Grumpy Cat has hit the Alabama art scene faster than a barefoot jackrabbit on a hot greasy griddle in the middle of August! Yee haw! Spongebobian colloquialisms aside, the Grumpy Cat Art Project is an actual ongoing event at the Lowe Mill Arts & Entertainment center in Hunstville, Alabama.

Starting on May 27, local artists will auction off their takes on the extremely unhappy feline. Not in the Hunstville area? No problem. Interested art collectors can bid online in order to snag one of these pieces; hopefully ousting that boring family portrait you have hanging over the fireplace. (So long, Great Nana.)

Auction proceeds will go to the artists in addition to funding the development of a children’s playground at the Lowe Mill center. Utilizing a variety of mediums, Grumpy Cat appears in paintings, ceramic sculpture, stained glass, tissue paper, 3D sculpture, paper pulp, charcoal, wax, yarn, soap, copper and — still not joking here — chainmail.

All of the Grumpy Cat artwork is viewable here. However, you can check out our top 10 favorite pieces below. Oh, and if any of our readers purchases one of these ill-tempered masterpieces, we demand a picture of it hanging up in your home!

This is a Thing: The Grumpy Cat Art Show

If there is even the remotest chance that someone in your life enjoys Lord of the Rings, then you owe it to them to indulge in a Lord of the Rings themed set of salt and pepper shakers. The sets are available at NeatoShop, and the entire fellowship appears to be flying off the shelf.

Summer is a season of erratic celebrations and gift giving (not unlike the sage of the Lord of the Rings). There are graduations, weddings, lawn parties, birthdays, and there seems to a set for almost every occasion.  It might even be the perfect gift for Father’s Day.

Of course, these terrifically-realized culinary spice cellars can do more than just remind fathers that their children do them much honor. The Gandalf and Saruman set can symbolize the conflict between just about any one, including rivaling co-workers. (And yes, You shall not PASS… the salt.)

Believe it or not, but the pairing of Frodo and Galadriel is the graduation gift to rule all graduation gifts. How better than to bind the graduate to a brilliant future?

For the more traditionally themed gift, perhaps for that upcoming summer wedding, there is the Aragon and Arwen set.

And who doesn’t like Gollum? While he (it?) may be paired with Samwise, I say you tell people that it’s really Smeagol or Deagol or Hobbit number 7, which ever you think makes the most sense.

Borimir, Gimli, and Legalos round out the offerings and, let’s face it, this is for when the one set of LOTR salt and pepper shakers just won’t do but rather you need to give the entire set. The recipient can then enjoy a different reminder of Middle-earth at each meal.

Just as every meal can use a dash of salt, every occasion can use the magnificence of the Lord of the Rings.  Bring on summer and pass the salt! Which one is your favorite?

Awesome Gifts: Lord of the Rings Salt & Pepper Shakers

All it takes is a few short months for subscription services to enact rumored, some might say “feared” choices that will pave the way for larger overhauls in the programs. The key one on the Xbox side of the coin being, of course: when will Games With Gold be phased out? For quite a while, Microsoft maintained that their original Gold subscription program would remain a component of their strategy for the foreseeable future, but that foreseeable future may be coming into sight with the elimination of legacy Xbox 360 and OG Xbox games in October as part of the subscription benefits. In contrast to the newer Game Pass titles, which remain eye-catching even if they aren’t high-profile, the energy has been dramatically slumping with what’s being offered through Game Pass – both Xbox One and legacy games – and seems to be slowing down as a way of approaching this discontinuation.

Let’s take a closer look at this month’s Gold titles and some recent Game Pass additions, but before doing so, head over and Grab a 3-Month Game Pass Ultimate Subscription to get the benefits of the Game Pass titles, the regular Gold sales, and of course online gaming.

XBOX Game Pass Ultimate — New and Upcoming

Inside

Many elements went into the success of LIMBO, the grayscale platformer from developers PLAYDEAD, chief among them being the stark shadowy aesthetic that gave it the visual tempo of a classic horror film. The studio had something to prove with their second project, though: that their talents extend beyond the slick gimmick that certainly accentuated the violence of a young, silhouetted protagonist repeatedly meeting their demise in gloomy shadows. INSIDE proves that there’s plenty more to them than that.

