Hello! Welcome to the latest Geeky Brummie Gaming Roundup!

This week…uh…new releases!

So yeah, as you can probably imagine, the situation with COVID-19, the ongoing global pandemic, gaming news is a little thin on the ground this week. A lot of companies have seen major disruption and are likely in the process of figuring out what to do next, and some announcements have most likely been delayed for when things are a little chaotic.

Good news though: games are still being released as scheduled. And this week there have been a lot of new releases to talk about, as digital distribution means games can still release while everyone remains at least six feet apart from other. So this week is just a simple release roundup. Shorter than usual, but hopefully you can understand.

New Releases – Ports

Let’s start with some ports. Deep Sky Derelicts, a spaceship exploration game with roguelike and card battle elements, first released on Steam in 2018, released on PS4 this week. And in return, the previously PS4-exclusive JRPG sequel Trails of Cold Steel III saw a Steam release this week. Steam also saw a release of mobile fix-em-up Assemble with Care, made by the developers of the excellent Monument Valley.

Nintendo held a small Direct on Thursday this week, and with it, a few immediate Switch releases, two of which were ports. Capcom’s Shinsekai: Into the Depths, a 2D side scroller about underwater exploration has been ported over from its Apple Arcade release at the end of last year. And for a real blast from the past, Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy has been brought back from its 2003 PC and Xbox release to land on the Switch this week. There was also a PS4 release, but that obviously wasn’t mentioned in the Nintendo Direct.

Brand New Releases

But that wasn’t all! Two other games got announced and immediately released for Switch in the same presentation. Panzer Dragoon is the remake of the beloved Saturn title from 1995, updating the game for modern audiences for a timed Switch exclusive release. Nintendo also revealed Good Job!, a game where you play as an office worker in a physics-based puzzle game where you can either complete your work professionally or cause as much chaos as possible. If you choose the former, I’m very disappointed in you.

Elsewhere, there are two multi-platform licensed titles this week. Gigantosaurus The Game is based on the Disney Junior show Gigantosaurus, and blends 3D platforming with kart racing. One for the kids, from the looks of things. One Piece Pirate Warriors 4 is the latest Omega Force musou game based on popular anime One Piece. I honestly didn’t know there were three others before this, so I’m not really sure what to tell you here.

In bigger releases, this week saw Ninja Theory’s first release as a first-party Xbox studio. Bleeding Edge had a beta release in 2019, but this week saw its full release. Think Overwatch, but instead of guns, characters battle with melee weapons, drawing on Ninja Theory’s past expertise with games like Heavenly Sword, DmC: Devil May Cry and Hellblade.

The biggest release of this week is (and I’m as surprised as you to say this) a new Half-Life game. Half-Life: Alyx isn’t QUITE Half-Life 3, but it is a proper Half-Life title that’s been getting rave reviews already. You’ll need a VR headset for this one, unfortunately, but this isn’t a gimmicky VR experience from all accounts; it’s a full Half-Life game that happens to use VR at its heart. And Rhys Darby of Flight of the Conchords fame is in it, so there’s that too.

Game of the Week

This week, Game of the Week is Iron Danger, a strategy game that sets out to blend real-time and turn-based strategy into one game. How do they do this? Time manipulation!

Iron Danger is a game about a young Norse girl who gains powers during an attack on her village. Not only can she wield spells, but she can also manipulate space and time. With this, you can rewind parts of a battle, and realign attacks and movements to turn the tide in your favour. It’s a really fascinating mechanic that I think makes this game really stand out from other fantasy RPG and strategy titles.

And that’s it for this week! I’ll see you again in a week for more of the latest releases and…maybe some news? We’ll see. Until then, stay safe everyone, wash yer dang hands and use this social distancing time to finally get through that gaming backlog! See you next week!