February 13 - 19

  Felix “Slash Back” Threepaper

Welcome folks, and happy “157th Anniversary of Jesse James’ first bank robbery” week!

On February 13, 1866, Jesse James and his brother held up a bank in Liberty, Missouri, committing the first daylight armed bank robbery in the USA during peacetime. Or not—nothing conclusively proves whether James and his brother were at the robbery. James was known to be in Missouri at the time, but he was recovering from a gunshot wound to the chest. This robbery was only credited to the James brothers years later, after they did a bunch of other bank jobs. You may all celebrate by playing a game with questionable puzzle logic.

This week is jam-packed. Pick a genre, and it’s probably on the list. We’ve got city-builders, JRPGs, FMVs, Aussie games, point-n-clicks, rhythm games, third-person action, twin-stick shooters, you name it. This week can fit so many games in it! And so on.

The Settlers: New Allies is the latest entry in Ubisoft’s long-running, city-building series. It sure is late—it’s the first new game in the series since 2007 and was nearly cancelled in 2020. After a closed beta in 2022 with a lot of negative feedback, it got indefinitely delayed again.

The Settlers: New Allies is an RTS where you play as a group of settlers fleeing some disaster and setting up a new village and growing your economy until you’re big enough to bump into the other factions. Tech-wise, you go from stone age to late medieval era. There’s a single-player campaign and multiplayer. A lot of the negative feedback during the beta was around multiplayer balance, as players were using rush tactics to win in 3 minutes. That has been rebalanced, along with a bunch more polishing. The graphics are colourful and lush, like in Immortals Fenyx Rising. This looks like an example where long delays in development are a good thing, giving the devs the time they need to take stock, change course, and put out a better game.

Dust & Neon is a twin-stick shooter with a cyber-cowboy vibe, like you’re playing a Cad Bane origin story. You’re in a post-apocalyptic scenario where all the enemies are robots, yet the guns remain stubbornly old-school, requiring frequent, manual reloads. Luckily, there are cover mechanics to provide shelter while you jam slugs back into your weapons. There’s also some roguelite elements, and it’s presented isometrically (with no camera rotation) with stylish cel-shaded graphics.

Elderand is a 2D Castlevanioid, dropping hot on the heels of the surprise release of Metroid Prime Remastered last week. It’s definitely more Castlevania than Metroid, with its medieval fantasy setting and RPG levelling systems. It’s got a nice, pixelated art style, an intricate map, and challenging boss fights. One of these kinds of games comes out every other week and while they all look interesting, I can’t tell them apart because I’m not deep into the genre.

Pharaoh: A New Era is a remake of a 1999 city builder set in ancient Egypt that was originally published by Sierra. This is more SimCity than RTS—you snap your buildings down on a grid, and you don’t control units directly. Instead, your folks mill about automatically as you micro-manage their food, work, sanitation, and such. The graphics, UI, and mechanics have all been overhauled to drag this game into the 21st century. All the original 50-plus missions remain, plus the Cleopatra expansion. There’s also a free-build mode with scenarios, or you can toggle your settings to no warfare and no win conditions and just sandbox it.

Blanc is this week’s quirky indie. It’s a story of a wolf cub and a fawn forming an unlikely partnership and navigating a snowy wilderness together. I was going to say it is reminiscent of Milo and Otis, then I realised that movie came out in 1986, and I had to go lie down for a bit. Blanc is rendered in a black-and-white, hand-drawn art style that looks like sketches on paper rendered in 3D. The gameplay is 2-player co-op, locally or online, and each critter has their own ability to help the other to survive.

Wanted: Dead is a third-person action slasher/shooter from the makers of Ninja Gaiden. That alone should be enough to make you take notice. It’s set in a cyberpunk Hong Kong that is dystopian enough for the police to have a Zombie Unit, of which you’re a member. The storyline is bonkers but is just an excuse to fight zombies, mercenaries, robots, and whoever else. The combat looks about a 70-30 split between swordplay and guns—this is not a game where you choose between the two and find a loadout that works for you. The maps are not built for you to clear a room from behind cover. You will have to be good with the sword to get through, with guns being more for special situations or integrated into your sword combos.

