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[#1]

During Part 1 of our look at some of the most anticipated games of 2013, we looked at January and February's releases. Now, we'll take a look at March and beyond, starting with the opening pitch of the baseball season, and the return of some of our old favorites.

March 5th: Dueling Baseball Games

MLB: The Show has consistently been the king of the baseball gaming market, and the hype has started already on the 2013 edition, with recent social media campaigns geared at picking the cover athlete.  Ultimately, Andrew McCutchen of the Pittsburgh Pirates will adorn this year’s cover, and the best mechanically sound baseball game will make its annual trip to shelves on the same time it has the last 6 years running: The first Tuesday of March.  MLB 13: The Show will be, as always, an exclusive title for Sony systems.

Not to be outdone, 2K Sports, after previous rumors that they would not be renewing their contract with Major League Baseball, saw good reason to continue the relationship (360 exclusivity maybe?,) and announced MLB 2K13 only days ago.  The product was kept under such wraps that very few actual details are known about the game, and we don’t even have a SKU for it yet.  Expect the 360’s only baseball game in town to release for that and Playstation 3 on the same date - March 5th.

March 5th: Tomb Raider: Lara Croft is back in this rebooted and revitalized edition of Tomb Raider.  With a fresh new story arc that starts from scratch, you play a young Croft, not yet the hardened treasure hunter you’ve been used to for the last 15 years, but a young woman who has to learn to survive after a shipwreck, and learn to change her outlook on life after a series of hardships in an environment where she must kill or be killed.  New voice acting and a game built from the ground up means that this will be an all new experience, and to expect things you’ve never seen before in the Tomb Raider games.  This will also be the first game in the series to be rated M for Mature.

You can pre-order Tomb Raider regular or Limited Edition, and the new limited edition Tomb Raider controller for your XBox 360 or Playstation 3.  

March 12th: God of War Ascension: Redemption is the name of this game when Kratos returns in a prequel to the original God of War series.  God of War: Ascension will take you 10 years before the first game, to just after Kratos was tricked into murdering his family at the hands of Ares.  The seventh game in the series will be the first to feature multiplayer, and will likely be the final one on the PS3.  This is your chance to see Kratos in his most vulnerable state, ascending from mortality to immortality.

God of War: Ascension will be available exclusively for your Playstation 3 on March 12th.  You can Pre-Order it now

March 26th: Bioshock Infinite: Continuing the theme of big prequel March is Bioshock Infinite, a title affiliated with, but not based on the storylines of the first Bioshock games.  This one finds you in the 1910s, where you control a former detective on his quest to rescue a woman named Elizabeth, who eventually joins you on your journey.  Steampunk fans have been anticipating Infinite’s nod back to the genre’s fans ever since initial images were released three years ago.  Infinite will also feature a mode featuring a complex storyline system where the choices you make will affect your outcome, and could render your game unwinnable, urging you to save often and second guess what you’re about to do.  Many other mechanical and story-based details have been shrouded in mystery, and may not even be official until the game hits shelves.

You can preorder Bioshock Infinite on a variety of consoles and editions at Best Buy.  Click here for a full list:

Other titles ready for release in March and April that you can pre-order at Best Buy.  Check back often, as the titles should be available to Pre-Order on Bestbuy.ca shortly.

March 5th: SimCity (PC)

March 19th: Gears of War: Judgment (XBox 360)
March 24th: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity (3DS)
March 26th: The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct (XBox 360, Playstation 3)
March 26th: Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel (Xbox 360, Playstation 3)
March 26th: Tiger Woods PGA Tour ‘14 (XBox 360, Playstation 3
April 23rd: Dead Island: Riptide (XBox 360, Playstation 3)

...and some other titles to look forward to this year, many with unknown release dates.  Again, keep an eye out on preorder options, as well as in-depth featurettes for some of these titles in the coming months.

May 7th: The Last of Us (Playstation 3)
Animal Crossing (3DS)
Battlefield 4 (PC, XBox 360, Playstation 3)
Bayonetta 2 (WiiU)
Company of Heroes 2 (PC)
Elder Scrolls Online (PC, Mac)
Grand Theft Auto V (PC, XBox 360, Playstation 3)
Lego Marvel Superheroes (All Consoles)
Lost Planet 3 (XBox 360, Playstation 3, PC)
Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon (3DS)
Pikmin 3 (WiiU)
Pokemon X and Y (3DS)
South Park: The Stick of Truth (PC, XBox 360, Playstation 3)
Watch Dogs (PC, XBox 360, Playstation 3)
XCOM (PC, XBox 360, Playstation 3)

[#2]

Two of my most anticipated games this year haven't been mentioned!

After an excruciating wait, Borderlands developer Gearbox is bringing us Aliens: Colonial Marines, and I'm sure everyone who counts Aliens as one of their favourite movies is waiting with baited breath to see how this game turns out.

Another game that I'm very curious about is Gears of War: Judgment. They've made a couple minor tweaks to the controls/gameplay from what I've heard, and more importantly, Rod Fergusson and "Cliffy B" Blezinski are no longer with Epic. Time will tell whether the departure of these key personalities will be detrimental or not to the franchise.

[#3]

Oops...Gears: Judgment was an oversight on my part (I skipped past it altogether because I thought it was a 2014 release for some reason,) and Aliens...well...I admit I had a writeup prepared for it, and had to cut it due to space restrictions.  I don't even have it on the calendar though, which I should probably amend.  Thanks Miguel!

[#4]

Lol, no worries - just bustin' your chops. I had no idea Gears was coming out that early to be honest. I'm still trying to get through my backlog from late-2012, and 2013 is already looking like a good year for gaming. Awesome for gamers, but a conundrum for those of us who don't have enough time to play through all these great games!

[#5]

Crysis 3 and Ni No Kuni are probably the two games on this list I'm most likely to pick up in the first few months. I think 2013 is going to be an amazing year for games. 2012 was a good "quality over quantity" style of year. We weren't flooded with memorable titles, but the ones that were good were all really good. I've barely been a PS3 gamer since I bought my system 5 years ago (I still in fact only have one controller for it,) but I think this might be the year that my 360 gets a bit of a break. 3 of the 4 games I'm peeking at out of the corner of my eye (Kuni, GoW Ascension, Last of Us) are PS3 exclusives.

[#6]

I'm generally solely an Xbox 360 gamer, but I'm very much looking forward to Last of Us, which I've already got preordered to play on my brother-in-law's PS3. That game looks downright amazing.

We're seeing some amazing end-of-the-generation stuff in the pipeline now that developers have gotten a handle on developing for these two systems. At the rate that developers are coming out with good games (and at the rate my backlog of games is going), I can probably hold off on the next gen systems for a couple of years.

[#7]

Another one to watch out for is Splinter Cell: Blacklist, which is being developed by Ubisoft Toronto!

I rather liked Splinter Cell: Conviction even though die-hard SC fans didn't like the black and white mechanic. That's gone now, and I think they're integrating more fluid stealthkill mechanics to this game, along with some kinect functionality that hopefully won't just be a lame alternative to reloading/throwing grenades/etc.