This week’s new games are, ONCE AGAIN, incredibly light. This has to be a direct result of the COVID pandemic, right? It usually takes a game 2-3 years to be made, meaning that anything coming out now probably had its pre-production begin either just before the pandemic or shortly after it started.

In any case, your one major release this week is Baldur’s Gate III, which has already been in early access on PC for three years, so is it really new? Eh, sure, why not. For console fans, the game will be coming to PS5 in September, so just hold your horses until then. Aside from Baldur’s Gate, there’s a new fighting game called Sclash, which is maybe one of the dumbest names for a game I’ve seen this year. Atomic Heart (remember that game), has new DLC out this week, for the 30 of you that bought it, and Akiba’s Trip: Undead & Undressed is making its way to Switch as a “Director’s Cut”, with the new content also coming to PC and PS4 as DLC.

Top Releases:

Baldur’s Gate III (PC) – Releases Aug. 3^rd

Developed by: Larian Studios
Published by: Larian Studios

Sclash (PC/PS4/PS5/Switch/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Aug. 4^th

Developed by: Bevel Bakery
Published by: Just For Games

Atomic Heart: The Annihilation Instinct (PC/PS4/PS5/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Aug. 2^nd

Akiba’s Trip: Undead & Undressed – Director’s Cut (PC/PS4/Switch) – Releases Aug. 1^st

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

This week’s notable titles are HUGE compared to their contemporary counterparts. The Wii U got the phenomenal Pikmin 3, perhaps the greatest entry in the series (though recent release Pikmin 4 is getting rave reviews). While a Switch port would come out a few years later, the Wii U Game Pad was the perfect controller for this game, letting you furiously tap the screen to deploy your little flower buddies.

Twenty years ago, Silent Hill 3 came out and tried to live up to the masterpiece Silent Hill 2. I can’t say that it fully succeeded, but it was really cool to see that the game was a direct sequel to the first Silent Hill, even having that game’s protagonist, Harry Mason, play a role in the game’s plot. Funny enough, the sales for Silent Hill 2 were considered to be lower than expected, and part 3 almost became an on-rails shooter (thankfully this idea was scrapped). You can play this game today on the Xbox One/Series X|S through backwards compatibility, though YMMV on the quality of the HD remaster, considered to be one of the worst ports of all time (I thought it was fine).

Finally, thirty years ago brought us The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening for the Game Boy. This was the franchise’s first portable game and shares an art style with A Link to the Past on the SNES. The game takes Link to a mysterious island where a whale sleeps in a giant egg on top of a mountain, or volcano, or something. The game was, strangely enough, heavily inspired by the David Lynch/Mark Frost series Twin Peaks, giving Link’s Awakening a surreal, dream-like aesthetic. A Game Boy Color port would arrive a few years later, and a full-on remake was released on the Switch in 2019.

Wow, what a bunch of great games, eh? What did our notable films and albums look like? Well, the films were all comedies of varying degrees of success and critical acclaim. The most successful was 2013’s We’re the Millers, which has Jennifer Aniston and Jason Sudeikis playing a fake husband & wife on a road trip with their fake kids, as they go on the run from drug dealers; hilarity ensues. Twenty years ago we had American Wedding, the third entry in the American Pie series, capping off the “trilogy”, I guess. It was a piece of shit. Our 1993 comedy is the Mel Brooks classic Robin Hood: Men in Tights, a parody of both the Errol Flynn Robin Hood films, and the semi-recent Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. The film is notable for starring a young Dave Chappelle as “Ahchoo”, a spoof on Morgan Freeman’s character from Price of Thieves. As a kid I fucking LOVED this movie. Today…shit, I still love this movie.

Last paragraph, I promise. The music was all really good this week, with Mitski’s Retired from Sad, New Career in Business being our 2013 album. This was Mitski’s college senior project and was released independently on Sound Cloud; it’s now super popular on TikTok. Twenty years ago, Snow Patrol put out Final Straw in the UK and Ireland, but cool people in the U.S. knew about it before it hit our shores in 2004. In 2006, the band would receive massive, worldwide exposure thanks to the show Grey’s Anatomy, which used their song “Chasing Cars” in a key scene from the second season finale. Our notable album from 1993 is my favorite of the bunch, Weird Al’s Alapalooza, featuring the iconic Weird Al version of the Jurassic Park logo, and two absolute classic songs, “Jurassic Park” and “Bedrock Anthem”. While the album was not as big of a critical success as his previous album, Off the Deep End, it was a financial success.

Pikmin 3 (Wii U) – Released Aug. 4^th, 2013: Wiki Link

Silent Hill 3 (PS2) – Released Aug. 5^th, 2003: Wiki Link

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (Game Boy) – Released Aug. 6^th, 1993: Wiki Link