The Switch could be in line to receive even more ports of beloved third party titles. As mentioned by GameXplain in a video, Catherine: Full Body and XCOM 2 Collection might be headed to the hybrid machine soon. This is as per age listings that have popped up for the game on the South Korean ratings board.

A potential Switch port of Catherine: Full Body – the expanded re-release of Atlus’ bizarre puzzle adventure title – has been mentioned in Atlus’ yearly surveys several times, including the most recent one as well. XCOM 2 Collection, meanwhile, would be bringing the full base game, its War for the Chosen expansion, and multiple DLC packs to the Switch- if this should prove to be accurate.

Both games would make a lot of sense on the Switch (most games do), and it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to imagine these two ports happening. Either way, this is unconfirmed right now, so treat it as such.

Not too long ago, a listing for the BioShock Collection on Switch also popped up in Taiwan. Read more on that through here.

https://youtu.be/H4COA0RDGZE

Journey has won the GameCity 2012 prize which is an event that rewards creativity in games. Last year’s winner was Minecraft and considering the event has been running for two years in a row, this is not a bad achievement after all.

Jenova Chen, creator of Journey, was obviously pleased and said (Via GamesIndustry.biz): “I really like the goal of GameCity, to get people to notice games and talk about games, particularly for people who don’t encounter many video games in their daily life.”

“Thatgamecompany has always focused on making games for everyone,” Chen added, “so it’s nice to see GameCity recognize our game and give us an award. In the end, we believe that games are a mature media that deserve to be enjoyed and loved by everyone, by people. Thank you very much for this prize.”

One of the judges also revealed why they chose Journey for the prize.

“Journey was a unanimous choice for the GameCity Prize 2012, many of the jurors were un-experienced in playing videogames and it confounded their expectations of what videogames were.”

“Of all the shortlisted titles, Journey presents the player with an especially coherent vision,” Puttnam continued, “simultaneously fantastic and familiar. All of the Jury commented on the art direction in particular, the extraordinary sense of size and scale it portrayed.

“Whilst it was a short game, it was in no way small. It’s a focused, detailed piece of work – challenging you to measure it in terms other than just the length of gameplay.”

Journey is an amazing game, our review just confirms it. Give it a read over here.

Our protagonist is one Vincent Brooks who begins to experience nightmares prompted by Katherine -Vincent’s girlfriend- who begins to talk of marriage and commitment. They are traversing a somewhat rocky period of their relationship and then enters the recipient of the Academy Award for Most Blasen Use of Femme Fatale, Katherine. Predictably, Vincent inadvertently and unintentionally finds himself cheating on his girlfriend with this newfound seductress, increasing the severity and peril of each subsequent nightmare.

Vincent nightmares serve as the crux of the core gameplay, each nightmare is represented through a series of stages in which Vincent has to climb up a vast series of blocks, manipulating them so he can progress upwards. These nightmares serve as a sheepy infidelity purgatory and as it turns out, Vincent isn’t the only male suffering in such a way and many men of Vincent’s age have been found dead as a direct result of these nightmares; if you die in the nightmare, you die, not entirely dissimilar one of the tales in the Treehouse of Horror VI, come to think of it. All of them men are essentially within the same nightmare world, each seeing every other male as a sheep yet not themselves. One might be more a little more sympathetic to Vincent’s apparently plight if he wasn’t such an introverted little sod, angstily reciting his indiscretion in his head as if it somehow wasn’t his fault. That said, the company he keeps doesn’t serve him particularly well as his group of friends are, quite bluntly, a bunch of enabling arseholes and Mr White. In fact, almost every man in this entire game is little more than an intolerable penis-on-wheels and might also be the most misand-erific game in existence.

Catherine is a rare example of a ‘domestic’ game and it perhaps surprisingly also does it well, if conforming to a list of anime cliche’s as long as my forearm. It forgoes the usual terrible dialogue in favour of a far more well-measured and engrossing approach, even use of swearing seems far naturalistic than most games. Even in the, for example, brilliant Darkness II, swearing seemed a little jarring and over-emphasied, as if the word ‘fuck’ always had to be bellowed at the top of your lungs, regardless of context.

This is a prime example story-driven game but by the same token, the gameplay rarely suffers as a result. As a story-oriented game in the 21st century, it also features the obligatory moral choice system in which every decision is a polar choice between saint and scum. Interestingly, Atlus have chosen to publish the results of each ‘confession’ decision in the form of a pie-chart, between nightmare stages, delivering some both alarming but also In an utterly horrifying revelation, a disturbingly high percentage of people appear to actively envy pornographic actors. Less horrifyingly, it also transpired that more 20-40 year-old women thought life ends -rather than begins- at marriage, than men.

