Site icon The Avocado

New Game Releases 03/31/26 – 04/06/26

Andy Tuttle

Top Releases:

It’s a very, VERY, slow week for new releases, so I hope you all have something lined up in your back catalogue to tide you over. I mean, unless you’ve been dying to play Darwin’s Paradox!, the new platformer from French developer ZDT Studio, their first release! In the game, players take on the role of Darwin, a plucky octopus, who is trying to make his way back to the ocean.

Darwin’s Paradox! (PC/PS5/Switch 2/Series X|S) – Releases Apr. 2nd

Developed by: ZDT Studio
Published by: Konami

Our other big game of the week is Legacy of Kain: Ascendance, a side-scrolling, 2D platformer, and is the first new entry in the series since 2003’s Legacy of Kain: Defiance (not counting the Nosgoth multiplayer game beta from 2016). I never really played this series back in its heyday, but it always intrigued me. I am excited to see that its original releases are getting remasters and that we’re getting new entries; is this the year that I finally get into Legacy of Kain?

I suppose the “biggest” game to come out this week is the PS5 and Switch 2 port of South of Midnight, the former PC/Xbox exclusive. I’ve tried to find sales numbers for the game but I don’t think Microsoft really made those available. Some quick Google searching tells me that while over 1 million people played it on Game Pass, it may have only sold as much as 17k copies, and as few as 7,500; yikes. Hopefully the move to more popular consoles will help drive sales of the game, though it won’t help improve its somewhat middling critical reception.

Legacy of Kain: Ascendance (PC/PS5/Switch/Switch 2/Series X|S) – Releases Mar. 31st

Developed by: Bit Bot Media
Published by: Crystal Dynamics

South of Midnight (PS5/Switch 2) – Releases Mar. 31st

Developed by: Compulsion Games
Published by: Xbox Game Studios

Everything else:

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

Games:

In notable games, 2016 saw the release of Quantum Break, an action/adventure title from Remedy Entertainment. Like its previous titles, Max Payne and Alan Wake, Quantum Break mixes stylized action with a deep, multi-layered story. In Quantum Break, players take on the role of Jack Joyce a, uh…guy, who has the ability to manipulate time due to a failed experiment run by his friend, Paul Serene. As Jack deals with the fallout of his new powers and the massive rift in time the experiment has created, he is pursued by a future version of Paul that does not want the time rift to be repaired, giving us the requisite reason to kill faceless soldiers.

Quantum Break was received warmly by critics, though it did not score as high as Alan Wake or Max Payne on Metacritic. While the gameplay and graphics were seen as high points, some critics weren’t as happy with the story and its lackluster in-game “TV show”. Quantum Break is told over five acts, with players being subjected to four live action videos in-between each. Some critics enjoyed the extra layer of storytelling, while others felt that these short episodes detracted from the excellent gameplay and could have, in their opinion, been done as even shorter in-game cutscenes.

In terms of sales, Quantum Break did very well, outselling all previous ORIGINAL Xbox One exclusives (Sunset Overdrive, Ori and the Blind Forest, and Ryse: Son of Rome), but would lose that crown two years later to Sea of Thieves. While it would not receive any nominations at The Game Awards 2016, it would get a nomination for Outstanding Sound Design at the DICE Awards (losing to Battlefield 1).

While developer Remedy seems keen on making a sequel to Quantum Break, the property is owned by Microsoft and it is, ultimately, up to them to decide the future of the franchise. Remedy, well known for setting their games in a shared universe, have made subtle nods to Quantum Break in both Control and Alan Wake 2, but only under the guise of vague mentions of similar events or as something that happened in an alternate universe. You can easily play Quantum Break today, on either your Xbox One or Series X|S, or on PC.

From 2006, we’ve got the GameCube title Harvest Moon: Magical Melody. Like most Harvest Moon titles up to this point, players are tasked with maintaining a successful farm, with Magical Melody also adding two further goals, to wake the Harvest Goddess and, *GULP*, get married! In order to awaken the Goddess, players must collect musical notes that can be received by performing chores around their farm or by meeting certain gameplay milestones.

