Games

New Game Releases 08/20/24 – 08/26/24

Hello everyone, welcome to New Game Releases! It’s been a pretty slow Summer, not going to lie, but the Fall slate of releases is just around the corner, finally. Since we are nearing the end of August, we’ve hit the point in the year where we get games that kind of, sort of, look like big AAA releases but are clearly just being dumped into a market that’s begging for anything interesting to come out. Are this week’s games going to be sleeper hits, or giant piles of garbage; let’s find out…

Top Releases:

Black Myth: Wukong (PC/PS5/Series X|S) – Releases Aug. 20th

Developed by: Game Science
Published by: Game Science

Our top game this week is the souls-like title Black Myth: Wukong, from the Chinese developer Game Science and it, well, comes with some controversy. Loosely based on the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West, players control “The Destined One”, also known as Sun Wukong or The Monkey King, guiding him through six chapters. Wukong will take on a variety of massive bosses, all on their quest to retrieve some ancient, lost relics. None of this is particularly controversial and the game is, for the most part, pretty apolitical, so why are there people frothing at the mouth about this game? It depends on your political leanings because Black Myth is either a game put out by some of the biggest misogynists in video game history, or it’s the target of a worldwide conspiracy by journalists and Western developers for failing to “go woke”.

Back in 2023, IGN published an article that accused the leadership at Game Science of being sexists, pulling up old Tweets and other online interactions as proof. However, if you actually read the article, while IGN does accuse the higher ups of sexism, the story starts to become more about the growing feminist movement in China, with video games just being one part of that. It was a bit of a blow to the game which had so many people excited, as they began to question if they wanted to support a studio that may be run by people who might harbor ill will towards women. That could have been the end of it, but then things got way worse.

Soon after the IGN article, some people in the Twitterverse (I’ll let you guess which kind) began to level their own accusations towards IGN, claiming that the outlet was purposely sabotaging Black Myth because they were refusing to work with “woke” companies like Sweet Baby Inc. and, not just that, the tweets and online posts they were using had been mistranslated. They admitted that the content was still vulgar, but it was not sexist. Known dickhead Mark “Grummz” Kern has made it his mission to champion Black Myth and tear down IGN (and other outlets) for their supposed mistreatment of Game Science. One look at his Twitter feed (which, bravo if you can get through it) shows an almost bizarre obsession with the game and the journalists covering it.

Grummz and his ilk want Black Myth to be a massive success and will hurl insults and accusations of liberal bias if any outlet scores the game too low (IGN gave the game 8/10 which they screamed was proof of their bias. An 8!). All of this, my friends, is to say that it is 2024 and we still can’t play video games without some kind of political/social agenda tied to it. The game, deserved or not, will forever be tied to this controversy. If you buy it and play it, then you’re telling the world, “I’m anti-woke and DEI is bullshit!“, if you tear the game down and refuse to play it, you’re telling everyone, “Fuck the CHUD’s! I stand for equality in gaming and will not support misogynistic developers!“. This is the world we exist in, it’s confusing, it’s angry, and it’s built on tribalism. Sorry, everyone, you can’t just play a game anymore, you must be part of a movement; at least, that’s what Twitter says. My personal opinion, Black Myth has always looked like terrible, low budget dreck, and it’s something I would only consider picking up in a Walmart Black Friday sale for $9.99 or less.

Concord (PC/PS5) – Releases Aug. 23rd

Developed by: Firewalk Studios
Published by: Sony Interactive Entertainment

Sigh, we just can’t get away from controversial games this week, because now we’ve got to talk about Sony and Firewalk’s Concord. If the right wing activists are hoping Black Myth will be the biggest title of 2024, they’re hoping Concord might be one of the worst received of 2024. Why? Well, let me tell you folks, these developers had the FUCKING audacity to make two of their characters, get this, an Asian woman and a black woman. Oh, and the black woman is, like, fat, with a square jaw!!! In case you couldn’t tell, I’m being sarcastic and my eyes have rolled so far back into my head that they’ve spin around and are facing forward again. Anyway, the couch fuckers might get their wish, as Concord looks absolutely terrible; a boring, tired squad shooter that appears to be a dime store rip-off of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. A recent free open beta pulled in an abysmally low number of players, so there’s not a lot of hope here. I expect the Concord servers to shut down in April of 2025.

