After last week’s MASSIVE DUMP…of video games…we’re back to a small splattering of loose titles. Loose as they are, all of them look really interesting.

Our top release is Endless Ocean Luminous, a Nintendo published title from developer Arika (most recently known for Tetris 99, Pac-Man 99, and Super Mario Bros. 35). This is the third entry in the series, and Arika’s fifth scuba diving game overall if you count their two PS2 titles in the Everblue series. The premise of the game is simple, scuba dive in the ocean and document the sea creatures you encounter, while also exploring ancient lost civilizations and sunken shipwrecks. The game sounds very cozy & relaxing, and can even be enjoyed with up to 30 other players if, you know, that sort of things sounds like fun.

Endless Ocean Luminous (Switch) – Releases May 2^nd

Developed by: Arika
Published by: Nintendo

If you need something more exciting in your life than scuba diving, why not check out MotoGP 24, the latest entry in the long running motorcycle racing series. The core gameplay appears to be unchanged from the previous entry but there are a couple of new elements, such as a penalty system for both AI and human players who commit infractions on the track, and an adaptive difficulty setting that scales the AI rider’s skill levels up or down based on how well (or how bad) you play.

MotoGP 24 (PC/PS4/PS5/Switch/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases May 2^nd

Developed by: Milestone
Published by: Milestone

We can’t get through the week without highlighting a couple indie titles, particularly on a slow one like this. First up is Tales from Candleforth, a point & click adventure game that has been gaining a lot of attention since it was first revealed in 2022. We’ve also got Surmount: A Mountain Climbing Adventure, a physics based puzzle-platformer that looks really, really good. I’ve got these on my Steam wish list and am looking forward to checking both out later this year (though I may pick up Surmount on Switch…).

Tales from Candleforth (PC/PS4/PS5/Switch/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Apr. 30^th

Developed by: Under the Bed Games
Published by: Feardemic

Surmount: A Mountain Climbing Adventure (PC/Switch) – Releases May 2nd

Developed by: Jasper Oprel/Indiana-Jonas
Published by: Indiana-Jonas/Jasper Oprel/Popagenda

Ports and Re-releases:

Sea of Thieves (PS5) – Releases Apr. 30^th
Front Mission 2: Remake (PS4/PS5/Series X|S) – Releases Apr. 30^th

The Microsoft exclusives continue to trickle out onto more consoles, with Sea of Thieves coming to PS5 this week. I haven’t played this and, honestly, have no desire to. I don’t need another live service game in my life but, if you are into this genre, knock yourself out.

Front Mission 2: Remake is no longer a Switch exclusive, so pick up this awesome tactics game on your PlayStation or Xbox if you’re one of the few people who still don’t own a Switch.

Everything else:

Not a ton of “Everything Else” titles this week, but we’ve got another puzzle platformer with Astro Pig, a couple of weird “desktop games”, for lack of a better term, with CoinBlock Clicker & Chill Pulse, and, because I know we all just LOVE talking about the Presidential election every four years, The Political Machine 2024, which lets you run a mock election with cartoon versions of Trump, Biden, and a slew of other past candidates. Sigh.

• Astro Pig (PC) – Releases May 1^st
• CoinBlock Clicker (PC) – Releases May 1^st
• Memorel (PC) – Releases May 1^st
• Chill Pulse (PC) – Releases May 2^nd
• The Political Machine 2024 (PC) – Releases May 2^nd
• Undead Inc. (PC) – Releases May 2^nd

Notable Releases from 10, 20, and 30 years ago:

Welcome to Notable Releases, the column within a column. This week’s title are sure to shock and amaze you, yessiree folks! Why we’re got pink puffballs, rootin’ tootin’ gunslingers, and some of deadliest, most fearsome pirates the world has ever know! Read on…

Starting with 2014, we’ve got the 3DS title Kirby: Triple Deluxe, the 13th game in the Kirby series, in which Kirby must save Dreamland from a spider-like baddie named Taranza. The game is a platformer, like most of the mainline games in the series, with Kirby sucking up enemies to gain their power. 20 of Kirby’s famous moves make an appearance, including the Wheel ability, not seen since Kirby’s Return to Dreamland, as well as new abilities Beetle and Bell.

