Hello! Welcome to the latest Geeky Brummie Games Release Roundup!

This week, PlayStation’s newest mascot and killers on the loose.

Hello, I haven’t really been doing these intros lately. This is mostly because I’ve found myself rushing and doing these at last minute, while writing about a lot of games. But it’s a quieter week this week, as my initially long list dwindled to next to nothing due to an assortment of delays.

Clearly no one wants to compete with my Game of the Week, a game that brings so much joy and wonder that’s been missing from PlayStation lately. Its timing, with the complete collapse of Concord, is being treated as a watershed moment for the games industry, although whether it’ll prove to be that remains to be seen. All I know is, I’m currently obsessed with it, and that’s what’s important.

Re-Releases and Ports

Age of Mythology: Retold (PC, Xbox X/S) is a remaster of the original Age of Mythology from 2002. The game takes the concept of the Age of Empires franchise and combines it magic and mythology, drawing from Norse, Egyptian and Greek pantheons.

Developed by World’s Edge and Forgotten Empires and published by Xbox Game Studios. Original game developed by Ensemble Studios.

Ace Attorney Investigations Collection (PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One) brings together the two Ace Attorney Investigations games, which focused on prosecutor Miles Edgeworth as he attempts to put together a case for trial. Both the original DS games were hugely well received, and it contains the usual brand of humour that the series is known for. Definitely one to check out for fans of mystery games if you missed out on the originals.

Developed and published by Capcom.

New Releases

If you can’t wait for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and also like tactical RPGs, Sumerian Six (PC) has you covered. You play as the Enigma Squad, a gang of scientists taking on the Nazis to prevent them from obtaining dangerous magical relics. You must utilise your team’s unique skills in a tactical stealth adventure. Some rave reviews coming in for this one, with positive comparisons to the work of Mimimi Games (Desperados, Shadow Gambit).

Developed by Artificer and published by Devolver Digital.

The Casting of Frank Stone (PC, PS5, Xbox X/S) is what happens when Supermassive Games take their particular brand of narrative adventure horror and apply it to the Dead by Daylight universe. You play a group of filmmakers who head to an abandoned stell mill to make a horror movie centred on the serial killer Frank Stone. Presumably the cast of this game will eventually show up in Dead by Daylight too.

Developed by Supermassive Games (Until Dawn, The Dark Pictures Anthology, The Quarry) and published by Behaviour Interactive (Dead by Daylight).

Game of the Week

Game of the Week is Astro Bot (PS5), the much-anticipated sequel to the PS5’s absurdly good pack-in tech demo.

Astro’s Playroom was honestly the greatest trick Sony have pulled on their players. Oh, we’ve just added this cute little tech demo to the system so we can show off the cool controller features, that’s all. WRONG. It was a wondrous 4-hour platformer which celebrated PlayStation history while also just being a cool game in its own right. You played as a little robot that lived in your PlayStation as he adventured through your GPU and SSD collecting coins and classic peripherals like a PS1 Memory Card or the Buzz controllers. Along the way you encountered other robots that referenced classic games, from first-party games like God of War to third-party favourites like Metal Gear or Tekken. It had no business being as good as it was, but it led to mass requests for a full-length game.

That game is Astro Bot, a game that may well be Sony’s answer to Super Mario Galaxy. You once again play as the titular robot, only now the scale has been upped considerably. Spaceship PlayStation 5 has been dismantled by aliens and now Astro must gather all his friends, some of whom are once again references to other games, and track down the various parts of the ship/console.

I have been looking forward to this ever since it got announced a few months ago. Astro’s Playroom, as I breathlessly explained above, was a delight, and I just want more. I’ve played a little of the new game and it’s 100% worth it. The level designs are superb, the references are genuinely nostalgic and celebratory and every pore of the game exudes pure joy. You’d be convinced it was a Nintendo game if you didn’t bump into a robot that looks like Kratos. A truly great game made with passion and love, and therefore more than worthy of being Game of the Week.

Developed by Asobi Studio and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment.