Hello! Welcome to the latest Geeky Brummie Gaming Roundup!

This week, the Sonic movie, Sony pull out again, and all the latest releases!

Gotta Go Fast to Break Records

Remember how terrible the Sonic movie looked? Remember how we all laughed and joked about how inevitably awful it was going to be, and how it was guaranteed to bomb? Well, it’s out now, and, as we expected, it’s…broken box office records to become the most successful video game movie.

Wait. Let me read that again.

Yes, that’s right. Previously the record holder was Detective Pikachu, the surprisingly entertaining Pokémon spin-off from last year (which I liked), but now the baffling Sonic movie has taken its deerstalker-shaped crown (it’s now presumably a ring or something).

Reviews are mixed, ranging from it being absolute trash to being the best video game movie ever made, and honestly I don’t know what to make of that. I should probably watch it myself sometime but I just booked a ticket for Parasite and if my choice is between a dumb-looking video game based kids movie and the Best Picture Oscar Winner, it’s clear what I’m going to watch.

So in other words, expect a review of the Sonic movie next week (am I joking? Am I being sincere? We may never know).

Sony Pulls Out of PAX

Sony have pulled out of another event although this time their reasons for doing so are a little clearer than their absence at E3 2020.

This time, Sony are pulling out of PAX because of concerns around COVID-19, better known as the novel coronavirus, which you may have heard about in the news. PAX East is set to begin in a week’s time, and Sony had a whole bunch of PlayStation demos ready to go, including The Last of Us 2.

However, following Sony’s decision to pull out of the now-axed Mobile World Congress event in Spain, they’ve followed suit for PAX as well. This is due to fears of visitors from all over the world in one place increasing the risk of attendees travelling in from affected areas and potentially spreading the virus.

It’s not the first story showing the impact the coronavirus has been having on the games industry, as the outbreak in China has potential impacts on businesses in the area. This would include manufacturing plants where all the hardware manufacturers produce their systems and accessories. Japan is already seeing shortages of Switch products, while Sony and Microsoft have expressed potential concerns over production of their next-gen systems.

Raidbow Six

Lara Croft is coming to Rainbow Six: Siege. Well, sort of. It’s a skin for one of the squad members, giving her the iconic tank top, shorts and red shades of Derby’s most famous creation.

As a Tomb Raider fan, this pleases me, although it’s not enough to make me care about a Tom Clancy game. But if Square Enix wanted to put Lara Croft in any number of other games, I’m totally on board. I mean, Smash Bros is right there, you know.

New Releases

We’ll kick off the new releases this week with one hell of a party. Devil May Cry 3 is coming to the Switch, with a bunch of improvements and tweaks to the Special Edition on which the port is based, most notably changing the style switching mechanics to allow players to switch between Dante’s different fighting styles on the fly, rather than only from the menu like in the original game. This was my major complaint with the original release, so the Switch version sounds amazing to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKTpnFCY3LY

Some small Steam releases from you. Death and Taxes is a game where you play as the Grim Reaper in an office admin job deciding who lives and dies. Lumote is a colourful puzzle game starring a squishy biolumescent creature. Taur is a tower defence game in space with shades of Civilization thrown in for good measure.

This week also saw the release of DCL – The Game for PC, PS4 and Xbox One. I’m informed that DCL is short for Drone Champions League, the official championship for drone racing. I had no idea this was a thing outside of a minigame within Judgment, but here we are. Personally, I’d rather play the drone racing in Judgment because, well, it’s wrapped up in a Ryu ga Gotoku Studio game, but if you’re super into drones, I’m sure DCL – The Game will provide plenty of entertainment.

Lair of the Clockwork God is the new game from Size Five Games, and is the third game starring Ben and Dan, the fictional representations of their designers, Ben Ward and Dan Marshall. This one promises more silliness as seen in Ben There, Dan That and Time Gentlemen Please, but now with more platforming thrown in. I honestly am not the biggest fan of those games, as I find them a little too derivative of their LucasArts inspirations, but if you enjoyed those titles, you’ll most likely be into this.

Speaking of sequels to games I have on Steam and didn’t really get into, Dungeon Defenders: Awakened also entered Early Access this week. As far as I can tell, it’s more of the third person tower defence gameplay of its predecessors, which makes me tune out as I didn’t enjoy the first one at all. But hey, if you’re more into this than me, get hype.

The award for surprisingly interesting and cute game out of nowhere this week goes to Giraffe and Annika. It’s from the lead designer of Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! (which to us Westerners is the Japanese equivalent of Elite Beat Agents on the DS), and it’s a little indie adventure game with rhythm game elements. You play as a catgirl (no wait, come back) called Annika who explores a mysterious island. It’s currently on Steam, with PS4 and Switch versions coming later in the year.

Skul: The Hero Slayer got released in Early Access and was one of the games I highlighted on our Twitter account as an indie game to look out for this year. It’s a roguelite platformer from a Korean studio, centred on battling demon hunters. You play as a skeletal guard who can change his abilities based on which skull he’s wearing at any given time. It looks stylish as hell, and I’ll have a full review of this one soon.

Game of the Week

Game of the Week this week was almost Skul: The Hero Slayer, but we could do with a change from pixel art platformers in this slot. So here’s a pixel art horror game!

World of Horror is now in Early Access on Steam and Xbox Game Preview, and is a “1-bit” adventure game. It’s Lovecraftian horror with art that draws heavily from the work of legendary horror mangaka Junji Ito, and with that sentence alone, I’m sold.

It’s part RPG, part text adventure, and full of gruesome horrors beyond human comprehension. So in other words, it looks excellent and right up my street.

And that’s it for this week! I’ll see you next week with more from the world of gaming!