The first level I played through conjured up one overwhelming feeling that this gameplay cannot possibly be sustainable for the entire game I mean, how can a retail game essentially live entirely off of a puzzle game, right? Wrong. It works and it works brilliantly, well paced and broken up by ‘Landings’ between stages and real-life segments in which you drunkenly text C/Katherine and talk to your fellow patrons as squander your time and life in the ‘Stray Sheep’ bar. The puzzle elements are exactly right sort of frustrating, resulting in a thoroughly rewarding experience. The sort of frustration which is borne from my general incompetence on my part rather than of the game. It may sound odd but the game is quite obviously heavily influenced by Qbert, even down to the collectible coins, the major difference being that I can’t recall Qbert every featuring a gargantuan thread-veiny baby trying to spit you into oblivion. Boss fights are relentlessly tense and will quite literally get the heart racing, especially as your lives slowly begin to dwindle. Initially, the inclusion of a lives system seems like an odd one but it creates a sense of consequence, forcing one into a more structured approach to the climbing the blocks.

Cutscenes are told, in part, through the medium of anime as well as in-engine cel-shaded anime, not unlike the Naruto or Dragonball Z games and the enviroments are well thought through. The Stray Sheep is brought to life well, in the sense that the fairly dark and dank conditions reflect those within it, aside from the absurdly dressed Erica. The nightmares themselves are dark, cold affairs but that’s exactly what one would expect from a nightmare of this nature and the landings, between stages, are rife with blazen Catholicism, not to mention sheep-filled.

For all the positives about the story, there is one fundamental issue with the game. The game is built around the idea of choice and morals, various questions at various points reflect this but regardless of wether you choose to discard women like so many Pokemon energy cards, or revere them as Godesses, Vincent still acts in the same nervous, blundering idiot who constantly skirts the middle-ground. If you opt for the saintly route then surely it’d make sense that as Vincent, you’d choose to break off bad Katherine as soon as possible. It’s the fundamental problem with moral choice systems, as a games designer you begin to work yourself into a corner and simply having a linear storyline which has dick/saint/bland endings just doesn’t suffice, it almost makes the player feel more like a mere spectator during this decision making processes as it seems to have little outcome on the immediate gameplay, passive-aggressive replies from C/Katherine aside.

Would’ve been very easy to have deliberate whacked an 18 certificate on this game in order to get away with the sort of objectification the boxart and subsequent marketing suggests but considering this, a game with far more sex than most, it instead takes a mature and measured approach. Perhaps this game could even serve yardstick for the maturity of the industry and how far we’ve come since BMX XXX. Although perhaps that’s a little premature given the likes of Duke Nukem, but at least we’re getting there.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox 360.

 Okay, okay… We’re getting some conflicting reports here: We recently posted that Catherine might be coming to Europe on January 10th, but a press release posted on Joystiq claims that the European publisher Deep Silver are going for a later date, a whole month later, calling it a “Valentine’s Day rendezvous.” The press release also details the content of a European limited edition of the game, which will feature: The Rave-T-Shirt that Vincent wears in the game, two Stray Sheep bar-themed coasters and a Catherine poster all served up in a Stray Sheep pizza box.

Catherine will release in Europe on January 10th, publisher Deep Silver has revealed. Not a lot of information was shared, and it looks like more may be available later. Earlier you could only import Catherine if you were from the EU, and while there is no reason for releasing this game so late, at least they managed to confirm a date.

Catherine was a critical hit, and did well sales wise in Japan. Stay tuned to GB for more info.

Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

It’s been a long a wait Europe, but all that desire will hopefully make the arrival of Catherine all the more satisfying. The erotic horror puzzle social sim will be seeing release through Deep Silver for our European brethren and will include a double sided cover featuring both (K/C)atherines, one on either side, so that “consumers will get the opportunity to select their personal preference,” Deep Silver says, “as to which of the women in his life the game’s main character, Vincent, should choose.”

Thanks to Joystiq for the info.

Atlus just tweeted a picture of a cake, which shows Catherine has sold 200,000 units in the US alone within a week of its launch.

Tim Pivnicny, VP of sales and marketing at Atlus says this is the “largest launch in the 20-year history of Atlus.” The title, he says, has “exceeded” their “highest expectations.”

Stay tuned to GB for more info.

Japanese publisher Atlus is pretty pleased with Catherine Sales. They have just announced that it had a very successful launch, breaking previous publisher records.

“Catherine has exceeded our highest expectations,” said an Atlus Executive, Tim Pivnicny, while refusing to provide solid numbers.

“It released last week to tremendous critical acclaim and fan response, bolstered by the release of a demo a couple weeks prior, and continues to generate discussion among fans for its mature themes, engrossing subject matter, and frantic, challenging gameplay.”

“It is fitting, then, that Catherine can boast the largest launch in the 20-year history of Atlus, and continues to see strong sales at retail,” he told IGN.

This is in complete contrast to the poor showing of Shadows of the Damned which was published by EA under the EA Partners program.

Catherine has finally gotten a Western release, with the game hitting US stores.

If you’re tired of the same old space marine crap, then give Catherine a go. It chronicles the travles of Vincent who, after cheating on his fiancee, is trapped in a series of surreal nightmares.

You may also want to see if you can track down the Love is Over deluxe edition, which is crammed with little extras, including a T-shirt, pillowcase and a pair of boxer shorts. Classy stuff.

Pick it up now for Xbox 360 and PS3.