May 30 – June 5

Section: 

As a professed lover of the western genre of movies, I cannot help but give a long look at Tumbleweed Express. You’re trying to resurrect the defunct rail lines and bring a little competition to a market dominated by dirigibles.

Of course, the dominant air shipping magnate isn’t going to just roll over and let some upstart upset their applecart, and the only obvious solution is to bribe the government to pass regulations that make it difficult to run a rail service.

Ha ha, no. This is a video game, so the obvious solution is to deploy armed zeppelins to blow up your train and prevent it from making deliveries. Naturally, you go right to the authorities about this assault on your business.

Ha! Got you again! No, you have to build a rolling fortress to destroy the zeppelins before they can destroy you. Build, upgrade and take the helm of your gatling-gun caboose to shoot down enemies and get your cargo through.The result is a delicious cross between Flight of the Icarus and Train Simulator.

It’s bound to give whole new meaning to the term “Rail Shooter.”

Yep.

Felix “I just need to go to the bathroom” Threepaper

When the week ahead is also the last week of your thirties, maybe you appreciate the shorter games a little bit more.

Hitman’s “one level at a time” release schedule will work as long as they keep releasing levels worth savouring. The first full level, Sapienza, was a good start -- the setting for an assassin’s groundhog day, packed with secrets to discover each time you play. Then you make that perfect run, where you hide in the [*spoiler*] and escape in the rear half of a [*spoiler*]. Hitman Episode 3: Marrakesh is my pick of the week.

If they’re doing movies based on board games now, why not one about chess? Apparently the script languishes in rewrite hell while all the main characters conduct a bidding war over their appearance fees. Meanwhile, the Knights have done a little indie side-project: KNIGHTS, a puzzle game based on their wacky L-shaped movement shenanigans.

It seems everything from 1984 is destined to be remade. This week it’s Dope Game, a drug dealing sim remake of 1984 DOS classic Drugwars. Check this out if the economy was your favourite aspect of GTA: Chinatown Wars.

Is minigolf, like motor racing, a sport that is much more fun to play (in a videogame) when there’s violence involved? Dangerous Golf poses this question and, when its developers include people who used to work on Burnout games, I think I may like the answer.

Chris "C" Cesarano

I am of two minds when there's no big obvious Triple-A release to choose from. One is of exasperation as I gaze at the list of indies that I must now find trailers for on YouTube. The other is of excitement at discovering something new. Even if I will never play a good chunk of these games, be it a result of time or of personal disinterest, there's always something there worth knowing about.

Unfortunately, if I were to highlight every little thing that I think would be of interest to the community, I'd have more words than my usual front-page article. So instead, I'll highlight what grabbed my attention, specifically.

Kick & Fennick on the WiiU looks to have taken inspiration from Portal's puzzles and applied that to a side-scrolling platformer. This might be the first time a puzzle-platformer has truly made me sit up in attention like this. Anima: Gate of Memories is an action-RPG for the PC, PS4 and Xbox One and is evidently a part of a multimedia game franchise in Spain. Originating as a tabletop role-playing game, it expanded to miniatures and a card game before releasing a video game on the original Wii. This follow-up game looks to hit all my favorite action-oriented buttons.

If I have to pick, however, it'll be Ara Fell on PC. There've been a lot of games with retro graphics and gameplay influence, but Ara Fell looks like it'd be right at home stuffed into a Super Nintendo cartridge and lined up next to Secret of Mana, Illusion of Gaia, Breath of Fire and many other RPG's of the era. It is on the wishlist, and by God I swear I will find some way to play it this year.

Colleen “Momgamer” Hannon

I was also looking at Kick and Fennick, but since Chris got there first I think I’m going to have to put in a good word for The Battle for Sector 219. A digital version of a physical card game by the same name published by Your Move Games, following up their success with the The Battle for Sector 218. The game has a fairly simple mechanic, but if you want to push for it there’s some depth there. If it’s got as much polish as the iOS version, this will be a fun, quick, 2-player experience particularly suited for giving new players a starting point.

This week:

PC

  • A Game of Changes
  • A Healer Only Lives Twice
  • Angus Hates Aliens
  • Anima: Gate of Memories
  • Ara Fell
  • Coffee Pot Terrarium
  • Dangerous Golf
  • Dead Island: Definitive Collection
  • Dead Island: Riptide - Definitive Edition
  • Demetrios - The BIG Cynical Adventure
  • Grim Legends 3: The Dark City
  • Hard Reset Redux
  • Hashtag Dungeon
  • Hitman - Episode 3: Marrakesh
  • Investigator
  • KNIGHTS
  • Magma Tsunami
  • PataNoir
  • Planar Conquest
  • Projector Face
  • Rescue Lucy
  • Sacred Line Genesis Remix
  • Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus
  • Smoots World Cup Tennis
  • Solitairica
  • Swift
  • The Battle for Sector 219
  • The Concourse
  • The Dope Game
  • The Elder Scrolls Online: Dark Brotherhood
  • The NADI Project
  • The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Blood and Wine
  • Torgar's Quest
  • Tower 3D
  • Tumbleweed Express
  • TurnOn
  • UnderWater Adventure
  • Wander No More

PS4

  • Anima: Gate of Memories
  • Art of Balance
  • Carmageddon: Max Damage
  • Dangerous Golf
  • Daydreamer: Awakened Edition
  • Dead Island: Definitive Collection
  • Dead Island: Riptide - Definitive Edition
  • Hard Reset: Redux
  • Hitman - Episode 3: Marrakesh
  • Kick and Fennick
  • Neon Chrome
  • One Piece: Burning Blood
  • Oxenfree
  • Plague Inc: Evolved
  • Score Rush Extended
  • Smite
  • The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Blood and Wine
  • There Came an Echo

Xbox One

  • Anima: Gate of Memories
  • Among the Sleep
  • Carmageddon: Max Damage
  • Dangerous Golf
  • Daydreamer: Awakened Edition
  • Dead Island: Definitive Collection
  • Dead Island: Riptide - Definitive Edition
  • Elite Dangerous: Horizons
  • Hard Reset: Redux
  • Hitman - Episode 3: Marrakesh
  • Kick and Fennick
  • One Piece: Burning Blood
  • The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Blood and Wine
  • TurnOn

Wii U

  • Kick and Fennick

Vita

  • One Piece: Burning Blood

RIFT

  • Rexodus: A VR Story Experience

Vive

  • Pool Nation VR
  • Rexodus: A VR Story Experience
  • VR Regatta
  • Waltz of the Wizard

Comments

Kick and Fennick was a good game, I played it last year, I think, on the Vita.

This week is a lot of things I might have purchased if I wasn't trying really hard to save money. With trying to save money however, I might get Oxenfree for PS4.

kazriko wrote:

Kick and Fennick was a good game, I played it last year, I think, on the Vita.

I was pleasantly surprised by how good this game was on the Vita. I'm also surprised that it is just coming out on all of these other consoles, including PS4.

Kick & Fennick, eh? I swear that was...ah, yes, there porting a Vita game to everything else now. Honestly, it always looked like something that would have a better home on a Nintendo console.

No one mentioned the new Witcher 3 expansion? Wow.

Neon Chrome for me. From the makers of Crimsonland comes another action twin stick shooter. Yes, please.

walterqchocobo wrote:

I'm also surprised that it is just coming out on all of these other consoles, including PS4.

Gah! Somehow I missed it in the list of other games. I think because Nintendo's YouTube channel had a trailer, but not Playstation's. D'oh!

garion333 wrote:

No one mentioned the new Witcher 3 expansion? Wow.

I tend to write my portion figuring someone else will mention Big Popular Western RPG and it turns out I'm frequently wrong in that assumption. However, I had to leave out three or five other games I felt were worth mentioning as well, so...

It's a good week.

I played 65 hours of the witcher 3 base game and never got close to completing it. NOW I have two massive expansion DLC packs to also play through along with the prospect of starting over from scratch because it's been so long since I last touched it I can't even remember half of what I was doing.

Good job I've got a long summer break ahead of me!

garion333 wrote:

No one mentioned the new Witcher 3 expansion? Wow.

My personal rule is that expansions/DLC are ineligible for GOTW votes.

As for not mentioning it at all, I figured Witcher fans would know about it already, non-Witcher fans wouldn't care, and meanwhile I could mention something that may have less PR oxygen. I can see why it would appear arbitrary and subjective -- because it is!

Btw, the image this week is something special.

garion333 wrote:

Btw, the image this week is something special.

The kobolds worked extra hard on that one. Yes, our art team is a pack of kobolds.

Unless this was Greg. Either way, great jorb, team!

Kobold? Please! I, sir, am a troll. (Incidentally, this is why I don't do video podcasts)

Fortunately, my silicate brain is incapable of feeling slight, but I do appreciate your compliments.