The second game from PLAYDEAD scraps the stark silhouettes and brings depth and dimension to their familiar side-scrolling gameplay mechanics, in which another young boy navigates a terrifying dystopian environment. While there might not be much color in INSIDE and the platform mechanics will feel similar, the sights and sounds come across very differently in this textural stream of nightmarish tableaus. Both critics and players have been absorbed by the insistently grim and grotesque experience, engaged by its tense levels and exploring interpretations of what its dual endings actually mean.  

Watch Dogs 2

Ubisoft’s first run at the Watch Dogs concept ended up being marred by potential that couldn’t quite be satisfied, delivering a surveillance tech stealth game that lacked the expected innovation and freedom boasted by its creators. Once the player cuts through those aspects, however, the overall experience delivers familiar stealth action game design with fresh tools at its disposal, eventually earning a reputation after a few years for being somewhat underrated. With expectations more in check and a list of things to improve, Ubisoft Montreal took a second crack at the concept with Watch Dogs 2.

Armed with a superior protagonist and a more engaging narrative that borrows a little from the likes of Minority Report, this sequel centers on a hacker wrongly accused of committing crimes by the predictive aspects of San Francisco’s electronic infrastructure. From there, Watch Dogs 2 takes the general outline of the first game and juices up the mission structure, the flexibility of the user interface, and the general openness of the game design. Both critics and players acknowledge the focus on those improvements while also dinging it for not refining its suspension of disbelief or not letting go of certain things that just didn’t work, landing on a generally more positive impression than the one left by the original.

Torment: Tides of Numenera

There was a glorious period in the mid-2010s where isometric RPGs made a serious run at a comeback in the absence of many other fantasy-RPing options, largely on the energy of wildly successful Kickstarter campaigns that proved the interest is still very much there. Alongside Pillars of Eternity that provides a “spiritual successor” to the likes of Baldur’s Gate, Torment: Tides of Numenera focuses on doing the same as a love letter to Planescape: Torment, concerning itself with dense, layered storytelling that molds to player choices throughout the adventure.

Taking place far into a future where civilizations have risen and fallen, Torment refocuses on the world in a less-advanced state full of scattered settlements and lingering mysteries from before the setting’s “Ninth Age”.  The protagonist has been constructed as the “vessel” for an ancient man who has discovered how to transfer consciousness from body to body, and it’s up to the protagonist to stop the chain and to defeat a force called “The Sorrow” before it consumes them both.  As expected, the narrative and choice-and-consequence versatility in Torment: Tides of Numenera have been widely celebrated and deemed worth playing for any RPG fan interested in those aspects; however, many critics and players view the clunky mundaneness of its combat and encounters as a big obstacle.

Xbox Games With Gold

For those still riding on the Gold train, we’ve got a foursome of middling, yet decent titles that can certainly be described as eclectic. Over on the Xbox One, we’ve got Calico (August 1-31), a management sim in which the player runs their own … cat café, or more accurately reconstructs one within a town and repopulates it with new furry residents. Some who might be drawn into the pastel, magical aesthetic and cat collection and management might want to give it a go, but critics and players have struggled with glitches and bugs since launch. The other title is ScourgeBringer (August 16 – September-15), a colorful and retro-infused roguelike platformer that delivers the kind of fast-paced challenge and rinse-and-repeat learning gameplay that devotees of the genres adore.

In one of the last months of legacy titles to be offered, at least Microsoft’s going out with a banger or two. This month, they’re offering folks the chance to have Saints Row 2 (August 1-15) — yes, the game that’s routinely priced lower than $5 through digital sales — ready to go on their hard-drives for free. As the middle title between the franchise’s slightly more serious first game and the balls-out humor of Saints Row: The Third (my personal favorite), the second one strikes a pretty satisfying balance between those two spectrums as it imitates the open-world gangster gameplay of Grand Theft Auto with a satirical edge. Finally, there’s Monaco: What’s Yours is Mine (August 16-31), a top-down heist management and strategy game noteworthy for being developed by the sole designer behind Pocketwatch Games.

Xbox Game Pass, Gold Freebies for August Keep Excitement on Inside

In just a few months, the PS+ program will be receiving a much-anticipated overhaul. As far as one can tell, for now, the $10 Plus subscription tier will exist as it always has as the “Essential” tier; similar things were said about keeping Xbox Live Gold alive and it’s clearly been given the cold shoulder for a while now. Then, the other new prestige tiers come into the picture. The middle-of-the-road “Extra” level obviously includes all the benefits of the baseline service, but also grants access to 400 PS4 and PS5 games to be freely downloaded. Then, the “Premium” subscription level unlocks 340 legacy PS-to-PS3 titles, cloud streaming of select PS4 and below games on PS4/5 consoles and PC, and time-limited game trails. Extra will be $14.99/month or $99.99 yearly, while Premium will be $17.99/month or $119.99 yearly.

