Hot take; but I like it when a big laser makes a big ol foghorn noise rather than a PEWPEW noise.
We're kicking things off with a *secret surprise* game that snuck in last week. Technically there's a few of those, but there's only one I'm excited about and the others are further down the list owing to how I organize there. REGARDLESS, Apogee is *back* baby and that means the first game this week is Turbo Overkill! It's an FPS that looked at Duke Nuclear-Them and said "Hey... why.... why don't we just do the fun parts of that again?" and *here we are*. It's the year Blade Runner, you've got a chainsaw for a leg, a million billion bullets and a malevolent AI that wants to turn everyone into Gun Zombies. Go nuts.
There's a demo, and I tried the demo and then I said "Well obviously I need this in my life".
On the diametrically opposite side of the spectrum in every possible capacity, we have what is probably the Game of the February for lots of folks; Civilization VII! It is, once again, time to look at one of your favorite countries and say "Y'know... I could do this *better*" and take them from Caveman to Astronaut by teaching them how learning how to make toilets lets you get machine guns faster and mine science out of the very living rock before Mahatma Gandhi declares open war on Montezuma.
I still have an unplayed copy of Civ 6 sitting in my Switch and I keep promising myself I should play it! I will eventually!
Speaking of newest entries in long running series which I am familiar-ish with, we've got the latest, and apparently final game in the Momomadora series; Momomadora: Moonlit Farewell. This here is a Troid where yer a gal who has a magic leaf what can bust the crap out of monsters, and a haunted town full of monsters what need busting and so, as one may assume, you've got to use that particular tool to address that particular problem.
I really enjoyed the previous Momomadora game, and the spinoff Minoria, so I'm definitely on board with this. And, this being a game developed by Bombservice, yes, the trailer does prominently feature an enormous woman with pendulous bosoms.
Speaking of exploring treacherous worlds and pixel graphics (we technically were, can't say we were not) we've got Moons of Darsalon, which appears to be a Abes Oddsyey-em-up but with daring pixelly Astronaut heroes instead of l'il gross fish guys. And it also uses Weird Bad Physics for everything, but... like... on purpose because watching guys ragdoll when they go flying is always fun.
Next up we have not one, but TWO games about gambling, and the gamblers who enjoy that profession, and the profound sense of "Oh... this *sucks* actually... Luck be a Landlord is the one I'd actually heard of before and opinions tend to be favourable! It looks to be the slot machine counterpart to everyoens favorite Cheating at Poker game, Balatro where you've got to cheat like ALL HELL to counter-rob the one armed bandits in order to pay your rent money on time with the ultimate goal of DESTROYING CAPITALISM. And speaking of cheating at casino games in order to stave off death temporarily, there's Liars Tavern, which is more of the "Oh, this casino will literally murder you if you don't play well, and cheating is allowed" type of deal. This one has l'il critters. Like if The Deer Hunter had an actual deer in it!
And everything else this week falls under the heading of "Ports of old and largely forgotten games" starting with a trio of shooters; Macross Shooting Insight is a series wide crossover of Macross characters all coming together, Under Defeat is a shmup best known for being one of the last games released on the Dreamcast, 5 years after it was discontinued, where you've got a helicopter and finally the Cho Anaki Collection is a collection of two of the PC-Engine games where you're a greased up muscleman determined to save the universe from the danger of not being unsettlingly swole.
Now what if you don't want to use a million billion lasers and bombs to solve your problems. What if you want to use dice. Furthermore, what if sixteen is twice the amount of turbo graphics you can handle. Well, good news, because we don't just have an NES RPG, we have one that never left Japan before finally getting localized; Sugoro Quest. I have never heard of it before, but it looks like those Dice Game dungeons in some of the Dragon Quest games and I enjoyed those! And so, based on that alone I give this my highest recommendation!
Speaking games getting North American releases for the very first time, we have this weeks Old Japanese Computer Game courtesy of Egg Console; Carmine 88. But don't let the name fool you; it was actually released in 1986 and depicted a chilling look into what the future would hold for us all in two years time. You've got the command of a giant mecha assigned to kill the holy bajeezus out of the myriad of monsters infested a secret lab. Which means its a first person dungeon crawler. As per usual for Egg Console releases, it is not localized, however I see a lot of english text in the screenshots, so maybe it's okay this time.
And finally we have another NSO release; Ridge Racer 64 (perhaps unsurprisingly, for the N64). My knowledge of the Ridge Racer begins and ends with "You could play Galaxian in the load screens for one of them, and because of that, no other video game could let you play a game during load screens".
Maybe this one is good enough to justify that. Let's assume so.
OKAY, GO HOME
We're kicking things off with a *secret surprise* game that snuck in last week. Technically there's a few of those, but there's only one I'm excited about and the others are further down the list owing to how I organize there. REGARDLESS, Apogee is *back* baby and that means the first game this week is Turbo Overkill! It's an FPS that looked at Duke Nuclear-Them and said "Hey... why.... why don't we just do the fun parts of that again?" and *here we are*. It's the year Blade Runner, you've got a chainsaw for a leg, a million billion bullets and a malevolent AI that wants to turn everyone into Gun Zombies. Go nuts.
There's a demo, and I tried the demo and then I said "Well obviously I need this in my life".

On the diametrically opposite side of the spectrum in every possible capacity, we have what is probably the Game of the February for lots of folks; Civilization VII! It is, once again, time to look at one of your favorite countries and say "Y'know... I could do this *better*" and take them from Caveman to Astronaut by teaching them how learning how to make toilets lets you get machine guns faster and mine science out of the very living rock before Mahatma Gandhi declares open war on Montezuma.
I still have an unplayed copy of Civ 6 sitting in my Switch and I keep promising myself I should play it! I will eventually!

Speaking of newest entries in long running series which I am familiar-ish with, we've got the latest, and apparently final game in the Momomadora series; Momomadora: Moonlit Farewell. This here is a Troid where yer a gal who has a magic leaf what can bust the crap out of monsters, and a haunted town full of monsters what need busting and so, as one may assume, you've got to use that particular tool to address that particular problem.
I really enjoyed the previous Momomadora game, and the spinoff Minoria, so I'm definitely on board with this. And, this being a game developed by Bombservice, yes, the trailer does prominently feature an enormous woman with pendulous bosoms.

Speaking of exploring treacherous worlds and pixel graphics (we technically were, can't say we were not) we've got Moons of Darsalon, which appears to be a Abes Oddsyey-em-up but with daring pixelly Astronaut heroes instead of l'il gross fish guys. And it also uses Weird Bad Physics for everything, but... like... on purpose because watching guys ragdoll when they go flying is always fun.

Next up we have not one, but TWO games about gambling, and the gamblers who enjoy that profession, and the profound sense of "Oh... this *sucks* actually... Luck be a Landlord is the one I'd actually heard of before and opinions tend to be favourable! It looks to be the slot machine counterpart to everyoens favorite Cheating at Poker game, Balatro where you've got to cheat like ALL HELL to counter-rob the one armed bandits in order to pay your rent money on time with the ultimate goal of DESTROYING CAPITALISM. And speaking of cheating at casino games in order to stave off death temporarily, there's Liars Tavern, which is more of the "Oh, this casino will literally murder you if you don't play well, and cheating is allowed" type of deal. This one has l'il critters. Like if The Deer Hunter had an actual deer in it!

And everything else this week falls under the heading of "Ports of old and largely forgotten games" starting with a trio of shooters; Macross Shooting Insight is a series wide crossover of Macross characters all coming together, Under Defeat is a shmup best known for being one of the last games released on the Dreamcast, 5 years after it was discontinued, where you've got a helicopter and finally the Cho Anaki Collection is a collection of two of the PC-Engine games where you're a greased up muscleman determined to save the universe from the danger of not being unsettlingly swole.

Now what if you don't want to use a million billion lasers and bombs to solve your problems. What if you want to use dice. Furthermore, what if sixteen is twice the amount of turbo graphics you can handle. Well, good news, because we don't just have an NES RPG, we have one that never left Japan before finally getting localized; Sugoro Quest. I have never heard of it before, but it looks like those Dice Game dungeons in some of the Dragon Quest games and I enjoyed those! And so, based on that alone I give this my highest recommendation!

Speaking games getting North American releases for the very first time, we have this weeks Old Japanese Computer Game courtesy of Egg Console; Carmine 88. But don't let the name fool you; it was actually released in 1986 and depicted a chilling look into what the future would hold for us all in two years time. You've got the command of a giant mecha assigned to kill the holy bajeezus out of the myriad of monsters infested a secret lab. Which means its a first person dungeon crawler. As per usual for Egg Console releases, it is not localized, however I see a lot of english text in the screenshots, so maybe it's okay this time.

Maybe this one is good enough to justify that. Let's assume so.

OKAY, GO HOME