New Game Releases 10/15/24 – 10/21/24

Hey everyone! I spent the last week on vacation, having a great time with family, watching baseball games, and going to Disneyland. The best souvenir I brought back from my trip was this awful, debilitating cold; woo!!!

As such, this week’s column is going to be light on commentary, sorry. We’ll get back on track next week.

Top Releases:

Super Mario Party Jamboree (Switch) – Releases Oct. 17^th

Developed by: Nintendo Cube
Published by: Nintendo

Unknown 9: Awakening (PC/PS4/PS5/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Oct. 17^th

Developed by: Reflector Entertainment
Published by: Bandai Namco

Neva (PC/PS5/Switch/Series X|S) – Releases Oct. 15^th

Developed by: Nomada Studio
Published by: Devolver Digital

MechWarrior 5: Clans (PC/PS5/Series X|S) – Releases Oct. 16^th

Developed by: Piranha Games
Published by: Piranha Games

A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead (PC/PS5/Series X|S) – Releases Oct. 17^th

Developed by: Stormind Gamds
Published by: Saber Interactive

RetroRealms Arcade: Ash vs. Evil Dead & Halloween (PC/PS4/PS5/Switch/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Oct. 18^th

Developed by: WayForward Technologies
Published by: Boss Team Games

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed (PC/PS4/PS5/Switch/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Oct. 18^th

Developed by: AHEARTFULOFGAMES
Published by: Outright Games

Everything else:

In case you were wondering, yes, you can dance to Green Day’s “Basket Case”.

• Just Dance 2025 Edition (PS5/Switch/Series X|S) – Releases Oct. 15^th
• Arsene Lupin – Once a Thief (PC/PS4/PS5/Switch/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Oct. 17^th
• Blazing Strike (PC/PS4/PS5/Switch) – Releases Oct. 17^th
• Hot Wheels Monster Trucks: Stunt Mayhem (PC/PS4/PS5/Switch/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Oct. 18^th

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

Not going to spend a ton of time on these, but here’s a few personal anecdotes on each. Bayonetta 2 was one of the first batch of Wii U games I bought after picking it up earlier in the Summer of 2014, but I’ve NEVER played it. Instead, I spent hours with the first Bayonetta, which was included in launch copies of Bayo 2, and intended to play the sequel afterwards. It’s been ten years since then, I’m sure I’ll get around to it at some point.

I didn’t play Kirby & the Amazing Mirror, but my daughter would eventually get around to playing it on our Wii U through the virtual console, which is pretty much all I use my Wii U for now (sorry Bayonetta 2). Final Fantasy III (or VI if you want to get technical about it) was the very first game I ever bought with my own money AND was the thing that made me step into the brand new Walmart that they built in our part of San Diego. I remember seeing a kid in the parking lot with really high pants, exposing his ankles and my mom sad to me as an aside “pfft, I think that kid’s getting ready for a flood“. Roasted him!

In movies, I didn’t see Birdman but I heard it was very good. Aside from winning Best Picture at the Oscars, it also gave us late-era Michael Keaton and is most likely the reason we got Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice. I saw Team America: World Police on opening day, back in 2004, with my girlfriend. They were being super militant at the door, checking tickets, but it was all for naught, as there were probably only five people in the theater. I’ll never forget how much I laughed when “America, Fuck Yeah” started playing, just one of many perfect, comedic moments in that film.

I was 13 in 1994 when Clerks came out, so I wasn’t really hip to it. I remember seeing it at Blockbuster and hearing all the critics talk about how great it was, but the black & white look of the film didn’t really sit with me. I didn’t see the film until 2001, when a guy who I worked with at the video store lost his mind when I told him I’d never seen it. After the store closed for the night, grabbed some snacks off the shelf, popped in the VHS tape, and watched Clerks on the in-store TV’s. It blew my mind and introduced me to this world of “nerd culture”, one that was just about to explode. I ended up renting all of Smith’s other films after watching Clerks and have been a fan ever since.

In music, don’t know who Logic is or why his album Under Pressure did so well. Some people like him, he was on Rick & Morty, but I have zero interest in the dude. Le Tigre, on the other hand, were my fucking jam in 2004, especially their album This Island, which I played non-stop for a good 3 or 4 months. While working at the video store, I would sometimes put on CD’s instead of movies, especially late at night, and I remember how there’s a song on the album called “Don’t Drink Poison” and the chorus is just the line “Don’t drink poison…” over and over. After it ended, my co-worker just looks at me a goes “So, like, should I not be drinking poison?“, and we had a good laugh about it for 10 minutes or so. He was apparently high, like, all the time, which in hindsight made a lot of sense, as he would laugh at every joke I made.

Finally, 1994’s notable album is yet another pop-punk entry, MxPx’s debut Pokinatcha. While not nearly on the same pop-culture level as Green Day and The Offspring, MxPx carved out a place for themselves in the punk world by first being known as the “Christian” punk band, and then eventually just, well, a band. I didn’t know anything about MxPx but, two years later, with the release of their third album, Life in General, I would become obsessed with the group, spending the second half of high school as the coolest Christian punk rocker in my town. Hey, honestly, if not for MxPx, I don’t know that I would have gotten into punk music or been a singer in a band.

Bayonetta 2 (Wii U) – Released Oct. 14^th, 2014

Kirby & the Amazing Mirror (GBA) – Released Oct. 18^th, 2004

Final Fantasy III (VI) (SNES) – Released Oct. 18^th, 1994

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I’ve never seen this, WTF?!