August 14th - 18th

Section: 

As the glare and heat of summer begin finally to weaken, and the hint of cooler days fills the air, the weekly release list begins to swell as if fat and satiated with summer's slow burn-out. While Square Enix revisit the Final Fantasy VII universe on the PS2 with Dirge of Cerebrus, and the Xbox 360 introduces it's own Dynasty Warriors clone in Ninety-Nine Nights, my gaming dollar goes to DarkStar One on the PC. Revisiting the once mighty and dominant space combat sim genre, a genre that brought us seminal titles such as Freespace, Privateer, Tie Fighter, and Wing Commander, DarkStar One has been one of those sleeper titles that I've quietly watched and anticipated. It's been too long since I've piloted my starship across the void hauling, I dunno, some kind of power cell or maybe bread to needy settlers on a distant world for an exorbitant fee. DarkStar One is our Game of the Week.

IMAGE(http://www.gametab.com/images/ss/pc/5586/box.jpg)

On DVD this week come RV, Scary Movie 4, and The Simpsons Season 846. Also available is yet another critically well-received HBO series, Rome Season 1. Something for every taste and more can be found, here.

PC:
DarkStar One (08/14)
Civil Air Patrol: Search & Rescue (08/14)
World Racing 2 (08/15)
F.E.A.R. Combat (08/17)
Victoria: Revolutions (08/17)

XBOX:
Xyanide (08/15)
World Racing 2 (08/15)

PS2:
Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII (08/15)

DS:
Konductra (08/15)
Freedom Wings (08/15)
Deep Labyrinth (08/15)

PSP:
Super Monkey Ball Adventure (08/15)
Payout Poker & Casino (08/15)

XBOX360:
Ninety-Nine Nights (08/15)

Comments

*cough*
The Wire
*cough*

Xyanide is that shoot 'em up that we talked about a long time ago. Similar in vein to R-Type Final and Gradius V.

*cough*
The Wire
*cough*

That was last week. The list doesn't cycle until Tuesdays.

By the way, you should have that cough looked at. Sounds awful.

Last Week:

Elysium wrote:

And, don't worry about missing anything on video this week while finally shuffling the slouching undead off this mortal coil, there's nothing of note coming out. Seriously, look.

I'm really interested in how Darkstar will turn out. Can I count on seeing some impressions? I'm dabbling with this "not buying every game that comes out" thing Certis mentioned.

Damn you and your Freespace game. I dont wanna buy it!
*edit*
Is FEAR combat free?

Blegh. It's a good thing that the old backlog is still going strong. That ought to hold me over until the first waves of fall releases begin to hit at the end of the month here.

zeroKFE wrote:

Blegh. It's a good thing that the old backlog is still going strong. That ought to hold me over until the first waves of fall releases begin to hit at the end of the month here.

No kidding, don't think there's anything on that list that even looks like a "buy when cheap title" let alone a "must have the day it comes out" title.

I think Konductra fits the "buy when cheap" bill. I'll be picking that up when its $19.99 or under.

DUDE!!! Sar Wars!!! I want it!!

Oh man, I was just lamenting to fyedaddy today about the dearth of good old space combat games, and then this Darkstar One title comes way the hell out of nowhere.

Definitely gotta keep an eye on this one!

The demo for Darkstar One gives you a good feel for how the game plays. Controls a bit like Freelancer (which I enjoyed, although a lot of people hated the no joystick play). I'll definitely be grabbing it.

Laughing_Man wrote:

The demo for Darkstar One gives you a good feel for how the game plays. Controls a bit like Freelancer (which I enjoyed, although a lot of people hated the no joystick play). I'll definitely be grabbing it.

I loved the fact that you could control your entire game with just the mouse. It felt like freedom.

Oh, and Dark Star? Completely out of left field for me. I'm a sucker for space games and me not knowing about this makes it tempting to cut a corner off of my gamer card.

I am mainly looking forward to Simpsons Season 8, I will own every Simpsons Season as they are released.

though I enjoyed the Darkstar One and will have to eventually pick it up

One screenshot caption for DS1 reads: "Hope you like dogfighting with space pirates, because you'll be doing a lot of it here."

Do I?!? DO I EVER! I can't go to work in the morning until I've sent a couple of Retros to the great hypocrite in the sky!

The old school first person RPG for the DS looks pretty sweet as well, I'll be checking reviews for that closely. Reminds me of Eye of the Beholder but niftier.

So I grabbed the demo for DS1 and was totally blown away, I think a little pee came out. I'm grabbing it from go gamer for $28. http://www.gogamer.com/cgi-bin/GoGam...
Hooray for 48 hour madness sales!