By Nelson Schneider - 09/29/24 at 02:32 AM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! We’re back in the “spooookiest” month of the year, but right now the only things that are scary are the ineptitude of our elected officials and the dismal quality of monthly videogame releases. Zombies won’t get the chance to eat my brain on Halloween if the neverending stream of political ads and shite game releases cause it to shrivel up and disintegrate!
Oh, EFF-ing, EFF! There are even more shovelware titles than there were last month: Over 20! And we’ve got all three categories represented to boot. In the Licensed Swill category there’s a LOT of stuff. There are games based on TV shows, like “Totally Spies! – Cyber Mission,” “Monster High: Skulltimate Secrets,” “The Smurfs: Dreams” (a show that’s been off the air for generations), “Nick Jr. Party Adventure” (really a whole TV network), “Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero,” “SpongeBob Squarepants: The Patrick Star Game,” “Sword Art Online: Fractured Daydream,” and “Miraculous: Paris Under Siege.” Then there are games based on MOVIES, all of which are Horror-esque, like a combo-pack of “Halloween/Ash vs the Evil Dead,” “A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead,” “Killer Klowns from Outer Space: The Game” (an EFF-ing OLD movie!), and “Starship Troopers: Extermination.” Next, there are games based on TOYS, like “Barbie Project Friendship,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed,” “Hotwheels Monster Trucks: Stunt Mayhem,” and “Transforers: Galactic Trials.” Finally, there’s a game based on… I can’t believe I’m writing this… a century-old French pulp fiction character, “Arsene Lupin – Once a Thief.” Like… who are they targeting with that one? At least it’s Public Domain, baybeeeee!!
Sadly, we’re not done with shovelware just yet, as there are still two other categories to slop through. In the 2Cazul2Live, we’ve got some truly horrific trash in “Neptunia Game Maker R: Evolution” in the loli-fest Console War parody that just won’t die, a meme game in “Squirrel with a Gun,” and the latest iteration of Ubisoft’s foot-stomping cluster “Just Dance: 2025 Edition.” That last one neatly overlaps with the final category of Annualized Releases, as it is one, as are “NHL 25” and “Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.” STOP. BUYING. THESE.
Sadly, the train of ports continues to roll past the station, disgorging hobo games in truly grotesque numbers: There are over 35 old games masquerading as new games in an attempt to either expand their audience or – in most cases – garner one in the first place. Instead of being an absolute runaway of crap, the Switch is running neck-and-neck with PlayStation in October to see who can accumulate the most old sludge. Switch is getting a trilogy pack of ‘Cat Quest,’ “A Little to the Left,” “Eternights,” “Spirittea,” “Police Simulator: Patrol Officers,” “Dwerve,” “Gori: Cuddly Carnage,” “SCHiM,” “The Bridge Curse 2,” “Read Only Memories: NEURODIVER,” “Yars Rising,” a remaster of “Romancing SaGa 2” (better known as “Final Fantasy Legend 2” in the West), an enhanced re-release of “Sonic Generations” with “x Shadow” stuffed in there, “Wildermyth,” “Potionomics,” “Let’s (not) School,” “Darkest Dungeon 2,” “Balatro,” “WitchSpring R,” “Conscript,” “Pepper Grinder,” “Naheulbeuk’s Dungeon Master,” and the glob of “Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster” games. Only the first 5 of those were assaulting the Switch by itself, with the remainder also maligning PlayStation, along with a compilation of ‘Poppy’s Playtime’ titles, “SINce Memories: Off the Starry Sky,” “Lempo,” “Skautfold: Into the Fray,” “Atari (delenda est) 50: The Anniversary Celebration,” “Minecraft” (Microsoft has truly given up at this point), “Ed-0: Zombie Uprising,” a remaster of “Until Dawn,” “Windstorm: Start of a Great Friendship,” “Crown Wars: The Black Prince,” “Asphalt 9: Legends Unite,” “Silent Hill 2” (also coming to Steam), and a double pack of ‘Life is Strange’ titles… the last one of which is also coming to Xbox! Along with… “Doom Anthology”… which would be great if the people who like to play ‘Doom’ knew what the word ‘anthology’ means.
*WHEW!* With all the CRAAAAAAAP out of the way, it’s time to move onto legitimate new releases, once again. In multi-platform titles, we’ve still got an impressive 10 titles coming in a reasonably diverse variety of genres. There’s “Reel Fishing: Days of Summer” for those who love fishing but not eating fish. There’s yet another ‘Harvest Moon’ (and, at this point, “Stardew Valley”) knock-off in “Orange Season.” There’s the 10th game in the long running ‘Ys’ series (which I hate after playing the first 3 games), “Ys 10: Nordics.” Atlus has a new… thing… coming, called “Metaphor: ReFantazio,” which is doing everything in its power to appear to be a ‘Persona’ spinoff… so a spinoff of a spinoff of garbage I hate. NEXT! Oh, not much better, but Chris will be excited for “Alan Wake 2,” which, from what I hear, doesn’t even star Alan Wake anymore, but some random Negro woman. “Undisputed” is a new IP about an old Sport – Boxing. “Blazing Strike” is another new IP with old roots – it’s a complete rip-off of old-school ‘Street Fighter.’ “Dollhouse: Behind the Broken Mirror” is predictable Horror schlock for Halloween. “Unknown 9: Awakening” is yet ANOTHER new IP that… looks like the culmination of all unfortunate Woke decisions a game publisher could have made in the last decade, compressed and polished into a high-sheen turd that will flop so hard for Namco-Bandai that they’ll be jealous of Square-Enix’s situation with “Forespoken.” Lastly, there’s “Dragon Age: The Veilguard,” the 4th (and probably final) entry in BioWare’s shambling mess of a Fantasy RPG franchise. Considering that BioWare was at the bleeding edge of pushing bizarre, unlikable, proto-Woke characters in “Inquisition,” I think it’s likely that this game will suffer… but it might at least be palatable with a spoonful of LOLz to choke down the pandering.
At last, we come to exclusives, those precious system sellers that move consoles off shelves… provided the supply chain puts them on the shelves in the first place. PlayStation is leading with… One exclusive: “Master Detective Archives: RAIN CODE Plus,” which sounds like it should be a port or a remake of some sort, but I couldn’t find anything to show that it is. Then there’s Nintendo with a whopping FIVE exclusives hitting the Switch… but one is just a Swich-specific version of “RPG Maker” called “WITH.” Then there’s “World of Goo 2,” which is only a temporary timed exclusive. “Goblin Slayer Another Adventurer: Nightmare Feast” is some sort of low-budget, poorly-localized TRPG. “Fantasy Friends Dream Worlds” is a saccharine Puzzle/Platformer clearly aimed at little girls (or adult, male LGBTQs). Lastly, “9 R.I.P.” is a Visual Novel… and part of a series… and that’s all you should need to know to avoid it.
Ehhh… that was a LOT… and MOST of it was CRAP! But I’m still excited to play “World of Goo 2” once the timed exclusivity between the Switch and Epic runs out and it hits Steam. I’m less excited to play “Dragon Age: The Veilguard,” but I was expecting “Inquisition” to be a bigger disaster than it was, and it ended up being my favorite game in the series (not a great compliment), so I’ll keep my eye on it.
Backlog Embiggened: +2
