Welcome back to This Week In Games Australia, your look ahead at all the games you’ll be playing in the next seven days.
This week is quieter one — publishers around the world are aware we’re all going to be in Zelda‘s grip for at least another week yet — but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some fantastic games on the way. Lego 2K Drive will thrill and delight younger players with its colourful, funny take on the Forza Horizon formula. The beautifully deranged Humanity drops on PlayStation and PC this week, as does Tin Hearts. Starship Troopers Extermination takes us to an ugly planet, a bug planet, and the indies are dropping pure gold with WrestleQuest, Greedventory, No One Lives Under The Lighthouse and Soul Delivery all making waves.
Don’t forget, if you’d like a preview of this piece each and every week, you can catch The Kotaku Australia Podcast on Fridays. Ruby and I talk through what we’ve been playing lately, and pick our favourites from what’s coming up in the week ahead. You can catch the show wherever fine podcasts are uploaded (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc) or you can catch the video version on YouTube!
Without further ado, here’s what you’ll be playing this week (after Zelda).
May 16
Humanity (PS5, PC, PS4)
Humanity is the first of two Lemmings-like games on this week’s list. You play as an especially bossy Shiba-Inu trying to direct a seething, fumbling mass of humanity around various obstacles. They must listen to you, plucky Shiba, for you, as always, know best. The heart of this game’s puzzle solving has to do with traffic flow — how do you keep people moving as smoothly as possible? In that sense, there’s a bit of Katamari DNA in there too. As an old-timer that had a copy of Lemmings on the family Atari ST and his Mega Drive, I am very pleased to see this overlooked puzzle game subgenre making a sudden comeback.
Tin Hearts (PS5, XSX, PC, PS4, XBO)
And here is the second Lemmings-like! Tin Hearts is a puzzle game about guiding toy soldiers through various rooms filled with toy box paraphernalia. Tin Hearts uses scale to its advantage, turning the smallest and most rote wooden toys into giant obstacles. It will be up to you to direct your soldiers, helping them clear a path forward, stay out of trouble, and reach their goals. I’m really looking forward to playing this one. Tin Hearts originally launched for Nintendo Switch last year, but is now coming to all other platforms.
Trinity Trigger (PS5, NS)
You might have heard Ruby talk about Trinity Trigger already, and that’s because it’s been available digitally for a little while now. This week, it comes to retail with boxed copies on PS5 and Nintendo Switch for the collectors to snap up.
May 17
Starship Troopers Extermination (PC)
Starship Troopers Extermination caused a bit of a stir with its first trailer, particularly among men of a certain age (my age, specifically) who were in their teens when Paul Verhoeven’s violent and blackly satirical adaptation of Heinlein’s famous novel first released in 1997. It’s a co-operative PvE first-person shooter based on one of the film’s most well-known sequences — Rasczak’s Roughnecks must defend the stricken Outpost 29 against a overwhelming bug onslaught. If you (and up to three friends) are ready to do your part, you can pick it up on Steam this week.
Zool Redimensioned (PS4)
It’s Zool! He’s back! In remake form!
May 18
Greedventory (PC)
Greedventory is a pixel-art side-scrolling action RPG that asks the question: What if Dark Souls but all my character wanted was to become really, really, ridiculously wealthy? You’ll have your work cut out for you with this one — as bleak in its visual style as it is ruthless in its difficulty.
No One Lives Under The Lighthouse (NS)
No One Lives Under The Lighthouse is a creeepy little walking simulator set on a desolate island. The previous lighthouse keeper has disappeared. Where did they go? It’s up to you unravel the mystery. I confess, if you want me to play a walking sim, this is how convince me. Creepy, old-school visuals and a simple, unnerving premise. Good gear.
Love Love Joe Biden: The Joe Biden Dating Simulator (PC)
Me when Ruby tells me to add a game called Love Love Joe Biden to this week’s TWIG list.
May 19
Lego 2K Drive (PS5, XSX, PC, NS, PS4, XBO)
Lego 2K Drive is an open world racing game with elements of Forza Horizon, Diddy Kong Racing, and Burnout Paradise. It is aimed squarely at kids. I know this because our review code came in on Saturday and I played a few hours of it over the weekend. It’s silly, it’s fun, it’s not particularly challenging, and kids will absolutely eat this up. If you’re a parent (and our audience research tells us that a solid percentage of you are), here’s the game you can put the munchkins in front of this coming weekend.
The Outlast Trials (PC)
Good news for fans of jumpscares everywhere: there’s more Outlast on the way this week. I personally do not care for jumpscares and will not be playing this, no thank you. If you are braver than me, you can find The Outlast Trials on Steam.
Pocket Mirror ~ GoldenerTraum (PC)
Pocket Mirror ~ GoldenerTraum is a remaster of a classic JRPG in which a group of magical girlies find themselves caught in an increasingly macabre story. Don’t be fooled by all the cute anime girls — this is a horror game, and an especially creepy one at that.
WrestleQuest (PS5, XSX, PC, NS, PS4, XBO)
Ruby’s game of the week, without a doubt. WrestleQuest is a classically styled turn-based RPG about professional wrestling. If you’ve felt that the quality of the WWE 2K campaign mode has fallen off over the last few years, this is the game for you. Start small and build your character into a true wrestling superstar. The game even features real world wrestlers! This is one of those games that comes along every so often, that has such a great idea behind it that you struggle to think of why no-one ever bothered to do it before.
May 21
Soul Delivery (PC)
Soul Delivery is a game about the spread of artificial intelligence. No, not like that. You are a little delivery bot tasked with moving packages around a futuristic city by night. Humanity, it seems, is gone, but many questions about what happened to the humans remain. What’s more, your deliveries keep raising more questions than they answer. This is a little game with everything going for it — a cool premise, fabulous art design, interesting gameplay and (most importantly) something to say. You can find it on Itch.
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