September 2 – September 8

Section: 

Ok, I know what you're thinking. You're looking at the picture of a Diablo III box, and you're thinking, "huh, that's weird. Some idiot must've forgotten Total War: Rome II is out this week. Ha, what a faux pas."

But, no. It's not that. It's that I chose Diablo III's release on consoles over Rome II.

I promise, I did not do it just to be controversial. I honestly sat here thinking it over, and was forced to come to the conclusion that, while I'm open to being surprised by Rome II, the Total War games do for me basically what Madden does. It keeps me vaguely entertained for a few hours until I realize I'm playing basically the same game I've played a half dozen times before, and that's never really managed to grab me. The truth is I always feel like I should be having more fun playing a Total War game than I'm actually having.

Meanwhile, there's Diablo III, which I still think is an outstanding game that's been burdened more criticism than it deserves. Don't get me wrong, with some umpteen million in sales, I'm not saying anyone should feel bad for Blizzard; they made out like bandits in this deal. But, even having played some ridiculous number of hours of Diablo III on the PC, I'm still excited to pick up the console version, which includes local multiplayer, offline play, rebalanced loot drops and no auction house. I'm sure there will come a day when I've finally had enough of Diablo 3's particular brand of frantic dungeon delving and loot porn, but what do we say to that sentiment? Not today.

However, if you're a PS3-only console household, forget all of that, and pick up this week's release of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons from PSN. Brothers is an absolutely stellar gaming and narrative experience, and an immediate contender as among the absolutely best games of 2013.

PC
- Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse HD (download)
- Cosmic Predator (download)
- MirrorMoon EP (download)
- Outlast (download)
- Rayman Legends
- Total War: Rome II

Xbox 360
- Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse HD (XBLA)
- Dead Or Alive 5 Ultimate
- Diablo III
- Freefall Racers (XBLA)
- Rayman Legends

PS3
- Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (PSN)
- Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse HD (XBLA)
- Dead Or Alive 5 Ultimate
- Diablo III
- KickBeat (PSN)
- One Piece: Pirate Warriors 2 (PSN)
- Rayman Legends

Wii U
- Rayman Legends

Vita
- KickBeat (PSN)
- Rayman Legends

Comments

Unless something changed, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is also coming out on PC.

Hm... Brothers...

Oh no! Outlast is this week? This means I'll have to actually play it!

And Machine for Pigs is next week!

I'm going to need a bigger boat underwear drawer...

Too many games. I'm not sure I'll be able to keep up.

Games I want this week:

Diablo 3, Rayman Legends, Kickbeat, Brothers, and there's rumors that Atelier Meruru Plus will be out this week as well.

I think Diablo 3 might not get purchased right away though. Unless they announce a cheap PS4 upgrade option for it.

Elysium wrote:

It keeps me vaguely entertained for a few hours until I realize I'm playing basically the same game I've played a half dozen times before

Couldn't the very same thing be said about Diablo? Though I get that Diablo did, indeed, grab you.

Ya know I was there for D3 launch on PC, and while all the Battle.net problems did prevent my wife and I from enjoying the game at launch, several months later we came back and LOVED it. I'm hopefull that the console release will introduce a whole new crop of kids to a game genre done right that no console game to date has done right. Thanks for nothing Too Human.

I'm sure that barring mouselessness, this will be the superior edition of Doom III. Which means that even in this state, I'm done with Diablo.

this will be the superior edition of Doom III.

Well that certainly jumped out from an unexpected location.

garion333 wrote:

Unless something changed, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is also coming out on PC.

Can't wait to play this on Steam - the Xbox demo was already gorgeous, I can only imagine it will look even better.

It says something about our community here that it's controversial to pick the major console release over the niche PC strategy game for Game of the Week.

Tetnis wrote:

I'm hopefull that the console release will introduce a whole new crop of kids to a game genre done right that no console game to date has done right. Thanks for nothing Too Human.

I'm trying to think about what Diablo does so special aside from knowing just what kind of carrot to dangle in front of a player to keep them chasing forward on the same damn circular path going nowhere for hours on end. As one of five people that actually enjoyed Too Human, I feel like its failures were more in horrible dialog and a terrible and slow UI, while everything else was a lot of fun. Instead of mashing a button you got to sprint and flow around the arena mashing stuff apart with a few nifty abilities to use under proper situations.

Sounds a Hell of a lot more fun than any time I've watched or listened to someone playing a Diablo game, which can be summed up as "Click-click-click....click....click-click-click-click-click".

Besides, it seems to me if loot is the big thing Diablo does well, and considering that's primarily what people seem to discuss whenever I hear them bring the game up, well, Borderlands already did that in spades.

It seems the only positive thing the console edition does right is ditch Battle.net and let people play the game as they want: offline single player or couch-co-op Gauntlet-style brawler.

Maybe I should just chalk this up to "I never understood what made Blizzard so special and still hold a grudge for them buying Swingin' Ape Studios and never putting out Starcraft: Ghost".

garion333 wrote:

Unless something changed, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is also coming out on PC.

Ooooo interesting.

I hope Castle of Illusion is good.

Nothing can beat Rayman: Legends for me this week. Rayman: Origins was one of the best platforming experiences I've ever had — and I never even finished the game. I and my six year-old daughter have been impatiently waiting for R:L. If it's half as good as R:O, I'll be thrilled.

Castle of Illusion is already pre-ordered, so my other two picks would be Rayman Legends and Diablo III.

lostlobster wrote:

Nothing can beat Rayman: Legends for me this week. Rayman: Origins was one of the best platforming experiences I've ever had — and I never even finished the game. I and my six year-old daughter have been impatiently waiting for R:L. If it's half as good as R:O, I'll be thrilled.

