Silver Pines, Star Wars Racing, Hellraiser – Games Release Roundup

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

This week, spooky mysteries, podracing and cenobites.

Hello friends. Before we start talking about this week’s games, I need to highlight the fact that this weekend is once again Birmingham Anime Film Festival, organised by Geeky Brummie in partnership with the Mockingbird Cinema. Here’s our very cool art by local artist Sam Johnson, and yes, you can buy prints of it!

The festival is already underway tonight, but it carries on all the way through the weekend, including films such as Akira, Violet Evergarden and Blood: The Last Vampire. The full schedule can be found on our website, and if you’re anywhere near the Mockingbird this weekend, you absolutely need to be here.

Okay, now I’ve thoroughly convinced you to go to BAFF, now it’s back to convincing you to buy some video games!

Kingdom Hearts Collection I-III brings the entire Kingdom Hearts series to Switch 2 this week, and running natively this time instead of being streamed like earlier releases of the series for the original Switch. Contains all the previous collections of the series available on other systems, namely Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5+2.5 ReMix, Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue and Kingdom Hearts III + Re Mind. So if you want to get into the surprisingly convoluted blending of the worlds of Disney and Final Fantasy, this is a good opportunity.

Permafrost is an open world survival game where you are an engineer heading out into the snowy wastes to find the source of a mysterious signal from a long-lost friend. Also you have a dog. The most important aspect, clearly. Developed by SpaceRocket Games and published by Toplitz Productions.

Car Park Capital is a city builder where the goal is to build as many car parks as humanly possible. Destroy infrastructure to encourage people to use more cars and use the leftover space to build more places to park them. Then watch the cash roll in. Yes, this one’s a bit silly and satirical, how did you guess? Developed by Hilkojj Interactive and published by Microprose.

Echo Weaver (PC, PlayStation, Switch 1, Xbox) is a Metroidvania involving time loops. You are the last Weaver, able to manipulate time anomalies thanks to an alien bound to your soul. You’re on a journey to uncover the secrets around a group known as the Congregation and the utopia they allowed to fall into ruin. Developed by Moonlight Kids and published by Akupara Games.

Forever Ago (PC, PS5, Switch 2, Xbox X/S) is a narrative-focused adventure game about an old man who heads north in his camper van to deal with his grief. You use a camera to solve environmental puzzles which help him recall memories of his life and love, all accompanied by your faithful dog. Developed by Third Shift and published by Annapurna Interactive. (https://annapurnainteractive.com/games/forever-ago)

Truckful (PC, Android) is a cosy little game about driving your delivery truck through the countryside. You’ll have to deal with physics tossing your fragile packages around or making sure you’re getting to your destination before perishable goods perish. But also, the forest seems to hide a secret that may slowly encroach on your journeys over time, so expect this one to turn spooky quickly. Developed by MythicOwl and published by Pocketpair.

Gonna get this out of the way. I do not like Jonathan Blow. Every time I’ve seen him at a showcase or in an interview, he comes across as immensely smug and self-important. So that is why I am hesitantly highlighting (but not necessarily recommending) the release of Order of the Sinking Star (PC, PS5, Switch 2) from his studio Thekla. It’s mostly notable because of the critical acclaim his previous works (Braid, The Witness) received, and this looks to be following in that vein, as it’s also a puzzle game based around complex mechanics. The story takes place across four worlds, populated by an assortment of fantasy characters, all with their own unique abilities, with puzzles inspired by the works of other puzzle game creators.

Released way back in 2008, Korean MMO Aion was one of the biggest on the market at the time. And now, at a time when a few developers seem to think it’s time for more MMOs again, NCSoft brings us Aion 2 (PC), featuring a world 36 times larger than the original game, where you fight in a war taking place on the ground and in the sky. Which means that, yes, your character has massive wings and can glide about the place.

While I do need to reiterate that Xbox is in a terrible place right now so you probably shouldn’t be buying first party Microsoft games, Gears of War: E-Day (PC, Xbox X/S) is out this week. A prequel set during the series’ historical Emergence Day, where the Locust Horde first attacked humanity, this is an attempt to bring the series back to its roots. However, much like the Halo remake earlier this year, where I (perhaps generously) said the team likely had until Christmas before they would be shut down, I don’t expect much of The Collective to still be in their jobs by the end of next week. Because, again, this is Microsoft’s current strategy, which I do not believe is a smart one.

Saber Interactive have such sights to show you, as Hellraiser: Revival (PC, PS5, Switch 2, Xbox X/S) brings Clive Barker’s cult classic horror movie to life in video game form. And for once it’s not another asymmetrical multiplayer game. You play as a man named Aidan who comes into contact with a puzzle box known as the Genesis Configuration, which he plans to use against the Cenobites and the cult devoted to them, although from what I know about Hellraiser, I feel like that’s just going to make things worse. Be aware that this game has practically everything possible listed in the Steam mature content description, but you probably expected that considering the subject matter.

Star Wars Galactic Racer (PC, PS5, Xbox X/S) is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a racing game set in the Star Wars universe. You can take control of a whole host of Star Wars vehicles and blast them around tracks in a classic arcade-style racer blending WipEout and Burnout. Customisation is the focus here, with a campaign offering multiple routes depending on the tracks you choose, and your vehicle can be tweaked and altered as you see fit. Now this is podracing, etc. Developed by Fuse Games and published by Secret Mode.

Game of the Week is Silver Pines (PC, PS5, Switch, Xbox X/S), a 2D survival horror from Wych Elm Games and Team17.

You play as detective Red Walker who has been tasked with tracking down the musician Eddie Velvet, who has gone missing. The trail has led you to Silver Pines, a town in the middle of nowhere that feels largely abandoned by the world. However, the reason for that abandonment soon becomes clear as monsters start stalking the streets as Walker slowly unravels the dark secrets hidden within.

It’s spooky month, so horror and horror-themed games feel like the appropriate thing to be handing out Games of the Week to, and this is an intriguing one. There is more than a touch of Silent Hill in the premise, particularly with a low fog permeating the town, and the detective sent to a weird town obviously evokes Twin Peaks. But where this stands out is in its presentation. It’s fully 2D with rotoscoped character animations and slow, methodical movements that require you to plan out what you’re doing as carefully as possible. This has been getting some great reviews too, so I have to hand it my first Spooky Month Game of the Week.