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The Future Is Now!

8 Games To Watch Out For In 2013

by Becky Chambers | 1:58 pm, December 28th, 2012


The Cave

The Cave

2012 has been a great year for games. AAA titles are huge and spectacular, indies are fearlessly exploring new territory, and the cultural conversation about this ever evolving medium gets livelier by the day. For all the growing pains both the industry and players are working through, this is a truly exciting time for anyone who loves games.

Even though I’m still playing catch-up with my backlog, 2013 will soon be here, and with it, a whole new batch of worlds to discover, puzzles to solve, and battles to fight. Without further ado, here are a handful of upcoming games that have my attention.

The Cave (January; PC/Xbox/PS3/Wii U)

I have a soft spot for adventure games. I think of them in the same way that I think of eating a bowl of mac ‘n cheese, or putting on a pair of pajamas fresh from the dryer. Soothing comfort and simple charm. I was already for it when I heard that adventure game legend Ron Gilbert had a new title up his sleeve, but all the more so when details started trickling in. The Cave brings in seven playable characters: a hillbilly, a knight, a monk, a pair of twins, an adventurer, a scientist, and a time traveler. The player chooses three to take into the eponymous cave (which talks), and in a Trine-like twist, swaps between them as needed to solve puzzles. Some light platforming mechanics have been laced throughout, just to add a bit of spice, though it’s been made clear that the focus is on problem solving, not reflexes. This already sounds like great fun to me, but the icing is that the characters were made with gender balance in mind. Those last three awesome-sounding characters I mentioned? All ladies. And the twins are an even split. Yes. Yes yes yes. Yes.


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Becky Chambers is a freelance writer and a full-time geek. She blogs over at Other Scribbles and can always be found on Twitter.

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  • http://twitter.com/acidragdoll Bel

    I am so excited for Remember Me. I don’t think I have ever been so quickly sold on a game before. Though I did have to lol a little at “She only kills a FEW people!”

  • http://twitter.com/giapet gia manry

    Definitely up for Remember Me, and I’m with you on Dragon Age all around. I actually found the gameplay in DA2 to be a bit more fluid than in DA:O, and I liked the voiced fem!Hawke a lot, as well as other characters (even when they bordered on cliche). I think DA:O had the stronger story but I like that they didn’t try to just recreate the same kind of story, that they tried an entirely different narrative structure and setting style, even if it didn’t entirely work out.

  • Michail Velichansky

    Surprised not to see Project Eternity mentioned, but I guess we haven’t seen that much of the actual game yet. Still, there’s a lot of Kickstarter games that ought to be dropping in 2013 — besides that one, Wasteland II and Shadowrun Returns are both inbound, I believe.

    And I guess at some point we’ll see something about Doublefine Adventure, unless I missed it? And if Doublefine doesn’t collapse. It always seems to be on the brink of collapse >.<

  • http://www.facebook.com/anatole.ghio Anatole Ghio

    Actually I thought this was a bad year for games. There were a bunch of AAA titles, but many of them were disappointing.

  • http://www.facebook.com/anatole.ghio Anatole Ghio

    I’m kind of looking forward to Beyond: Two Souls, mainly because I like Quantic Dream. Also whatever Tell Tale Games does next will have my attention because I thought The Walking Dead had a better story than any video game or TV show this past year.

  • Rollin Bishop

    Project Eternity is actually set for 2014 per their Kickstarter, isn’t it?

  • http://www.facebook.com/alexandra.chevallier.3 Alexandra Chevallier

    The new and awesome looking SimCity is due for release in March. And how about The Elder Scrolls Online, a game a lot of people want naoooooo!!! That’s also slated for release early 2013, supposedly (I don’t trust that at all, as I haven’t heard anything about a beta yet… I’m expecting late 2013 at this point).

  • http://twitter.com/dragonflyautumn AKHost

    I’m primarily looking forward to DA:III and the DoubleFine adventure.
    I’m not looking forward to the Tombraider game, even though I’m a long-time fan. It wasn’t the comments of the developer which put me off, but the long-before-that first trailer I saw, where Lara had been reimagined into a lips-parted, bambi-eyed creature whose kittenish gasps and cries of pain were, um, shall we say, not working for me.

  • Anonymous

    Don’t forget Dark Souls 2, the sequel to a GREAT game that had true female armor and lots of non binary character creation options

  • Michail Velichansky

    Huh! Yup, you’re absolutely right. That… actually makes me feel better about it, since that means they’re really taking their time with it.

  • Anonymous

    Most of these sound good, but Remember Me looks like it’s going to be really boring.

  • http://twitter.com/ChannelDiza Chanel Diaz

    Remember Me sounds Interesting.

    I don’t know about Tomb Raider, though. I was Interested until I heard about that ‘Sexual Assault as a Plot Device’ stuff and how the makers were Implying and trying to Perpetrate the Idea that males Can’t have Empathy for females.

    I’m sure it’ll have Great Gameplay and even mostly a well-Intriguing Story, just like Batman Arkham Asylum and Arkham City, but I just can’t stand such a Blatant Patriarchal Atmosphere (Arkham City Displays Sexism so Omnipresently from both ‘Bad’ AND ‘Good’ Guys.), more so when it’s never Confronted & Corrected (Example: Catwoman just Tolerates Sexist Remarks.), when it’s used to Display how “Evil” or “Edgy” everything is.

  • Anonymous

    Yess, this is a good list. I really hope Remember Me turns out well… I’m cautiously optimistic regarding Watch Dogs, too, though the fact that the protagonist is a brown-haired white dude is exciting! Oh no, wait, it’s disappointing. Otherwise, excited for Quadrilateral Cowboy, a 1980s hacking game from the Thirty Flights of Loving people. Apparently all I want to be in games these days is a hacker, not a fighter.

  • Sanjay Merchant

    Checked out The Cave on Steam. I love that one of the screenshots has a Grog machine in it. :-)

  • http://twitter.com/LanceBravestar1 Lance Bravestar

    The Cave is what I anticipate the most. Remember Me looks interesting, and I guess I’m bound by law to check out Star Wars 1313.

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