There’s a lot of online multiplayer games coming out this week. Crazy, it’s almost like these game publishers know that kids and teenagers are going to have a lot of free time coming up…

Top Releases:

Destiny 2: The Final Shape (PC/PS4/PS5/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Jun. 4^th

Developed by: Bungie
Published by: Bungie

Killer Klowns from Outer Space: The Game (PC/PS5/Series X|S) – Releases Jun. 4^th

Developed by: IllFonic/Teravision Games
Published by: IllFonic

Star Wars: Hunters (Android/iOS/Switch) – Releases Jun. 4^th

Developed by: Zynga/NaturalMotion
Published by: Zynga

Blockbuster Inc. (PC) – Releases Jun. 6^th

Developed by: Super Sly Fox
Published by: Ancient Forge

The Smurfs – Village Party (PC/PS4/PS5/Switch/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Jun. 6^th

Developed by: Balio Studio
Published by: Microids

Everything else:

Here’s the rest of stuff. I guess Rolling Hills looks cute enough, and it lets you spend time outdoors without actually having to, you know, go outdoors. I’d rather stay inside and breathe my own recycled air, thank you very much.

• Fireside (PC) – Releases Jun. 4^th
• Rolling Hills: Make Sushi, Make Friends (PC/Xbox One) – Releases Jun. 4^th
• Rocksmith+ (PS4/PS5) – Releases Jun. 6^th
• Tour de France 2024 (PC/PS5/Series X|S) – Releases Jun. 6^th

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

It’s time for notable releases, folks. Let’s step back in time, take a journey, and reminisce about the video games and pop culture that dominated our lives.

First up, we have the 3DS game Tomodachi Life, a life sim/quasi social network created by Nintendo. In Tomodachi Life, players would take their Mii character, put them on an island with other Mii’s, and watch them live out their life.

While Tomodachi Life had a few mini games, like baby sitting, memory match, and football, the main attraction of the game was dressing up your collection of Mii’s in outrageous outfits and watching them get into outrageous situations. Players could even collect items that would transform their apartment into something more whimsical, like outer space.

Critical reception to Tomodachi Life was mixed (though mostly positive) with outlets like IGN and Polygon really embracing the humor and weirdness of the title, while outlets like Eurogamer and GameTrailers felt it was barely worth more than a few hours of your time. Players appeared to love the game, particularly in Japan, and made it one of the ten best selling 3DS games of all time; crazy.

The success of Tomodachi Life appeared to have a direct influence on Nintendo’s very first mobile game, 2016’s Miitomo, in which players would create a Mii and take outrageous pictures and send silly messages to one another. Despite Tomodachi LIfe’s success, the game would not receive a follow-up title, with Nintendo instead using the Mii’s in another 3DS title, Miitopia, an RPG. While Miitopia has receives a Switch port, Tomodachi Life has not, locking the title to the 3DS; for now.

Moving to 2004, we’ve got another handheld game, Sonic Advance 3 for the Game Boy Advance. Not a whole lot changed from the previous entries, with the game being, once again, a fast paced 2d side scroller, where players completed stages on their quest to defeat the evil Dr. Eggman.

There was on fairly major gameplay change, to be fair, with players now able to select a second character to join them in each stage. This second character is controlled by the game and can collect coins and kill enemies. However, with two GBA’s a a link cable, a second player can instead control this character, turning Sonic Advance 3 into a co-op game.

Sonic Advance 3 was well received by critics, who called it one of the best GBA games of the year, while players voted it “Best Handheld Game” at the 2004 Golden Joystick Awards. There were some critics who didn’t find the game all that great, and felt that the series was starting to get stale. In their opinion, Sonic Advance 3 did very little to differentiate itself from the myriad 2d Sonic games that had been coming out for over a decade. Don’t worry, critics, there’s about to a a BUNCH of 3d Sonic games released over the next 20 years that you’re gonna LOVE.

Our notable title from 1994 isn’t a handheld game, but it is a game that is about a Summer vacation staple. I’m talking about Theme Park! While you might have played Tomodachi Life or Sonic Advance 3 on the car ride to Disneyland or Six Flags, Theme Park is the only game where you could MAKE Disneyland or Six Flags, sort of.

Theme Park is a simulation game, not unlike SimCity, where players design their own theme parks. While on the surface level you are placing rides, paths, shops, and decorations in your park, underneath of that you must also keep your theme park profitable. You can set ticket prices, concession prices, souvenir prices, and even negotiate salaries with your workers (you can tell this was made by Europeans, because no American theme park worker has a union).

Them Park was designed by Peter Molyneux and his studio Bullfrog Productions, who took great pains to make the game as realistic as they possibly could. The team travelled the globe, going to different theme parks to get ideas, even recording audio at these parks to use in the game. Molyneux wanted each guest who entered a players park to have a unique personality, along with specific needs and desires. A multiplayer component was initially batted around, with players able to invade each other’s theme parks and cause mischief, but this was scrapped.