It’s a big shift that obviously aims to directly compete with Xbox’s Game Pass in some capacity – the $15 tier lacks certain features to offer a direct comparison, while the $18 tier does a few extra things to earn the higher price tag – and I’m sure it leaves subscribers with feelings of both excitement and anxiety. The question remains: will PlayStation keep up the quality of their baseline service’s offerings for those who choose to stay at that tier? Well, if the answer lies in April’s PS+ free offerings, there’s reason to be nervous. An admittedly charming remaster of a classic franchise tie-in platformer, an aggressively poorly-received free-to-play action title, and a niche deckbuilding fantasy game doesn’t instill confidence that they’ll be upholding the base tier’s substance. But, maybe they’re holding the good stuff in the reserves for once the new PS+ framework kicks into gear.

PS5

Hood: Outlaws and Legends

With the likes of Assassin’s Creed, Thief, and other medieval stealth games being around, the absence of a good, dedicated Robin Hood game makes a lot of sense. If someone wants a theft or bow-‘n-arrow simulator, they’re able to scratch that itch in those games alongside their added storytelling differences, covering most of the simulator bases outside of embodying the actual folklore character himself.  At this point, direct comparisons would even be drawn if someone attempted a traditional third-person style of game featuring Robin Hood.

Perhaps those reasons are why Hood: Outlaws and Legends veers away from the norm. Instead of a traditional adventure game that’d essentially adapt one of the many movies about Robin Hood’s fall and rise with the Merry Men, this game from Sumo NewCastle takes an even more straightforward, purely action-based approach by pitting “Hood” and his merry team against rival thieves in a stealth-based race to steal the Sheriff’s key, raid a vault for riches before the others, and escape with the loot. In theory, this kind of light, pick-up-and-go online title that merely uses the familiar characters for a dose of flavor could work, but both critics and players alike have struggled with its shallowness, clunky controls, and monotonous mission design.

PS4

Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated

Back in 2003, Battle for Bikini Bottom suffered the fate of countless tie-in games like it, where a subpar critical reception really didn’t matter to both young and old audiences who just wanted to enjoy the characters in a videogame format.  More than that, it’s also an original story in the Spongebob world and most of the original cast voiced the characters, so fans will inherently play and at least partly enjoy the story of Plankton’s robot invasion of Bikini Bottom. Over the years, the game’s level design and attitude has invited a new outlook, and the combo of Spongebob’s fanbase and that the game has built popularity among the speedrun community – I know, right? — has given it unexpected longevity.

Is that enough to earn a remastering? The folks at Purple Lamp Studios certainly think so, and it seems as if they knew what to do to craft a satisfying “Rehydrated” version of a PS2-era title. They’ve preserved the original creative intentions and re-recorded the dialogue – the original recordings are also available; no, the missing cast members from the original didn’t come back – and they’ve specifically mirrored the feel of the controls and gravity for an authentic reconstruction with an audiovisual facelift. This will inherently make the title feel like it’s a family-friendly adventure game from the early 2000s, but it also works in overdrive to satisfy the nostalgic and the speedrunners out there.

Slay the Spire

It’s tough to strike a proper balance between the strategy, selection, and in-action combat of deck-building videogames: titles typically of the fantasy variety that incorporate a deck of “cards” as strategic special abilities to use during turn-based combat. Too much focus on the player collecting, refining, and implementing these cards could result in a decrease of momentum in the combat, whereas too little collaboration with the cards might make them feel like an unnecessary step in what’s otherwise a standard turn-based battle system.

Slay the Spire works really hard to make sure that all those elements coexist with one another for a complete, absorbing gaming experience, taking the expected but welcome paths of making it a randomized roguelike dungeon crawler. After selecting one of 4 characters, the player progresses through the spires of a castle and randomly encounters various creatures with a range of strengths of weaknesses, which the player exploits by choosing what types of attack, defense, and special ability cards to use on a turn by turn basis. Both critics and players have heaped praise upon Slay the Spire’s execution of the tricky concept in videogame form, remarking on its sneaky addictive properties despite the inherent sameness of battles and progression.

