Rev up your game-paddles! These Videos will send you to the NEXT LEVEL!
So I opted to not make a thread last week since it looked like a pretty thin week, and that wound up biting me in the hinder since there was a bunch of secret releases and this week was already pretty dense; so let's kick things off with the first SECRET SURPRISE last week; another NSO update that varies wildly from "Very Exciting" to "I don't know why they released this in this format?"; on the Gameboy Color we have The Pokemon Trading Card Game (which I would say is the... second best Early 2000s CCG adaptation on a portable console) and Pokémon Stadium 2 on the N64, if you paid extra for an NSO Expansion Pass (it lacks connectivity with the Gen 1 games, so you're stuck with pre-made Rental Pokemon, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of the game).
The other Surprise Release, and one which I suspect is *on average* better received is Quake 2, the sequel to Quake! Which wans't *quite* a sequel to Doom, but it might as well have been. This one looks much fancier than Quake did (but doesn't hold up as well as Doom), and this update includes some new campaign levels and it mushes in content from other console ports of Quake 2. So if you're going to play Quake 2, this seems to be the way to go about it
Black Skylands looks... pretty Rad, in fact, and if not for a few other things that I'm way more jazzed for, would be at the top of my list for the week. It's something of a more colourful Fallen London game, where you've got command of a flying boat, and a hankerin' to fill it full of cannons and storage bays and SHOOT AND LOOT your way through a skies full of pirates and weird bug creatures and stuff.
"Fantasy Boat Commanding" is apparently one of those keywords that activates me, so yes, I did already purchase it.
Stray Gods is a Roleplaying Musical, as per the full title, but the trailer just showed the cinematics. Which, admittedly... worked really well as a movie trailer, but I have no idea what the beeps and boops of playing it are like. You're some kind of magical sing-song gal who has learned that her best friend is an actual Goddess what Sings Good and now you've got to figure out who's been offin' deities while also pursuing your own singing career.
Our own Violent Vixen played it and sung its praises, AND WHILE I DID NOT INTEND THAT PUN I CAN NOT HELP BUT ACCEPT IT IN MY HEART!
Speaking of things from antiquity, Apple ][ games are, in a way, an example of that as well. And a popular example of those is Oregon Trail! And naturally, someone said "Well... What if Monsters Instead?" Organ Trail was the natural result. As the title implies, it's Oregon Trail, but through the filter of, instead of travelling by wagon across America in the early 1800s, you're travelling across America by modified MadMax car in a post zombie apocalypse.
In that context, kind of feel like dysentery is one of the better diseases you can catch.
The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood is another adventure-y game where you're some (oooh-hoo) witchy woman what figures "Okay, I will make some pressing decisions about how to best live my life *RIGHT NOW*" and then see how things play out since it's a narrative game with a heap of branching plots. It doens't look like my kind of nonsense whatsoever, but it looks Very Neat, and I'm certain it'd got an audience among the people likely to be reading this thread.
And hye, don't you *hate* monsters? I hope so; because there's a boatload of games this week about blowing them up en-mass. And few games in recent memory exemplify "Explode Every Monster" quite as well as Vampire Survivors! The reverse Bullet Hell Shooter where you're a Vampire Hunter of some minor proficiency faced down with a FRIGGIN' VAST hoard of monsters, and as you obliterate large swathes of them, you level up which gives you greater still capacity for wiping out greated monster hoards. And then you unlock achievements that give you broader options of upgrades to stumble upon to better facilitate wiping out even greater still monster armies.
Run Around Big Clumps and Beat them to Death With Castlevania Weapons until no Vampires Survive! It's also a video game that's very easy to play with one hand, which is valuable when you have either a doggy demanding scritches or a snack on hand that leaves you with greasy fingers!
And speaking of Castlevania; the cover-art to Shinobi Non Grata sure wants you to be! But, to be fair, the game itself looks more like an Inticreates sidescroller; you're a gentleman of ninjitsu who has to side-scroll his way through a bunch of levels hacking hoards of undead to BLOODY MUNSTER GIBLETS. It don't look half shabby, and the trailer has it looking real good in motion.
And also speaking of Castlevania, at least in terms of cover-art and not the game itself, we have A Castle Full of Cats, a hidden object game where you have to find all the cats hidden in a picture. Inexplicably, it has a Castlevania homage as its cover-art.
Y'all, I report the news, I don't write it.
DIE After Sunset is a roguelite looter-shooter, much like Risk of Rain 2. Very much like Risk of Rain 2. Everything is much more colourful and visually dynamic than Risk of Rain 2, and, honestly, given the choice between the two of them, I might go down this road just for general aesthetics.
Run though big monster-filled arenas and kersplode the ever heckin' junk out of them. Then when you die, get persistant upgrades to make future attempts MORE KERSPLODEY.
Red Dead Redemption is a port of the quite popular sequel to Red Dead Revolver. It is not a gussied up remaster (in fact, looking at screenshot comparisons, it seems to be gussied down) and it costs just as much now as it did when it was originally released about a decade ago, for no reason beyond the fact that Rockstar said "Well, yeah, obviously we're going to charge that much for a barebones port".
Anyway... shoot some no good cowpokes and raise some tarnation.
And finally, because Sega refuses to do what is morally just and release a new Jet Grind Radio game, indie developers have thrown their own hats into the ring and thus brought us Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. Which is... pretty much precisely JGR (or Jet Set Radio, if you prefer the official, but less pleasant to say title for the series). Take a team full of scruffy rowdy boyz and galz out around a Cyber Metropolis and do kickflips and graffito-tag everything in sight.
