Games

New Game Releases 10/08/24 – 10/14/24

Top Releases:

The spooky train keeps rolling this week with the release of Silent Hill 2, a remake of the PS2 masterpiece. The game has been getting rave reviews so far, with a couple of perfect scores and whole bunch of near perfect scores. I had some doubts about this remake when it was first announced, but it seems I had nothing to worry about.

Another new game getting rave reviews this week is the brand new RPG from Sega/Atlus, Metaphor: ReFantazio. Created by the same team as Persona 3, 4, and 5, this new game ditches modern Japan and heads into a medieval fantasy world called the United Kingdom of Eucronia. Another departure from Persona is that players no longer play as teenagers and, therefore, don’t have to go to school (phew!). While they will still have the opportunity to form bonds with their party members, there is no romantic subplot here (womp, womp). Overall, the tone of Metaphor: ReFantazio is supposed to be more mature and more “adult” in nature. I’m beyond excited to play this game.

Silent Hill 2 (PC/PS5) – Releases Oct. 8th

Developed by: Bloober Team
Published by: Konami

Metaphor: ReFantazio (PC/PS4/PS5/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Oct. 11th

Developed by: Studio Zero
Published by: Sega

The other two big releases are interesting, but I’m not sure I’m ready to rush out and grab either. Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO wins the award for stupidest name of the week, and that’s against a game called Metaphor: ReFantazio. It’s a new fighting game in the Tenkaichi series that brings together characters from across Dragon Ball’s long history.

For you Diablo IV fans out there, its first expansion, Vessel of Hatred, will continue that game’s story, as players venture into a dense jungle area called Nahantu. This expansion is also receiving rave reviews from critics, praising the new gameplay components and quality of life improvements, including revamped leveling and loot systems.

Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO (PC/PS5/Series X|S) – Releases Oct. 11th

Developed by: Spike Chunsoft
Published by: Bandai Namco

Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred (PC/PS4/PS5/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Oct. 8th

Developed by: Blizzard Entertainment
Published by: Blizzard Entertainment

Expansions:

LOL, Shrek!? That’s funny!!!

Everything else:

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

Welcome to Notable Releases, a place where we talk about old games, movies, and music. Our titles this week are all pretty spooky, keeping with the theme of the season. I’m excited to check them out and I hope you are too!

First up, we have a Shinji Mikami survival horror game, The Evil Within. Now, if you’re unfamiliar with Shinji Mikami, he’s the creator of the survival horror series that popularized the genre, Resident Evil. In the years after Resident Evil 4, Mikami found himself working on action/adventure titles like Killer 7 and Vanquish. In 2010, he created his own studio, Tango Gameworks, and decided that their first title would be a survival horror game. Mikami saw that there was a demand for it in the market and wanted to return to the genre’s slow paced roots, as he felt recent survival horror games had leaned too heavily on action.

In an effort to really drive home the “no action” point in this new game, The Evil Within, Mikami intentionally placed players in tight, confined spaces, limited the amount of ammo you could find, and made some enemies near invincible. Mikami’s hope was that players would choose to run away and/or avoid enemies. He wanted to return players to that feeling of loneliness and fear of dying that the first Resident Evil had, where your survival relied on smart choices instead of mindless shooting.

At release, The Evil Within was a hit with critics and was seen as a return to form for Mikami. There was talk that this was the game Capcom should have made instead of RE5 & 6, and were happy that Mikami was able to give them scares that matched those found in the early Resident Evil titles. While the game worked great on consoles, the PC was a different story. Technical issues, bad controls, and poor optimization made playing The Evil Within on PC a challenging nightmare, and not the fun kind. Patches to the PC version would release over time, making the game perform slightly better, but consoles were the best way to experience the game.

Sales of the game were good enough, selling the most copies in the first month for a new survival horror franchise (that record would be broken a few months later by Dying Light). A sequel, The Evil Within 2, would arrive in 2017 with Mikami taking a producer role, instead of director. The series has gone silent since then, however, with Tango Gameworks moving on to Ghostwire: Tokyo and Hi-Fi Rush. As of this writing, there don’t appear to be any plans for a third title. Oh well.

From 2004, we’ve got the RPG Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, the third mainline entry in the Shin spinoff of the Megami Tensei franchise, and the eighth overall. Honestly, though, what do these numbers and titles even mean? Anyway, Nocture takes place in modern day Tokyo, set both before and after an apocalyptic event called the Conception. Players take on the role of an unnamed protagonist as he gathers companions to help restore the world to what it was before the Conception. To so this, they must prove themselves worthy in front of the Great Will.