April’s PS+ Freebies Sneak, Speedrun Through Month In Leadup to June’s Big Changes

There’s a storm coming on the horizon for Xbox’s Game Pass and Games With Gold subscription service, in the form of relatively even competition in the monthly game subscription arena. By the time June rolls around, the comparisons will become much more evenly balanced. Who knows whether a new sub service arms race will kick into gear – here’s hoping both really push it to make their services extra appealing – but until then, it’s unsurprising to see the Xbox take a step back from huge titles at this point.

April is a relatively normal month for Game Pass and Gold, in which the biggest titles are an interactive adventure game and a repeat of a day-and-date sports title that came to the service last year to much more fanfare, and once again with very little attention paid to the waning Games With Gold section of the program.  Let’s take a closer look at the games, but before doing so, head over and Grab a 3-Month Subscription to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate at Amazon.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate – New and Upcoming

Life is Strange: True Colors

The development teams at Dontnod Entertainment and Deck Nine Games have gradually crafted a franchise of meaningful interactive adventures with the Life is Strange series, which incorporate meaningful relationship, political, and sexual identity themes into alluring mysteries. Responsibility for the series moving forward seems to be in the hands of Deck Nine, though – Dontnod plunged deeper into challenging character mysteries with the middling-reviewed Tell Me Why – with Life is Strange: True Colors standing as Deck Nine’s first fresh creation independent from the established characters.  

Players gain control of Alex Chen, a young woman with supernatural “empathy” powers whose traumatic family history looped her into the foster care system, but who later gets to reconnect with her brother in the town of Haven Springs, Colorado. When her brother ends up being murdered shortly after, Alex has to use her powers to help connect with those in connection with Gabe and bring her closer to answers to what happened. Both critics and players appreciate the substance of Alex’s character, the ways that graphics and facial animations enhanced small dramatic conversations, and the intimacy of the supernatural powers, though Life is Strange: True Colors does get dinged for being too effortlessly pleasant and for the branching paths all seeming like they arrive at the same destination.

MLB The Show 2022

Last year around this time, The Show made its debut onto Xbox consoles for the very first time, marking the end of a very long exclusivity deal that kept licensed MLB simulation games locked onto its competitor’s devices. Also at this time last year, the decision was made to also include The Show 2021 through the Game Pass program, a significant move from the growing premium subscription service. With those things together, expectations naturally grew with how San Diego Studio would elevate the quality for this new generation of video game consoles.  Turns out? Not significantly enough to be celebrated by critics or players, who acknowledge its continuing high quality and lack of advancement.

Well, the folks at Xbox have once again made this year’s installment of The Show available through their subscription program, with the game arriving just in time in April for the MLB lockout to end. This iteration changes things up a bit more – a beefed-up stadium creation feature, new play-by-play announcers pulled from ESPN Radio, an expanded version of the shorter career mode – but for the most part critics and players acknowledge that the gameplay’s about the same as it was from the previous iteration.  This isn’t a bad thing exactly, as it remains a deep, engaging and up-to-date sim that can scratch the itch either for a quick game or a lengthy customized career experience.

Weird West

As players continue to get the itch to run through a new Fallout experience – one that isn’t online, mind you – they continue to pursue alternatives, whether it’s similar first-person survival exploration games or top-down, storytelling-rich dystopian RPGs in the vein of Wasteland 3 or Disco Elysium. Weird West, the debut title from WolfEye Studios made up of creative heads from Arkane Studios, aims to tap into the attitude of the latter with some of the vigorousness of the former. The key difference? If you screw up in this warped frontier, you might not be able to fix it.

Weird West allows the player to explore a dark western landscape and gives them the freedom to interact with the environment in a multitude of ways, though the gameplay itself hinges on twinstick shooting action that’s faster-paced and more reactive than similar isometric games. Certain aspects are randomized in the world, yet if something’s destroyed or killed, it stays that way in the game.  That can also apply to the player character, as there’s also a permadeath mode available.  As with many games from this subgenre, both critics and players heap praise upon the world-building, character interactions, and the ambitions of the gameplay systems in Weird World, but have taken issue with the execution of the gameplay and aesthetics, leading to imbalanced RPing and polarizing combat through tech issues.

F1 2021

The most recent season of F1 racing turned out to be one of the most high-stakes and controversial on the books, which was already made complicated by the cancellations of several races due to the pandemic. There’s obviously no way for the team at Codemasters to predict the future when developing their videogame adaptation of F1’s 2021 season, so this title ends up being unique in a bunch of ways, most prominently in the fact that players are still able to engage in the races that were cancelled in Australia, Canada, Japan and China.

On top of that, F1 2021 is also noteworthy for being the first title released after EA acquired Codemasters and took over publishing duties. The move didn’t seem to hamper the developer’s ambitions for this latest title, though, as the inclusion of new career storytelling, multiple player modes, playable professionals, and improved graphics bring the franchise into the new console generation with a fresh coat of paint and a few new parts under the hood. It’s what folks have come to expect from Codemasters, though, and hope to continue expecting it from them in the years to come.

Xbox Games With Gold

The Games With Gold aspect of the subscription service remains a footnote, unfortunately, sporting 2 Xbox One titles and 2 legacy Xbox titles that generate very little enthusiasm for a download … yet still hold some mild intrigue for the fastidious subscriber. Over on the Xbox One, there’s Another Sight (April 1-30), a puzzle-platformer about a blind girl and her cat as they use their strengths and weaknesses to get through challenging environments. While it earned praise for a unique concept, it doesn’t offer enough focused execution or challenge to be regarded as highly as others. Then there’s HUE (April 16 – May 15), another puzzle platformer that merges gameplay concepts from the likes of Outland and Braid, creating a silhouetted play experience based on how the player changes the background shade and interacts with it. Players and critics have been warmer to HUE, praising its aesthetic and polished execution.

On the legacy Xbox side of things, there’s Outpost: Kaloki X (April 1-15), in which the player gets to channel their inner Elon Musk and dream up new living space stations in a fashion similar to SimCity. The more revenue generated by the type of station created by the user, the more they can expand and improve, and the better they can balance their resources.  The other title is MX vs ATV Alive (Apri; 16-30), a middling-reviewed dirt bike and 4-wheeler racing game that players and critics have dinged for being a superficial title that’s got extreme racing across a limited number of courses and little else.

April’s Xbox Game Pass, Gold Newcomers Not Putting On a Big Show

To say that February’s a big month for video games would be an understatement, so it stands to reason that gaming subscription services like PS+ would keep from including high-profile free games in their monthly offerings since they’ll likely get overlooked anyway. All points considered, however, this still ends up being a pretty brave month in terms of what they’re offering and an inability to offer them later, from a noteworthy recent sports title – one that’s essentially locked into being a freebie on the competition’s service — to the precursor-slash-inspiration game behind one of the larger titles to be released in March. Let’s take a closer look at what’s in store, but before doing so, remember to head over and Grab a 1-Year Subscription to PlayStation Plus at Amazon.

PS5

Planet Coaster: Console Edition

Despite having the name “coaster” in the game’s title, Planet Coaster shares just as much in common with the classic SimCity games of yesteryear as the outlandish ride creation game Rollercoaster Tycoon. While this game does allow for the player to cook up elaborate, chaotic coasters, there’s an entire other side of this management and creation sim that’s far more laid-back, relaxing, and therapeutic in tone, found in how the player designs their ideal theme part to accommodate for guests. In Planet Coaster, the player can really invest themselves in the minutiae of the park’s aesthetics, from the color of booths and types of light sources for ambience to the placement of benches, bathrooms, and garbage cans.

Sure, there’s also aspects of this in Rollercoaster Tycoon, but it’s hard to ignore how the semi-realistic 3D graphics of Planet Coaster lend themselves to being incredibly enjoyable through the lens of someone who’s lovingly crafting their ideal theme park. The general tone of Rollercoaster Tycoon comes across as keeping guests satisfied enough so they’ll stay engaged with the outlandish coasters being created, whereas Planet Coaster’s first priority seems to center on providing a satisfying amusement park atmosphere and then building the rides that “fit” said atmosphere, similarly to fitting bigger structures into a smaller developing city in SimCity. Obviously, the comparisons are tough to avoid as Planet Coaster has been labeled the unofficial successor of Rollercoaster Tycoon by both players and critics, and this Console Edition tries admirably to bring the mouse-and-keyboard intentions to the PS5 … with mixed results, in terms of control user-friendliness.

PS4

Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep

It’s a big deal when a piece of spinoff downloadable content for a base game makes the transition into being a standalone downloadable title, as was the case with Far Cry: Blood Dragon and Red Dead Redemption’s Undead Nightmare. But it’s an even bigger deal when the content’s so appealing and holds so much potential that the creators decide that the DLC isn’t enough, and it deserves further development into its own full-scale game. Saints Row IV is kinda-sorta an example of this, where a piece of fleshed-out DLC skipped the add-on phase and became its own thing. Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands occupies yet another area, though: it’s a full-sized game that takes the concept of the spinoff DLC, a wild high-fantasy extrapolation from the looter shooter Borderlands, and develops it into a standalone campaign.

