September 12 - 18

  Felix “Nanna Nap” Threepaper

Welcome folks, and happy “2,512th Anniversary of the Battle of Marathon” week!

Marathon is famous for the Athenian soldier who ran 42 kms after the battle to announce Athens’ victory over the Persians, then died of exhaustion. Except that run didn’t happen—the soldier actually ran 225 km before the battle, to Sparta, to ask for aid (and was refused). He recovered, too. But the founders of the modern Olympics wanted a signature event, and a 225 km race seemed excessive, so they settled on a 42 km race and made the myth to sell it. You may all celebrate by playing a game with an unreliable narrator.

After a biggish wave of games last week, it’s another week of calm—a pause before a few big waves in a row crash over us. There’s a lot of ports and upgrades, each platform rounding out its back catalogue with games you probably weren’t that excited about the first time around. Among the flotsam, there’s still some nuggets to be found.

Blind Fate: Edo no Yami is a cyberpunk samurai game. It’s very neon, with a vapourwave art style. Your cyborg samurai character is blind and relies on an AI and various sensors to perceive the world. The AI feeds you map data, but it’s 350 years out of date, and you have to use your various sensors to update your info as you explore and fight enemies in a Castlevanioid manner. The devs originally went a lot further with the blindness mechanics, such as a whole system where you couldn’t see enemies until you’d scanned them with the right sensor, but these copped negative feedback during playtesting, resulting in some last-minute overhauls.

Everyone has that friend who will always turn off a game’s soundtrack and listen to metal instead. If you don’t, you are that friend and Metal: Hellsinger is for you. It’s like DOOM mixed with Rock Band: the hellish setting and weapons are very DOOM-like, and you have to shoot in time with the rhythm of the pounding metal soundtrack to gain damage boosts and build your score.

You know the elaborate, stuntified way they park cars in action movies? No one slowly reverse parks into a slot, they always have to pull a 180-degree handbrake drift into it, tires screeching. Well, someone’s made a game of that. In You Suck at Parking, you drive your stunt cars around obstacle courses that want to kill you, and there’s a parking spot at the end that you have to stop in, plus you have no brakes. Looks like goofy, stunt-racing fun in single or multiplayer.

Little Orpheus is a console re-release of a 2020 Apple Arcade game. It’s a side-scrolling platformer about a Russian cosmonaut who journeys to the centre of the earth in 1962. The game is more focused on story than challenge and has luscious art and voice acting, while giving you a very video-gamey rendition of the centre of the earth: full of ruins, with ropes to swing on and dinosaurs to avoid. The jumping was a little wonky with a touchscreen—you won’t have those problems with a controller.

Wayward Strand is an Aussie-made, point-n-click adventure game about an intrepid teenage journalist visiting an airborne hospital for the first time. She is determined to uncover a story or some juicy intrigue as she wanders about. It’s more about finding people to talk to and unlocking dialogue options rather than finding inventory items to solve puzzles. The meandering, branching nature of it, with NPCs being in certain places at certain times of day, is similar in vibe to the classic adventure game The Last Express. It’s more forgiving, though: the stakes aren’t as high and there’s no abrupt fail states. All the VO is by Aussie actors too, so that’s grouse.

Otherwise, Whateverland and Sunday Gold are two adventure games on PC with pretty high production values.

I’m going parochial this week and giving the GOTW to Wayward Strand. It’s a game about talking to a bunch of grannies and pop-pops, what’s not to love?

Here's the list, in release-date AND alphabetical order!

PC

• 09-12

• A Violent Revelry
• ACHIEVEMENTS CITY
• AIdventure
• Bullet Hell Monday
• Cairn: Stone Balancing
• Cake4D
• Catch Them If You Can
• ChatFight!
• Chris Isn't Alone
• Cookie Clicker but You Type
• Don't Hide
• Energy Tail
• Forest Tower Defense
• Hooligan James
• Ice Cream Killer
• Idle Vikings Clicker
• Lunatic Viewer - Streamer Girl at Risk -
• Monomagia Cantabile
• MonsterStone: Prelude
• Powerjackers - VR Superhero Battle Royale
• Prince fighting dragon 2
• Roadwarden
• RunBean Galactic
• Tailbound
• The City Cards Challenge
• WFO World Football Online
• Zimmer
• ZOOGARNIAN

• 09-13

• "TetriStory 110%" - Amazing Free New Tetris Game!
• 2tinycowboys
• Adorable Pet: Journey to the West
• Backrooms: Perpetual
• Celadon
• CIV
• Deadwater Saloon
• Double Trouble
• Enclosure 3-D
• Freedom Planet 2
• Hero's Journey
• Input Chaos
• Isonzo
• Kamifuda
• Little Orpheus
• Lovecraft's Untold Stories 2
• Mining Odyssey
• Nobody Saves the World: Frozen Hearth
• Party Friends
• Run Or Boom
• SCP : Secret Files
• Trust No Bunny
• Voice of Cards: The Beasts of Burden

• 09-14

• Angst
• Crash Override
• Eva: Final Mission
• Food Truck Simulator
• Gold Drill
• Joey and Penguin's 2 Player Adventure
• Live Cycling Manager 2022
• Night At the Gates of Hell
• ParkTo
• PAVOR
• Presidents Fight
• Q.U.B.E. 10th Anniversary
• Super Alloy Ranger
• The Cute Fighter
• The One Danced in the Palm in VR
• The Wandering Village
• They Don't Sleep
• You Suck at Parking
• Zorbus