Magical Melody was well received by critics, receiving decent scores across all gaming outlets, including a respectable 31 out of 40 from Famitsu. A version of the game was released for the Wii in 2009, which added motion controls to some of the chores, but removed the ability to play as a female character. The Wii version was seen as a downgrade by many critics and it failed to get the same positive reception as its GameCube counterpart.

From 1996, we have one of the most important debuts of all-time, Resident Evil, for the PlayStation. The origins of the game can be found in the 1989 Famicom title, Sweet Home, a horror RPG in which the players guide five protagonists as they explore a haunted mansion. Looking to make a modern version of Sweet Home, Capcom producer Tokuro Fujiwara tapped his protege, Shinji Mikami, to begin work on this new “haunted mansion” video game in 1993. Initially, Mikami wanted to make a first person shooter, with design elements similar to Wolfenstein 3D & Doom, and used The Shining as an example of the design of the mansion.

However, it was the release of the 1992 PC game Alone in the Dark that would convince Mikami to change the view to a fixed view, third-person gameplay style. It took Mikami some time to convince, however, and many early prototypes were in a first person perspective. The team, though, eventually found that the first person view had multiple graphical limitations on the PlayStation, and that they could get much more detailed backgrounds in third-person, by using pre-rendered images.

With the setting and gameplay style agreed upon, the enemies were up next. Initially, Resident Evil (or Biohazard as it is known in Japan) was to feature supernatural creatures and elements, strongly mimicking what was seen in Sweet Home. After some thought, the team decided to move away from the ghost-ish atmosphere of Sweet Home and embrace the zombie horror films of George A. Romero, using his films Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead as inspiration for Resident Evil’s zombies, tone, and even camera angles.

When Resident Evil released in Japan on March 22nd, then in the US on March 30th, it was met with widespread, critical acclaim. Reviewers felt true terror when playing Resident Evil, with a sick sense of dread taking them over around every corner and new room. You didn’t just play Resident Evil, you survived it. With limited inventory space and scant ammunition for your weapons, staying alive was difficult, making every challenge that much more satisfying when you completed it.

The game’s story and cutscenes were seen as laughably bad, but with a certain charm. The game’s tank controls, however, were its biggest points of contention, taking many critics quite some time to get used to. Once mastered, though, the controls are simple enough to deal with, but it was (and is) probably the biggest drawback to the entire game. In regards to sales, Resident Evil was a massive hit and was, for a time, the best selling game on the PlayStation (it would be usurped only 5 months later by Tekken 2). The original version of Resident Evil would sell 2.75 million copies, with an updated Director’s Cut adding an additional 2.3 million, bringing its lifetime sales to over 5 million.

The success of Resident Evil would spawn two quick sequels in 1998 and 1999, and go on to launch a massive franchise that spans nine mainline titles and over 20 spin-off’s and remakes (not to mention multiple mobile & handheld versions). On top of game sequels, the series also spawned films, television programs, novels, and countless pieces of merchandise. It is among the most popular and successful video game franchises of all-time, being counted among Mario, Street Fighter, Grand Theft Auto, etc., as one of the most recognizable in all of gaming.

Movies:

In notable films, 2016 gave us Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, the long awaited and long, LONG, in development film in which DC’s two biggest heroes, Batman and Superman, would duke it out on screen. The film was the second entry in Warner Bros. DCEU film series, and is a sequel to director Zack Snyder’s 2013 film, Man of Steel. The film, rather controversially, recast the role of Batman, replacing Christian Bale with Ben Affleck, and appears to have zero ties to the Dark Knight trilogy, despite that series only ending four years earlier.

As its bloated title suggests, Batman v Superman also sets up the formation of the Justice League, DC’s counterpart to Marvel’s Avengers, with Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman making an appearance in a supporting role, while future heroes Aquaman, The Flash, and Cyborg, make small cameo appearances.

While Batman v Superman opened with an impressive $166 million in the US and $422 million worldwide, it lost 58% of its audience by Sunday, the worst Friday to Sunday loss ever for a superhero film. Things got even worse in its second weekend as it lost a catastrophic 81% of its audience on the following Friday, the worst Friday-to-Friday drop in history, and an overall 68% drop weekend to weekend, the second largest in superhero film history, unable to take the (dis)honor from Ang Lee’s abysmal 2003 film, Hulk.

