So I thought things were going to be a bit quiet this week.
I was wrong.
Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate, Guitar Hero Live, The Legend of Zelda: Triforce Heroes, Noct, and a bunch of other stuff you might want to check out.
Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate (Xbox One/PS4)
What is it? It’s the new Assassin’s Creed GUVNAH! He’s English guys. This is LAHNDAHN.
Should you care? Assassin’s Creed is always best when everyone thinks it’s going to be rubbish. This will probably be amazing.
Empire TV Tycoon (PC)
What is it? It’s the TV station management sim you’ve been asking for all these years.
Should you care? I’m actually curious about this one! Looks interesting and well made.
Guitar Hero Live (Xbox One/PS4)
What is it? A newly rebooted Guitar Hero that’s pretty interesting. New Guitar, new stuff. No band mechanic though.
Should you care? Well, I’m going to skip it. I like playing as part of a band. Your mileage may vary.
Just Dance 2016 (Wii)
What is it? Whoa. They still make these? For the Wii?
Should you care? Sure, if it’s your kind of thing.
Kingdom (PC)
What is it? It’s a 2D side-scrolling resource management game that actually looks quite original.
Should you care? I’m impressed with the look and feel of this. Might be worth investigating.
Murder (PC)
What is it? Describes itself as a short story told in the form of a point and click adventure.
Should you care? This sounds interesting. It also looks interesting. Check it out.
Overlord: Fellowship of Evil (PC)
What is it? An action RPG — actually written by Rhianna Pratchett.
Should you care? I’m a bit down on this sort of game/genre. Looks pretty generic.
Pulse (PC)
What is it? A game about a blind girl who sees through sound.
Should you care? Interesting high concept. Not too sure about the game itself.
Rebel Galaxy (PC)
What is it? A swash-buckling space adventure, according to the Steam description.
Should you care? The space exploration genre is starting to get pretty crowded…
Noct (PC)
What is it? Oh crap, this is out this week. It’s like a top down, super interesting version of Day-Z.
Should you care? I’m super keen for this. You should be too. It looks amazing.
Star Sky (PC)
What is it? Appears to be a literal walking sim.
Should you care? It looks great though. 2D, interesting aesthetic. I’m keen.
Tales of Zestiria (PC)
What is it? It’s a JRPG. You know the drill.
Should you care? It’s reviewed pretty well. Beyond that I’m not too sure.
The Legend of Zelda – Tri Force Heroes (3DS)
What is it? Whoa, this is out this week.
Should you care? Looks great, plays great. Would have rather had a new ‘Link Beyond Worlds’ style Zelda though.
Toby: The Secret Mine (PC)
What is it? Well, this looks a lot like Limbo. A lot.
Should you care? It looks well made. And a lot like Limbo. Did I mention that it looks like Limbo?
What did we miss? What are you picking up this week? Let us know below!
Comments
59 responses to “This Week In Games: A Surprising Amount Of Really Good Video Games”
What’s really sad is that I watched the first 40 minutes of Assassins Creed: Syndicate and I felt nothing. Unfortunately I’m completely over the AC series. The yearly releases really have killed any enthusiam I have for the franchise now.
Well there is no more excitement with AC series for me but I will still play it for the sake of seeing how the story will end. Besides I’ve been playing AC every year it will be weird if I didn’t have some AC this year 😛
I finally burnt out last year and didn’t spend more than an hour or two with…. I can’t even remember what it was called. The last one.
As someone who genuinely found the overarching story to be interesting they released so much AC content that I just lost track and gave up trying to follow it. It going to be harder to get back into it now that I’ve missed more than just the DLC story progression and the handheld titles, which is a real shame because it was good stuff.
I lost interest when they fluffed up with Desmond’s story. I know a lot of people didn’t like him, but I felt he was the glue that sort of tied everything together.
Killing him and, er… the girl… whatever her name was (Lucy?), just felt really badly written and rushed. That, coupled with Unity having an abysmal release sort of made me think “what’s the point”?
Killing Lucy made so little sense, it was almost like they just couldn’t be bothered paying the actress anymore, or just needed to make room in the cast for Desmond’s dad. Ending the Desmond story arc where they did made sense since I guess AC was kind of envisioned as a trilogy and they’d already padded it out with two extra games, but completely abandoning any modern-day story development makes me simply not care. The modern-day story in Black Flag was rubbish. I loved stalking around the Abstergo office as a curious new hire, but the introduction of the Sage was just rushed and nonsensical. Maybe there’s a new plot thread that will make sense if I play Rogue and Unity and Syndicate, but at this point I don’t care enough to spend the time and money finding out.
Holy shit, I completely forgot his dad was in the story!
His dad, who sounded just like Warren Vidic! (The modern day templar from the first couple of games.) Why couldn’t they find someone who sounded different? I half expected the story to suddenly explain that Vidic WAS his father.
That’s not true! It’s IMPOSSIBLE!
