New Releases: September 10th-16th, 2020

From careening slideways in Hotshot Racing and Inertial Drift, leaping though Tamarin and Adventures of Pip, to crustacean combat in Fight Crab, this week has plenty of notable new releases. Beyond these titles, Bounty Battle offers a showdown between characters from indie gems like Dead Cells, Guacamelee!, and Owlboy, while Tin & Kuna looks to offer a pleasing mix of puzzling and platforming.

Header Image: Banner of the Maid, PS4

PlayStation 4
Banner of the Maid: The Oriental Pirate (DLC, $TBA)
Bounty Battle (digital, $19.99)
Hotshot Racing (digital, $15.99)
Inertial Drift (digital, $17.99)
Minoria (digital, $19.99)
Tamarin (digital, $39.99)
Tin & Kuna (physical & digital, $29.99)
Vampire: The Masquerade – Shadows of New York (digital, $11.69)
Wintermoor Tactics Club (digital, $19.99)

Switch
Active Neurons 2 (digital, $3.99)
Adventures of Pip (digital, $9.99)
Bake ‘n Switch (digital, $29.99)
Bounty Battle (digital, $19.99)
Caveman Tales (digital, $9.99)
Death and Taxes (digital, $12.99)
Deleveled (digital, $9.99)
Doodle Derby (digital, $6.39)
Drums (digital, $9.99)
Fight Crab (digital, $19.99)
Firework (digital, $14.99)
Golf Zero (digital, $19.99)
Her Majesty’s Ship (digital, $10.99)
Hotshot Racing (digital, $15.99)
Inertial Drift (digital, $17.99)
Iris.Fall (physical & digital, $19.99)
Minoria (digital, $19.99)
MO:Astray (digital, $13.49)
Space Robinson (digital, $9.99)
The Snake King (digital, $7.99)
Tin & Kuna (physical & digital, $29.99)
Tomoyo After -It’s a Wonderful Life- CS Edition (digital, $34.99)
Vampire: The Masquerade – Shadows of New York (digital, $11.69)
WeakWood Throne (digital, $4.99)
Wintermoor Tactics Club (digital, $19.99)

Xbox One
Bounty Battle (digital, $19.99)
Deleveled (digital, $9.99)
Minoria (digital, $19.99)
Tin & Kuna (physical & digital, $29.99)
Vampire: The Masquerade – Shadows of New York (digital, $11.69)
Wintermoor Tactics Club (digital, $19.99)

PC
A Gay Love Story About Gay Love ($TBA)
A Monster’s Expedition ($TBA)
As Far As The Eye ($TBA)
Bounty Battle ($19.99)
BPM: Bullets Per Minute ($TBA)
Deleveled ($9.99)
ExoCorps ($TBA)
Hotshot Racing ($15.99)
Inertial Drift ($17.99)
Sweet Dungeon ($TBA)
Tamarin ($39.99)
Tin & Kuna ($29.99)
Vampire: The Masquerade – Shadows of New York ($11.69)

Robert’s Pick: Twenty-two years ago, I was infatuated with R4: Ridge Racer Type 4, while fifteen years ago, I felt the same about Burnout Revenge. Subsequently, both series weakened, leading to declining sales and putting both franchises in limbo (sure, EA is still milking Burnout Paradise but it’s a 2008 title, so the point stands). Arcadish, drift-friendly racers seem to have fallen out of fashion, which is worrisome because they’re a gaming fundamental.

Enter Hotshot Racing and Inertial Drift. I’ve been playing the former for a week and it’s the real deal. Flat-texturing, blindingly fast framerate, and AI rivals who show a bit of aggression. What’s more, the game supports four-player splitscreen. So as soon as this pandemic over, you’ll all invited over for racing and Hibiki Harmony. I haven’t played Inertial Drift, but I’m eager to go manji with it. BTW, I’m a sucker for platformers as well, so check out Adventures of Pip (Jake “Virt” Kaufman soundtrack) as well as the adorably cute Tamarin.

Ryan’s Pick: Hallways, as my dad calls FPS games, have come a long way. I am very much interested in Awe Interactive’s rhythm-based FPS roguelike BPM: Bullets Per Minute this week simply because it looks pretty impressive, and it seems like they got the rhythm part down. Crypt of the NecroDancer is an awesome rhythm roguelike indie game that really helped bridge the gap between action games and rhythm/Bemani style beat-based games. I feel like now that it’s been proven that it is possible to mash that genre together with others, more developers will continue to innovate. Rhythm games in general present a more complex step when it comes down to making them, which is execution. ‘How do we make this work so it’s still fun and not too difficult?” and then there is the whole other problem of licensing music.

BPM: Bullets Per Minute is not the only rhythm based FPS that is coming out in the near future, but compared to the others this one feels a bit more intense and polished. There are definitely some parallels to the Dark Souls franchise when it comes to boss design in this game as well, which is very much welcomed – I’m pretty vocal about how I love gigantic screaming bosses. The rock opera soundtrack also fits my personal tastes a bit more than some of the metal choices of other upcoming FPS games like GUN JAM. Again, it’s great to see the FPS genre continuing to flourish and expand.