Greg “DoubtingThomas396” Decker
This week has a lot going for it, even if you’re not eager to go hunting for sailors or wear a luchador mask. Before I get to my list, I do want to give honorable mention to Castle of Venia for its title alone. Make sure you pick this one up before the cease and desist order! Now, on to my top five and pick of the week.
Little Dragon’s Cafe is a game by Yasuhiro Wada, creator of the Harvest Moon games, which should really tell you everything you need to know about whether you’re going to buy it or not. You play as a twin brother and sister trying to manage a diner while raising a pet dragon.
Lucah: Born of a Dream is a game about fighting your inner demons in the most literal way possible. Lucah’s nightmares are being made flesh, and he has to make it stop. I picked this one mainly for the art style, which reminds me of a grimdark reimagining of Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings.
Socketeer is an adorable game about suborning enemy robots and blowing them out into the hard vacuum of space. It’s a roguelike, or is it a rogue-lite? Seriously, I’m asking. Maybe it’s time for another definitional podcast … .
Ghosting Gun S appears to have the gameplay that I wanted Cuphead to have, in that it’s basically Contra with a new skin and added melee attacks. The best part is that it’s a modern, side-scrolling, platform-shooter that doesn’t force you to use the right analog stick to aim.
Strive for Infinity is for those of you who can’t get enough Everspace. The developers claim to have combined RPG and Roguelikes into a space shooter, though I’m not quite sure what that looks like. There’s also a story about alien technology, but who cares?. All I know is it looks like a great new reason to dust off my flight stick.
Pizza Titan Ultra is my game of the week, and when I tell you the premise, the reason will be obvious. You play as a ten-story mech that must smash its way through a city and fight off enemy tanks on your mission … to deliver pizza. If that doesn’t sell you, check out this trailer. Then go preorder it, because it looks glorious!
Felix “Try the flamed eggs” Threepaper
The Shenmue games are ill-fated classics from the ill-fated Dreamcast – games from console gaming’s mythic past, before the current set of gods ruled us all. The fan-favourite playable arcade games are back. To tide folks over before Shenmue 3 comes next year, they’re re-issuing Shenmues 1 and 2. Beyond graphical updates, the updated features include a “save-anywhere” function, use of analogue sticks/mouse and keyboard rather than D-pads, and as-yet unspecified improvements to UI. While I appreciate the chance to play 2 classic games, I’m wary of legacy open-world gameplay jank. Beowulf is a classic, but language has come a long way since then. To put it another way, GTA 3 came out in 2001 – would you play that now?
Guacamelee! 2 offers more of what people liked about Guacamelee! – more moves, more map, more bosses, more upgrades AND they’ve really plumped out the “chicken form” bits from a novelty nugget to a 24-piece bucket.
Fall of Light: Darkest Edition looks like the Diablo clone that the PS3 needed at launch. Buyer beware.
I’m going to vote for Little Dragon’s Cafe this week, for the soothing experience of running a cafe and raising a dragon. This one’s a pure pedigree vote – when your CV includes Harvest Moon and Deadly Premonition, I’m auto-interested in your next game.
Colleen “momgamer” Hannon
Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor - Martyr hit PCs back in June, but I’ve been waiting on tenterhooks for it to hit the consoles. The Vanillamarine installments of the game that have come before showed the control schemes worked out much better on the console for me. (Yes, I do usually refer to them by that name and their holier-than-thou Primarch can suck Ragnar Blackmane’s left big toe.)
But above even those conflicts rises the Inquisition, answerable only to the Emperor and dedicated to protecting mankind from the scourge of Chaos with every ruthless wile they can bring to bear. Your character takes it upon itself to cleanse a deeply Chaos-tainted sector. You bear the Inquisitorial Rosette and all its power, but there’s no flag waving here. You are going into the dark of Hell’s thorny gullet and tearing it’s denizens apart.
This is interesting to me from a lore standpoint as well as a game. The Inquisition generally doesn’t take center stage; they’re covert operatives. While it looks like our protagonist in the opening video is part of the heavily martial Ordo Malleus, you can build several types of operatives so you can play it a little different than the “hulk smash” approach from the other Chapters if you want. Don’t think you’ve been there and done that even if you’ve got 10,000 points of units laid out on the felts, either. The area you’re playing in is not from the standard lore -- it was designed just for this game.
In honor of this different approach to what can be a very formulaic offering -- and the way it’s letting me fly the Warhammer geek-flag that high without having to peel primer out from under my nails for a week -- I’m giving my GOTW to Martyr.
Here's the list, now in release-date order!
PC
-
08-20
- Astonia Reborn
- Battle royale simulator
- Brick Breaker with Risa
- Citrouille
- Double Stretch
- Factory pirates
- Free Throw
- Gumstein: The Awakening
- HecatoncheirStory
- Hentai IQ Puzzle
- Inevitable VR
- Journalism class
- Lauren's visit
- Lily's Night Off
- Need a packet?
- Olorun: Theocracy
- Pixel Draw
- Strike Cars
- Supaplex SQUARES
- Swords with spice
- Tempo Wizard
- Test your knowledge: Cats
- The Misfits
- Touhou Luna Nights
- Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[st]
- Waifu Master
-
08-21
- Age of Gladiators II: Rome
- Algae
- BrutalAliens
- DCR: Drive.Crash.Repeat
- Der Milchbauer
- Guacamelee! 2
- Laggerjack
- Leisure Town
- Lessons learned
- Lucah: Born of a Dream
- Misfit
- My Holiday
- Pachansky Mathematics 2+2=8
- Retro Snake Adventures
- Running Man 3D
- Shenmue I & II
- Socketeer
- Survive in Angaria 2
- The Real Laser Ball
- Touch Down Football Solitaire
- Typical nightmare
-
08-22
- Astrela Starlight
- Bean Battles
- Castle of Venia
- Dangerous Lands - Magic and RPG
- Fast Dust
- Jack Is Missing
- Lazy Galaxy: Rebel Story
- Neverliria
- Project GR-5LYR: Galactic Relocation
- Slay The Dragon
- Slime Age: Parody MMORPG Clicker
- Survivor in Summer
- Uventa
-
08-23
- 7 Billion Humans
- Artificer
- Battle Squares
- Cadria Item Shop
- Cybrus
- Drymir Cave under Richmordnom
- Foto Flash 2
- Gamer Sensei's Range Royale
- Girlfriend Cards
- Gohan Quest
- Hack the Core
- Hipster Attack
- Hollow Knight: Godmaster
- HYPERGUN
- Idle Hunter
- Infommi
- JQ: Beautiful Japan
- Knocking on her door
- LOGAN vs KSI
- Multicellular
- One person story
- PowerUp Elevation
- Sheepageddon
- Strive for Infinity
- The Commission: Organized Crime Grand Strategy
- The King's Bird
- Undead & Beyond
- VentureVerse: Legend of Ulora
- WAR_WAR_WAR: Smiles vs Ghosts
- Zup! Zero 2
-
08-24
- Brothers in Arms: Kill to Survive
- City Blocks
- Driftpunk Racer
- F1 2018
- FanTris
- Ghosting Gun S
- Greetings
- Heart'n Block
- Hentai Master
- Legend of Assassin: Egypt
- LoveBug
- Pit of Evil
- Quirky Crystal RPG
- Shooter Game
- Skywriter
- Subsideria
- Supaplex HARD
- TailzFromTheGrave
- Tech Corp.
- The Odd Battle
- The Orphaned Soul
-
08-25
- JOYDOOR
-
08-26
- Special Warfare
- Strategist
- Street Racing
- Zodicat
PS4
-
08-21
- All-Star Fruit Racing
- Brawlout
- Candleman: The Complete Journey
- Fall of Light: Darkest Edition
- Guacamelee! 2
- Pizza Titan Ultra
- Shenmue I & II
- Slime Rancher
- Socketeer
- Spectrum
- Track Lab
-
08-22
- Out Of The Box
- Super Life of Pixel
-
08-23
- Spacelords
- Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor - Martyr
-
08-24
- F1 2018
- Little Dragons Cafe
Xbox One
-
08-21
- All-Star Fruit Racing
- Brawlout
- Shenmue I & II
- Tyler: Model 005
-
08-23
- Spacelords
-
08-24
- Distrust
- F1 2018
- Phantom Doctrine
- Planet of the Apes: Last Frontier
- Spectrum
Switch
-
08-20
- Spectrum
-
08-21
- All-Star Fruit Racing
-
08-22
- Out Of The Box
-
08-23
- Behind the Screen
- Fall of Light: Darkest Edition
- Fernz Gate
- Flood of Light
- Gone Home
- Hacky Zack
- Hollow Knight: Godmaster
- Kero Blaster
- My Farm
- Shio
- Sky Gamblers: Storm Raiders
- The Low Road
-
08-24
- Earthworms
- Little Dragons Cafe
- Night Trap
- Space Ribbon
Vita
-
08-22
- Super Life of Pixel
RIFT
-
08-20
- Space Maze
-
08-22
- Crazy Alchemist
-
08-23
- Girls Dance VR
- Surge
Vive
-
08-20
- Permission VR
- Space Maze
-
08-22
- Crazy Alchemist
-
08-23
- MiniTracks
-
08-23
- Girls Dance VR
- Surge
- The Eerie Inn VR
- When Wardens Fall
Comments
Gone Home is a highlight for me this week. I've never played it so I was very happy to hear it was coming to Switch.
I'd forgotten that Hollow Knight: Godmaster was out this week too. I haven't picked the game up yet but I really should now that all the additional content is out.
Asterith said, "Just an FYI, Stevintendo is not crazy."
Switch: 7344-0096-1719
PSN: Stevintendo
XBOX: Stevintendo
Not sure it matters to anyone else, but Summer Lesson: Allison Snow and Chisato Shinjo for PSVR get their English subtitled releases in South East Asia this week. Like the first game, they won't see any releases outside of Asia.
This week turned out to make for one amazing header image.
Slime Rancher coming to console is good by me, as is W40k I-M.
How did I live before digital distribution of old, cheap games?
MilkmanDanimal wrote:You did live before digital distribution of old, cheap games. Now you just play games.
All-Star Fruit Racing ?
Property of the Bensonhoist Lesbian Choir of Ground Zero, Brooklyn
I imagine the pitch meeting went something like this:
Project leader: “I think we should make a kart racing game for the Switch.”
CEO: “(Takes a crowbar out of desk) I’m going to beat you with this until the stupid goes away.”
Project Leader: “And other platforms too!!”
CEO: “(Puts the unused crowbar back) That’s better.”
Jonman Wrote:
Yes, you can cancel Darksiders, but only by using your Sony Golds. Which, while pretty good, aren't a patch on Zelda.
I'm A Steam Curator!
Every time the game comes up I am shocked to discover it isn't a mobile port.
How did I live before digital distribution of old, cheap games?
MilkmanDanimal wrote:You did live before digital distribution of old, cheap games. Now you just play games.
Guacamelee! 2 is a done deal... might give Shenmue I & II love in the future, but not this week.
Now Playing: Crimson Shroud, Blood of Bahamut, SMT IV, RDR, SBCG4AP, Octopath Traveler, The Baconing, The Legend of Dragoon.
Switch Friend Code: SW-7025-5637-0902
I want to know the criteria by which a fruit's All-Star status is evaluated.
You've never known true joy until you've shaken a lich stick at someone.
I'd imagine that decision would fall within the Office Linebacker's responsibilities.
Asterith said, "Just an FYI, Stevintendo is not crazy."
Switch: 7344-0096-1719
PSN: Stevintendo
XBOX: Stevintendo
Y’all are going to make me play this one for TLDP, aren’t you?
EDIT
Cheese and Rice! It’s $30!?!!
There is a demo, but dang! Those must all starfruit.
Jonman Wrote:
Yes, you can cancel Darksiders, but only by using your Sony Golds. Which, while pretty good, aren't a patch on Zelda.
I'm A Steam Curator!
Duh! The answer was staring me in the face.!
You've never known true joy until you've shaken a lich stick at someone.