Tech-Gaming Technology, Gaming, and Culture
This week’s itinerary of new releases offers a veritable variety of titles, with a number of notable entries across key genres. First-person shooter fans will likely find fun in Wolfenstein: The New Order’s firefights and Tarantino-eqsue banter, while shmup fans can rejoice at the reinvigoration of R-Type Dimensions. Even role-playing fans have a reason to be excited, between the publishing of Transistor, Drakengard 3 and Mugen Souls Z.
PlayStation 3
Dragon Beat: Legend of Pinball (PSN, PSone import, $5.99)
Drakengard 3
Mugen Souls Z
R-Type Dimensions (PSN, $9.99)
PlayStation 4
Wolfenstein: The New Order (Also on PSN)
Sparkle 2 (PSN, $7.99, Cross-buy)
Transistor
Wii U
Adventures of Lolo (Virtual Console, $4.99)
Color Zen (eShop, $3.99)
Fit Music for Wii U (eShop, $TBA)
Scram Kitty and his Buddy on Rails (eShop, $9.99)
Swords & Soldiers HD (eShop, $TBA)
Wii Party U (Now on eShop)
Xbox 360
Wolfenstein: The New Order
Xbox One
Wolfenstein: The New Order (Also on XBL)
3DS
Arc Style: Baseball 3D (eShop, $4.99)
Candy Match 3 (eShop, $7.99)
Mega Man V (eShop, $2.99)
Moon Chronicles (eShop, $8.99)
DS
Deep Sea Creatures (DSiWare, $4.99)
PS Vita
Sparkle 2 (PSN, $7.99, Cross-buy)
PC
100% Orange Juice (Steam, $TBA)
Always Sometimes Monsters (Steam, $8.99)
Dark Scavenger (Steam, $TBA)
Firefighters 2014 (Steam, $TBA)
Flower Shop: Summer In Fairbrook (Steam, $11.24)
Freaking Meatbags (Steam, $TBA)
Frederic: Resurrection of Music (Steam, $5.39)
Imagine Earth (Steam, $TBA)
Out There Somewhere (Steam, $TBA)
Panzer Tactics HD (Steam, $23.99)
Radical Roach Deluxe Edition (Steam, $TBA)
Retro Game Crunch (Steam, $TBA)
Shiny The Butterfly (Steam, $7.49)
The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing II (Steam, $13.49)
The Last Door-Collector’s Edition (Steam, $TBA)
Transistor (Steam, $19.99)
Wolfenstein: The New Order (Steam, $59.99)
Robert’s Pick: A playthrough of the first three stages of Wolfenstein: The New Order demonstrated MachineGames delivering the goods, extending an engrossing, gory ride that should satisfy single-player FPS fans. I’m excited to see how the rest of the game plays out. Naturally, I needed a catharsis to wash away the carnage- which has come in the form of Mugen Souls Z, a sequel to the Compile Heart’s 2012 title. Pleasingly, the follow-up retains Harada-san’s aesthetic (even if actual design is handled by “Nanamedakei”, “A-10”, and “Ryoji” and “An overwhelming, super important person”), the game’s sophomoric humor, while mending a few of the issues I had with the original game.
Gonçalo’s Pick: In my opinion, board games are generally better when played as a physical product; not many entertainment forms can replace the sheer fun of spending time with friends in a room and playing a game. The best way to offset this is by offering rules and features that can’t be easily emulated in real life and that’s where 100% Orange Juice shines! Rapid, frantic gameplay and a hilarious sense of humor make this a title something of a hidden gem.
Who is playing Whitney Houston’s character in “Sparkle 2”????
Making jokes about dead people never gets old, right?
I bought 100% Orange Juice after you talked about it on the podcast. I couldn’t figure the game out to save my life. Does this version come with instructions?
I’m sorry, I probably didn’t explain as well as I should have in the podcast. The game does have different options to play with free and campaign; all players are known characters from their previous games- reason why it’s called 100% Orange Juice. After you pick how you want to play and your character, you move forward to the board and that’s basically most of the basics you got to understand to enjoy the game.
You move through the board by rolling dice, you can choose to move around it, contest other players or stay at specific points. The board is divided by colors and every color represents an action – citrus is healing, green is draw from the card deck in the middle, red is encounter (in which you fight mostly critters, there are bosses too), blue makes you lose stars, purple is warp across the board and yellow is a bonus spot in which you get as many stars as you roll with the dice. Even though the game seems to be divided by turns and chapters, the one who collects the most stars the quickest is the one that wins.
The cards also play an important part on the game – they can either be traps, boosts, battle perks or events that affect you or all board players. This may include from healing yourself to having everyone lose stars as you would whenever you would land in a blue square.
I remember multiplayer being nearly impossible to get through with the Desura version, not sure if with Steam this is something that would be somewhat improved; However, once you know what you’re doing the game is pretty fun! you get to unlock more scenarios and characters to play with, too.
Also: lolis.
Pretty fun little game, but you have to find out how to play or experiment. The game won’t do you any favors.
I was interested in Drakengard 3 until I heard Access games was behind it. Now, I’ll wait until it hits the bargain bins.
In celebration of Desert using Mugen pics this week. (You went full loli, Never go full loli!)
Forgot the pic!
The Kou 52 is my favorite! (top left corner)
Someone needs to make this isn’t a loli shooter! Get Japan on the line, stat!
How many “p”s in the Xbox One version of Wolfenstein: The New Order?
Candy Match 3 seems like it’s fishing for a lawsuit from King.
I thought Scram Kitty and his Buddy on Rails came out last week.
Radical Roach Deluxe Edition is also a shmup. Whether its a good one remains to be seen.
I have got that one on Desura, I loved the drawn on style and I remember the whole thing was pretty funny. The one thing I have got to say about it though is that it doesn’t have a score system! That makes it a bit repetitive at times, first couple of levels feel they could have had a bit more of gameplay involved. I think they did patch up the controller support trouble though, and they have fixed a couple bugs here and there too. No idea how different the Steam version would be, it seems they only reworked the audio and brings some more artwork stuff.
It is out now with a 30% discount it seems, $4.89 USD.
They took the bugs out of Radical Roach? Awful!
Wow, I didn’t know that Van Helsing had a sequel coming out already. I’m on board for another Adventure.
Looks like I might pick up Wolfenstein: The New Order this week.
I hope you review Retro Game Crunch. It seems a lot liek Retro Game Challenge- a game you endorsed a long time ago.
I thought I’d like the first Mugen Souls a bit more than I did. Still, I’ll give Mugen Souls Z a try this week.
Thinking about picking up R-Type Dimensions. Just wish it included Final.
Yeah, I would have paid $15 if R-Type Final was in the package.
Maybe Wolfenstein.