August 14 – August 20

Section: 

IMAGE(https://www.gamerswithjobs.com/files/pictures/pictures/picture-5877.jpg)Greg “DoubtingThomas396” Decker

The makers of Saints Row have sparked outrage by making a single-player, class-based shooter that is not Saints Row 5. It’s called Agents of Mayhem, and if you preordered it you get Johnny Gat and a costume for one of the other characters that makes him look like Panthro from Thundercats (among 6 geek-homage skins included with the "Legal Action Pending Edition").

I can honestly say that I don’t know anything else about the game. Once I saw the trailer that used the theme song from The A-Team, I couldn’t give them my money fast enough. I’ll let you know how that went for me. For now, Agents of Mayhem gets my preordered, very enthusiastic Game of the Week.

IMAGE(https://www.gamerswithjobs.com/files/pictures/picture-111373-1483294321.jpg)   Chris "C" Cesarano

I suppose a word should be said of Nidhogg 2, the sword-swinging sequel to the 2014 indie game. I'd like to say I'm excited for this, but two inhibitors keep my interest rather muted. The first is that I've only played Nidhogg once, and it's the sort of game I'd have loved in high school or college where we could gather and keep swapping the seat to see how well each player performs. The second is that the simplicity of the retro graphics work in the game's favor, allowing the imagination to fill in the blanks of the smoothly animated brutality. Just looking at the screenshots for Nidhogg 2 kills it for me, and as such I'd much rather just return to the simplicity of its predecessor.

I'm a bit of an antagonist to Sonic fans on this forum. My irritation with Sonic 3 is well documented, and I love to poke at the ribs of members ClockworkHouse and DamnableBear in regards to what I perceive as inferior design. It's a half-jest, as I've never really understood the love of the series and feel it's either a form of masochism, Stockholm syndrome, or abusive fusion of both. However, my friend and co-podcaster Steve had me sit down and play a level of Generations, and ... okay, Sonic is no longer awful. I'll give you that. So as confused as I am at this nostalgia-driven community of rabid fans that are just as abusive to their beloved franchise as it is to them, I'll give Sonic Mania my pick of the week. Who knows? Maybe this time I'll actually like a Sonic game.

IMAGE(https://www.gamerswithjobs.com/files/pictures/pictures/picture-13445.jpg)   Felix “Chronic episodic” Threepaper

Agents of Mayhem is Volition putting an Overwatch-style roster of different playable characters into Saint’s Row, mostly for cosplay purposes.

Night Trap: 25th Anniversary Edition has archaeological value – it’s a notorious FMV game from 1992 that, together with Mortal Kombat, formed a major part of a US Senate investigation into violent video games. Beyond watching cheesy cutscenes, I think the actual gameplay revolves around surveilling the house and triggering traps from a control room.

If you want to see better acting in a video game, play as Rutger Hauer in the cyber-horror Observer.

Otherwise, in my household the slam-dunk release this week is Minecraft Story Mode Season 2: Episode 2. Sure, it’s gaming comfort food, but the kids dig it and these episodic games keep you on the hook like that.

This week:

PC

  • 80.08
  • >observer_
  • 2D Mahjong Temple
  • 3D Hardcore Cube pushed to next week
  • Achievement Hunter: Darkness
  • Achievement Hunter: Pharaoh pushed to next week
  • Adventures of the Worm
  • Agents of Mayhem
  • aMAZE Dark Times
  • ArkanoidSmoking
  • Avoid The Monsters
  • Battlefleet Engineer
  • Behind The Door
  • Blue Angels Aerobatic Flight Simulator
  • BootyBuns & 21
  • Brain Crush
  • Brave
  • Call Me Skyfish
  • CastleMiner Warfare
  • Connected Hearts
  • Crafting Dead
  • CrownFall
  • Daath Origins
  • Dark and Bright pushed two weeks out
  • Dark Eden Origin
  • Dark Mystery
  • Defenders of Ekron
  • Denky Gaka's Bombshell
  • Direct
  • dontbegrey
  • Dungeons of Betrayal Pushed to September
  • Eliosi's Hunt
  • Fairy Lands: Rinka and the Fairy Gems pushed to next week
  • FlatFatCat
  • Forgotten Land
  • Formula E: Grand Prix
  • Fortune's Tavern: Remastered
  • Great eSports Manager
  • Head Goal
  • Helium Rain
  • Hold the Line: The American Revolution
  • Interstellar Transport Company
  • Katharsis
  • Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth
  • Kitchen Simulator 2
  • Klondike Solitaire Kings
  • Kukui
  • Lupinball
  • Magic Pixel Picross
  • Mercury: Cascade into Madness
  • Moero Chronicle
  • MonsterS in haha Island
  • Nidhogg 2
  • Night Trap: 25th Anniversary Edition
  • Original Journey
  • Outracer
  • Pain Train PainPocalypse
  • Pinball Wicked pushed two weeks out
  • Pirate Jump 2
  • Promethium
  • Questr
  • Radical Spectrum: Volume 2
  • Raid On Coasts
  • Road Dogs pushed two weeks out
  • Ruin City Gasolina
  • Singularity Roller
  • Sonic Mania pushed two weeks out
  • SOULS
  • Space Scumbags
  • Starcraft Remastered
  • StellarHub
  • Strangers of the Power
  • The Chronicles of Dragon Wing: Reborn
  • The Exorcist
  • Tower And Guardian
  • Trivia Vault: Science & History Trivia
  • Trivia Vault: Super Heroes Trivia
  • Twisted S
  • UKR
  • Voxelaxy
  • War Tech Fighters
  • Youtubers Clicker

PS4

  • Agents of Mayhem
  • Cities: Skylines - PlayStation 4 Edition
  • Matterfall
  • Minecraft Story Mode Season 2: Episode 2
  • Nidhogg 2
  • Night Trap: 25th Anniversary Edition
  • Observer
  • Rogue Stormers
  • Sonic Mania
  • Sudden Strike 4
  • The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing 2
  • Undertale
  • Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma

Xbox One

  • Agents of Mayhem
  • Conan Exiles
  • Minecraft Story Mode Season 2: Episode 2
  • Observer
  • Rogue Stormers
  • Sonic Mania
  • Thumper

Switch

  • Sonic Mania
  • Troll and I

Vita

  • Undertale

RIFT

  • Miniature TD
  • The SoulKeeper VR
  • Treasure Hunt VR
  • Ungrounded: Ripple Unleashed VR

Vive

  • ChainMan
  • FormulaVR
  • Insanity VR: Last Score
  • Mini Hockey VR
  • Miniature TD
  • The SoulKeeper VR
  • Treasure Hunt VR
  • Ungrounded: Ripple Unleashed VR
  • ZomDay

Comments

Current PC game list count: 72

It looks more like a weekly Play Store listing than PC anymore, probably because half of those games are mobile ports anyway.

garion333 wrote:

Current PC game list count: 72

It was 88 last week.

As for this week, I might actually buy a new 2017 game, which I haven't done since February. StellarHub looked very promising in beta Let's Play videos, so I'll likely pull the trigger on it unless reviews contain red flags.

So reviews for Sonic Mania are rolling out, and not only does it not suck, but it's actually good.

Those of us on PC have to wait an extra two weeks (FU Sega), but this may be the first Sonic game I've played since Sonic 2.

Feels like Agents of Mayhem is going to bomb.

Deep Silver can't be doing well after Homefront: The Revolution and Mighty No. 9 sold poorly. I wonder how much they have riding on Agents of Mayhem, Metro Exodus and Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

Pretty cool that Sonic fans are actually getting a decent game with Mania and that SEGA let modders take a crack at the franchise.

The first Nidhogg was a lot of fun locally but I'm not really feeling the new art style in 2.

BNice wrote:

Feels like Agents of Mayhem is going to bomb.

Deep Silver can't be doing well after Homefront: The Revolution and Mighty No. 9 sold poorly. I wonder how much they have riding on Agents of Mayhem, Metro Exodus and Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

Pretty cool that Sonic fans are actually getting a decent game with Mania and that SEGA let modders take a crack at the franchise.

The first Nidhogg was a lot of fun locally but I'm not really feeling the new art style in 2.

Well, I preordered it, so that virtually guarantees the whole company is going to go under.