Despite the drop offs, Batman v Superman was still profitable for Warner Bros. and they were already fairly invested in the franchise, to the point that cancelling the Justice League film would make everyone the laughing stocks of Hollywood. Snyder would be allowed to finish out his trilogy (despite it not necessarily being ONLY a trilogy at first), but was replaced partway through shooting due to a family emergency, with writer/director Joss Whedon (who was responsible for Marvel’s The Avengers film), being put in charge of reshoots, while attempting to add some “Marvel style” levity to the film.

While the DCEU would kick along with a few more films, including two Aquaman films, two Wonder Woman films, two Shazam films, two Suicide Squad films, it would be undone by the 1-2 failures of Black Adam and The Flash. Currently, Warner Bros. and DC are trying a second interconnected universe of films and television, spearheaded by director James Gunn, whose The Suicide Squad was among the best reviewed films in the original DCEU. He has, thus far, had success with both his projects, a Peacemaker television series and the 2025 film, Superman.

It took me a few years to finally check out Batman v Superman and, frankly, I liked it. Snyder tried some interesting things, took some wild swings and, probably unfairly, took the brunt of audiences ire when he made superhero movies that weren’t the happy-go-lucky stylings of what Marvel was putting out with their films (a style that has, in the last few years, started to wear incredibly thin).

Speaking of James Gunn, from 2006, we have the film Slither, Gunn’s first time both writing AND directing a major feature film. Having cut his teeth at indie schlock house Troma in the 1990’s, Gunn would go on to write the screenplay’s for both Scooby-Doo films in the early 2000’s, as well as the Dawn of the Dead remake that was, funny enough, directed by Zack Snyder. Slither takes heavy inspiration from various 1970’s & 1980’s horror films, most notably Shivers, The Brood, and Night of the Creeps.

In the film, a race of alien slugs invade a small, South Carolina town, entering humans as parasites, turning them into zombie-like creatures. It is then up to the town’s police chief (played by Nathan Fillion) and a wealthy house wife (played by Elizabeth Banks) to stop this alien invasion from spreading across the planet.

While Gunn’s screenplays led to highly successful films in the early part of the 2000’s, Slither was a massive box office bomb, earning a paltry $13 million on a budget of $15 million. Critics enjoyed the film, giving it glowing ratings and calling it one of the best films of the year. Still, that was not enough to convince audiences to go see it. Perhaps it was the lack of big names stars, perhaps it was the high amount of gore, or maybe internet nerds were convincing enough to get people to boycott the film (as they claim Gunn plagiarized Night of the Creeps).

The failure of Slither would stall Gunn’s career in Hollywood, where he wouldn’t write or direct anything anything until 2010’s Super, a hardcore, gory, deconstruction of the superhero genre. The massive critical acclaim and modest box office was enough to convince producers at Marvel to give Gunn a chance at writing and directing their own offbeat superhero film, 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy, which not only reinvigorated a somewhat faltering MCU in the wake of Joss Whedon’s exit, but would set Gunn up for his future role as co-lead of Warner Bros. latest interconnected DC film universe.

From 1996, we have the Steve Martin comedy Sgt. Bilko, one of a plethora of films in the 1990’s to be based on classic TV shows, this one being a take on The Phil Silvers Show. In the film, Martin plays the titular Sgt. Bilko, a scheming, wise cracking Army Master Sargent who would rather play golf and gamble than, you know, do any of that Army bullshit. He’s a constant headache for Major Colin Thorn (played by Phil Hartman), who wants nothing more than Bilko thrown out of the Army (oh, and maybe a date a Bilko’s girlfriend). In the end, good triumphs over evil, or whatever, and everyone goes home happy.

Well, they go home happy in the film, at least. Audiences and critics HATED Sgt. Bilko, giving it some of the worst reviews and audience scores of 1996. The film was a box office bomb, only earning $37 million on a budget of $39 million, continuing a somewhat down period in Martin’s career after a string of misfires both before and after Bilko. His next major hit wouldn’t come until 2003’s Bringing Down the House, and who’s success likely had more to do with Queen Latifah being his co-star.

Albums:

In notable albums, 2016 saw the release of Weezer or as it is more commonly known, “White Album”, which saw the band continue its critical comeback following the release of 2014’s Everything Will Be Alright in the End. The album spawned three singles, “Thank God for Girls”, “Do You Wanna Get High?”, and “King of the World”. Two of the three charted (Girls and King), but did not reach the Billboard Hot 100. The album, on the other hand, was able to crack the Billboard Top 200, peaking at #4, while reaching #1 on the Billboard Top Rock chart and Top Alternative chart.

Personally, I found the album to be quite boring and, in many ways, indicative of modern Weezer; bland, inoffensive, and without any edge. I am, clearly, in the minority, as Weezers biggest hits have always been their most banal and flavorless. Still, there are a few stand-out tracks on the record, with “Do You Wanna Get High?” being solid, while the album’s closer, “Endless Bummer”, is absolutely going on my favorites playlist.

From 2006, we have one of my all-time personal favorites, Ringleader of the Tormentors by Morrissey. Released on the same day as last week’s notable album, The Flaming Lips’ At War With The Mystics, I have a vivid memory of going to a local record shop for a midnight release party where I picked up both albums on CD, which granted me promotional vinyl records for both.

While the album garnered a mostly positive reception from critics, primarily for its more rock oriented sound, it wasn’t quite a slam dunk, for some. The album felt like a Morrissey record, and it had songs that people would probably like but, to these detractors, much of the record seemed generic and, sadly, forgettable.

Personally, I couldn’t disagree more. I find all of the tracks on Ringleader to be of merit, and could likely give you the song name just off the first few bars. Is this because I listened to it almost non-stop for nearly a year, probably, but you don’t just do that with any record. My 2006, and much of the rest of the decade, was spent with Ringleader of the Tormentors, being the de facto soundtrack to my late 20’s.

Sales wise, the album would peak at #27 on the Billboard Top 200, while its four singles, “You Have Killed Me”, “The Youngest Was the Most Loved”, “In the Future When All’s Well”, and “I Just Want to See the Boy Happy” would miss the US charts, but do very well on the UK charts. It’s funny, then, that after being so engrossed with Ringleader of the Tormentors, that I have never purchased a single new Morrissey album since, despite the singer putting out an additional six since then (including one only a few weeks ago called Make-Up Is a Lie). Part of me just kind of wants to see my hero stuck in 2006, with a brilliant album and only a somewhat shitty personality, instead of where he is now.

Closing out the week, from 1996, we have the album Oz Factor from the San Diego pop-punk band Unwritten Law. Am I being self indulgent on this one? Oh, ABSOLUTELY! While Oz Factor saw the band making their major label debut, it’s not like it reached massive heights on any Billboard charts or made a big splash with critics. In fact, most reviewers turned their nose up at the album, calling Unwritten Law a light-weight version of Green Day.

Still, Oz Factor got to the people it needed to the most, punk rock fans, who latched onto the band’s driving drum beats, steady bass rhythms, and catchy lyrical hooks. Unwritten Law did not make it to the same level of success as their pop-punk contemporaries in San Diego, Blink-182, but they have been able to sustain a decent career over the last 30+ years, releasing albums as recently as 2022, while also still maintaining a solid touring schedule.

Quantum Break (PC/Xbox One) – Released Apr. 5th, 2016

Notable Film Release: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – Starring Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Jesse Eisenberg, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Jeremy Irons, Holly Hunter, and Gal Gadot
Click here to watch the trailer
Notable Album Release: Weezer – Weezer (White Album)
Click here to listen to the album

Harvest Moon: Magical Melody (GameCube) – Released Mar. 28th, 2006

Notable Film Release: Slither – Starring Nathan Fillion, Elizabeth Banks, Gregg Henry, and Michael Rooker
Click here to watch the trailer
Notable Album Release: Morrissey – Ringleader of the Tormentors
Click here to listen to the album

Resident Evil (PlayStation) – Released Apr. 1st, 1996

Notable Film Release: Sgt. Bilko – Starring Steve Martin, Dan Aykroyd, Phil Hartman, and Glenne Headly
Click here to watch the trailer
Notable Album Release: Unwritten Law – Oz Factor
Click here to listen to album

If you like what I’m doing here consider supporting me on Patreon. You can also find me on Blue Sky where I occasionally make jokes and talk about stuff I like. I used to eat a lot of corndogs but then I got Type-2 diabetes.

Exit mobile version