Welcome back to This Week In Games Australia, and the beginning of a busy week ahead. AAA is back in force this week, with multiple major launches. The Last of Us Part I arrives, marking its third consecutive outing on a PlayStation console, and F1 Manager 2022 applies a classic genre to the ultra-popular sport of the moment. Destroy All Humans 2 Reprobed and TMNT: The Cowabunga Collection fill out the AA roster, and Tinykin fills out the indie contingent. Here’s what you’ll be playing this week.
August 30
Destroy All Humans 2 Reprobed (PS5, XSX, PC)
You already know if the Destroy All Humans games are your b-movie cup of tea. These games follow an angry alien stuck on earth, taking his frustrations out on the unwary humans that get in his way. Silly, uncomplicated fun. Destroy All Human 2 is a game from 2006, so even with a fresh coat of paint, it may show its age.
F1 Manager 2022 (PS5, XSX, PC, PS4, XBO)
With F1 enjoying its most significant surge in popularity since the Schumacher era in the 90s, thanks to Netflix’s Drive to Survive, there’s been a rush of games hoping to capitalise. Many of these have been cheap mobile cash cows. EA’s F1 22 has been a successful if temperamental, racing sim that lets players live their dream of driving one of these ultra-high performance cars and make broad strokes decisions about the teams’ futures. F1 Manager removes driving from the equation altogether. Instead, this is a game about being a team boss or, in F1 terms, a team principal. Every decision, from year-long financials to which upgrades the team will focus on, race and tyre strategy, and even which systems are available to your drivers during a race, are up to you. Every move you make must translate into an advantage for your team so your drivers can bring home podium places and constructor’s championship points. One for the min-maxers, for sure.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection (PS5, XSX, PC, NS, PS4, XBO)
Not all that interested in producing new games, Konami seems happy to mine its library of classic titles these days. Case in point: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection, a suite of games from Konami’s TMNT heyday. Similar to its Castlevania collection, there’s actually a surprising number of games in this package. Here’s what you get:
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles* (Arcade)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time* (Arcade)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game (NES)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project (NES)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters (NES)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time (SNES)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters* (SNES)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist* (Mega Drive)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters (Mega Drive)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of The Foot Clan (GameBoy)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Back From The Sewers (GameBoy)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Radical Rescue (GameBoy)
Those games with asterisks next to them also have online play. Eleven of these games have regional, and Japanese versions included. Without a doubt, the most comprehensive package of TMNT games ever released.
Tinykin (PS5, XSX, PC, NS, PS4, XBO)
Tinykin shares a conceptual space with Pikmin. Both games are about a little spaceman stranded on a world he doesn’t understand, turning a local colour-coded prey animal into an unstoppably productive personal army. Like Pikmin, different coloured Tinykin can be used for different purposes. Blue Tinykin are conductive and can be linked together in a line to connect an electrical current. Purple Tinykin are very strong and can be used to lift and reposition heavy obstacles. Green Tinykin can be stacked to create a ladder. You get the idea. In lieu of Nintendo doing anything with the Pikmin franchise, I’m glad someone out there is still using its ideas to make something new.
September 1
Thymesia (XSX, XBO)
This one has been out for a little while on other platforms, but this week comes to Xbox. The latest to throw itself into the crowded Soulslike genre, Thymesia is a dark fantasy action RPG in which you are a character names Corvus, who ‘wields the power of disease.’ It all looks very Soulsy, but will it hold a candle to FromSoft at its best? Find out on Game Pass later this week.
September 2
Fallen Legion Collection (PS5, XSX, PC, XBO)
It wouldn’t be TWIG without a JRPG on the list. Fallen Legion Collection combines Rise to Glory and Revenants into a single package. This will be both games’ first outing on the PlayStation 5.
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle R (PS5, XSX, PC, NS, PS4, XBO)
I have never seen JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, so I don’t know what the hell is going on here. Nevertheless, this trailer features a woman landing a 20-hit combo on a man with her breasts and then pummelling him further with junk she found on the street. Make of all of this what you will. I, for one, am terrified. This is a remake of a PS3 game from 2013 and will be its first outing on current-gen consoles.
Lego Brawls (PS5, XSX, PC, NS, PS4, XBO)
Everybody’s got a Smash Bros clone all of a sudden. When did that trend begin? Anyway, Lego Brawls‘ approach is to have you build your own fighter from scratch and take the battle to various platformer-styled levels. It definitely looks a little less complex than Smash Bros, which may make it a far more accessible entry point to the genre for younger players. This one started life on mobile platforms first and now makes the hop to consoles and PC.
The Last Of Us Part I (PS5)
There’s some back and forth around the value of The Last of Us Part I as a package. Most have played it before, and we know how valuable it is to PlayStation as a brand. The game is a verified masterpiece, but it’s also nearly ten years old. For this remaster, Naughty Dog has visually rebuilt the game to sit more in line with the look of its sequel. Many new accessibility options have been added to help it further mirror its PS4 follow-up. Naughty Dog promises elements like combat have been made smoother, and some refinements to gameplay have also been made to help it feel more modern than the PS3 game it will always be at heart.
I guess the big question for players is: Do you have another Last of Us playthrough in you after all these years? Has it been long enough since you’ve played it that a costly next-gen coat of paint would entice you back for another run? Let me know; I’m really curious about the audience gut check on this.
And that’s TWIG for another week! What are you diving into this week? Sound off in the comments down below.
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