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The month of February is shaping up to be a very impressive month for the video game industry. With solid releases throughout the month, gamers should expect some triple A game releases. Both Xbox and Playstation are having big name exclusives this month. Nintendo has a new console on the way that will shake up the competition as well.

For Honor – February 14

The brand new game from Ubisoft, For Honor, drops you into a war-torn landscape. Set in a medieval fantasy world that a history buff could only hope for. This game pins Samurais, Knights, and Vikings all up against each other. All three factions are playable and each has their own unique story. While the story portion of this game is interesting, the multiplayer is where this game steps into something new. For Honors multiplayer, is much like any other game where you are going up against another player, but with a slight twist. Ubisoft has introduced a new combat system called “Art of Battle”. This system allows you to lock into one on one combat with a real person. To come out victorious in these battles you must time your attacks and blocks correctly. This is a very new way to tackle combat and makes each and every interaction in the game feel new and just as intense as the first. This game has a lot of excitement surrounding it; hopefully, For Honor can live up to the hype.

Halo Wars 2 – February 21

Halo is a name synonymous with gaming at this point. It has been over 15 years since the release of the original, Halo: Combat Evolved. The Halo franchise is traditionally a futuristic first person shooter. In 2009 Halo Wars changed the formula. Like the predecessor Halo Wars 2, is a real-time strategy game played from a top-down view. You must lead the UNSC forces against a group known as the Banished. The story portion of the game centers on the entire cast not knowing that the war had ended. In a push and pull game, where you can also play cooperatively, it is heavily reliant on moves and counter-moves. Halo Wars 2 features a multiplayer option as well. In multiplayer, up to 6 players can battle it out in different modes such as Domination and Stronghold. In these game modes the teams must capture and hold a center point from the other players. Halo Wars 2 is a Windows exclusive, so Xbox and PC only. Overall this game looks like it will improve on all of the mechanics from the first one and with more content to offer.

Horizon Zero Dawn – February 28

The excitement surrounding this game is unrivaled in the first quarter of the year. Horizon Zero Dawn is set in a post-apocalyptic landscape where robotic creatures rule. Simply known as “Machines”, they resemble dinosaurs but are completely mechanical. Humans are broken up into tribes, similar to the first humans that were on earth. The main character is equipped with an array of ranged, stealth and melee weapons. The premise for the story is the protagonist, Aloy, believes there is more to the world than just inside the tribes’ walled-off town. On her journey outside of the tribe, she realizes that a rogue tribe is trying to conquer all of the surrounding areas. Aloy takes it upon herself to save her tribe from the invaders. Horizon Zero Dawn is an open world RPG adventure game with a loot system and a day and night cycle. The game is a Playstation exclusive but is still highly anticipated. The game has already won awards before its release, which is a good sign of things to come.

Nintendo Switch – March 3

The Switch is not available until March, yet has had massive numbers of preorders. The Nintendo Switch is the next console from Nintendo. Combining mobile gaming with the power of a home console built in one. The Switch is unique because you can slide a tablet into a dock and be playing on your home TV. If you have to leave but don’t want the game to end, you can pick the tablet up and put two attachable joysticks on the sides of it. The fact the tablet is able to get up and go, continuing right where you left off is very special. Playstation with the PSP and Vita tried to do this but it was a lot more complex than the Switch. The tablet can have up to 6-10 hours of battery life depending on the game you play. The Switch can charge by placing it in the dock. The device is also playable while it is charging. The Nintendo Switch will launch with 17 games available including Super Mario, Sonic and The Legend of Zelda. It will be getting games like NBA 2K18 and Skyrim later this year. Maybe this console will put Nintendo back in contention with Sony and Microsoft in the console war.

If you’ve ever uttered the words “Hey Cortana…”, you’re well aware of the other innovative features that Microsoft’s Kinect accessory brings to the world of television and gaming, such as voice command features, automatic recognition, and Skype and Twitch capabilities due to it’s high-quality camera technology. Despite all of these, Microsoft has finally announced the end of Kinect this morning, after several years of trying to perfect and mainstream its use.