Still looking forward to it.

The game, not the bankruptcy.

What joy must this hedgehog feel as he speeds and ricochets through his environment. We should all be so lucky.

I haven't really kept up with the coverage of Agents of Mayhem and really just expected a lightly-reskinned Saints Row, but oh man is it so much weirder and cooler than that. Crackdown meets Overwatch with over the top 90's cartoon animated sequences and loot dungeons? More of this, please.

garion333 wrote:

Current PC game list count: 72

It looks more like a weekly Play Store listing than PC anymore, probably because half of those games are mobile ports anyway.

Not even that. A large number of them are non-games made from store-bought assets that the 'developers' only put up in order to make money from that 3% or whatever markup they get from trading cards. Those "achievement hunter" games are a good current example. They are bare bones (like, REALLY bare bones) plat former templates filled with tens of thousands of generic achievements that fire off constantly while the 'game' is running.

Honestly, the steam store is an absolute mess on par with apples App Store right now.

pyxistyx wrote:
garion333 wrote:

Current PC game list count: 72

It looks more like a weekly Play Store listing than PC anymore, probably because half of those games are mobile ports anyway.

Not even that. A large number of them are non-games made from store-bought assets that the 'developers' only put up in order to make money from that 3% or whatever markup they get from trading cards. Those "achievement hunter" games are a good current example. They are bare bones (like, REALLY bare bones) plat former templates filled with tens of thousands of generic achievements that fire off constantly while the 'game' is running.

Honestly, the steam store is an absolute mess on par with apples App Store right now.

I was actually coming back to post basically exactly this. DT's comment last week kinda stuck in my craw.

doubtingthomas396 wrote:

As the person who volunteered to vet the list every week, I fail to see a problem. I love that pretty much anyone who wants to publish a game can do it. Sure, there's a lot of junk, but as I have said many times before: everything has at least one person who loves it. If the price of more people loving things is a cluttered front page on steam, I'm cool with that.

Put another way, if the choice is between more bad art and fewer people making art, I'll go with more bad art.

Yeah, a bunch of this isn't art by any stretch of the imagination, it's people trying to make a quick buck with absolute trash. Those achievement games have thousands of achievements titled things like A, B, C, D, etc.

What's the point of these achievement spam games? Someone makes money. That much is obvious. The user gets to inflate their Steam profile numbers. Yes, they get to look cooler with having completed thousands and thousands of achievements to go with their perfect games and completion percentage. This isn't about art, it's about your Steam profile looking cool. Oh, and trading cards. To sell. Or trade.

And that's lame. Stupid lame. Can't wait for the fad to end.

Fair enough. Games exist at the intersection of art and commerce. I'm good with more of both, because what other people buy, just like what other people like about art, doesn't affect me.

If someone wants to sell an achievement inflators, and someone else wants to buy it, then everyone walks away from the transaction happy, and it's no skin off my nose if I'm uninterested in achievement inflators. The worst hurt I can claim is that I have to verify whether 78 achievement inflators are actually coming out on the day that Releases.com says they are, which isn't much hurt.

You can't even argue that these pure-commerce games are a rip-off, because Steam lets you return stuff. If you buy an achievement booster and don't like it, you don't have to live with it.

So, like last week, I fail to see a problem. More people creating more things is a net positive, whether they're creating art or commerce. It's all good.

I prefer Steam to not have a gate keeper. Steam seems pretty good about learning my preferences and keeping a lot of the junk away from my view but for people who do want to play those games and value them, they are available.

I don't need Valve to tell me what to play, just like I don't need Amazon to tell me what to read or Google to tell me what to listen to. I've never had a problem discovering art/media I would enjoy in other mediums and it's no different for video games.

For every asset reuse game there is a Stardew Valley and I'd rather consumers and developers to be able to use the store rather than someone at Valve telling those people to take a hike.

I just ignore the GWJ PC list and look whats coming out on the consoles and notable games mentioned in the comment section. The PC list is just too cluttered so I don't even bother to try to dig through it.

Demyx wrote:

It's like the old Saturday morning cartoons! Only... more active.
Why do I have to wait until Thursday to get my copy? Why am I being punished for buying the collector's edition?