Games

New Game Releases 09/23/25 – 09/29/25

Top Releases:

  • Silent Hill f (PC/PS5/Series X|S) – Releases Sep. 25th
  • Hades II (PC – Leaving early access/Switch/Switch 2) – Releases Sep. 25th
  • Sonic Racing CrossWorlds (PC/PS4/PS5/Switch/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Sep. 25th
  • Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian (PC/PS5/Switch) – Releases Sep. 25th
  • Hotel Barcelona (PC/PS5/Series X|S) – Releases Sep. 26th
  • Pac-Man World 2 Re-PAC (PC/PS4/PS5/Switch/Switch 2/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Sep. 26th
  • EA Sports FC 26 (PC/PS4/PS5/Switch/Switch 2/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Sep. 26th
  • NBA Bounce (PC/PS4/PS5/Switch/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Sep. 26th

I was sick this past week and thought I’d have my nine-year-old daughter watch the trailers for the Top Releases and give her thoughts. Let’s see, what’s the first game…oh no. OH NO!

Silent Hill f (PC/PS5/Series X|S) – Releases Sep. 25th

Developed by: NeoBards Entertainment
Published by: Konami

Silent Hill f? Now, I may be big on Five Nights at Freddy’s, but THIS hits different. This trailer was nerve racking. Pulsing. Gory. It’s SPOOKY SCARY SKELETONS. After using my Enid-funny-magic, when the lady human saw another person, near the end of the trailer, that looks like her, she asks “who r u?”, so I blurted out, “I’m your evil twin brother!”; then the man with the Foxy mask appeared. FOXY IS GOLD NOW! This game’s graphics are, honestly, quite realistic and has a Japanese style environment (ed note: That’s because it’s set in Japan). Do I have to write more???

Hades II (PC – Leaving early access/Switch/Switch 2) – Releases Sep. 25th

Developed by: Supergiant Games
Published by: Supergiant Games

Hades 2? I want to say this is just like the first Hades but you play as a lady. I can’t, though, because I haven’t played the first Hades. The fight scenes in the game look pretty promising, and I also like how they put other gods in. This probably has some religious themes in it, but I’m too busy jamming to the rock music and watching the dudes all explode to understand what they are.

Sonic Racing CrossWorlds (PC/PS4/PS5/Switch/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Sep. 25th

Developed by: Sonic Team
Published by: Sega

Sonic Racing: Cross Worlds? Finally, a game where you can have Persona 5 versus Minecraft versus Sonic the Hedgehog! Oh wait, you can already do all that in smash bros.; Umm…but it does have Yakuza in it! That’s somethin’! Plus, an anime girl that I don’t recognize! After closer inspection, I realize this is just Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, but SANIC.

Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian (PC/PS5/Switch) – Releases Sep. 25th

Developed by: Koei Tecmo
Published by: Koei Tecmo

What’s this one called, Ateleir Resletliana: The Red Chemist Thing and The White Garden? This is another JRPG title that I will never play for the rest of my life (ed. note: You’re nine, calm down). Do I really have to say something about this one? It looks unoriginal, pointless, and stupid. Okay, maybe the little floating fairy bois are kinda cute. It has all the basic JRPG elements, exploring, battling, yadda, yadda, yadda! I will say, however, that the music is fwikken killuh!

Hotel Barcelona (PC/PS5/Series X|S) – Releases Sep. 26th

Developed by: White Owls Inc.
Published by: Cult Games

Hotel Barcelona? Ok, maybe I like this game. The trailer says you are possessed by a KILLLER, no…KILEER, ugh! ZKILLER! OH MY !?@# GOD JUST SHUT IT ALL DOWN SHUT IT…and are an agent. The trailer also shows the character dying THREE TIMES. Why? I don’t know. PLUS, the trailer also shows that a part of the game is based on classic RPGs, which I thought was very cool and really nostalgic (ed. note: Didn’t you just say you hate JRPGs?).