Yep, you could certainly tell that whatever the plan was for the overarching canon it was completely wrecked in the rush to get too much content out. The whole thing is a mess now, it needs a re-boot but at the same time lots of the broader mysteries have now been spoilt and the characters who knew the answers killed off.
How do you start again with a new set of modern characters when the audience knowledge base is a hodge-podge of players who even if they finished the main campaigns of the first five (Six? Seven? Eight?) main games may not have seen all the glyph videos, or ignored the office storyline in AC:IV, or skipped the DLC, or not played the handheld titles?
If it helps, the present day character in Unity had even less character development than the one from Black Flag (who didn’t have a name, voice, or appearance).
The ending of the game essentially had someone congratulating you for verifying that everything you’d one would have no impact on the present day assassin/templar war. Combine that with the fact that they seem unlikely to reuse Arno as a protagonist and it almost feels like they wanted to make a forgettable game.
I really don’t think we lose anything by not having Arno reused as a protagonist.
Are you saying you don’t want to play Assassin’s Creed Unity: Brotherhood and Assassin’s Creed Unity: Revelations?
I thought that would have gone without saying.
Are you saying there is literally anyone on the planet who does want to subject themselves or others to that?
I did buy Unity, but in the end I skipped it entirely when I heard about all the issues with it. So I’m all but ready to get back into the franchise, and Syndicate looks the goods for me. Especially because of its focus on single player, two very different protagonists and an intriguing time period.
I do still need to play the ‘forgotten’ AC, Rogue, which tied up loose ends from the American series (starting with AC3 through Black Flag).
I played Unity & Rogue back-to-back. Even though Rogue was a PS3 title, it just did everything better than Unity on the PS4. I highly recommend Rogue.
I still remember the look of shock on the guy’s face at EB Games when I traded both titles in after finishing both. He just couldn’t understand why I would prefer the PS3 title over the PS4.
I played the first two and that was it. I got AC: Black Flag for PC because the ship stuff looked amazing. I still dive into it for a week straight every now and then.
It is almost the perfect pirate game… and it would’ve been, if it wasn’t for the bloody AC story missions and Abstergo bits. *facepalm*
yeah Black Flag was the last AC game i played and i not interested at all in unity once it was releaved to have zero ship stuff. Im also one the few people who absolutely hated the modern day bullcrap and desmond so much so that id quit the game.
Ac 4 was amazing. Pirates and ac just works. Unity on the other hand, absolutely shocking and boring.
I have hopes for the new one, I love the era they have based it in. It feels kinda like a sherlock kinda time.
Also out this week:
Corpse Party: Blood Drive (Vita)
Guitar Hero Live (Wii U/PS3/XBox 360)
Just Dance 2016 (Wii U/PS3/XBox 360/PS4/XBOne)
Gravity Falls: Legend of the Gnome Gemulets (3DS)
Mugen Souls (PC)
Warhammer: End Times – Vermintide. L4D in Warhammer Fantasy-verse? Yes please.
This! Playing the beta atm, great game! Can see me sinking plenty of hours into it.
Yeah, I have owned it for a while but resisted the urge to play until full release. Looking forward to a weekend of it.
Also playing the beta but I cannot help but feel the characters are missing abilities and or talent trees…
yesss this is what i bought after seeing people playing it on twitch.
Can pick it up with a discount code on Greenmangaming for pretty cheap.
I thought Wasteland 2 came to console this week?
That was last week.
Wasn’t that last week? Thought it was simultaneous with PC re-release..
I think so overseas but not locally
@neo_Kaiser
https://www.ebgames.com.au/any/any/any/any/any?availability=onlinestock&q=Wasteland%202%20-%20Director%27s%20Cut
Come to think of it, I did not notice it in JB the other day so you could be right.
I saw it in the store on PSN.
The XBOX One store is showing it as 13/10/15 for the Directors Cut.
So digitally last week, physically this?
@neo_Kaiser
As someone who has played every main AC game on release I didn’t even know Syndicate was coming out this week and have no plans on getting it.
I’m tempted to grab Guitar Hero Live. I really like the new guitar layout and I’d rather play solo/duo than full band, but the live action sequences are a real turn off.
Hmm. I’m not seeing any digital pre-order for it on XBOX Live or the PSN. I really don’t want to have to use a disc for this.
Pretty sure the final episodes of both Life is Strange and Tales from the Borderlands are out tomorrow as well.
Also, Tales of Zestiria is remarkably decent, rather deep progression system whilst at the same time being entirely accessible as a playable game. Characters are interesting and the VA is above average. I am around 20 hours in.
What?! A sequel to Mad TV?! *sniff* I love you indie gaming…
For a moment I thought you meant Smash TV and I got unreasonably excited.
Huh. Didn’t realize AC was out.
I loved 1, meh 2, pleasantly surprised at 2.1, meh 2.2, ugh 3, bought 4 twice because it was amazeballs, ugh 5…
There’s way too much about 6 that seems shit. It’s a game that wears its sunglasses at night. Also, there’s still no pirate ship. (Yes, yes, I know, but seriously, once you’ve had chocolate who the hell would go back to carob?)