When they launched Kinect in 2010 it was considered new and revolutionary technology for the camera to be able to sense depth and interact with its users, even winning them a spot in the Guinness World Records after becoming the fastest-selling consumer device in 2011. The Kinect could recognize bodies in the room and pick out the voice of it’s user over other background noises, making Skype features and gaming communications over  Twitch more reliable and clearer. After tweaking the technology for a couple years, they chose to marry the device with the Xbox One to make it more mainstream. While the device itself wasn’t as popular in the market as they had hoped, the sensor technology has been adopted by other companies to be used in various devices, such as Apples iPhone X, where they shrunk the sensor down and used the same algorithm to enhance it’s Face ID system.

While the death of the Kinect device itself seemed ultimate, the technology behind it is still considered innovative and is being sought out to continue the development of other devices that can use the technology in various forms to bring other new and creative ways for electronics to interact with their surroundings through a natural user interface.

In the interest of full disclosure I should admit that I’m not a huge Call of Duty fan. Actually, that’s not entirely accurate; it’s more a case of not having been a COD fan for a while, a good while, in fact. If I’m brutally honest, the last Call Of Duty that I really enjoyed was Modern Warfare in 2007.  I started to lose interest in the series when it decided to push beyond historical and contemporary battlegrounds in favor of futuristic landscapes and environments.  That’s not to say that I have an issue with futuristic FPS (full person shooter) games –  I’ve lost weeks, if not months of my life to Destiny 1 & 2 – but futuristic weapons and exoskeletons aren’t what I wanted from Call Of Duty.

Of course, it’s easy to take what should be the right ingredients and still end up with a complete mess, but thankfully Sledgehammer has whipped up quite the appealing AAA – FPS shooter in the shape of Call Of Duty: WWII.  That doesn’t mean it’s perfect, but it definitely signals a return to form for the franchise.

Campaign:

The visuals are outstanding, not just the photo realistic representations of your squad and the terrain that they live in, but the dynamic effects of rain, mud, rubble, dust, smoke and fog.  Those visuals, joined with earth shattering sound effects – you really want to play this on a surround sound system if you can!

The campaign plots a course through Europe, with the obligatory D-Day landing carnage that throws you into the thick of the fight from the get go. There’s no open world to explore here, it’s an old school ‘on rails’ story, but it’s engaging and leaves you wanting to push on through the next chapter every time you complete a mission. What Sledgehammer has created is the best single player COD experience in years, taking me back to the very early days of the Xbox 360, when COD was the stand out game on the system. It’s honestly worth buying Call Of Duty: WWII for the campaign alone.

Multiplayer:

This review has taken me longer than anticipated to write, because the multiplayer side of the equation was rather unreliable when the game first launched.  In the first few weeks, I found myself unable to connect for hours on end, and then, when I could finally get in, I’d be kicked mid match.  No Beuno!  In response, they have temporarily disabled some social elements to help with server issues.

Thankfully, those problems, for the most part, seem to have been resolved for now, and the result is the best Call Of Duty multiplayer experiences I’ve played in years.  I generally prefer the slower pace of Battlefield or Destiny multiplayer, but the balance of weapons and maps seems to hit a sweet spot.  There’s also a lot of game modes available, with classics like Team Deathmatch and Domination keeping old school veterans like me happy.  But if I want something a bit more demanding, something with a real sense of team achievement, War mode will deliver the challenge.

Zombies:

Ahhh ZOMBIES! This latest zombie installment is definitely tougher than previous versions, and demands more effective teamwork to survive, but jump into the fray with a few friends and the hours will fly by before you notice.

Die-hard Call Of Duty fan?  Then you probably pre-ordered WWII months ago and need no convincing, but if like me, you’ve become a bit jaded towards the franchise then it’s worth giving this latest installment a try.  Server issues, campers, and quick scopers are still a plenty.