• 09-15

• A.W.O.L.
• Absolute Tactics: Daughters of Mercy
• Again and Again
• Alcyon Infinity
• ALIEN WAR
• Ankora: Lost Days
• Ant in Training
• BLACK SHEEP TOWN
• Blind Fate: Edo no Yami
• Dimwarper
• Dominate - Board Game
• Dr. Kobushi's Labyrinthine Laboratory
• Elya vs Blackstone : Nuclear War
• Extract Me
• Foretales
• FreestyleFootball R
• Gods of Hellas VR
• Grid Force: Mask of the Goddess
• GUILTY
• Gulu: A Tail's Journey
• Handyman (Piece Of Voxel)
• Innocence Island
• Kris and the City of Pleasure
• Lila's Tale and the Hidden Forest
• Lost Beyond
• Lost Island survivor: Lovely grandpa
• Metal: Hellsinger
• NeverSynth
• Paradox of Hope VR
• Photogenic Minds : Identity
• POP SURVIVOR
• Power (of) Metal
• Protocol Aftertime
• RecNaviClub
• Riding to Bounce City
• Rise Of A Hero
• SBK 22
• Shape Of The Toilet Rim
• Sir Questionnaire
• Sir Stretchalot - The Plight of the Elves
• Stanislav
• Stardust Valkyries
• Stones Keeper
• TAXINAUT
• Technicity
• The Legend of Martial Arts
• The Peak Climb VR
• Ultimechs
• Unmatched: Digital Edition
• Wayward Strand
• Whateverland

• 09-16

• 2089 - Space Divided
• 69 Yuuko Hot
• Agonize
• Ash Battle
• BARK
• Bloody Efforts
• Book of the Brave
• Boomshine Plus
• City Bus Driver Simulator
• CLOUDED VR
• DinoLife
• Dreamer's Road
• Dreamlands: Cotton Candy Hunt
• EEvol
• ElvenEscape
• Forever Alone
• From Fear
• Fury Life
• GasolineGypsiesGame
• Guarding Goddess
• Hermit Home Designer
• I'm a sardine Keita
• INCISION
• Klaystar
• Letina's Odyssey
• Lofi Checkers
• Lost but Lucid
• MagiCarnage
• Roghill Incident
• Shift of War
• Sinner 97: Prologue
• Stellar Propeller
• Tapering Tower
• Tarot for Storytelling
• The Bird
• The Claws of Blood
• The Grizzled: Armistice Digital
• The Spanish Privateer
• Yet Another Rage Game

• 09-17

• Dimensional Gears
• Quoin

• 09-18

• Memory's Abyss Chapter Zero
• Sisterhood

Xbox Series X

• 09-13

• Isonzo
• Little Orpheus
• Nobody Saves the World: Frozen Hearth

• 09-14

• Q.U.B.E. 10th Anniversary
• You Suck at Parking

• 09-15

• Blind Fate: Edo no Yami
• Despot's Game: Dystopian Army Builder
• Metal: Hellsinger
• Outer Wilds
• SBK 22
• Wayward Strand

• 09-16

• Cotton Reboot!
• Plunder Panic

Xbox One

• 09-13

• Isonzo
• Little Orpheus
• Nobody Saves the World: Frozen Hearth

• 09-14

• Devoured by Darkness
• Family Man
• Last Beat Enhanced
• Q.U.B.E. 10th Anniversary
• You Suck at Parking

• 09-15

• Blind Fate: Edo no Yami
• Despot's Game: Dystopian Army Builder
• SBK 22
• Wayward Strand

• 09-16

• Amazing Chicken Adventures
• Knights & Guns
• Plunder Panic

PlayStation 5

• 09-13

• Isonzo
• Little Orpheus
• Metal: Hellsinger
• Nobody Saves the World: Frozen Hearth

• 09-14

• Q.U.B.E. 10th Anniversary

• 09-15

• Blind Fate: Edo no Yami
• Despot's Game: Dystopian Army Builder
• Inertial Drift: Twilight Rivals Edition
• Outer Wilds
• SBK 22

• 09-16

• Plunder Panic

PlayStation 4

• 09-13

• Isonzo
• Little Orpheus
• Nobody Saves the World: Frozen Hearth
• Voice of Cards: The Beasts of Burden
• Windstorm: Start of a Great Friendship

• 09-14

• Q.U.B.E. 10th Anniversary
• Unexplored 2: The Wayfarer's Legacy

• 09-15

• Arcade Archives: Rompers
• Blind Fate: Edo no Yami
• Despot's Game: Dystopian Army Builder
• SBK 22

• 09-16

• Plunder Panic
• Trash Sailors

Switch

• 09-12

• Dead Invaders: Modern War 3D

• 09-13

• Little Orpheus
• Nobody Saves the World: Frozen Hearth
• Sacred Valley
• Svoboda 1945: Liberation
• Voice of Cards: The Beasts of Burden
• XIII (Remake)

• 09-14

• Family Man
• Maggie the Magnet
• Reknum DX

• 09-15

• Absolute Tactics: Daughters of Mercy
• Ankora: Lost Days
• Arcade Archives: Rompers
• Bear and Breakfast
• Blind Fate: Edo no Yami
• Despot's Game: Dystopian Army Builder
• Dungeons 3 - Nintendo Switch Edition
• fault - StP - LIGHTKRAVTE
• Foretales
• Gold Crusader
• Gunslingers & Zombies
• Innocence Island
• Japanese Escape Games The Mansion of Tricks
• Kao the Kangaroo: Top of the Class
• Last Beat Enhanced
• Paddles
• Poly Link - Origins
• Queen's Garden Sakura Season
• SAOMI
• Silent Sector
• Wayward Strand

• 09-16

• Accident
• Brutal Chase Turbo
• Devoured by Darkness
• Kitten's Head Football
• Melatonin
• Plunder Panic
• The Dark Prophecy
• Trash Sailors
• Unichrome: A 1-Bit Unicorn Adventure