Plans for Nocturne were put into motion in the late 1990’s but, realizing their ideas would were too grand for both the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation, they decided to make Nocturne their first PS2 game, which sped up the development time on both the Saturn’s Devil Summoner and the PSX’s Persona. To help set Nocturne apart from previous SMT games, players were only allowed to follow the Chaos path as it fit better with the post-apocalyptic setting, allowed the developers more creative freedom, and helped give a unifying theme to the SMT series.

In designing the protagonist, the team wanted to create a person that was both human and digital, a human computer. Their initial inspiration came from the David Cronenberg film Videodrome, in which the main character is a sort of human/VCR hybrid, and they wanted their protagonist to have computer keyboards coming out of their bodies. Finding this a little too weird, they instead covered the protagonist in a full body tattoo. Another point of inspiration was the band Red Hot Chili Peppers, as the lead artist, Kazuma Kaneko, envisioned the protagonist running around the desert, naked. I assume this was a reference to the video for “Give It Away”.

For its US and UE release, Atlus decided to give Westerners the “Maniax” version of Nocturne that added new and cut content, as well as an extra dungeon that, you know it, FEATURED DANTE FROM DEVIL MAY CRY SERIES. This quote was featured on the European release of the game (where it was known as Lucifer’s Call) and has been widely mocked over the years due to Dante’s very, VERY, brief appearance in the game.

Critically, the game was a hit, and even received a perfect score from G4’s X-Play, only the second console RPG to get that score from the show. There have been conflicting reports of the game’s success in the West, being either a disappointing failure or a smash hit. It seems the game sold almost 300k copies world wide, while a 2021 remaster sold over 500k copies. I can’t say I love the SMT series, but mostly because I haven’t really played it. The sub-franchise does seem to be lacking though, as it’s not quite as fun or accessible as Persona, though I’m sure it’s still great. I’ve got the HD remaster sitting on my shelf (and the PS2 original), and should probably play it one day.

Our 1994 notable title is a big one, the FPS classic Doom II. Picking up shortly after the events of Doom, players find themselves back on Earth where, surprise, the demons have been running amok, killing billions. In order to save the last remnants of humanity, the player must deactivate a force field that is blocking a transport ship from escaping and, once done, must dive deep into the bowels of hell to try and end this invasion once and for all.

Doom II, like its predecessor, was a massive hit for developer id Software. Pre-order numbers were some of the highest ever for a video game, with store having trouble keeping up with demand. Initially, some retailers tried, in vain, to keep the game stocked on their shelves. However, the game flew off so fast that they would just put the pallet the game shipped in on the floor and let customers grab their copy straight out of the box.

Speaking of stores, unlike the first Doom, which was only available through mail-order, Doom II was put directly into stores, as a full fledged, non-episodical release. Critically, the game did well, but some critics felt that there weren’t enough new ideas to set it apart from Doom. They noted that id Software might have popularized/created the FPS genre, but it was in danger of having to play catch up to other developers who were starting to take it new directions.

Ports of the game would arrive shortly after, in 1995, on the Saturn and PlayStation, while later ports would arrive on the Game Boy Advance, Xbox Live, as well as modern consoles PS4, Switch, and Xbox One. Often cited as one of the best video games of all time, Doom II, and its predecessor, are now kind of lumped into one full game. The ideas presented in these two titles helped pave the way for modern gaming, the success of Doom showed what we were ready for, and the success of Doom II showed that it wasn’t a fluke, this style of game was here to stay.

Moving on to notable films, 2014 saw the release of Damien Chazelle’s second feature, Whiplash. Based on his experiences in a very competitive music class in high school, the film is a rough, tense study on what it means to be perfect and how ambition drives us past our breaking point. The film received glowing reviews from critics and earned J.K. Simmons an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Along with Simmons’ Oscar, the film was also won for Best Editing and Best Sound Mixing, while receiving nominations for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.

2004’s notable film is one of the most memorable films of the 2000’s, Peter Berg’s Friday Night Lights. Based on the non-fiction book of the same name, the film follows the story of the 1988 Permain High School football team, the Panthers, in Odessa, TX as they make a run for the state championship. While it received glowing remarks from critics, it failed to receive any Oscar nominations, but has become beloved by the general public. A TV show, based on the film, ran for five seasons on NBC.

1994’s notable film is one of my all time favorite, Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. One of the biggest films of the year, Pulp Fiction went on to become not just one of the most parodied films ever, but it became the template for many films afterwards. It’s use of time jumps, pop culture references, extreme violence, and neurotic but tough gangsters, would be copied ad nauseum for at least the next 15 years.

The film not only resurrected the career of John Travolta, but it made stars out of its entire cast, but none more strongly than Samuel L. Jackson. Pulp Fiction would receive seven Oscar nomination, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Editing, and winning for Best Screenplay. Pulp Fiction was nominated all over the place and would often lose to another big movie from 1994, Forrest Gump. The film lost so many times to Gump that at the MTV Movie Awards, where Pulp Fiction won Movie of the Year, he thanked everyone for NOT voting for Forrest Gump. Pulp Fiction would turn Tarantino into a household name, allowing him to pretty do whatever he wanted for the rest of his life. Thankfully, he decided to keep making really good movie.

In notable albums, 2014 saw the release of country duo Florida Georgia Line’s second album, Anything Goes. The album was a smash hit, debuting at number one on the Billboard Top 200 and had three number one singles, “Dirt”, “Sun Daze”, and “Confession”. I mean, I assume all this happened, because that’s what Wikipedia says, but I know absolutely nothing about this band, or country music in general. Someone likes it.

From 2004, we’ve got an album that you probably haven’t heard of…unless you’re cool. That would be Summer in Abaddon from the San Diego indie band Pinback. Formed in 1999, Summer was the band’s third album and was the most successful at the time, landing at no. 196 on the Billboard Top 200, likely due to three of their songs “Fortress”, “Non Photo-Blue”, and “AFK” appearing on the hit Fox TV show The O.C.

As much of a “San Diego Guy” as I am, I had no clue Pinback even existed, and I was in the music scene at the exact same time as Pinback! It wasn’t until 2011 that I finally heard “Fortress” come up in an indie rock playlist on Pandora (remember Pandora?), and I became an instant fan after that. I’ve had the joy of seeing Pinback once, in a very tiny, very cool venue called the Casbah, and it was everything I hope it would be and more. Check out Pinback, everyone; you’ll love it.

Finally, from 1994, we’ve got the album Korn from, well, Korn. This was the band’s debut and, wow, what a debut. Now, I’m not going to say that I love Korn, or this debut album for that matter. However, you can’t ignore the fact that Korn suddenly burst on the scene with a sound that nobody in mainstream music was doing. Sure, there was metal, there was rap, and there was metal/rap, but the way Korn fused the two was unlike anyone else at the time. Well, except maybe Sepultura, but they were too “underground”.

Anyway, with the release of Korn, suddenly we had this whole new sound, no, a brand new metal sound, let’s call it..nu metal. Despite what you may think about the genre, and the band Korn in general, you can’t ignore that front man Jonathan Davis is a creative guy and pours a lot of his own life into the lyrics of his songs. There’s an artistry to Korn that can get lost in the nonsense (and in their later albums), but this debut is pure. It was something that should have antagonized the jocks that used to tease Davis in high school. Instead, it became the catalyst for every jock’s favorite genre of music.

The Evil Within (PC/PS3/PS4/Xbox 360/Xbox One) – Released Oct. 7th, 2014: Wiki Link

Notable Film Release: Whiplash – Starring Miles Teller, J. K. Simmons, Paul Reiser, and Melissa Benoist
Click here to watch the trailer
Notable Album Release: Florida Georgia Line – Anything Goes
Click here to listen to the album

Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne (PS2) – Released Oct. 12th, 2004: Wiki Link

Notable Film Release: Friday Night Lights – Starring Billy Bob Thornton, Derek Luke, Jay Hernandez, Lucas Black, Garrett Hedlund, Tim McGraw, and Connie Britton
Click here to watch the trailer
Notable Album Release: Pinback – Summer in Abaddon
Click here to listen to the album

Doom II (PC) – Released Oct. 10th, 1994: Wiki Link

Notable Film Release: Pulp Fiction – Starring John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman, Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Amanda Plummer, Maria de Medeiros, Ving Rhames, Eric Stoltz, Rosanna Arquette, Christopher Walken, and Bruce Willis
Click here to watch the trailer
Notable Album Release: Korn – Korn
Click here to listen to album

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