PAINT THA POLICE!
So I opted to not make a thread last week since it looked like a pretty thin week, and that wound up biting me in the hinder since there was a bunch of secret releases and this week was already pretty dense; so let's kick things off with the first SECRET SURPRISE last week; another NSO update that varies wildly from "Very Exciting" to "I don't know why they released this in this format?"; on the Gameboy Color we have The Pokemon Trading Card Game (which I would say is the... second best Early 2000s CCG adaptation on a portable console) and Pokémon Stadium 2 on the N64, if you paid extra for an NSO Expansion Pass (it lacks connectivity with the Gen 1 games, so you're stuck with pre-made Rental Pokemon, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of the game).
The other Surprise Release, and one which I suspect is *on average* better received is Quake 2, the sequel to Quake! Which wans't *quite* a sequel to Doom, but it might as well have been. This one looks much fancier than Quake did (but doesn't hold up as well as Doom), and this update includes some new campaign levels and it mushes in content from other console ports of Quake 2. So if you're going to play Quake 2, this seems to be the way to go about it
Black Skylands looks... pretty Rad, in fact, and if not for a few other things that I'm way more jazzed for, would be at the top of my list for the week. It's something of a more colourful Fallen London game, where you've got command of a flying boat, and a hankerin' to fill it full of cannons and storage bays and SHOOT AND LOOT your way through a skies full of pirates and weird bug creatures and stuff.
"Fantasy Boat Commanding" is apparently one of those keywords that activates me, so yes, I did already purchase it.
Stray Gods is a Roleplaying Musical, as per the full title, but the trailer just showed the cinematics. Which, admittedly... worked really well as a movie trailer, but I have no idea what the beeps and boops of playing it are like. You're some kind of magical sing-song gal who has learned that her best friend is an actual Goddess what Sings Good and now you've got to figure out who's been offin' deities while also pursuing your own singing career.
Our own Violent Vixen played it and sung its praises, AND WHILE I DID NOT INTEND THAT PUN I CAN NOT HELP BUT ACCEPT IT IN MY HEART!
Speaking of things from antiquity, Apple ][ games are, in a way, an example of that as well. And a popular example of those is Oregon Trail! And naturally, someone said "Well... What if Monsters Instead?" Organ Trail was the natural result. As the title implies, it's Oregon Trail, but through the filter of, instead of travelling by wagon across America in the early 1800s, you're travelling across America by modified MadMax car in a post zombie apocalypse.
In that context, kind of feel like dysentery is one of the better diseases you can catch.
The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood is another adventure-y game where you're some (oooh-hoo) witchy woman what figures "Okay, I will make some pressing decisions about how to best live my life *RIGHT NOW*" and then see how things play out since it's a narrative game with a heap of branching plots. It doens't look like my kind of nonsense whatsoever, but it looks Very Neat, and I'm certain it'd got an audience among the people likely to be reading this thread.
And hye, don't you *hate* monsters? I hope so; because there's a boatload of games this week about blowing them up en-mass. And few games in recent memory exemplify "Explode Every Monster" quite as well as Vampire Survivors! The reverse Bullet Hell Shooter where you're a Vampire Hunter of some minor proficiency faced down with a FRIGGIN' VAST hoard of monsters, and as you obliterate large swathes of them, you level up which gives you greater still capacity for wiping out greated monster hoards. And then you unlock achievements that give you broader options of upgrades to stumble upon to better facilitate wiping out even greater still monster armies.
Run Around Big Clumps and Beat them to Death With Castlevania Weapons until no Vampires Survive! It's also a video game that's very easy to play with one hand, which is valuable when you have either a doggy demanding scritches or a snack on hand that leaves you with greasy fingers!
And speaking of Castlevania; the cover-art to Shinobi Non Grata sure wants you to be! But, to be fair, the game itself looks more like an Inticreates sidescroller; you're a gentleman of ninjitsu who has to side-scroll his way through a bunch of levels hacking hoards of undead to BLOODY MUNSTER GIBLETS. It don't look half shabby, and the trailer has it looking real good in motion.
And also speaking of Castlevania, at least in terms of cover-art and not the game itself, we have A Castle Full of Cats, a hidden object game where you have to find all the cats hidden in a picture. Inexplicably, it has a Castlevania homage as its cover-art.
Y'all, I report the news, I don't write it.
DIE After Sunset is a roguelite looter-shooter, much like Risk of Rain 2. Very much like Risk of Rain 2. Everything is much more colourful and visually dynamic than Risk of Rain 2, and, honestly, given the choice between the two of them, I might go down this road just for general aesthetics.
Run though big monster-filled arenas and kersplode the ever heckin' junk out of them. Then when you die, get persistant upgrades to make future attempts MORE KERSPLODEY.
Red Dead Redemption is a port of the quite popular sequel to Red Dead Revolver. It is not a gussied up remaster (in fact, looking at screenshot comparisons, it seems to be gussied down) and it costs just as much now as it did when it was originally released about a decade ago, for no reason beyond the fact that Rockstar said "Well, yeah, obviously we're going to charge that much for a barebones port".
Anyway... shoot some no good cowpokes and raise some tarnation.
And finally, because Sega refuses to do what is morally just and release a new Jet Grind Radio game, indie developers have thrown their own hats into the ring and thus brought us Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. Which is... pretty much precisely JGR (or Jet Set Radio, if you prefer the official, but less pleasant to say title for the series). Take a team full of scruffy rowdy boyz and galz out around a Cyber Metropolis and do kickflips and graffito-tag everything in sight.
PAINT THA POLICE!
