Latest Games 2013

Wasteland 2 – PC / Mac OSX / Linux

Genre: Turn-Based RPG

inXile’s Wasteland 2 remains one of the most successful Kickstarter video game projects of all time, raising nearly $3 million. It’s also one of the most exciting titles of 2013, bringing back the old-school post-apocalyptic goodness of the original Wasteland with all the leaps in technology between now and 1988.

The game is an isometric, party based sci-fi RPG with turn-based combat. It’s set in the wasteland of an alternate history in which a nuclear war in 1998 led to the near destruction of human civilization. The Cold War may be over, but nuclear destruction remains a poignant part of our collective fear and imagination. After all, what’s more likely: aliens, zombies, or nukes?

Genre: Third-Person Cover Shooter

I’ve never been a huge fan of Microsoft’s second major Xbox exclusive franchise Gears of War. Still, Epic’s latest third-person cover shooter looks like it could be pretty good, and one of my favorite video game critics—Tom Bissell—is involved as a writer on the project.

The game is a prequel, as so many games and films are these days, which takes place before the events in the first three Gears of War titles and features Damon Baird and Augustus Cole as the main protagonists. Whatever the game’s story, expect more of the hulking uber-machismo characters the franchise is known for, and some very pretty looking graphics especially given the age of the Xbox 360.

Genre: Third-Person Action-RPG

Here’s the thing about nuclear warfare. Not only does it kill most of us, it turns everything else into mutants. The premise of Nuclear Union is pretty straightforward. In 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis didn’t have a happy ending and most of the world was plunged into the darkness of nuclear war.

“Nuclear Union is a 3rd person action/RPG in a post-apocalyptic setting,” the game’s FAQ reads. Set fifty years after the nuclear holocaust, you play a character in the new Soviet capital of Pobedograd as people attempt to forge a new life in a hard world. The game looks interesting, even if it does look a bit like a montage of a bunch of other post-apocalyptic titles.

Metro: Last Light – PC / Xbox 360/ PS3enre: First-Person Shooter / Survival Horror

There’s something about Moscow that really attracts mutants. Like Nuclear Union, Metro: Last Light takes place in a radioactive Russia, in tunnels besieged by mutants and monsters.

Graphically, it may be the most impressive looking title of the bunch, though certainly Crysis 3 will give it a run for its money.

The follow-up to Metro: 2033 won’t be coming to Wii U, unfortunately. Developer 4A Games blames the new Nintendo console’s “horrible, slow CPU” for the decision.

Genre: Third-Person Adventure/Survival

From the creators of Uncharted we get an intensely story-driven adventure far darker looking than anything Nathan Drake ever survived. The story of a man and a teenage girl traveling through the dangerous streets of a world brought to its knees in a mysterious post-apocalyptic future, the game looks excellent.

I’m not a huge fan of the Uncharted games, and I really hope this one does away with some of the less gamey things we saw in Uncharted 3 (please kill QTEs Naughty Dog!) but I’ll play this one regardless. When it comes to cinematic games, nobody does it better. Certainly few games look this good on the PS3.

Genre: Multiplayer Survival Horror

So successful was the ARMA 2 mod Day Z, that Bohemia 

So if we survive past Friday we’ll have possibly too many end-of-the-world games to play next year. Any of these you’re looking forward to? Anything I missed? And why hasn’t anyone made a game about Super Mayans from the past inventing a time machine and coming to the future to save the world? Seriously, people.