Alongside the core game, Triple Deluxe also featured two prominent mini-games (hence the “Triple” in the title). First is Dedede’s Drum Dash, a rhythm game where players control King Dedede, making him jump on drums in time to the music. The second is Kirby Fighters, a Super Smash Bros. style game in which players fight against one another as, well, Kirby. This minigame was so popular that it gained a stand alone sequel, Kirby Fighters 2, on the Switch in 2020.

Critics mostly liked the game, finding it to be a charming platformer with nice graphics, good music, and well designed levels. On the negative side, however, critics once again found the game to far too easy, and they also felt that the overall design aesthetics of the game were a bit drab, lacking some of the fun and whimsy of earlier Kirby titles. While you can probably just skip this title, if you’re a die hard Kirby fan, or just curious, your options are limited as the game never left the 3DS.

Moving to 2004, we’ve got the third person action/adventure game Red Dead Revolver from Rockstar Games. The game was developed by Rockstar San Diego back when they were still called Angel Studios (you might know them from their other Rockstar franchise, Midnight Club), with the game originally set to be published by Capcom.

Having formed a relationship with the studio when porting Resident Evil 2 to the Nintendo 64, Capcom approached Angel Studios with creating an original police game called S.W.A.T., before pivoting to a spiritual successor to an old Capcom franchise Gun.Smoke. Things seemed to be going well at first, with a few Capcom employees moving from Japan to California in order to work on the game, but problems began to arise between the two companies about the game’s overall design and, what was described as, “cultural differences”.

During production of the game, Rockstar Games decided to purchase Angel Studios and took stock of their existing projects. Read Dead Revolver was in a terrible state, nearly unplayable, but Rockstar’s Dan Hauser saw potential in the game. As it happened, Capcom’s liaison between the two studios, Yoshiki Okamoto, left the company, prompting Capcom to cancel the game. Rockstar took this as and opportunity and purchased the rights from Capcom, allowing thee San Diego team continue their work in the manner that they desired.

Most of us are probably most familiar with the game’s two follow-up’s in the Red Dead Redemption series, and know them as massive, open world epic’s. While Revolver is also a Western with a grand, overarching story, the game is not, in any way, an open world game. Instead, Red Dead Revolver follows a linear structure, with players moving from one level to the next with cutscenes in-between. The only hint of an open world is that players have the ability to explore a small town after each level, talking to NPCs and buying equipment.

In regards to gameplay, this is where the similarities can be seen, as players spend their time in gun fights, taking cover from enemies and using the “dead eye” mechanic to mark spots on their enemies bodies before blasting holes into them.

The critical reception to Red Dead Revolver wasn’t great, with the game receiving average scores from most critics. The game felt unfinished, lacking in polish, and in the words of one critic, felt less like a gritty Sergio Leone film and more like a ride at Disneyland. The game did receive good scores from British newspaper The Times, as well as the U.S. magazine Maxim, who felt the story was engaging and that the gunplay was satisfying and thrilling.

The game has received a bit more retrospective praise in the wake of its two follow-up titles, with players able to see the promise of what was to come. It’s a bit of a miracle that the game even came out, honestly, after almost being lost to the dust bin of video game history. Playing Red Dead Revolver is very easy today if you have an Xbox Series X|S or PS4/PS5, with a digital version being released for those consoles.

Our last notable title is 1994’s The Pirates of Dark Water, based on the animated series of the same name. The game was published by Sunsoft, however, while the game appeared on both the SNES and the Genesis, each title was developed independently and, as a result of this, are completely different.

The SNES version is a side scrolling beat ’em up developed by Sunsoft, with players taking on the role of one of the three main characters, Ren, Tula, or Ioz. The game was a multiplayer affair and shares many similarities to other beat ’em up’s of the day, including a special move that would drain the players life. The Genesis version, developed by Iguana Studios (later known as the studio behind the N64 Turok games), is a side scrolling platformer that featured light RPG elements.