The promo materials say Wanted: Dead is “a love letter to the sixth generation of consoles”. That was the PS2, Dreamcast, GameCube, and Xbox era. The overall presentation of the game certainly makes it look like an upscaled game from that time. The cutscenes are in anime. There’s oddball side activities, such as Karaoke and arcade games, like in Shenmue. The dialogue is stilted but so-bad-it’s-good in parts, like early Resident Evil. And the checkpointing can be as harsh as in those older games. But the core hackin and slashin looks as solid and engaging, albeit as challenging, as Ninja Gaiden. You will be squishy, and button-mashing will not suffice. Before there were Souls-likes, there was Ninja Gaiden. And that philosophy is back in play in Wanted: Dead.

Wild Hearts is an open world, monster-hunting RPG that also has building mechanics. While you’re fighting giant beasts, you can build stuff on the fly, like a wall of boxes or springs to help you jump high and land an aerial attack. These buildings stay in the world until you (or a giant beast) destroy them. So, simplistically, you could say this game is Monster Hunter with some Fortnite thrown in. That’s probably not doing the game justice though. The fantasy, feudal Japanese setting looks amazing, there’s a decent range of weapons that offer different playstyles (including … an umbrella?), and the beast design is cool, with a theme that they are integrating with nature. They will have weaknesses to specific weapons, too, so you may not want to limit yourself to just your favourite weapon.

Cities: Skylines: Remastered is the last city-builder coming out this week, I swear. This is a console port of Paradox’s city-building game that originally came out on PC in 2015. It will not feature all the DLC, which is being remastered separately and will be drip-fed free to owners of the remastered main game, up to the Airports expansion.

Rooftop Renegade is an Aussie-made game. It’s a 2D, side-scrolling, speedrunning platformer with Sonic vibes, as the aim is to build up momentum by collecting things like boosty purple gems, and keep your flow going, all while the level is changing around you. You can also have up to 3 mates join in for local, asynchronous multiplayer. It looks like one person runs the level while the others get a cannon reticule, shooting either at the player or at the level architecture to disrupt the runner.

Ten Dates is a sequel to Five Dates, the FMV game about dating during the rona. It’s still FMV, but this time you can play as a male or female protagonist, and you’re each going speed-dating, doing 5 dates each, with a general theme of “Getting Back Out There”. In terms of production values and script, it looks as good as the latest Netflix rom-com (which is probably called Romcom). One for Valentine's Day?

Tales of Symphonia Remastered is a remaster of the popular game from 2003, which has been remastered for every platform since then. Tales of Symphonia is the fifth game in the Tales series, which is considered one of the classic JRPG series. This version doesn’t overhaul any graphics, music, UI or mechanics, it just looks like a straight-up port of the 2016 HD PC version.

Theatrhythm Final Bar Line is a rhythm game featuring music from Square Enix games. Characters from said games brawl on-screen while you are doing the song, and the better you do, the better they do. The base game comes with 385 songs, mostly from the Final Fantasy series, with further songs to be sold separately as DLC or as part of a season pass. You can check out the track listing here before making up your mind.

Loretta is a point-n-click, psychological thriller about a 1940s housewife. Loretta is stuck on a rundown farm with her husband, then she finds out he is cheating on her. The plot can spiral out to all sorts of places from there, depending on your choices. Point-n-click games have always been versatile vehicles for telling stories in a range of settings and this one is heavily inspired by noir and Hitchcock.

Last week, it was hard to find anything that pumps my nads (man, I really need some new references) but this week it’s a bevy of riches. Blanc looks like it could break your heart like a Pixar montage. Loretta has the most enticing story. Wild Hearts looks super nice: a solid, dependable game that would give you hours of fun. But Wanted: Dead has that crazy look that makes me need to know more. It could be a hot mess. It could be too hard. But I have to try. GOTW.

