After the empty, desolate landscape that was E3 week, we’re now absolutely jam packed. A lot of interesting games coming out this week alongside one barnburner — Batman: Arkham Knight.
Barony (PC)
What is it? A 3D first-person rogue-like that feels a bit like Nethack crossed with System Shock.
Should you care? I dunno. I just don’t know enough about it.
Batman: Arkham Knight (Xbox One/PS4/PC)
What is it? It’s Batman. The current gen one. It looks fantastic. I am excited.
Should you care? Yes. Almost certainly yes. Absolutely.
Blockwick 2 (PC)
What is it? A puzzle game. I love puzzle games.
Should you care? This one looks interesting. Check it out.
Curse of Mermos (PC)
What is it? It’s a simple hack ‘n’ slash thing.
Should you care? Well, it got 8.2 from IGN Middle East. In other news: IGN Middle East exists. Whoa.
Her Story (PC)
What is it? It’s a weird looking (in a good way) narrative game from the developers behind Silent Hill: Shattered Memories.
Should you care? I’m down for this. Think I’m gonna buy it.
Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward (PC/PS4)
What is it? It’s the new content for Final Fantasy XIV.
Should you care? I feel like you care if you play it. That’s it.
Fort Meow (PC)
What is it? This is a physics based puzzler about cats.
Should you care? I wonder if this might be better played on an iPad? Good news: this is also coming out on iPad.
J-Stars Victory Vs+ (PS3/PS4/PS Vita)
What is it? A fighting game that brings together loads of Japanese manga characters.
Should you care? I think this is one for fans of manga only.
Pizza Express (PC)
What is it? A game about making pizza. Not enough pizza making games IMO.
Should you care? I’m sure it’ll be nice, simple fun.
Portal Stories: Mel (PC)
What is it? An awesome looking Portal mod.
Should you care? Normally I wouldn’t put a mod in here, but this looks awesome.
Streets of Fury EX (PC)
What is it? This is like Streets of Rage with actual human sprite things. It sounds garbage, but looks really cool.
Should you care? Man, I feel like I want to investigate this. Looks super cool.
Super 3-D Noah’s Ark (PC)
What is it? Holy shit, what the hell is this? A 3D thing styled like a Super Nintendo game about rescuing animals on the Ark. Wow.
Should you care? This looks super gimmicky.
Yoshi’s Wooly World (Wii U)
What is it? Oh my lord, this is out this week? I didn’t know!
Should you care? If you have a Wii U, this might be your whack for a good while. I’ll be playing.
What are you buying this week? Let us know in the comments!
Comments
51 responses to “This Week In Games: Happy Batman Week!”
Anyone know who will have the best price on Wooly World?
Big W has the bundle with the amiibo for $69 I think. Can’t remember what the price was on just the game, but seems like a decent deal with how pricey those Yoshis are on their own.
Sweet! Thanks
(inserts randomly into conversation) “I’m Batman!” (ignores strange looks from workmates and loved ones)
I look forward to the articles about how messed up Batman’s launch has been be on PC when WB elect to use that Steam streaming install junk again like they did with MKX.
My fingers are crossed for a street date break on Batman. I’ve got Wednesday off, but I’d love to be able to play all Tuesday night as well.
Come on Target, do us all a favor!!
That Streets of Fury game looks super weird. Like a super HD version of what Mortal Kombat was doing for its animations?
Intriguing.
As much as I love these current Batman games I’ll be holding off for the inevitable game of the year edition and a steam sale discount.
This has become my stance, too. Which is unfortunate, because they’re my favourite games of the moment.
I just think that reserving story content for pre-orders and having vendor specific DLC are both total BS, and I refuse to support them.
I effectively did that already and got the premium version on PC for $51 au.
Fun fact, Super Noah’s Ark 3D was a SNES game.
Story goes that id software was unhappy with Nintendo’s censoring of Wolfenstein for SNES so they licensed the source code to Wisdom Tree so they could make Super Noah’s Ark to mock Nintendo.
It also had a DOS port which is most likely what this is a re-release of.
Yep. Was reportedly the only unlicensed SNES game sold back in the day. The piggy back system to bypass the verification checks was pretty clever.
Remember the Batusi?
I am suprisingly de-hyped for Batman. I’ve played 3 games like this, I’m not sure that any of the things they’re adding will convince me to play it again. Probably one where I can wait for the bargain bin and/or GOTY bundle.
Why did you buy Origins?
Because it was really cheap and it was quite a while since I’d played Arkham City. I played it at the end of last year, maybe 12 months after release. It was quite enjoyable, but filled that need for the forseeable future. Like I said, when Arkham Knight is cheap 12 months or so after its release, then I’ll probably give it a go.
Also, how many times can they do that “whoah, Scarecrow/Hatter is making everything crazy and psychedelic” thing?
I don’t understand the dislike for Origins, I grabbed it in a sale and only recently got around to it. Went in with extremely low expectations and ended up loving it more than the other two. The only thing I had to do was switch my brain off from wondering how he could have forgotten all these cool new gadgets before Arkham Asylum took place… but like any prequel, its hard to make one without new stuff. I enjoyed seeing the city in its former glory before it was turned into a prison. I loved all the extended detective scenes, and the whole plot really, how villains ended up how they are now.
I agree. I think the hate comes from a lack of new features and the fact that it was really buggy. I had to restart a few hours in because I took a wrong turn and could no longer exit GCPD.
That aside, though, I think it was a better designed game than City. The new enemy types were well thought out, they replaced some useless gadgets with better ones, the story was a bit tighter. I thought it was good.
I’m still looking forward to playing it – it’s on my backlog. I recently went back and played through Batman: AC again (didn’t finish it the first time, so I started a new game). I’m looking forward to AK, but I am worried about performance on PC – Nvidia drivers have be average at best.
The story is slow to start which meant players were a little bored by the time they reached the decent parts. I think the dislike can be traced back to City where it strayed pretty far from Asylum but managed to coast on the momentum that game built. By Origins the momentum had slowed and people wanted something more interesting than just unlocking the gadgets and collecting Riddler trophies.
It also doesn’t help that the game was super buggy at launch and people considered it a quick cash in by another studio rather than a real sequel. It’s a lot harder to enjoy yourself when it’s freezing every ten minutes. I do prefer the concept of Origins though. To me Asylum was a one off story, where City/Knight seem to be tacked on sequel plots. Origins plot had it’s flaws but it was it’s own thing. Asylum was about being stuck in Arkham. Origins was about the day everything esculated. City/Knight are what happened after the other games wrapped up perfectly.
Overall I liked Origins when I finally got around to playing it, but the one thing I really hated about it was that mobility became a bit of a chore. In City you could just go up since it wasn’t very tall, but in Origins there always seemed to be something blocking you from going in a straight line. It seems like they’ve got that sorted for Knight, but I’m still a little concerned I’ll need to get the Batmobile just to reach the second story.
Origins was great. And you can pick it up super cheap too. I think I paid $10.
I only enjoyed Asylum /o\
#JimuHates(Most)Games
It’s true, I have a fairly focused(?) taste.
Me too. I didn’t like how they turned up the Riddler stuff to like 11…. and then said not enough let’s go a buzillion….
I didn’t get far enough to consider checking out stuff like that.
Got as far as a bunch of snipers watching a door I needed to enter & after dying a million times, I gave up.
I was disappointed by the change to open world instead of the Metroid style backtracking but there was something else off about it.
I’m also one of the few weirdos who really liked Blackgate.
Yeah. I think it’s the way they’re adding things rather than focusing on that really tight core gameplay coupled with a signature Batman story. It feels like even back with City the game was growing into something big rather than something focused, and Arkham Knight might be the tipping point.
I’ve got it pre-ordered and I love the core gameplay enough that I’ll almost certainly enjoy the game, but the focus on larger scope and driving the Batmobile to generate hype doesn’t fill me with confidence that this game will be a masterpeice rather than a higher budget sequel.
Yeah, I think that’s it. It’s less of what I personally like in games.
I completely forgot that J Stars was out this week. For those that are curious, it’s a fighting game whose roster is comprised of pretty much all Shonen Jump characters (Think Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, etc.). Personally I’m not a huge fan of them so I’ll give it a miss.
I would be totally hyped for Arkham Knight this week but due to losing my Batmobile Edition it’s lost a lot of the excitement. Will still get it, but it’ll probably wait until I’m bored with ESO now.
Was planning on buying The Witcher 3 this week sometime. But now Batman is coming out… I find myself dealing with a bit of a conundrum. Batman? Witcher? Witcher? Batman?
Witcherman.
Batcher?
You can’t go wrong with the witcher mate. Possibly one of the greatest games I have played and I’m only 20 hours in and haven’t got past the second zone. For me it nails everything and the size of it reminds me of baldurs gate 2…it’s almost too much!
Well, I finally finished Witcher last night.
133 hours. Level 35…and i still didn’t do everything. The game is immense and you’ll definately get your $$$ worth.
Early reviews for Batman look good though. Tough call there bro.
I’m actually thinking Batman might be a better option BECAUSE it’s shorter. Play that for a few weeks, maybe The Witcher will go on sale by the time I’m done with Batman? Hmmmm.
Plus, Witcher has those 16 weeks of free DLC that’ll probably be near complete by the time you get to it.
If you’re time poor, I’d probably go with Batman. My wife was starting to give me looks, with all the late night witcher-ing.
I’m actually looking forward to playing a shorter game now…my poor RSI riddled thumbs 🙁
How come we get Yohshi’s Woolly World so much earlier than the yanks? I mean, I’m not complaining; I’m gettin’ that shit as soon as I get paid.
Nintendo really put a lot of planning into their release schedules and they think in terms of two years worth of releases rather than specific games. It might seem like non-sense but they probably think Yoshi’s Wolly World will sell better here if it’s released on this date. Maybe school holidays? Maybe there’s a game they’re worried it’ll have to compete with here if they stick with the US dates. They’re weird.
And Kirby and the Rainbow Curse was the opposite – Februrary in the US, May over here. Must make sense to somebody.
Only other factor I can think of is production run costs. Perhaps they can only produce a certain number of Wii U discs per month, so these less important games fit in the gaps around the others, then they release enough for everybody with a marketing push in one territory at a time?
Batman?.. Batman you say?.. coming for you?
…
…
Iiiiiii’mmmmmm COUNTING ON IT!
Ozgameshop are being pretty slack with Arkham Knight, my copy still hasn’t been dispatched
Mine says it’s been dispatched now. Hopefully we’ll get it by friday! Looking forward to this. Have you seen the early reviews? Sounds good!
Have you gotten yours yet? Still waiting over here?!?!$##%$#$
Super 3D Noah’s Ark is a re- release of a game from the 90s.
It’s actually quite fun. Basically identical in game play to Wolf 3D, because they just re- skinned the Wolf engine, but with more weapons and new levels.
Oh, and you’re feeding the enemies instead of killing them. They’re still trying to kill you, though.
Will be definitely getting into Batman from 9am Friday morning. In Sri Lanka till Wednesday night on honeymoon, enjoying the whole “I don’t have to do a thing” time of my life, which will come to an abrupt end when I get home.
Isn’t Episode 3 of tales from the borderlands due out this week too? Given that the episodes are delayed more often than not
Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition this week!
5 playable characters! 5!! I’m beyond pumped!
Another game I forgot was coming out. Definitely getting this when I have some spare cash. DMC 4 may have its flaws but the combat was really good.