Theme Park was a massive hit in Europe and Japan, leading to several ports to other home computers and consoles, including a Japanese specific version for consoles called Shin Theme Park, which changed multiple assets to appeal to the Japanese market. Them Park was not a success in the United States, however, with Molyneux wondering if the game’s “cartoonish” graphics turned off American audiences.

Despite the poor commercial reception in the U.S., critics loved the game, calling it one of the best PC games of the year. However, subsequent console releases in the U.S., including the Atari Jaguar, Sega Genesis, Sega Saturn, and PlayStation, were often harshly criticized for their inferior graphics and controls. Bullfrog and EA would put out two sequels, Theme Park World and Theme Park Inc (known in the US as Sim Theme Park and SimCoaster), but the series would be overtaken by a rival franchise, Rollercoaster Tycoon. Theme Park is still available today and can be picked up from the GOG digital store.

Moving on to notable films, 2014 gave us the Tom Cruise film Live. Die. Repeat Edge of Tomorrow, based on the novel, and subsequent manga, All You Need Is Kill. In this film, Tom Cruise plays the role of a soldier who dies and then finds himself waking up at the beginning of the day, doomed to repeat this cycle for eternity, it seems. The movie isn’t that bad, honestly, and is one of the better Cruise pictures of the last ten years that isn’t part of the Mission Impossible franchise.

From 2004, we’ve got the movie Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. This is the third film in the series and the first not directed by Chris Columbus, with that duty being taken over by Alfonso Cuaron. With a string of highly stylized films under his belt, A Little Princess, Great Expectations, and Y tu mama tambien, Cuaron was able to take the Potter movie franchise to greater artistic heights than Columbus could. It was a little more edgy, a little more dark, and a lot more beautiful to look at. While you could easily say that the first two Potter films were aimed at children, Prisoner of Azkaban was where the films started to “grow up”, so to speak, setting forth a tone that would last through the rest of the series.

Our 1994 film is the action blockbuster Speed, which turned Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock into the biggest movie stars on the planet almost overnight. The movie, if you haven’t seen it, takes place on a bus that has a bomb attached to it. If the bus drops below 55 MPH it explodes, or, if anyone tries to get off the bus, it explodes. Reeves plays a young, thrill seeking cop who is trying his best to save the people on the bus, while Bullock plays your average, plucky, girl next door type who finds the courage in herself to help keep the people on the bus safe as well. Dennis Hopper is the bad guy, and he’s fun to watch as well. Speed rules, I love this movie, and I could watch it over and over. It’s one hell of a ride.

For notable album releases, 2014 gave us Lazaretto, the second solo album by Jack White, and probably his biggest and most critically acclaimed release since disbanding The White Stripes. The album debuted at #1, had the best first week vinyl album sales since 1991, was nominated for multiple Grammy’s, and led to a headlining gig at Coachella. Not bad.

2004 gave us the album Sonic Nurse from the band Sonic Youth, a come back, of sorts, after a string of commercially unsuccessful albums. Critics called it their best release since 1988’s Daydream Nation and showed that the band was still capable of delivering exciting, important music over twenty years after their 1981 formation (okay). Two singles were released off the album, “Kim Gordon and the Arthur Doyle Hand Cream” and, my personal favorite, “Unmade Bed”, a nearly four minute noise rock masterpiece that demands your attention.

1994’s notable album is one of the biggest releases of the 1990’s, something I feel like I am saying just about every week with these ’94 albums, Purple by Stone Temple Pilots. Like Jack White’s Lazaretto, Purple also debuted at number one on the Billboard Top 200, driven by the singles “Big Empty” (which was featured in the film The Crow), “Vasoline”, and the smash hit “Interstate Love Song”, which received heavy airplay on MTV.

With the death of Kurt Cobain, I was in search of a new favorite band and, somehow, Stone Temple Pilots became that band for me. I don’t know what it was that they had over other groups like Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Green Day, Nine Inch Nails, Soundgarden, and others, but they had IT. I begged my mom to buy me the CD, so she did, but then made me return it immediately because they say the word “Fuck” in one of the songs. Later, my dad bought me the cassette tape so I could listen to it on my Walkman, because dad’s are cool (happy almost Father’s Day).

Tomodachi Life (3DS) – Released Jun. 6^th, 2014: Wiki Link

Sonic Advance 3 (GBA) – Released Jun. 7^th, 2004: Wiki Link

Theme Park (PC) – Released Jun. 1994: Wiki Link

---

If you like what I’m doing here consider supporting me on Patreon. You can also find me on X, if that sort of thing is your bag. I eat a lot of corndogs.

Here’s some more STP for you, because I know you want it: