Here we go, folks, the mid-Summer dump! We’ve got a ton of games coming out this week, some big, some small, there’s something for everybody!

Top Releases:

Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn (PC/PS4/PS5/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Jul. 18^th

Developed by: A44 Games
Published by: Kepler Interactive

Nintendo World Championships: NES edition (Switch) – Releases Jul. 18^th

Developed by: indieszero
Published by: Nintendo

Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess (PC/PS4/PS5/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Jul. 19^th

Developed by: Capcom
Published by: Capcom

Flock (PS4/PS5/Switch/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Jul. 11^th

Developed by: Hollow Pond/Richard Hogg
Published by: Annapurna Interactive

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate (Switch) – Releases Jul. 17^th

Developed by: Super Evil Megacorp
Published by: Super Evil Megacorp

Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus (PC/PS5/Switch/Series X|S) – Releases Jul. 17^th

Developed by: Squid Shock Studios
Published by: Humble Games

SCHiM (PC/PS4/PS5/Switch/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Jul. 18^th

Developed by: Ewold van der Werf/Nils Slijkerman
Published by: Extra Nice/PLAYISM

Expansions:

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora The Sky Breaker (PC/PS5/Series X|S) – Releases Jul. 16^th

After releasing in December of 2023, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora has kind of dropped off the map. Did you even remember it came out? I sure didn’t! That’s probably not what Ubisoft was hoping when they licensed the popular film for one of their standard open world shooters, but maybe this new expansion will remind everyone that the game exists. If only for a little while.

Everything else:

Speaking of games you probably forgot existed (or never even heard of), the 3DS series The Denpa Men are making a return to North America after an eleven year absence. What is The Denpa Men? Well, it’s some kind of dungeon crawling RPG, I think. I don’t know. It’s very weird, so that probably means its very good; right?

• The New Denpa Men (Switch) – Releases Jul. 22^nd
• EA Sports College Football 25 (PS5/Series X|S) – Releases Jul. 19^th
• Aerial_Knight’s We Never Yield (PC) – Releases Jul. 16^th
• EvilVEvil (PC/PS5/Series X|S) – Releases Jul. 16^th
• Gestalt: Steam & Cinder (PC) – Releases Jul. 16^th
• Nobody Wants to Die (PC/PS5/Series X|S) – Releases Jul. 17^th
• Over Horizon X Steel Empire (PS4/Switch) – Releases Jul. 18^th

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

Moving on to Notable Releases, your favorite column within a column, we’ve got three titles that I hope delight and fascinate you…

First up, from 2014, we have the game Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty, a complete remake of the PSX game Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee. The game was developed by the studio Just Add Water, who were already in a working relationship with Oddworld’s original developer, Oddworld Inhabitants, porting earlier titles Stranger’s Wrath and Munch’s Oddysee to the PC, PS3, and PS Vita.

Created by a team of 14, Just Add Water were given full access to all of the original source code and assets from Abe’s Oddysee. However, they were instructed to not re-use any of the assets in an attempt to cut corners, as Lannig was adamant that the game be made up of entirely new assets. In choosing the name of the game, the working titles were Abe HD and Abe’s Oddyssey HD, but the team went out to fans in order to solicit ideas. After several submissions, the team settled on New ‘n’ Tasty! which was, surprisingly, submitted by over 40 people.

New ‘n’ Tasty! plays, more or less, just like the PSX original, with Abe having no means to attack enemies directly, instead using his psychic powers to control enemies when possible. Otherwise, Abe’s best line of defense is to move through each level as stealthily as possible, saving his fellow Mudokons along the way.

Critics were impressed with the game, calling the remake a labor of love that respects the original source material while introducing elements to make it feel modern. Some critics were still put off by the difficulty of the game, despite the inclusion of an easy mode, and found that the controls were a bit awkward at times. Initially a PS4 exclusive, the game would eventually make its way to other consoles, including a downgrade to the PS3 and Wii U, with the most recent release being on the Switch in 2020. Check it out!

Our 2004 notable release isn’t from a genre that you might typically think of when doing a retrospective, sports. However, not every sports game is as good as Visual Concepts football masterpiece ESPN NFL 2K5.

Since, probably, the early 1990’s, sports games have gotten kind of a bad rap from “real gamers”, you know the type. They’re the ones that obsess over Japanese games, or only play indies, or talk about the artistic integrity of Hideo Kojima like he’s Ingmar Bergman. To these “real gamers” sports titles are for the masses, the kind of people that only buy Madden every year and ignore the really good stuff, like Doki Doki Poyatchio on the PSX (haven’t heard of it? Pfft, of course you haven’t).

However, what these “real gamers” hadn’t seen was just how innovative, how precisely controlled, and just how FUN the NFL 2K series was. Originally released for the Dreamcast as a launch title in 1999, the franchise continued on other consoles once Sega got out of the hardware business. Now, for over a decade, EA’s John Madden Football franchise had been dominating all other football games across every console. By 2003, their only rivals were Sony’s NFL GameDay series, Microsoft’s NFL Fever series, and Sega’s NFL 2K series. Madden would wipe the floor with all of them, every year, no doubt about it. Until 2004.

With the release of their 2003 title, EPSN NFL Football, Sega and Visual Concepts had shown that their brand of football game was a worthy contender to Madden, and could possibly take the crown as the biggest football game in the U.S. Knowing that they had a superior product, Sega made the unprecedented decision to launch ESPN NFL 2K5 and the low, low price of $19.99. It was a “hail Mary”, so to speak, and it worked.

While ESPN NFL 2K5 didn’t outsell Madden NFL 2005, it drastically lowered the amount of units they sold that year. The loss of customers was dire, for EA and they would later go on to state that Sega’s move “…scared the hell out of us“. EA would lower the price of Madden to $29.99 that year to compete, but the real change would come later in the year.

First though, let’s talk about ESPN NFL 2K for a moment, and what it offered. While the game offered simple pick up and play contests, the core mode of the title was Franchise. In this mode, players would pick a team, draft players, play through their season, make trades, hope to get to the playoffs, and win the Super Bowl. Standard stuff, of course, but each contest featured a slick, in-game “broadcast” that featured ESPN commentator Chris Berman presiding over a SportsCenter segment on your upcoming game, as well as post game highlights.

Players could also compete against one another online, which isn’t really a new feature. However, ESPN NFL 2K5 included a unique way to play against your friends when they were offline, the VIP system. With VIP, the game’s AI would be trained by you as you played, picking plays as you would, running the ball as you would, etc. Not only was it a great way to play against your friends while they were away, it also allowed you play against celebrities.

In these celebrity games, players could go up against the VIP profiles of such very 2004 stars as David Arquette, Jamie Kennedy, Steve-O, Funkmaster Flex, and Carmen Electra. During the game, a box would occasionally appear on screen, featuring a short clip of the celebrity trash talking you. If the player wins the game, they will unlock special stadiums that were, supposedly, designed by these celebrities.

Now, back to EA. Having seen enough of their market share being taken over by Sega, they made one of the boldest moves in video games by signing an exclusivity deal with NFL and the NFL Players Associate in December of 2004. This meant that EA were the only studio that could use current NFL teams and their players. Six years later, a class action anti-trust lawsuit would be brought against EA regarding their exclusive deal with the NFL. EA would settle the case, paying out $27 million, which allowed them to continue their exclusive deal with the NFL and NFLPA.

Still regarded today as one of, if not THE, greatest football games ever made, ESPN NFL 2K5 with an active community that will post updated rosters every new season. The game still finds its way onto lists of greatest sports games, and the team who put out Madden every year will still hear gripes from players that it should be more like 2K5. The perfect football game came out in 2004, there was never a need for another one. Today’s Madden is, like all modern sports games, created in a way to make you want to spend real money on digital goods on the case you get to see a shiny screen for a few seconds. It’s pathetic, it’s sick, and it’s just not what “real gamers” want.

From 1994, we’ve got the PC game Star Wars: TIE Fighter, a flight simulator that, for quite a while (maybe still), was considered the best in the genre. Taking place just after the Empire’s victory on Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back, players take on the role of an unnamed pilot who goes on several missions in order to maintain “peace” and “order” throughout the galaxy.

It feels a bit odd to be playing what are essentially space Nazi’s, but by following the orders of Grand Admiral Thrawn instead of, say, The Emperor or Darth Vader (though they’re around…), players can kind of feel like they’re more military peacekeeper than jackbooted thug. Affiliations aside, TIE Fighter is an exceptional game with tight controls and some of the best graphics that 1994 could offer.

TIE Fighter received universal acclaim upon release, gaining near perfect scores from the majority of outlets, and perfect score from the magazine Computer Gaming World. Two years later, CGW would add it to the Hall of Fame and, over the years, TIE Fighter has found it self added to multiple “Best of…” lists and Halls of Fame. Thankfully, this PC masterpiece is available today from GOG, one of the best digital game stores for retro content. Play it!

Moving on to notable films and, sorry to say, they’re all pretty weak. 2014 gave us the horror sequel The Purge: Anarchy which is just a retread of the first film but on a wider scale. I enjoyed it fine enough when I watched it on Peacock last year, but it’s nothing special. 2004 gave us the terrible action/sci-fi film I, Robot, an in your face, balls to the wall roller coaster that is nothing like the thought provoking, sometimes heartbreaking dramatic novel by Isaac Asimov. Fuck this movie.

1994’s notable film is considered not just one of the worst films of 1994, but one of the worst of all time; Rob Reiner’s stinker North. This hateful movie tries to come across as a modern fable, in which the titular character, North, divorces his parents and goes in search of new ones. He finds himself coming across the most outlandish, stereotypical, and racially insensitive characters that Hollywood could find. Written by Alan Zweibel, an original writer on SNL, the screenplay feels like it’s about 20 years too late. I hate North…but maybe not as much as I, Robot.