Guess I’ll wait the extra 4-5 years it takes for Ubi to swallow their pride and finally put it on the same kind of discount Steam special that every other publisher puts their games on 2yrs after release because they think they’re all that.
“Coming 2017… BLACK FLAGS”
We can only hope.
Yeah, didn’t realize we were this close to this year’s AC. Probably because I’m looking to grab it on PC instead and that’s not out until mid November.
Also probably because after the snore-fest of Unity and the fact they buried the AC that was actually okay last year (Rogue) what they’ve been showing of this new one makes it look like Unity 2.0.
Series seriously needs to take a breather.
I’m very surprised Rogue hasn’t got a next-gen port yet. I heard it was not bad, which is better than their flagship product, which was just bad.
Rogue was great fun, despite copying some animations from Black Flag.
Rogue’s basically more of Black Flag. So it’s pretty good. Flawed and maybe a little weaker due to being developed basically by the B-team, but it’s good. Don’t know why they didn’t port it to PS4 and Xbox One either – the’re a PC port, plus it’s basically built on top of Black Flag and that’s been ported.
The reason I bought Black Flag twice is because I only had a previous gen console when it came out.
Same. I may even buy it a third time on PC if it ever goes on a deep enough discount special.
…I have no idea why. I just really love playing it.
You should never need an excuse to play Black Flag again.
Zestiria is ok… boss battles tend to have a stupid difficulty increase compared to normal battles, which makes them pretty dull.
Some of the writing is just, awful. Like at the start, you can’t help a guy, carry medicine for a plague, because then everyone will want you to help them. So then you find a way to help everyone, only to take the guy’s damn plague-cure anyway… at the same time, everyone is freaked out by the main guys supernatural powers, expect, everyone knows he had these supernatural powers anyway, so what exactly are they freaked out by?
What makes up for the other expected stuff is the skits between the characters. Some genuinely laugh-out-loud moments for me (though I’m a fan of puns).
Did you find the cave with the edna arse-nic skit yet? Sorey is so delightfully slow at times
I don’t think so, best so far for me has to be “bio-doom, in essence”
God, you’re right. While I personally loved ACIII, everyone thought the series was done. Then BOOM, Black Flag got our hopes up, just in time to have Unity and Rogue launch as a hot garbage double feature. Expectations are at an all time low with many people swearing off the franchise for good. Syndicate will probably blow our minds.
Rogue wasn’t bad. Not as good as Black Flag but not bad at all. We’d have been far better off if they’d made that one the yearly release and left Unity to cook for another year.
I thought Rogue was the best.
I will get Syndicate, after all five patches are out for it. Did that for Unity, played just the main story (after 100% on BF and Rogue) and it was alright, not too buggy. Enjoyable enough for the $30 I eventually paid for it.
I feel like $30 is a good price for it. I got mine basically for free (bundled with Xbox One) and by the time I got to it it was patched up so it works properly, but not really worth playing even when it works right.
I quite liked Rogue. Had a good plot and some great moments. Some elements I wasn’t as big a fan of (like the icy water stuff) and I didn’t 100% it, just mainlined the story and did a bit of side stuff as necessary. But it was by far the better game of the two because it ended up basically being more of Black Flag.
What? I didn’t think anyone loved the pile of trash known as AC3. With Mr No Personality Connor, awful awful sidequests and basically “YOU CARE ABOUT THIS BECAUSE IT’S AMERICAN HISTORY” approach to the whole damn game was just woeful.
Then the clustercrap of an ending where they finally decided that they’d truly run out of ideas about how to milk the series for content and just went “screw it”…
I couldn’t even understand how people liked the ship combat. I played Sid Meier’s Pirates! from a decade ago is still a damn sight better at delivering ship sailing high seas buccaneering than any game since.
Connor just frustrated the absolute hell out of me. He was just so….bland. I remember the only part of the game that stuck out for me was a cutscene where he has an argument with Achilles, he showed a bit of passion and temper. Then went back to Mr Wet Paper Bag.
It probably didn’t help that I played ACIV before AC3.
I didn’t like Connor at all and his Forrest Gump-esque traipsing through every single historical event of the American Revolution was honestly pretty stupid. However, I really liked the puzzles, the gameplay in general, and surprisingly, the frontier/colonial America setting. I thought roaming around the forest instead of the grand cities of Europe and the Middle East would be kind of crap but I really enjoyed it. The Homestead building was strangely compelling and I really liked the Achilles character. The ship combat felt very well implemented considering it was basically a tech demo compared to where Black Flag went with it.
Plus, it was the conclusion of the modern day story which, all things considered, was pretty decent. The actual missions taking place in the modern day and the gradual reveal of the end of days business really got its hooks into me.
I’m feeling rather tempted by Guitar Hero. Especially with the super undercut price it’s being released at.
Is it just me, or was this weekly feature missing the last two weeks? It didn’t appear in my RSS feed, and I always watch out for it on Mondays.