August 19 – August 25

Section: 

If there was any question in your mind what this week's Game of the Week was going to be then you clearly haven't been following my Twitter feed. Frankly, I'm hurt, but that's beside the point.

I've been enjoying Saints Row IV for the better part of a week now, and within an hour of playing I already knew I loved it. I was a big fan of Saints Row III to begin with, but given everything that went down with Volition and THQ over the past couple of years, along with the fact that much of this content had originally been intended as DLC for SRIII, I had been a little worried that IV would be the first step into decline for the series. I am happy to report that my fears were completely unfounded. Saints Row IV is more fun in almost every way than its predecessor.

But if goofy fun in a grand, open world isn't your kind of thing, this week also offers The Bureau: XCOM Declassified. This troubled XCOM game that has been completely over-shadowed by the Firaxis reboot last year — and, frankly, which I never thought would see the light of day — hits this week. More recent trailers for the game finally make it seem like it's found its niche in the franchise, but I can't shake this bad feeling that it's not all going to pull together the way I would hope.

Splinter Cell: Blacklist, on the other hand, seems to be getting some decent pre-release buzz, and early reviews have been generally positive. It rounds out another surprisingly busy August release list.

PC
- Divekick (download)
- Hate Plus (download)
- Race the Sun (download)
- Saints Row IV
- Skullgirls (download)
- The Bureau: XCOM Declassified
- Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Blacklist

Xbox 360
- Flashback (XBLA)
- Saints Row IV
- The Bureau: XCOM Declassified
- Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Blacklist

PS3
- Divekick (PSN)
- Kessen III (PS2 Classics)
- Ms. Germinator (PSN)
- Naval Ops: Commander (PS2 Classics)
- Saints Row IV
- The Bureau: XCOM Declassified
- Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Blacklist

Wii U
- Street Fighter 2: The World Warrior (eShop)
- Street Fighter 2 Turbo: Hyper Fighting (eShop)
- Super Street Fighter 2: The New Challengers (eShop)
- Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Blacklist

Vita
- Divekick (PSN - $10)
- Ms. Germinator (PSN)
- The Walking Dead

Comments

This is the first big week of the big fall video game season, and even though I'm ignoring the big titles there's still plenty to be excited about. Divekick has been on my radar for a long time and will be purchased at first opportunity. I've already been playing the Skullgirls beta on PC, and as someone who missed it on consoles entirely, I'm sorry it took this long to come around. Finally, I've been ready for Hate Plus since the day I finished Analogue back in 2011.

I'm actually buying the Walking Dead, after so much time of saying that I didn't think I would enjoy it... Ah well, I hope I was wrong about it.

Saints Row 4 is tempting, but I've never played any other game in the series. I have SR2 and SR3 on PS+, so I should go try one of those before spending money on a new franchise.

Saints Row IV for me. Bring on the insanity!

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified and Flashback appeal to me. Will definitely get them somewhere down the line.

BNice wrote:

Saints Row IV for me. Bring on the insanity!

Ditto. Preloaded and ready to go. I'm taking a couple days off work to revel in it.

Divekick!!!!!

So relieved to find that GWJ are apparantly having every bit as much fun with SRIV as I did with SRIII. Despite it being generally very positively recieved, I've heard quite a bit of disconcerting tattle about this one within the gaming community and was beginning to get a little anxious if they somehow managed to mess up the concept afterall. Ferociously hoping I was wrong.

BNice wrote:

Saints Row IV for me. Bring on the insanity!

Pre-ordered but I still need to finish SR3 first

Diving into Plants vs Zombies 2 and finishing Pikmin 3 for me this week instead!

Bought Xcom and Splinter Cell. Surprisingly found myself putting off Saints Row. I never finished SR3 so I don't feel any particular hurry to start SR4.

Might pick up Hate Plus this week; otherwise nothing for me at the moment. This week's big gaming news'll for me will be the PS4 announcements from Gamescom in a couple of hours.

Yep, Skullgirls and DIVEKICK are out this week. Pretty much nothing else is getting played

Hate Plus is going on my 'later' list, but SR4 is arriving on launch day, Friday here sadly.

especially sad because Wednesday and Thursday are my weekend.

Tempted by both SR4 and SC:B. SR4 sounds like a lot of fun but I'm really keen to check out the SC Mercs vs. Spies MP modes. Some of favorite gaming memories were from old Mercs vs. Spies games. Alas, the GWJ Xbox 360 community seems rather slim on that front.

Tripmo wrote:

So relieved to find that GWJ are apparantly having every bit as much fun with SRIV as I did with SRIII. Despite it being generally very positively recieved, I've heard quite a bit of disconcerting tattle about this one within the gaming community and was beginning to get a little anxious if they somehow managed to mess up the concept afterall. Ferociously hoping I was wrong.

Well, it did have a rough dev cycle and people clearly don't like fun anymore.

Woah, did not realize that The Bureau was out this week. Noticed the increase in marketing push, but never internalized the date.

My wife is looking forward to our copy of Disney Infinity showing up tomorrow.

Maybe I should finally move SR3 to the top of the pile.

SR3 is pre-ordered on Steam, but The Wonderful 101 (Wii U) is out over here on Friday, so there's gonna be a fight for my gaming time.

I got back into the ridiculous craziness of Just Cause 2, but was beginning to hit that wall like on my first playthrough where everything just seemed like more of the same so I pulled the trigger on SR4 for hopefully more of the insanity.