Now Playing: HYRULE WARRIORS

 One of these days, that scarf's gonna wrap over his eyes

and he'll stab himself by mistake.

Developed by Omega Force.

Co-published by Nintendo and Tecmo-Koei.

Released mid-September 2014.

Format: WiiU exclusive.

Hold the presses - Nintendo farm out prized characters for unrelated spin-off title from lesser studio!  NEWS AT ELEVEN!

Actually, no, that's uncalled for.  While Nintendo absolutely deserve the snark they get for, say, Mario and pals showing up in an NBA-branded basketball game, they are generally more cautious with a few of their other big names, like Metroid or Kirby or, in this case, Legend of Zelda.  Whether or not that's down to producer demands or an attempt to preserve those titles' status by restricting their appearances to only core games is unclear; actually, it might simply be down to these series all picking one particular game 'style' and sticking with it, whilst Mario in his first 3 core titles (Donkey Kong, Mario Bros, Super Mario Bros) went through 3 wildly different takes on what a platform game can be, so he's always been fairly malleable in that regard.

But let's just say a big 'whatever' to all that because now there's a Zelda Musou game and Nintendo would really like you to buy it okay.

Now Playing: TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE DARK SPARK

 lolwut

Developed by Edge of Reality.

Published by ActiVision.

Released late June 2014.

Formats: PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii U, PC

Version played:  Wii U

So.  Another Transformers movie.  And y'know what, after sitting through 3 of them already and getting progressively more and more pissed off with each occurrence, to the point where I firmly declared Dark of the Moon had 'killed Optimus Prime forever', I'm not wasting time and money on a cinema visit (not when I can just skim the plot summary on Wikipedia and, yep, sounds horrid).  On the other hand, there's always games!  High Moon's War for Cybertron was a fun third-person blaster with a too-murky art style but a lot of charm under the hood, and its sequel Fall of Cybertron lost the co-op mode but compensated nicely by giving the characters more unique abilities, playing with bigger set-pieces and coming up with more inventive, varied environments.  I'd happily play a few more of those!

...that's not quite what I'm getting from Rise of the Dark Spark.

Now Playing: TOO! MANY! GAMES!

 GAH!

The holidays are a tricky time of year for most people.  Of course, 'most people' have bills and families to worry about, and I don't, so you'd think I'd be content, but never let it be said that I can't find something to gripe about in even the best of circumstances.  For example: having so many genuinely good games to play, which is a problem because I like to keep updating this blog with thoughts on stuff like that, and I just don't have the time to give each individual title the write-up they deserve before it's no longer timely to do so (read: before it's bloody mid-January again).

So, I'm gonna limit my thoughts to a couple paragraphs for each game I've played since late November, going in descending order of how much time I've logged into them.  Skim at your leisure.

Craig's Most Wanted Games of 2013 (So Far)

Does exactly what it says on the tin.  These most certainly won't be the only games I buy over the next calendar year - I've got a lax understanding of fiscal responsibility - but they're the ones I'm really anticipating, and would definitely put money aside for in advance if I had that kind of sense.

Professor Layton and the Azran Legacies (3DS)

The Professor Layton series has been a pretty recent obsession of mine.  I completed the first game, Curious Village, almost 2 years ago, then forgot about the series, and only recently remembered them in the run-up to the arrival of the most recent game, Miracle Mask (also the first 3DS outing, and developers Level 5 made the transition very well).  Since then I've beaten Pandora's Box, Lost Future and Miracle Mask and am in the midst of Spectre's Call.  Whilst the simple logic puzzles are addictive in their own right, it's the quirky world, characters and stories that form each game's framework that have made me a fan, and with the promise that game 6, Azran Legacies, will both wrap up the overarching plot of the 'prequel trilogy' and be the last game to feature Layton himself as the protagonist (!), I'm very anxious to get my mitts on this one.  It's due out in Japan in February, but given the massive volume of text to localise, I'm not expecting it to drop in the UK until much later in the year.  It'll be worth it.

Aliens: Colonial Marines (multi-format)

Probably the most imminent arrival of everything on this list, Gearbox Software's love letter to Aliens doesn't look to be the most original or daring FPS I or anyone else has ever played, but it does look set to play to the strengths of the Marine campaigns in the various AVP games (typically the best parts of those titles) and the universe of Aliens is the sort of world I never mind returning to.  It helps that the devs have been hyping up the Wii U version as the 'best' version, though what this means beside using the GamePad as a movie-accurate motion tracker is beyond me.