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

PC

• 02-13

• Angel's Gear
• ARTificial (Kim yenayoung)
• Chronicles of Time - The Germination of Astra
• Clear the Space
• Defending Earth
• DR LIVESEY ROM AND DEATH EDITION
• Drop It: Block Paradise!
• Duel Xiaoai
• Fantasy World Souls
• Fumpers
• Gallery Manager
• Gangster City: Mafia Car Driving
• Hand2Hand
• Jam Scrapz Collection
• Karagon
• Mortal Meal
• Multiplayer Cowboys
• Perseus: Titan Slayer
• Prince Adamajapanahiko x Princess
• Question Mark
• Rich Uncle: A Gay Adventure
• School Flight Simulator
• SomethingWithSpace
• SpellSlingers
• StarKnight
• Super Hero Flash Fist
• Taoist of Legend
• Targets
• Turbo Cat Fight
• Tyrant Quest - Gold Edition

• 02-14

• Adventure's Calling
• Blanc
• BOKURA
• Broombot Battlegrounds
• Cat Girl Creator
• Comit Legends
• Corgi Cove
• Cyberbugs
• Dawngrown
• DESTROY Simulator VR
• Disc Golf: Game On
• Dream Fight Will
• DUCK: Dangerous Ultimate Cartridge Kidnapper
• FFF
• I Will Be There
• Ikki Unite
• Labyrinth of Galleria: The Moon Society
• Love Quest
• Mind The Pipes!
• Missing Hiker
• MULTIPLAYER KNIGHTS
• Nearly Dead - Live and Let Die
• Out Zone
• Painting Werther
• ParaSHOTical ARKtiviBeatings
• PLANET THETA
• Polyrhythm Master
• Practisim Designer
• Roadkill Raceway
• Shinobi Rising
• Souls of Chronos
• Space Coaster VR
• Spy Bros.: Pipi & Bibi DX
• Ten Dates
• The Flawless Cup
• The Last Werewolf
• The Pyramid Of Bones
• The Wave of Monke
• Truxton
• Twin Cobra
• Wanted: Dead
• World Annihilation Operations Parts I-IV
• Zero Wing
• Zombie Apocalypse - The Last Fortress

• 02-15

• Book of Shardows
• Corpse Keeper
• Crazy Hill Racing
• Destinesia
• Golden Gloves VR
• HBTR - | Build | Farm | Harvest | Clean Pollution
• It Returned To The Desert
• Jump Tale
• Lian Wu Xian Li ~ Misremembered Memories
• Loretta
• Lucie's Potager
• MathCar
• Mega Sudoku - Binary & Suguru
• Merchant of Bohemia
• Mythlands: Dragon Flight
• Operation: Harsh Doorstop
• Outline Dust
• Paranormal Cleanup
• Pharaoh: A New Era
• Raid on Taihoku
• Returnal
• Sky High Games Horror Collection
• TAOLU
• The Tales of Bayun
• Tofas Sahin: Online Car Driving
• Tower Escape
• Winter Survival: Prologue
• Witch Guild Survivor

• 02-16

• 9 Childs Street
• Bolt Bot Screwy Viruses
• Braveland Knights
• Cooperative Chess
• Dreams in the Witch House
• Dust & Neon
• Elderand
• Gun Jam VR
• HELLCARD
• Horde Hunters
• Hot And Lovely: Charm
• I commissioned some cats
• Martial Kingdoms
• Misteri Rumah Pak RT
• Real Zombie War Simulator
• Rooftop Renegade
• Sacred Zodongga Defense
• Shadow Warrior 3: Definitive Edition
• Slime Adventure
• Snow Mountain
• Soul Knight: The Forest of Spirits
• The Abyss
• The Faceless
• The Last Pawn
• The Last Shot
• The Legend of Gwen
• The Moon Hell
• The Sea of Death
• Web or Dead
• Wild West Dynasty
• Zero-G Gunfight
• Zhiel's Mystery