The Pirates of Dark Water is a very specific game made for a very specific era. The funny thing is, studio Hanna-Barbera obviously thought they were going to have a hit show on their hands and, well, it wasn’t. The series had, well, still has, a very passionate and devoted fanbase, but it was nothing more than a niche program with a cult following.

The series was famously cancelled on a cliffhanger after 21 episodes, so why do I even bring up the game? Well, because I’m one of those fans! Check out the show, check out the games, and join the rest of us who wish that it was still around.

Moving on to films, or first notable movie is The Amazing Spider-Man 2, a cluster fuck of bad ideas that destroyed whatever plans Sony had for their initial Spider-Man connected universe. The poor reception both critically and financially prompted Sony to work with Marvel to bring Spider-Man into the MCU so, no matter what you might think about the movie, it at least gave us that gift.

2004’s notable film is an all-time classic, Mean Girls. I don’t really think I need to say too much about this movie, it’s hilarious, it’s iconic, and it’s so fucking fetch. They put out a remake in 2024 that’s a musical and, while I haven’t seen it, I’m sure it sucks because nothing will ever be as good as the original, okay, stop trying to push the Mean Girls remake on me. What are you, some kind of drug pusher? Uh, what else, “she doesn’t even go here“, fuck yeah. I love Mean Girls, and if you guys want to drink I’d rather you did it here in the house, okay? I’m not like a regular feature column writer, I’m a cool feature column writer.

1994’s notable movie is the Dana Carvey vehicle Clean Slate, about a man who loses his memory every 24 hours. It’s not available in any format here in the U.S., probably because it’s so good that anyone who sees it goes blind from its glory, kind of like seeing the face of God.

In notable albums, our 2014 release is Turn Blue by The Black Keys. Now, I like The Black Keys, I think they have a lot of great songs, but I couldn’t tell you which album contained which song if my life depended on, except for maybe El Camino. I assumed Turn Blue was another one of their albums that just kind of came and went after their big break, but it turns out one of their biggest hits, “Fever” appears on Turn Blue, imagine that!? It also wasn’t a commercial or critical flop, it was very well received by everyone, huh? It was even the bands first album to debut at #1 on the Billboard charts and led to a massive, headlining arena tour; crazy.

2004’s notable album is The End of Heartache by Killswitch Engage, the band that your most edgy friend in 2004 was really into. Um, it kinda sucks, but it’s also very “2000’s”, so that has its own bit of charm, 20 years removed. Last up is the 1994 album Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star from Sonic Youth, one of their biggest selling albums of all-time, based on the fact that their previous three albums (Daydream Nation, Goo, and Dirty) had been massive critical successes with multiple, well known songs that got heavy rotation on MTV.

With Experimental…, Sonic Youth went for a more folksy, slow paced, “noise rock” sound that felt a lot more like their earlier albums and, well, probably alienated a bunch of the “posers” who picked up Experimental…, thinking it would just have more songs like “100%”, “Kool Thing”, and “Teen Age Riot”. The album only produced one single, “Bull in the Heather”, with a music video that featured Bikini Kill lead singer Kathleen Hanna as a kind of bratty little sister character, bugging the band while they played.

The album was enjoyed by critics who thought that bassist and singer Kim Gordon had really laid out her soul on the record, praising the strong song writing and lyricism of her work. There was a feeling, however, that Sonic Youth had kind of pulled away from the more pop-rock sound of their previous albums to, perhaps, knock away some of that “sheen” that had grabbed onto the band. If so, it worked, as Sonic Youth’s next four albums all charted very poorly, not really having another major commercial success until 2004’s Sonic Nurse (we’ll talk about that one in June). I’m not a huge fan of Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star, but I love Sonic Youth, so I can at least appreciate it for what it is. Still, if I had to put on one of their albums, it would probably get overlooked by at least 5 or 6 of their others in their catalog.

Kirby: Triple Deluxe (3DS) – Released May 2^nd, 2014: Wiki Link

Red Dead Revolver (PS2/Xbox) – Released May 4^th, 2004: Wiki Link

The Pirates of Dark Water (Genesis/SNES) – Released Apr. or May 1994: Wiki Link

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