Jorts. Half jeans. Half shorts. Half uncomfortable tightness for the sake of fashion. We’ve all worn them and know of the dangers of getting too excited while sporting a pair. Uncomfortable tightness can become dangerous blood flow constriction in the blink of an eye with the right stimulus. Every month we’ll let you know what games threaten the structural integrity of our collective jorts, feel free to chime in.
January was good to us. We saw a fantastic return to form for the Resident Evil series, a solid follow up to the original Gravity Rush as well as a localised release of the quirky and violent Yakuza 0. But January is gone and no doubt you’ve already stopped going to the gym like you promised yourself last year and are back to mainlining Doritos and Dew, so let’s see if February can make us forget those broken promises and concentrate on what matters: tight jorts and even tighter bank balances.
February 4th: Poochy & Yoshi’s Wooly World (3DS)
February 8th: Nioh (PS4)
February 14th: De-formers (PS4/Xbox/PC)
February 14th: For Honor (PS4/Xbox One/PC)
February 14th: Sniper Elite 4 (PS4/Xbox One)
February 17th: Dragon Ball Fusions (3DS)
February 21st: Halo Wars 2 (Xbox One/Windows PC)
February 22nd: Lego Worlds (PS4/Xbox One)
February is jam-packed with titles I’d love to be checking out, but sadly (I jest) me and my jorts will be checking out various European countries and becoming somewhat cultured. However, if I was gracing Australian soil during the month of February I would be checking out Sniper Elite 4, as I have a penchant for games tailored towards the sniper experience. Plus, who can say no to shooting Hitler in the nuts? As a big fan of The Order: 1886, I am very keen to see what Ready at Dawn have done with De-Formers, and although it looks rather risible, it does look somewhat addictive, not to mention that it is a far cry from their previous PS4 exclusive. Both For Honor and Nioh have piqued my interest. While not being the type of game I would usually get around, For Honor looks like heaps of fun to play with mates. While Nioh looks like it will satisfy my inner desire of a new Onimusha (read: Samurai) game, even if the main character looks identical to old-mate Geralt.
Being a month of purely exclusives for me, February is the first month where my jorts will be breaking from pure tension. To kick off the month I have Nioh, a game which I have been awaiting for a while. I played a bit of the alpha and a lot of the beta and I loved it. It has a Souls-like combat system, but it doesn’t try too hard to be a Souls game, meaning it doesn’t lose itself in the process. The alpha and beta were also very good at making me question my skills as a human being, so that makes me very, VERY tight. The only other game I’ll be picking up is Halo Wars 2. Being someone who struggled to get into RTS games, the original Halo Wars offered everything I loved. It had a decent story which predates the events of Halo: Reach and it just flowed in such a way that I couldn’t help but love it. I’m seriously hoping that Creative Assembly and 343i can successfully pick up where Ensemble left off. Also, Brian Reed isn’t writing it so we won’t have a repeat of that abomination known as the Halo 5: Guardians story.
Mother, if you are reading this I am already deep underground. I have barely survived the post-Christmas onslaught, and the news of the Nintendo Switch bears a great risk to my wallet and the paltry amount of cash located within.
I have instigated a heavy radio silence with all forms of hype-inducing gaming media in an effort to keep my interest in check, and avoid the compulsion to buy anything. This is easily attained thanks largely in part to my feigned non-interest in titles such as For Honor and Nioh. The incredible setting and combat-driven gameplay of For Honor does not interest me at all, much less the incredibly represented Viking aesthetic on offer for the discerning Viking enthusiast. I am positive that my deep seeded love for the game Rune (released in 2000) will hold no sway over my desire to play this game – the thought of decapitating my enemies and sinking axes into fleshy meat puppets does nothing for me. My excitement is atrophied, I am safe. I am one with my wallet, and my wallet is with me.
Why am I in EB games? Oh god, it’s happening again. Oh well, might as chuck $20 on Nioh while I am here too…
For Boner…uh, For Honor squeezes seams for me in February. It will be the type of game where no matter what sort of player you might be you’ll find your place in this little gem. Three separate factions to choose, multiplayer malarkey for days and a fancy ‘art of battle combat system’, which lets you actually feel the precise weight and size of your weapon as you swing it around like a shaved cat in a water park. I can almost smell the amount of lost hours I’ll be pumping into this game.
While I like to disagree with Jordan as a matter of principle, like a detective/serial killer combo I sometimes realise that we are not so different, he and I. After entering the Nioh beta with all the swagger of a 12-year-old with Beats headphones taking a selfie with an iPhone, I was properly beaten to a pulp by a gang of the first enemies I encountered. But true to its Souls-inspired gameplay, Nioh has a learning curve that’s incredibly harsh but relatively fair, and after getting the hang of the unique combat system I fell in love with our grey-haired samurai. I will most certainly pick this up alongside Halo Wars 2 later in the month. The original Halo Wars was a brilliant console-based RTS, with fantastic gameplay and some of the most badass cutscenes to ever grace the franchise. Here’s hoping Gravemind is a playable character…
