Team Picks: Most Anticipated Games of January

After a brief hiatus over the holidays, Team Picks is back for a much quieter January!

Team Picks is Press-Start Australia’s monthly feature where members of the team get together to tell you about their most anticipated games of the upcoming month.

Why not join in? Let us know what you’re most looking forward to in the comments, or better yet, what you plan on picking up during this quiet month.TeamPicksJanuary-ShannonStory of Seasons – Throughout my childhood I spent a lot of time playing Harvest Moon on both my Super Nintendo and my Playstation. I’m really excited to get into Story of Seasons and see how it stacks up against the other Harvest Moon games – which have lost their way a bit lately.

Story of Seasons is just the perfect type of game at the moment that I need to break up all of the holiday blockbusters.TeamPicksJanuary-EwanRise of the Tomb Raider (PC) – Rise of the Tomb Raider is amazing. Unbelievably amazing infact. So unbelievably amazing that it was our Game of the Year for 2015. Yet, I can’t help but feel it flew under the radar for most of us. For a while, I certainly paid it little attention until I finally played it.

I cannot understate how good this game is. The gameplay, exploration and challenges are nearly impeccable in my eyes and ought to teach the Uncharted franchise a lot. There’s little doubt in my mind that the achievements of Crystal Dynamics here are the cause for Uncharted 4’s most recent delay.

Please buy this game! I promise you’ll enjoy it and I’m desperate for a third!TeamPicksJanuary-James
Resident Evil Zero: HD Remaster –  I played and reviewed Resident Evil HD Remaster to bloody completion when it released this time last year and absolutely enjoyed it. The game was fantastically paced, looked amazing and told a simple and yet intriguing story. There were some slight visual hiccups here and there but overall the remastering efforts were very solid from Capcom.

Resident Evil Zero looks to take what the team did with the original game in terms of remastering and looks to improve it tenfold. The visuals are better than what was on offer with the original Remake and Capcom have even added new playable characters to the fold – something they easily couldn’t have bothered to do. Sure, the story is arguably the point where Resident Evil took it’s controversial tonal shift and some of the gameplay mechanics are poorly balanced but it’s still a classic Resident Evil game and it’s still super close to my heart.

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I can’t wait to play it all over again in high definition and as Wesker too!TeamPicksJanuary-Kevin
Resident Evil: Origins Collection – Resident Evil was one of the greatest remakes to ever grace modern gaming, and bundling it with a similarly HD remastered version of Resident Evil Zero seems like a clear winner. I cannot wait to explore one of the most iconic survival horror games in high definition, not to mention the arguably just as good retelling of the events leading up to it.TeamPicksJanuary-MatthewRise of the Tomb Raider (PC) – Let’s face it, Crystal Dynamics’ reboot of everyone’s favourite action girl has been one of, if not the greatest action/adventure games to date. With competition from Nathan Drake, you’d expect them to be pulling all the stops and crafting an experience like no other, and they clearly have (judging by our GOTY choice!)

One of the biggest things this release will show, however, is faith in the franchise, and whether or not a timed exclusivity has hurt the series, or like Lara Croft herself, forced it to adapt and survive.

TeamPicksJanuary-MehdiAmplitude –  I’ve been following the development of Amplitude at Harmonix quite closely, and whilst a game like Amplitude would normally fall of my radar, there’s something about it that really clicks for me. Don’t get me wrong, this game will cause me so many hours of frustration, but none the less at least I’ll have achieved something once my blood pressure hits its level cap.TeamPicksJanuary-StevenResident Evil Zero: HD Remaster – I am so damn happy that Capcom are remastering the Resident Evil games. I played through Resident Evil 0 a year or so ago, but the effort being put into this remaster has me excited to run through it all over again.

Capcom looks to be putting a huge amount of work into Resident Evil 0’s HD presentation, really making it a remaster rather than a simple ‘the same game but in 1080p’ affair we’ve seen in some other HD re-releases.