A busy week filled with horrifying retro games. If we are going to do bad or obscure retro games can I at least get a re-release of Project Overkill from the original PlayStation or a remaster of Kings Field or Kings Field 2?
No, instead we get a collection of the Castlevania games before Castlevania Symphony of the Night IE before they were good and a new Busby game. The new Busby game is a blatant attempt to generate annoying YouTube video of screaming millennials about how bad Busby games are.
The good news is that there is plenty of actual good games coming out this week. Rage 2 is the most obvious choice, and it is the best game of the week as well. Darkwood, Figment and A Plague Tale: Innocence all are garnering excellent reviews and all look like a lot of care and artistic talent have been applied to the games.
We also get a remaster of that Sniper game that was linear and had bad controls. It is still linear with bad controls but the graphics are better and it now works on a modern console. No word if they are making a Sniper game where you can hunt down annoying YouTube personalities talking about Busby. I’d buy that for a dollar.
Darkwood
Darkwood is a top-down survival horror game. It screams Eastern European dystopia. Reviews have been good, and it mixes both building horror elements with survival skills.
An actual indie game Darkwood looks well put together and thought out. A pleasant experience and a fun game? Well, that I am unsure of, but I have a feeling it will stay with you for a while.
Figment
More Psychonauts than Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice Figment is a very creative game where you explore someone’s mind and solve puzzles to get rid of the nightmares.
Puzzle exploration games are usually not my cup of tea but Figment is overflowing with original songs and creative storybook art. An appealing change of pace that looks like it is worth a look.
A Plague Tale: Innocence
On one hand, A Plague Tale: Innocence is a critically acclaimed gorgeous game. On the other hand, it is a linear puzzle filled escort mission. I will give the critics the benefit of the doubt on this one.
To its credit, all reports are that A Plague Tale is a meaty tale running a good fifteen hours. Just don’t go in expecting Dishonored 2 and everything should be all right.
Rage 2
Rage 2 is a sequel to last generations Rage and a riff on developers Avalanche Studios’ Mad Max and Just Cause games. Vehicular combat, humor, and robust first-person shooting make for an enticing cocktail.
I am a big fan of Avalanche Studios output, so this is an easy purchase for me. Alas, the ever-present backlog includes Mad Max, which I still haven’t gotten to yet so I might need to have to take that out for a spin again.
Sniper Elite V2 Remastered
I have never successfully purchased and played through a game in the Sniper series. This means I have a lot of them on my to buy list.
Sniper Elite V2 Remastered is more linear that its more recent brethren and apparently the control scheme was not updated for the remaster. There are those though that find the environment of the last days of World War 2 more enticing than the later games in the series.
I will through this one on the pile with the others. Fate and perhaps Games with Gold will eventually dictate which one, if any, I eventually play.
[…] is what I said during my Games to Buy Week of May 16th, 2019 roundup. On one hand, A Plague Tale: Innocence is a critically acclaimed gorgeous game. On the […]