This week’s notable albums, unlike the films, are, for me, three of the biggest, and most important albums in my life. First we have 2014’s Never Hungover Again by the band Joyce Manor. You might have recently seen Joyce Manor on John Mulaney’s Netflix talk show Everybody’s In L.A., where they played “Cataline Fight Song”, the best track from Never Hungover Again.

By 2014, Joyce Manor were on the cusp of pop-punk/emo immortality or footnote, with a highly acclaimed self-titled debut, to the more experimental and divisive Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired. For Never Hungover Again, the band signed to the famous punk rock label Epitaph, putting out their biggest and best record to date.

The success of the album allowed Joyce Manor to go on their first headlining tour, with opening acts Toys That Kill, Modern Baseball, and Mitski. Clocking in at a brisk 19 minutes on the dot, Never Hungover Again was a big hit with critics, calling it a return to the sound of their debut, while also showing a growing maturity in the song writing. The short songs helped define Joyce Manor’s style, in which critics felt that the band was redefining what a hook in a song was. They were upending the classic structure and it made the album all the better for it.

From 2004, another one of my favorite bands with my favorite album of theirs, is Tyrannosaurus Hives by The Hives. The third full length album from the Swedish punk band, Tyrannosaurus Hives starts off with its foot pressed firmly against the gas pedal and doesn’t let up for nearly thirty minutes. While Never Hungover Again is literally a short nineteen minutes, Tyrannosaurs Hives moves so fast that it feels like it gets done in half the time.

The lead single “Walk Idiot Walk” is an incredibly catchy tune that immediately recalls their previous hit single, “Hate to Say I Told You So”, with its heavily repeated chorus and metronomic timing (a staple of the bands songwriting). Other single included “Two Timing Touch and Broken Bones” and the album opener “Abra Cadaver” (which, in my head cannon, would be the perfect opening song to a Grand Theft Auto movie. Rockstar and Hollywood, call me, we’ll work out the details).

I love, love, LOVE this album, it’s one that I will go back to constantly, listening to it from start to finish and then repeating it back. The Hives may have had a cooling off period over the last ten years or so, but their most recent album, The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons put them back in the spotlight, with appearances on late night talk shows and an opening spot on the Foo Fighters 2024 tour (that I will be attending in less then a month, thank you very much). Tyrannosaurus Hives is a brilliant work of art that I wholeheartedly endorse. Check it out.

Finally, our notable album from 1994 is, again, one of my favorites, though it is not my favorite album by the band, it’s Punk in Drublic by NOFX. Another Epitaph release (fun fact, The Hives second album, Veni Vidi Vicious was also released by Epitaph). While Punk in Drublic was not NOFX’s highest charting album of their career, it is certainly the best selling, with over 500k copies sold in the US, and over 1 million worldwide, making it their only gold record.

While NOFX rarely release singles, the first one sent to radio stations was the song “Don’t Call Me White”, in which front man Fat Mike laments his “whiteness”, and wishes that people would base their judgement of him on his actions and not his ancestors history of oppression. However, like many NOFX albums, most people ignored the singles (it’s not like the radio stations were playing them) and instead would latch on to another song.

The track from Punk in Drublic that you can almost guarantee that every punk fan knows is, of course, “Linoleum”. The opening track on the album, “Linoleum” is kind of an anthem for the punk rock crowd, a well known tune that you immediately recognize the second it starts. “Linoleum” is such a well known song that it has been covered countless times by various bands over the years. It’s almost a rite of passage for a young punk band to learn “Linoleum” and play it at their first gig.

Like Tyrannosaurs Hives, Punk in Drublic starts hard and goes hard for nearly 40 minutes. Stand out tracks include the second single, “Leave it Alone”, the scene trashing song “The Cause, the speed metal inspired and (mostly) instrumental “The Quass” (which I’d use to open a zombie film. Again, Hollywood, call me, I have IDEAS), “Perfect Government” which gives us the great chorus “How did the cat, get so fat?!“, feel good Jewish drinking song “The Brews”, and many, many more.

While Punk in Drublic was released during the great punk-ening of 1994, I personally didn’t listen to the album until 1999, after getting back into pop-punk thanks to bands like Blink-182 and MxPx. NOFX quickly became my favorite band after that, catching up on albums like White Trash, Heavy Petting Zoo, and my favorite NOFX album, So Long and Thanks for All the Shoes. They’re the only band who’s sticker I will proudly display on my car and, if you can believe it, while I was driving around downtown San Diego, a car pulls up next to me and honks its horn. I roll down my window and who is it? Fucking NOFX guitarist Eric Melvin, dreads and all, sitting in the car with his wife. They wave to me, say cool sticker, I wave back, my jaw on the floor, and mutter out “Uhh, thanks! I love your band!” and then drive away because the light turned green. Should I have invited him the Padres game I was going to? Probably. Hey Melvin, if you’re reading this, hit me up, let’s go catch a game sometime.

Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty! (PS4) – Released Jul. 22^nd, 2014: Wiki Link

ESPN NFL 2K5 (PS2/Xbox) – Released Jul. 20^th, 2004: Wiki Link

Star Wars: TIE Fighter (PC) – Released Jul. 20^th, 1994: Wiki Link

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