Hello! Welcome to the latest Geeky Brummie Games Release Roundup!
This week, lovesick zombies, casual sports and more bloody resonance.
Escape from Playtime is a multiplayer spinoff from the inexplicably popular Poppy Playtime series. You and your friends are toys trapped in an abandoned factory and are now trying to escape. You have to evade the usual stalkers of the main games while solving puzzles that lead you to the exit. Developed by Mob Entertainment.
Beyond the Dark: Nightwatch (Switch 2) is a co-op horror game set in a spooky house. One player ventures into the house, seeking out clues to a mystery while a second player guides them as their mission control using surveillance systems, documents and other external support to keep them safe. Developed by Atlantis Studio.
The We Were Here series is a beloved little series of indie co-op games from Total Mayhem Games that have existed off in their own little niche for a while now. The newest game, We Were Here Tomorrow (PC, PS5, Xbox X/S), takes the series into a sci-fi setting as you and a friend awaken in a strange facility with no recollection of how you got there. The only way to survive is to work together to solve puzzles and escape. I really enjoyed We Were Here Forever, the only game in the series I’ve played to date, so I’m definitely curious about this one.
When I first heard about One Piece: Grand Gourmet (PC, Switch), I did wonder why on earth Bandai Namco had made a Kairosoft-style management game based on the popular anime. And then I found that they literally hired the actual Kairosoft to make their unique brand of management game out of One Piece. Admittedly, I still don’t know why they did that, but it sure does explain why it feels so much like one of their games. Anyway, yes, this is a cooking and restaurant management game set in the One Piece universe, which feels like a highly specific niche, but if you’re part of that niche, you’re in heaven right now.
Star Trek: Outposts Unknown (PC) takes the beloved sci-fi franchise into the world of colony sims. Starfleet is extending its reach out to strange new worlds (by the way, this is set in the same timeframe as Strange New Worlds), and you are in charge of keeping the new colonies up and running. Developed by Magic Fuel Games and published by Playstack.
Nintendo Switch Sports Resort (Switch 2) is the latest in Nintendo’s controller-waggling series of casual sports games, and also the seventh Nintendo game to feature Wuhu Island, a resort island where fun and friendly competition is everywhere you look. You know how this works, you play a series of different sports mini-games, all using the motion controls of the Joy-Cons. Sports this time around include the Wii Sports staples of Tennis, Bowling, Boxing and Golf, along with Archery, Table Tennis, Volleyball, Basketball, Skateboarding, Power Cruising (Jetskis) and Prop Plane, along with the hot new sport of Thumb Wrestling.
Square Enix have shuttered an awful lot of mobile gacha games in recent years. But they’ve also started slowly turning all those gacha games into non-gacha standard games (such as Octopath Traveler 0). The latest of these is Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius, now rising from the ashes as Final Fantasy Resonance (PC, PS5, Switch, Xbox X/S). Not only the third “Resonance” game of the year after A Plague Tale and Control, it’s also a throwback to classic Final Fantasy, so everyone moaning about how the series needs to go back to being turn-based has their wish here. This is a classic-style Final Fantasy, with a story about crystals, intricate sprite work and soundtrack by Nobu…oh wait, it’s a different guy. Well, we can’t have everything, I guess.
Oh, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 (PC, PS5, Xbox X/S) is out this week too, if you’re into that sort of thing. But you probably already knew that, so let’s move on.
Game of the Week is Stupid Never Dies (PC, PS5), a new game from GPTRACK50, a new company formed by ex-Capcom producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi.
You are Davy, a useless zombie who sits at the bottom of the totem pole in the hierarchy of monsters. Low strength and low intelligence, but oh no, he’s fallen in love with a woman. Admittedly, a woman frozen in the back of a supermarket but let’s not details get in the way of romance. And to prove himself to his lover(?), he must get stronger and defeat the King of All Monsters in order to save the world.
Look, if you told me this was a new Suda51 game, I’d believe you. It’s brash, stupid and over the top, and revels in all these things. I will admit that the reviews for this one aren’t the best, but I can’t deny that there’s a certain charm to this game that compels me to make it Game of the Week. It has all the hallmarks of being a jank action game that will nevertheless become an obsession for the right person.
Also, I am determined to keep every game this month vaguely Halloween-themed and a game where you play as a zombie 100% fits. Will I make it a complete October of vaguely spooky Games of the Week? Spoilers: yes.
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