Pac-Man World 2 Re-PAC (PC/PS4/PS5/Switch/Switch 2/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Sep. 26th

Developed by: Now Production Co., Ltd.
Published by: Bandai Namco

Pac-Man World 2: RePAC? Pinky has never looked so sassy! Anyway, I’m gonna guess this is a remake of Pac-Man World 2 based on the word “RePAC” in there. In the beginning of the trailer Pac-Man says, “Ayyy, I’m Pac-man! I can run, jump, eat, swim, and POWER-UP!!!!!”, wow! Who knew?! The trailer also shows the ghosts stealing the golden fruit and riding in giant robots!

EA Sports FC 26 (PC/PS4/PS5/Switch/Switch 2/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Sep. 26th

Developed by: EA Vancouver/EA Romania
Published by: EA

EA sports FC 26? YAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!

NBA Bounce (PC/PS4/PS5/Switch/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Sep. 26th

Developed by: Unfinished Pixel
Published by: Outright Games

NBA bounce? This seems like a great way to introduce 4-year-old’s to basketball! There’s a mode in the game called Electro Ball, which has the same name as one of Pikachu’s attacks! In this mode, you’ll get shocked if you hold on for too long! Plus, they all look like little babies! Does that sound great, babies?

Well, she’s certainly opinionated. I have no idea where she gets it from; now enjoy the rest of the column, you fwikken babies.

Everything else:

Notable Releases from 10, 20, and 30 (and sometimes 40) years ago:

Games:

In notable games, 2015 gave is Lego Dimensions, the third major “toys-to-life” games from the 2010’s after Skylanders and Disney Infinity. Developed by Traveller’s Tales, makers of Lego Star Wars, Lego Harry Potter, Lego Lord of the Rings, Lego Batman, etc., etc., Dimensions was a kind of “greatest hits” mash-up of all their previous games, as well as some new licenses that Lego already had, with players able to control Batman, Gandalf, and Wild Style (from The Lego Movie) on their quest to save the multi-verse from being overrun by some bad guy.

The big gimmick here was, of course, the physical Lego minifigures that you could place on a docking pad, letting them “warp” into the game. However, this docking pad would server another function as well, requiring players to constantly swap their characters in order to solve puzzles in the game. While it seem like a neat idea, trying to play this game on the couch was not feasible, as their docking pad was wired directly to your console, meaning that, unless your couch was three feet away from your TV, you either had to stand up and constantly move your figures around, or you had to (like me) grab a dining room chair and sit directly in front of the TV while playing.

The main goal of any toys-to-life game is to get players to spend as much money as possible on collectible figures. With Lego Dimensions, though, it wasn’t just having new figures to play with, each of these would often come with brand new game content that could only be unlocked with purchase. It was physical DLC, in a nutshell and, while kind of a cool idea, was surely what tanked this series. Granted, it was neat being able to see new content based on The Simpsons, Back to the Future, Gremlins, The Goonies, Legend of Chima, and so on, the cost of entry was far too high for any reasonable person to keep up with. Personally, I didn’t get the game until they started marking everything down for clearance at Target and ended up with a shit load of figures for, like, $2 bucks apiece.

Lego Dimensions was well received by critics, who called it maybe the only successful toys-to-life game because it was the first, and maybe only, one to have a fun game AND a fun toy. The use of the figures in the game was also seen as one of the most successful, as were the myriad of licenses that TT was able to get, including such oddities as the 1980’s TV show Knight Rider, fan favorite franchises like Doctor Who, and video game heavy hitters like Sonic the Hedgehog. With only two years on the market, Lego Dimensions didn’t have the staying power like Skylanders, but it did last longer than Ubisoft’s Starlink (remember that?).

From 2005, we’ve got Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves, the third game in the Sly Cooper franchise, and the last to be developed by its creators, Sucker Punch (who would pivot to the Infamous series). Released a year after Sly 2: Band of Thieves, Sly 3’s development was rushed (clearly), though that didn’t seem to have much affect on the game’s reception. Like its predecessors, Sly 3 was a critical smash, receiving favorable reviews from critics and picked up two nominations at the Interactive Achievement Awards (now DICE Awards) for Outstanding Achievement in Story and Character Development and Children’s Game of the Year.

From 1995, our notable title is the PC classic Command & Conquer. Following the success of 1992’s Dune II, developer Westwood Studios was keen to continue their dominance as the premier RTS studio after seeing strong competition from Blizzard’s entry in the genre, Warcraft. Taking the ideas they laid the groundwork for in Dune II, Westwood went with an original property, with two warring factions, the UN backed Global Defense Initiative, and the cult-like Brotherhood of Nod, who the GDI have labeled as terrorists.

Set in an alternate-universe Earth, players will use their armies to control the substance known as Tiberium, a rare substance brought to Earth on a meteor that crashes near the river of Tibur, located in central Italy. Whoever controls the flow of Tiberium will control the planet, as its unique properties allow for its owners to create highly advanced technologies that will either help or hinder humankind.

While clearly still inspired by the story of Dune, Westwood decided to not set Command & Conquer on an alien planet, far off into the future, opting for a modern setting with modern military vehicles, weapons, and units, albeit enhanced by the Tiberium. Following the Gulf War in the early 1990’s, Westwood felt that the future of war was going to be between united factions of nations, instead of on a country by country basis. I guess they didn’t think all of these countries start to hate each other after a while.

Hailed by critics as one of the best games of 1995, Command & Conquer was a watershed moment in video games and helped to solidify the RTS genre as one of the PC’s best types of games. A year after release, Command & Conquer had moved over 1 million units, reaching nearly 2 million, worldwide, by the end of 1997. Console ports would follow, first on the Sega Saturn, who had a one year exclusive deal, followed by the PlayStation, and a completely revamped 3D version for the N64. Command & Conquer’s success spawned an entire franchise which, by the end of 2009, had sold over 30 million copies, across all entries and platforms, following the release of its penultimate game, Red Alert 3.

Still easily playable today on modern systems, either in its original format or as part of a remastered collection that bundles the first two games, Command & Conquer is a timeless video game that still delights today. With an excellent gameplay loop that is incredibly addicting, you can find yourself spending hours and hours with THE definitive RTS game from 1995…well, for a couple months at least. Their big rival, Blizzard, was about to unleash a another RTS game on the public and ALSO change gaming forever. A title called Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness.

From 1985, we’ve got another groundbreaking PC game, though you might not have heard of it. It’s called Little Computer People, and was developed and published by Activision. Designed by Activision super star, David Crane, Little Computer People was one of the first social simulation games, a genre that was widely popularized by the 2000 PC game, The Sims. The initial concept for the game was thought up by a man named Rich Gold who wanted to make the video game version of the Pet Rock.

Calling it “Pet Person”, Gold was able to scrape together some funding and create the game which was something closer to what we might think of as a screen saver. In Gold’s version, a little person would hang out in a three story house, going about their daily life and allowed you, the player, to just sit back and watch them do stuff. Gold struggled to find a publisher for his game, until he met with the President of Activision, Jim Levy. Seeing the potential, Levy asked David Crane to take a look and give his opinions.

Crane loved it, but he wanted more interactivity, agreeing to help design a new version of the game. Gold, however, was strongly against this, saying that adding any interactivity would go against the Pet Rock ethos he wanted to convey with “Pet Person”. At the end of the day, however, Activision had the final say, and Crane spent a good deal of time helping turn “Pet Person” into Little Computer People.

The idea behind the game was that every PC had a little person living inside of it. With Activision’s new software, you could build a home for this little person, coaxing them out onto the screen and letting you interact with them. Every game contained a unique little person, Activision promised that no two copies were alike, as each little person had individually programmed identities that decided their personality and mood type.

At the start of the game, players would be greeted with an empty home that, in due time, would be occupied by their PC’s little person. Once inside, the little person lived on a six hour day cycle, going about their business. Players could enter simple commands for the little person to do, or initiate a game of poker with them. Other times, the little person could initiate the poker game with the player, or send them a letter that laid out their current wants & needs.

