: Of the games being released in October, if you could pick only one of them to take home with you and play, no matter what gaming devices you own, what would it be and why?
Erik Sugay
After spending hundreds of hours in both Animal Crossing: New Leaf and Tomodachi Life, you’d think I’d have had my fill of cutesy life simulation games. Somehow, that’s just not the case. Fantasy Life for the 3DS is coming out in October and I’d choose that game over all else in a heartbeat.
Where others might find a world of tedium in games like these, I find comfort. The genre isn’t exciting in the most traditional understanding – I mean, who plays games to reenact what could easily be described as chores? – but it still offers a small sense of wonder and discovery that I just adore. Besides, it’ll be the best way for me to get my Rune Factory fix now that the future of that series is up in the air.
Daniel George (Twitter)
I feel like this is an impossible question, even though so many of the writers have given quality answers that back up where they’re coming from. I was going to pick Bayonetta 2, then I was set on Project Spark. Instead, if I could choose just one, I’d have to go with Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor.
As a fan of tabletop games, there’s always been a video games-oriented appreciation for Tolkien’s creations. So many medieval-based fantasy creatures (Orc, halflings, etc.) have spawned from his fantastical works, and have been transferred over to the very core of many RPG and action-adventure fantasy games. Shadow of Mordor looks to combine some of the more traditional action game trappings from previous Lord of the Rings games (including the criminally-underrated EA game The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers), create its own story adaptation and include a variety of interesting and unique leader-hunting mechanics and spectral abilities.
Plus, any game that has a detailed crafting system that upgrades your character, their abilities and equipment gets a bonus for me. It’s been a while since a great LotR game came out, and hopefully this will be the first of many more to come.