Our last big title of the week is the latest expansion to World of Warcraft, called The War Within. This is the tenth expansion for WoW since its 2004 release, and promises to be the first of a trilogy. The expansion takes place in the subterranean areas of Azeroth, called Khaz Algar, where the Nerubian empire live. The central conflict in the story involves someone named Xal’atath rallying the Nerubian forces to invade Azeroth, causing Humans and Orcs to work together in order to stop this threat.

World of Warcraft: The War Within (PC) – Releases Aug. 26th

Developed by: Blizzard Team 2/Blizzard Boston
Published by: Blizzard Entertainment

Rounding out the top releases is the action/adventure rhythm game, Dustborn. Set in an alternate reality America in the year 2030, players follow the story of a punk-folk band as they travel across the country to deliver a package to a group of rebels, or something. Along the way they must deal with an authoritarian U.S. government that want to stop this rebellion, as well as puritanical fanatics who violently disapprove of the characters’ progressive/alternative lifestyles.

I consider myself a Liberal person and very open minded, but Dustborn just looks like someone found the “Woke Handbook” and plopped in every single trope associated with Gen Z, progressive ideas. It looks really heavy handed and is certainly a game made for a very specific type of crowd in mind. Does that mean the game is going to be bad? No, not necessarily, but the crux of the gameplay does appear to revolve around hitting buttons at the right time, in what appears to be non-stop QTE’s. Take that for what it’s worth.

Dustborn (PC/PS4/PS5/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Aug. 20th

Developed by: Red Thread Games
Published by: Spotlight by Quantic Dream

It’s funny, I wondered why the game seemed to go out of its way to appear ultra progressive and tolerant of women & non-binary folk, then I saw that it was published by David Cage’s company Quantic Dream. He has been in a legal battle with journalists over the last few years over allegations that their outlets wrote about, which accused Cage of allowing Quantic Dream to be a hostile work environment, full of sexism and racism. Cage and his staff have denied these allegations, and perhaps publishing Dustborn is a way to show that things have gotten better (or were never as bad as perceived). Funny, Grummz and his followers get pissed off when the developers of Black Myth are accused of sexism, but not when the publishers of Dustborn are. I wonder why that is?

Finally, we have the game Inti Creates Gold Archive Collection releasing this week, but not in North America or Europe, only Japan. Normally I don’t cover Japanese releases, but this collection looks rad and, with the Switch being region free, the game can be played around the world. There are three games in the collection, Mighty Gunvolt, Mighty Gunvolt Burst, and PuzzMiX, which have all been released digitally in the past. This might come out in the West at a later date but, if you’re impatient like me, you can pick it up from Play Asia RIGHT NOW.

Inti Creates Gold Archive Collection (Switch – Japanese Import) – Releases Aug. 20th

Everything else:

There are a lot of smaller titles coming out this week, including the LucasArts inspired point & click adventure game 3 Minutes to Midnight, the tennis game TIEBREAK, and the visual novel Tales from Toyotoki.

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

Alright, Notable Releases time! Maybe now we can get away from political discourse and just talk about games, movies, and music that we can all enjoy; please.

First up, we’ve got the crossover of the century with Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney! This 3DS game takes the two popular franchises and smashes them into one game, where they must both investigate the mysterious land of Labyrinthia and save one of its inhabitant, a young woman named Espella.

Layton vs. Wright is, well, exactly what you would expect it to be, a combination of the two games’ play styles. As Professor Layton & his assistant Luke, players investigate areas, collecting clues that will sometimes require you to play a mini-brain teaser in order to progress. As Phoenix Wright & Maya Fey, his investigative partner/spiritual medium.

Development began in 2010 and was a joint effort between Level-5 and Capcom, with each studio developing their portions of the game. In the secret world of video games, where everything is held close to your vest, a developer at Level-5 named Jiro Ishii accidentally sent a tweet to a developer at Square Enix insinuating that he was working on a new Ace Attorney game. This set certain segments of the internet on fire, with people assuming that Capcom had outsourced another one of their franchises to a different developer, similar to Ninja Theory developing DmC. Ishii quickly covered his tracks, indicating that he was busy at work on a different game and his misspoken, and everyone bought it.

However, less than a month later, Capcom and Level-5 officially announced that the two companies were in fact working on a cross over title featuring Professor Layton and Phoenix Wright. Did Ishii’s tweet speed up their announcement timeline? Who knows. While the gaming world salivated at the idea of the game, one person not totally on board was Phoenix Wright’s creator, Shu Takumi. In fact, the upper brass at Capcom didn’t even consult him when they made the deal with Level-5 to make the game, fearing he would find a way to stop it. In the end, Takumi was allowed to come up with the game’s story and scenario, working alongside Professor Layton creator Akihiro Hino.

Initially, Layton vs. Phoenix was not slated to come out in the U.S. or Europe, but a 2011 poll held on Level-5’s Facebook page asked fans to vote for which of their upcoming titles they would like to see get an English localization, with Layton vs. Wright coming out on top. It would take almost two years for the game to be localized, releasing in August of 2014, while the Japanese version would release in November of 2012.

Layton vs. Phoenix was well received by critics when it released, earning high score in both the U.S. and Japan. Critics were happy to see the two series protagonists come together to mentally spar and use their combined intellect, but were a bit disappointed that their companions were pushed aside for newer characters. In the end, the game would sell a little over 800k copies worldwide, which continued a downward trend for both series, but still a solid showing for both franchises since their heyday in the 2000’s. Sadly, your only means of playing this game is on the 3DS, and none of the parties involved, Level-5, Capcom, and publisher Nintendo, have made any indication that the game will ever release on Switch. We’ve already passed its ten year anniversary (twice, really), but maybe we’ll get lucky and see a 20 year release in 2032/2034 for whatever console Nintendo puts out after the Switch 2.

Moving on to 2004, we’ve got the GameCube title Pikmin 2. The premise is fairly simple, with the first game’s protagonist, Captain Olimar, returning to the “Distant Planet” (Earth) to collect treasures that will get the company he works for, Hocotate Freight, out of financial trouble. Joining Olimar on his mission is the clumsy, dim witted Louie, who is responsible for the company’s financial problems in the first place.

Not a whole lot was changed from Pikmin to Pikmin 2, with players still growing and collecting Pikmin to use as both labor and weapons, and they may only explore the world during the daytime, needing to return to their ship before nightfall. However, where Pikmin 2 differs is that players no longer have a tie limit on when they must leave the planet, allowing you to spend as much time in each stage as you want. While the game still features red, blue, and yellow Pikmin, the game also introduces two new colors, purple and white. Purple Pikmin are strong & heavy, with one unit able to carry the same amount as ten regular Pikmin. White Pikmin are faster, able to travel through poison, and can find treasures buried underground.

Pikmin 2 received widespread acclaim from critics when it released, first in Japan in April of 2004, followed by the U.S., Europe, and Australia in August, October, and November of 2004. Critics felt that Nintendo had improved on the first Pikmin in every category, sound, level design, graphics, story, control, enemy/Pikmin AI, you name it. While there was praise for the removal of the in-game timer, which allowed for larger levels and a longer game, some critics felt that it removed the sense of urgency from the first game, allowing players to be lazy about collecting the treasures.

During the end of year award shows, Pikmin 2 was nominated for a BAFTA in the “Best Technical Direction” award (losing to Burnout 3) and for an Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Award (now DICE) for “Console Action/Adventure Game of the Year” (losing to GTA: San Andreas). Pikmin 2 has been re-released twice, first on the Wii in 2012, and again on the Switch 2023. Pikmin 2 is a fantastic title that takes the great gameplay from the first title and expands on it. While not as good as subsequent releases, Pikmin 2 is still worth your time, so check it out!

Our last notable title this week is the SNK fighting game The King of Fighters ’94, first released to arcades in August of 1994 before coming to the Neo Geo in October of ’94. This is the first game in the long running series, which features characters from across four SNK franchises, Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, Ikari Warriors, and Psycho Soldier, as well as new characters created specifically for the game.

The gameplay in KOF ’94 is pretty much what you would expect from any early 90’s SNK fighting game, though it most closely resembles that of the Fatal Fury series. KOF ’94 introduced the idea of fighting with a team of characters, with players selecting one three person team, all three of which must be defeated before you can be declared the victor. While in battle, players can call upon their teammates to enter the fight and perform a special attack, before leaving the play area.

KOF ’94 was well received by critics and players, where it would sit near the top of the revenue charts month after month. Critics were really happy with the three person teams in the game, praising the game for its value, as one credit would get you three lives, essentially, a stark contrast to the increasing price of arcade games as the 1990’s went on. While the inclusion of characters from Ikari Warriors and Psycho Soldier were appreciated, some critics felt that their character models were far too goofy. Other critics complained that you were unable to mix and match character, instead being forced into selecting a pre-determined team.

The success of KOF ’94 led to the game to be released on an annual basis, essentially taking over SNK’s fighting game resources. A brand new King of Fighters game, with the year in the title, would release every year until 2004, when it received a remake of the first game, followed by the first numbered entry in the series, The King of Fighters XI, in 2005. 2011 would be the first year since 1994 that SNK would not release a KOF game, taking a break until 2016’s KOF XIV, with the latest entry, KOF XV coming out in 2022. The King of Fighters might be one of the greatest fighting game franchises of all time or, at the very least, the most prolific.

Alright, enough games, let’s talk movies! From 2014 we have the comic book adaptation Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, from co-directors Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller. The sequel to 2005’s Sin City, it took almost ten years for A Dame to Kill For to come out. Heck, I remember when they first mentioned the sequel, way back in 2005, claiming that Angelina Jolie was going to have a role in the film. Sadly, A Dame to Kill For did not reach the same critical and financial success that the first film did, ending up a box office disaster, grossing only $40 million worldwide on a $65 million budget; ouch.

2004’s notable film, Mean Creek, wasn’t a box office smash either, but it also didn’t cost $65 million to make. After a positive reception at both the Sundance and Cannes film festivals, Mean Creek received a limited run in theatres, grossing $800k worldwide on a budget of $500k. The film is a study on peer pressure and mob mentality, when a group of pre-teen friends decide to humiliate a bully by stealing his clothes and making him walk home from a nearby river. Unfortunately, things don’t go as planned and the bully (played by Josh Peck) is knocked off a boat into the river, hitting his head against a rock and drowning.

Unable to cope with the actions of what they did, the tweens decide to bury his body and pretend like nothing happened and, well, you can figure out the rest from there. Mean Creek received wide spread critical acclaim when it was released and received multiple awards and nominations that year, including two Independent Spirit Awards, the “John Cassavetes Award” for films that were made for under $1 million, as well as a special distinction award for its young ensemble cast. This is a tough movie to watch, folks, but is totally worth it.

From 1994 we’ve got another movie associated with Quentin Tarantino, Oliver Stone’s ultra violent satire Natural Born Killers. Written by Tarantino in the early 90’s, his script detailed a cross country murder spree by two newlyweds, told from the perspective of a tabloid journalist. He intended to film the movie himself for $500k, but was unable to get it off the ground. He instead sold the script to producers Jane Hamsher and Don Murphy, who in turn sold it to Warner Bros., who then gave the script to Oliver Stone.

Stone and his team felt that the script would work better if told from the perspective of the killers, instead of the journalist, and turned the film into a commentary on the media’s fixation with violent crime and the ratings it drew. This was around the time when real life courtroom drama’s were in the public eye, particularly that of the Menendez Brothers and O.J. Simpson.

Natural Born Killers is a surreal, psychedelic film, with jarring edits and non-traditional filming techniques. It alternates, fairly often, between color and black & white. The movie is not interested in you having a good time, necessarily, it wants you to feel panic, anger, frustration, and fear through its entire runtime. Critics were divided on the film, literally, it currently holds a 51% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the film’s tone and frantic pace unsettling some critics, while other praised it for its skewering of tabloid-TV. However, some critics felt the message was too heavy handed and obvious, killing whatever message Stone was trying to get across.

For Tarantino, back in a 1993 interview, he claimed to have no ill-will towards Stone or the film and he hoped it did well. However, after the film was released he was singing a different tune. Tarantino famously hated Natural Born Killers, calling the film that Stone and his team wrote nothing like the script he sold them. He was particularly upset with the “I Love Mallory” scene, and thought all of the stuff with the Native American was awful, disowning his story credit, saying that he hated the movie and if anyone liked his work they would never watch it. With his own film also coming out in 1994, Pulp Fiction, Tarantino would use every opportunity to trash Natural Born Killers, much to the chagrin of Oliver Stone, who claimed Tarantino was sabotaging the movie in favor of Pulp Fiction. Some years later, Tarantino would try to publish his original screenplay as a book but was met with a cease & desist from the Stone and the film’s producers, claiming he had given up all his rights to the script. Tarantino would eventually make up with Stone and get the script published, but he still doesn’t seem to hold the film in much regard. Go figure.

Natural Born Killers, while controversial, still found its way onto several “Best/Worst of 1994” lists at the end of the year. Roger Ebert named it the 8th best movie of the year, while Peter Travers placed at at no. 1 for worst movie of the year. The film would only receive nominations at one awards show, Stinkers Bad Movie Awards, where it was nominated for Worst Actor (Woody Harrelson) and Worst Picture (it would lose both to the Bruce Willis film Color of Night). I personally love this movie, sorry Quentin. I love the frenzied nature of the movie, the way it shifts tonally from sitcom parody to brutal, realistic violence. It’s wild, off the rails, gonzo filmmaking; exactly the kind of stuff I’m into.

Alright, let’s talk about music now, from 2014 we have the Ariana Grande album My Everything. After releasing her debut, Your Truly, in 2013, Grande hit it big with My Everything, which spawned five singles, including my favorite “Love Me Harder”. The success of the album led to multiple television performances, including the coveted opening slot at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards. My Everything was Grande finally moving herself away from the child actor image she had been saddled with since her time on Nickelodeon. It made her one of the most successful female artists of, not just 2014, but of all time.

2004 saw the release of Hide Nothing from Christian emo band Further Seems Forever. It’s funny to me just how big the emo sound was in the early 2000’s that even a band that I thought was fairly obscure, like Further Seems Forever, could make it to the Billboard Top 200, debuting at no. 122. I don’t really like this band, never listened to this album, but it’s a part of pop culture and I’m sure someone out there digs this group.

Finally, from 1994, we have the debut studio album from British rock group Oasis, Definitley Maybe. While they wouldn’t hit international stardom until 1995, their 1994 release was certainly a stepping stone to that part of their career. While the bands first two singles, “Supersonic” and “Shakermaker” were hits in the UK, it would be the bands third single, “Live Forever”, that finally got them mainstream attention in the U.S. and around the world, making it their first Top 10 hit.

Critics adored the album, with many putting it on their “Best of” lists at the end of the year. Rolling Stone, in particular, were quite fond of the band and praised the dynamic energy that the two brother, Liam and Noel Gallagher, brought to the group. Liam’s “cooler than you” attitude was infectious and helped pave the way for where Oasis was going in the future.

Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (3DS) – Released Aug. 29th, 2014: Wiki Link

Notable Film Release: Sin City: A Dame to Kill For – Starring Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Josh Brolin, and Eva Green
Click here to watch the trailer
Notable Album Release: Ariana Grande – My Everything
Click here to listen to the album

Pikmin 2 (GameCube) – Released Aug. 30th, 2004: Wiki Link

pikmin 2

Notable Film Release: Mean Creek – Starring Rory Culkin, Ryan Kelley, Scott Mechlowicz, Trevor Morgan, Josh Peck, and Carly Schroeder
Click here to watch the trailer
Notable Album Release: Further Seems Forever – Hide Nothing
Click here to listen to the album

The King of Fighters ’94 (Arcade) – Released Aug. 1994: Wiki Link

king of fighters 94

Notable Film Release: Natural Born Killers – Starring Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Robert Downey Jr., Tommy Lee Jones, and Tom Sizemore
Click here to watch the trailer
Notable Album Release: Oasis – Definitely Maybe
Click here to listen to album

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