While the game received favorable reviews from critics, it was hardly the kind of challenge that most adult PC gamers were looking for. It was described as a cute diversion and something that could appeal to PC owners’ children. The game sold moderately well in the US, but it was a bigger hit in Japan, where a small company called Squaresoft would port the title to the Famicom Disk System, in 1987, under the name Apple Town Story, replacing the little (adult) man with a little girl, in an aim to appeal to female players. Fun fact, the music for Apple Town Story was written by future Final Fantasy composer, Nobuo Uematsu.

While it didn’t immediately change the video game industry, the ideas introduced in Little Computer People were certainly explored in more detail in future games, with simulation games being the obvious genre, all the way up to Will Wright’s brilliant The Sims. Wright was certainly a fan of Little Computer People and made no effort to hide it. When asked about the success of The Sims and if he thought Little Computer People should get credit for pioneering the genre, Crane simply stated, “Almost everything we touched in those days could be constructed as the precursor to something on the market today. So rather than go there, I simply acknowledge that I took the first baby steps toward the simulation genre when I added human-like interactivity to Little Computer People“.

Movies:

Like I mentioned, I was sick last week so I’m just going to power through these, if you don’t mind (plus I had a Padres game to go to…we won, we’re going to the playoffs). From 2015 we have Eli Roth’s horror film The Green Inferno. In this film, a group of idealistic college students take a trip to the Amazon rainforest to protest its destruction and the displacement of native tribes that call the jungle their home. Unfortunately for the students, things go awry and they are abducted by a native tribe who proceed to ritualistically sacrifice and eat them. Critics hated it, audiences hated it, and activists REALLY hated it.

From 2005, we’ve got the film Capote, which I all assume you read the same way that Jack Nicholson pronounced it at the Academy Awards (look it up). This is, of course, a biopic about writer Truman Capote, best known for his true crime novel In Cold Blood. The film follows Capote as he gathers material for his upcoming book, showing the trials and tribulations he went through to get into the minds of these two killers. It was a modest hit at the box office and a critical darling, with Phillip Seymour Hoffman receiving multiple awards and accolades for his performance as Truman Capote, including Best Actor at the Academy Awards.

From 1995, we have the movie To Die For, a crime thriller from director Gus Van Sant. Based on the novel of the same name that was, in turn, based on the true crime story of Pamela Smart, To Die For stars Nicole Kidman as a broadcast journalist who hires two young men to murder her husband. Kidman’s character is an ambitious go-getter and feels that her husband is keeping her from reaching her full potential. Having attracted the attention of two delinquents, she tells the boys that if they kill her husband then they can all be together, intercourse-wise.

What follows is a trashy, sleazy send-up of tabloid journalism and fame-chasers. Despite being a critical smash, the film did not earn any Oscar nominations. It would, however, earn Nicole Kidman a Golden Globe in the Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical category. Kidman would also receive accolades for her performance from multiple other critics and awards shows, including the Critics’ Choice Awards, the Boston Society of Film Critics, the London Film Critics’ Circle, and the Seattle International Film Festival.

From 1985, we’ve got another critical darling, Martin Scorsese’s dark comedy After Hours. Produced by and starring Griffin Dunne, After Hours tells the story of a NYC office drone, Paul Hackett, who decides to “live a little”; with disastrous consequences. While things start promising when Paul has a romantic connection with a young woman, things start to spiral wildly out of control as Paul loses his money, is falsely accused of being a serial burglar, and is encased in plaster.

Initially offered to Tim Burton as his first big feature film, he would willingly step aside after word got to him that Scorsese was interested in directing the film (Burton would instead direct Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure). Scorsese, meanwhile, was distraught after the failure of his previous film, The King of Comedy, and the rejection of his next proposed project, The Last Temptation of Christ (which he eventually made). Seeing an opportunity to return to his independent roots with After Hours, Scorsese experimented and reveled in the opportunity to go “low budget”.

Hailed by critics as one of the year’s best, After Hours was seen as a biting satire of young adulthood in the 1980’s, and gave a strong voice to overlooked groups, particularly the gay and punk rock communities. At the first Independent Spirit Awards, After Hours would be nominated in five categories, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Female Lead (for Rosanna Arquette), and winning Best Director and Best Feature. While many of us probably think of crime films when Scorsese’s name pops up, After Hours is a wonderful and fascinating look into another part of the prolific filmmakers mind.

Albums:

In notable albums, 2015 gave us What a Time to Be Alive by Drake & Future; cool. 2005 gave us the debut album from Panic! At The Disco, A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out. They seemed to be on the trajectory of a one-hit-wonder band, but would find success again a dozen years later with the hit single “High Hopes”; good for them. From 1995, we’ve got the Oasis album (What’s the Story) Morning Glory, one of the biggest and most well known albums of the decade.

Featuring several hit singles, including “Wonderwall”, “Don’t Look Back in Anger”, and “Champagne Supernova”, Morning Glory became Oasis’ breakthrough hit in the U.S. and around the world, propelling them to superstar status overnight. Reaching #4 on the Billboard Top 200, Morning Glory would go on to reach 4x platinum status in the U.S., and by July of 2025, the album had sold over 5.4 million copies, worldwide.

What followed was years and years of band in-fighting, particularly between brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher though it didn’t seem to deter the group from putting out records up until their disbanding in 2009. While the group would reform in 2024, going on a whirlwind global tour, for most of us, they’re just the “Wonderwall” band. Not quite one-hit-wonders, but can you honestly name an Oasis song that isn’t from (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?

Closing things out this week, from 1985, we have the album Hounds of Love by Kate Bush. While Bush has certainly had a long, prolific career, it was Hounds of Love and, specifically, the song “Running Up That Hill” that put Bush on the map. The song was a huge success, reaching #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, her highest charting single of all-time. The song would reach prominence again in 2022 when the Netflix show Stranger Things would feature it prominently in its fourth season.

Adored by critics during both its original release and in later years, Hounds of Love has become one of the defining albums of the 1980’s and has cemented Kate Bush as one of its most influential artists. Despite the critical acclaim, Hound of Love would not receive any Grammy nominations, but it would receive a nomination at the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards in the Best Female Video category, losing to Whitney Houston’s “How Will I Know”.

Lego Dimensions (PS3/PS4/Wii U/Xbox 360/Xbox One) – Released Sep. 27th, 2015

Notable Film Release: The Green Inferno – Starring Lorenza Izzo, Ariel Levy, Daryl Sabara, Kirby Bliss Blanton, Magda Apanowicz, Sky Ferreira, Nicolás Martínez, Aaron Burns, and Ignacia Allamand
Click here to watch the trailer
Notable Album Release: Drake & Future – What a Time to Be Alive
Click here to listen to the album

Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves (PS2) – Released Sep. 26th, 2005

Notable Film Release: Capote – Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Clifton Collins Jr., Chris Cooper, Bob Balaban, Bruce Greenwood, Amy Ryan, and Mark Pellegrino
Click here to watch the trailer
Notable Album Release: Panic! At The Disco – A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out
Click here to listen to the album

Command & Conquer (PC) – Released Sep. 26th, 1995

Notable Film Release: To Die For – Starring Nicole Kidman, Joaquin Phoenix, Matt Dillon, Casey Affleck, and Illeana Douglas
Click here to watch the trailer
Notable Album Release: Oasis – (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?
Click here to listen to album

Little Computer People (PC) – Released Sep. 29th, 1985

Notable Film Release: After Hours – Starring Rosanna Arquette, Verna Bloom, Tommy Chong, Griffin Dunne, Linda Fiorentino, Teri Garr, John Heard, Cheech Marin, and Catherine O’Hara
Click here to watch the trailer
Notable Album Release: Kate Bush – Hounds of Love
Click here to listen to album

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