Hello! Welcome to the latest edition of the Geeky Brummie Gaming Roundup!

This week I’m keeping it to just the releases, as the industry’s rolling not-E3 announcements keep coming, and I’ll be covering them all in a bigger piece next week. For now, please check out the latest releases!

New Releases

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYLR0EIp5o4

In new yet old releases this week, we start with Ruiner, a cyberpunk action game released on Steam in 2017, now arriving on Switch. Burnout Paradise Remastered also launches on Switch, bringing the 2008 stunt racing classic to a Nintendo system for the first time. And Namco have released a compilation of classic titles with Namco Museum Archives Volume 1 & 2 (PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One), featuring titles such as Pac-Man, Dig Dug and Galaga.

Two notable games entered Early Access on Steam this week. The Waylanders is a Celtic-inspired classic-style RPG with staff whose past work includes Dragon Age and Pillars of Eternity, and the voice of Ralph Ineson. There is also Hardspace: Shipbreaker, which is all about scavenging spaceship wrecks, so it’s a lot of zero-g exploration for all your space-faring needs.

Across the Grooves on Steam and Switch is a visual novel based around music. You follow a woman named Alice who takes a musical journey across Europe, and the story will be affected by choices you help her make along the way.

For Steam and Xbox One, there’s West of Dead, set a moody Western-inspired take on purgatory. A cross between a twin-stick shooter and a cover shooter, you play as a dead man with the voice of Ron Perlman as he seeks out a mysterious figure in black.

An indie highlight for the week, Summer in Mara is a cute island-hopping adventure for Steam and Switch. It’s got farming to do, buildings to customise and friendships to make. Basically, if you want the island living of Animal Crossing: New Horizons but with more quests and adventure built in, then this might just be the game for you.

First big release of the week is Desperados 3, a tactical stealth game that sees John Cooper, protagonist of the original Desperados team up with a varied team of specialists in the Ol’ West. Take on bandits with sharp-shooting, bear traps, poison gas and other special skills as Cooper seeks his redemption.

Another big release this week is Disintegration, made by a team of industry veterans, including people who worked on the original Halo. It’s set in a far-flung future where humans have been placed in robot bodies due to rampant plague, and two factions have emerged with differing views on the future of humanity. It’s an FPS with RTS elements and lots of shiny vehicles. It’s out for PC, PS4 and Xbox One.

Game of the Week

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXl9GI1p_Os

Game of the Week this week is the sequel to my 5th favourite game of the 2010s, The Last of Us Part II, exclusive to PS4.

Set a few years after the first game, this game sees an adult Ellie on a revenge mission. Story details are fairly sparse as Naughty Dog have veiled them in secrecy, but if the first game is anything to go by, expect more grim apocalypse tales as humanity tries desperately to survive in a world plagued by a deadly fungus.

Gameplay-wise, it looks set to be more of the same, with stealth and resource management being key to survival. With Ellie as the protagonist, it looks highly likely that stealth will play a greater role as it’s unlikely she’ll be able to pull of some of the ridiculous takedowns the much stronger Joel was capable of in the first game.

I’m really excited for this one. I’ve been deep into the first game again recently since I’ve been making a video on the game for my YouTube channel, and I’m interested to see how they continue the story after its predecessor’s superb ending.

And that’s it for this week! See you again soon for more from the world of gaming!