A light week in terms of must-have titles. Certainly no The Outer Worlds this week. The Outer Worlds is excellent BTW. How do I the man with the giant backlog who never buys games new know this… Yes, I signed up for Xbox Game Pass. It was a dollar… Don’t look at me that way I have not betrayed anything. (Not for nothing they really do have a lot of good games on there.)
If you have ever worked for a corporation you certainly have enjoyed a mandatory afternoon watching sexual harassment videos where Bob says to Alice I see from the nipples poking through your sheer blouse there we are keeping the office nice and cold and you have to vote whether that is harassment or not. On a somewhat related note Police Chase is coming out this week and from the first ten minutes of gameplay (shown below), I now know what the actors in the sexual harassment videos do when not pretending to offer promotions in return for sexual favors. They do voice acting for games like Police Chase.
You know Yahtzee Croshaw isn’t always on target and is often crude to the point of distraction but when he is on target he can really be perceptive with his criticism. His breakdown of Close to the Sun which is coming out on consoles this week is some of his better work (His novels Mogworld and Jam are both pretty good as well for what it is worth. So he has the talent he is just stuck with this obnoxious character he created like some video game Gordon Ramsay)
An eight-year-old YouTuber has his own licensed cart racer coming out on PC, Switch, Ps4, and XboxOne. Called Race with Ryan it features half a dozen tracks, the kind of rap music I assume eight-year-olds like and the clearest sign yet that we are living in the end times.
I am not sure to blame millennials, Trump or Satan for this one.
Our game of the week is Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & The Secret Hideout which edges out Disgaea 4 Complete+ with slightly more colorful graphics and the fact it is new material.
Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & The Secret Hideout
Forget making all the Atelier games I can’t imagine who has time to play all the Atelier games. This is the 22nd Atelier game not including remakes and spinoffs. Seriously I understand people are still buying them, but I have no idea who is playing them. This goes on the same when I retire pile that last week’s The Legend of Heroes game went on.
That said if the review below is to be believed this is a mighty fine example of the series.
Disgaea 4 Complete+
I have played bits and bobs of the Disgaea series in the past and I am almost sure I might even own one of them. I like the strategy gameplay well enough and the story is light-hearted fun but like so many other games with multiple chapters and releases, I feel I am missing the nuance and inside jokes when I play through.
Inferno 2+
Geometry Wars twin-stick shooter as more of an RPG roguelike? This looks like a good idea and seems well executed. I certainly hope it comes to Xbox Game Pass… Oh God, it is starting, isn’t it?
Dusk Diver
Dusk Diver is a 3d beat-em-up with colorful graphics and a very old school level design. It looks like it might get boring after a short while but it also certainly could be worth taking out for a spin. Don’t know about that price point though this strikes me as a game that should be priced in the teens at best.
Xeno Crisis
Releasing a game for the Sega Genesis in 2018 is certainly one way for your retro arcade shooter to get attention. Now it is being released to consoles that are not covered in dust in your Grandma’s attic we can see what the fuss was about.
Xeno Crisis looks fun but it also looks like half the games I got on the Xbox Live Indie Games service. Of course, that service is well…no longer in service so a trip down memory lane may be in order.