Agreed--I picked up Rayman Origins during the recent PSN sale and am loving it. My three year old isn't a great co-op partner yet but he loves watching that game.

I'm also a little curious about this Brothers game that Sean mentions above. Other than seeing the article that he wrote a couple weeks back, I have never heard of this game.

ccesarano wrote:
Tetnis wrote:

I'm hopefull that the console release will introduce a whole new crop of kids to a game genre done right that no console game to date has done right. Thanks for nothing Too Human.

I'm trying to think about what Diablo does so special aside from knowing just what kind of carrot to dangle in front of a player to keep them chasing forward on the same damn circular path going nowhere for hours on end.

Elysium really likes carrots.

wordsmythe wrote:
ccesarano wrote:
Tetnis wrote:

I'm hopefull that the console release will introduce a whole new crop of kids to a game genre done right that no console game to date has done right. Thanks for nothing Too Human.

I'm trying to think about what Diablo does so special aside from knowing just what kind of carrot to dangle in front of a player to keep them chasing forward on the same damn circular path going nowhere for hours on end.

Elysium really likes carrots.

Meanwhile, I had no problem dropping 10 hours into Torchlight 2 over the weekend, and loving how much it felt like a super polished Diablo 2 successor, and scratched issues I haven't felt since college when I was playing actively playing D2.

wordsmythe wrote:
this will be the superior edition of Doom III.

Well that certainly jumped out from an unexpected location.

Oh dear, I shouldn't type after midnight anymore. Oh, for my twenties again!

Castle of Illusion is simply great! It's a better HD remake than DuckTales. I literally giggled at various parts of the first set of stages before having to quit for lack of time. I simply love the current wave of oldies making the HD rounds!

Got on Xbox Live last night, had 16 friends on, and zero of them were playing Diablo III. This seems like an oddly low-priority release considering how hugely hyped the PC version was (and how hyped Blizzard stuff in general is). Really shocked there hasn't been this huge advertising campaign to push that game to the forefront of people's gaming consciousness, it just feels like a Blizzardy thing to do.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

Really shocked there hasn't been this huge advertising campaign to push that game to the forefront of people's gaming consciousness, it just feels like a Blizzardy thing to do.

It feels like just about every video I've sat down to watch over the last month has had the sexually-charged "playing Diablo III on console is like having a foursome" commercial as a pre-roll.

McIrishJihad wrote:
wordsmythe wrote:
ccesarano wrote:
Tetnis wrote:

I'm hopefull that the console release will introduce a whole new crop of kids to a game genre done right that no console game to date has done right. Thanks for nothing Too Human.

I'm trying to think about what Diablo does so special aside from knowing just what kind of carrot to dangle in front of a player to keep them chasing forward on the same damn circular path going nowhere for hours on end.

Elysium really likes carrots.

Meanwhile, I had no problem dropping 10 hours into Torchlight 2 over the weekend, and loving how much it felt like a super polished Diablo 2 successor, and scratched issues I haven't felt since college when I was playing actively playing D2.

I think it has the same issue Final Fantasy has. To me it's more about which you played first that makes it your fav. Diablo will always be my go-to dungeon crawl expierience.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

Got on Xbox Live last night, had 16 friends on, and zero of them were playing Diablo III. This seems like an oddly low-priority release considering how hugely hyped the PC version was (and how hyped Blizzard stuff in general is). Really shocked there hasn't been this huge advertising campaign to push that game to the forefront of people's gaming consciousness, it just feels like a Blizzardy thing to do.

Are most of your Live friends from GWJ? If so, they probably played or passed on Diablo III already on PC.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

Got on Xbox Live last night, had 16 friends on...

Friends was bad enough when there were only 6 of them,

Started on "Outlast". It'll probably take me a while to formulate any feedback as I can only play these sorts of games in 15 min increments

Initial impressions are good though.

*time to "first leap back out of chair garbling startled nonsense": about 20min.

Blimey I don't know why I keep doing this to myself - as if I'm not stressed out in life enough already

McIrishJihad wrote:
MilkmanDanimal wrote:

Really shocked there hasn't been this huge advertising campaign to push that game to the forefront of people's gaming consciousness, it just feels like a Blizzardy thing to do.

It feels like just about every video I've sat down to watch over the last month has had the sexually-charged "playing Diablo III on console is like having a foursome" commercial as a pre-roll.

Huh. Haven't seen it.

I brought it up on Twitter before, but the combination of the sex-joke plus the "Grab your friends and GO TO HELL" pun, when compared to the PC ad that was rolling on the same sites, seems a bit... I dunno. The PC ad is all "Look at how serious and epic this game is!" while the console ad is "Ha! Ha! Foursome, get it? Ha! Go to Hell! Get it? Sex and vulgarity!"

Granted, I'd say the latter ad is more honest to the actual approach of playing the game, but it's still a bit jarring how they'd choose to advertise the same game so differently to what should essentially be similar markets.

garion333 wrote:

Unless something changed, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is also coming out on PC.

Silly Goodjer. Nobody plays indies on a PC anymore. That's why we need a PS4.

Jayhawker wrote:
garion333 wrote:

Unless something changed, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is also coming out on PC.

Silly Goodjer. Nobody plays indies on a PC anymore. That's why we need a PS4.

:-)

The 360 version did neat stuff with using one thumbstick per brother. I don't know how that'll port to PC.

wordsmythe wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:
garion333 wrote:

Unless something changed, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is also coming out on PC.

Silly Goodjer. Nobody plays indies on a PC anymore. That's why we need a PS4.

:-)

The 360 version did neat stuff with using one thumbstick per brother. I don't know how that'll port to PC.

Steam store page[/url]]Notice: Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons requires a controller to play