• 02-17

• A Symmetric Escape
• A Weekend in Puzzleburg
• Aery VR - Broken Memories
• Ages of Conflict: World War Simulator
• Alien on the Radar
• AquaHero
• Arthas - The Game
• Birth
• Bleu
• Blue Fish Yokohama
• Crux: The Great Outdoors
• Dungeonman
• Elemental Adventure
• Elle: Portal
• Emotions: Social MeDie
• Evil Below
• Feudal Fantasy Incremental
• FIGHTING PUDDING
• Gigantosaurus: Dino Kart
• GrundHeim
• Kiss Effect
• Last Order
• Me in the Office
• Mysterious School
• OVE : The Sword of Liberation
• Plains of Pain
• Rise of Fox Hero
• ScreenPlay
• Sovranti
• SpaceBourne 2
• Star Survivor - Prologue
• Stardust Exile
• Terrarium Builder
• The end is nahual: If I may say so
• The Exile of Aphrodisia
• The Future Radio and the Artificial Pigeons
• The Lone Alien
• The Settlers: New Allies
• Touchdown Pinball
• Turnament
• VOLLEYGON
• Wild Hearts
• Zellige: The Tilemaker of Granada

• 02-18

• FinalFort

• 02-19

• Beat The Soul Z
• Dream Adventure
• Find The Murderer 3
• Floating Life 2
• Maze (The Amazing Labyrinth)
• Unfinished Night
• WarZone (Jim Dex Games)
• When Sword Sinks Into Flowers

Xbox Series X

• 02-14

• Journey to the Savage Planet: Employee of the Month Edition
• Ten Dates
• Wanted: Dead

• 02-15

• Cities: Skylines Remastered

• 02-16

• Shadow Warrior 3: Definitive Edition

• 02-17

• Gigantosaurus: Dino Kart
• Rise of Fox Hero
• Wild Hearts

• 02-18

• Like a Dragon: Ishin!

Xbox One

• 02-14

• Ten Dates
• Wanted: Dead

• 02-15

• W.A.R.P.

• 02-16

• Shadow Warrior 3: Definitive Edition

• 02-17

• CometStriker DX
• Gigantosaurus: Dino Kart
• Rise of Fox Hero
• Road Stones
• Rooftop Renegade
• Tales of Symphonia Remastered

• 02-18

• Like a Dragon: Ishin!

PlayStation 5

• 02-14

• Journey to the Savage Planet: Employee of the Month Edition
• Labyrinth of Galleria: The Moon Society
• Souls of Chronos
• Ten Dates
• Wanted: Dead

• 02-15

• Cities: Skylines Remastered

• 02-16

• Shadow Warrior 3: Definitive Edition

• 02-17

• PAW Patrol Mighty Pups Save Adventure Bay
• Rise of Fox Hero
• Wild Hearts

PlayStation 4

• 02-14

• Labyrinth of Galleria: The Moon Society
• Ten Dates
• Wanted: Dead

• 02-16

• Shadow Warrior 3: Definitive Edition
• Theatrhythm Final Bar Line

• 02-17

• Gigantosaurus: Dino Kart
• Rise of Fox Hero
• Rooftop Renegade
• Tales of Symphonia Remastered

Switch

• 02-14

• Blanc
• Labyrinth of Galleria: The Moon Society
• Labyrinth of Galleria: The Moon Society - Great Boots Quest
• Labyrinth of Galleria: The Moon Society - Great Hat Quest
• Labyrinth of Galleria: The Moon Society - Special Soul Pact Quest
• Souls Of Chronos
• Spy Bros.: Pipi & Bibi DX
• Ten Dates

• 02-15

• Pocket Witch
• Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Expansion Pass Wave 3

• 02-16

• Dust & Neon
• Ein's Sword
• Elderand
• Forklift Extreme: Impound Lot
• Geometric Sniper - Blood in Paris
• Hopping Girl Kohane EX
• Lucie's Potager
• Montezuma's Revenge: 8-Bit Edition
• Prizma Puzzle Prime
• Silver Falls - Ghoul Busters
• Sniper Strike 3D - Secret elite mission warfare "GHOST SQUAD"
• The Legend of Gwen
• Theatrhythm Final Bar Line
• Verdict Guilty
• W.A.R.P.

• 02-17

• CyberHeroes Arena DX
• Dr Smart Space Adventure
• Gigantosaurus: Dino Kart
• Mosaic Chronicles Deluxe
• Non-Stop Space Probe
• Piano: Learn and Play
• Rise of Fox Hero
• Rooftop Renegade
• Tales of Symphonia Remastered
• Tama Cannon