So, what’s it about Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep that makes it so appealing? For starters, it takes the general dungeon-crawling and loot-management joys of Borderlands and transforms them into something much more literally inspired by tabletop RPGs, as audience favorite character Tina get the Vault Hunters together to play “Bunkers and Badasses” – yes, Dungeons and Dragons – after the events of Borderlands 2, with her as the dungeon master. The perspective then shifts from the post-apocalyptic wasteland setting to a full-fledged fantasy realm, and you gain control of one of six premade characters that have modified, wacky weapons and abilities to confront a new roster of dark and whimsical baddies. With Tina as narrator and game master, Assault on Dragon’s Keep becomes a fantasy spin on Borderlands of which players couldn’t get enough, hence the coming full-sized game.

UFC 4

What started as a wacky, taboo cage-fighting event in the early ‘90s — probably orchestrated to capitalize on the popularity of Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter, as well as of Bloodsport and Kickboxer playing on cable all the time — has transformed into a highly authentic, skill-based combat sport. UFC stands as the legitimized face of mixed martial arts, where methods of essentially any hand-to-hand combat discipline are allowed in bouts so long as they follow within the sport’s carefully crafted loose ruleset, ranging from wild punching and kicking strikes to grueling wrestling and grappling. There’s still a “wild west” aspect to the matchups based on the range of disciplines, but between rules, weight classes, and the competitive tactics that consistently work in the octagon, UFC has moved almost entirely away from shock value and into the space of competitive sport.  Almost, as fighter personalities are still key.

Therefore, one shouldn’t go into the UFC games with the expectation that it’ll control like a traditional arcade fighting game, as it’s just as important to get the technical aspects of the sport right as it is to make the fights exhilarating to play. Past installments have struggled with this balance, but UFC 3 and now UFC 4 seem to have gotten much closer to the sweet spot, telegraphing the intense striking and grappling of the sport in a polished and entertaining package.  Critics are quick to point out that while UFC 4 tightens up the gameplay and delivers one of the better MMA games out there, it still leaves a lot of room for improvement, especially in the more technical submission and ground aspects of fights. Players, on the other hand, expressed their distaste for advertisements and copy-and-paste game design between UFC 3 and UFC 4 (not unlike Madden), knocking the franchise on the ground and in trouble.

February’s PS+ Free Titles: A Wonderland of Coasters and Badasses

It’s February and love’s in the air, so that means the folks at Xbox will be extra generous with their Games With Gold and Game Pass offerings this month … right? Well, it was worth a try. In actuality, this month feels a bit different in the other direction since neither of Microsoft’s subscription services have been gifted much in the way of “WOW!” titles.  From lower-tier shooters to under-the-radar RPGs and hidden gem action-platformers, it’s a moderate yet unshowy month in terms of new content that’ll draw in subscribers for Game Pass, and, well, the less said about what’s going on with Games With Gold, the better. Let’s take a closer look at the titles, but before doing so, be sure to head over and Grab a 3-Month Subscription to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate at Amazon.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate – New and Upcoming

CrossfireX

Someone who sticks to consoles for their gaming needs very likely hasn’t heard of Crossfire, though most PC gamers who enjoy the online shooter space know that it’s one of the most popular and widely played free-to-play shooting games in existence, remaining as such a decade-plus after release.  For the most part, and understandably so due to the gap in time for in a western release and the culture surrounding several other online shooters, a huge part of this popularity rests in eastern countries.  Despite the rampant regional enthusiasm, Smilegate hopes to further break into the global market, and they’re making an attempt with the Xbox exclusive semi-sequel CrossfireX.

Partnering with Max Payne and Control developers Remedy Entertainment to help craft the campaign side of the game, Smilegate essentially drops CrossfireX as the console representation of their already-popular online offering with a unique episodic campaign tacked on for good measure. Impressions from both players and critics haven’t been kind to CrossfireX thus far, though: the campaign additions have come across as atypically short and generic for a unique studio like Remedy, but it’s the general shooter gameplay that’s getting dragged for being uninteresting and lacking content.  The multiplayer of CrossfireX is inherently free-to-play, whereas the campaign constitutes pay-to-play content, both of which seem to be included with the Game Pass listing for free download.

Edge of Eternity

Gaming culture has reached a point where turn-based RPGs really need something extra and noteworthy to be worth the time and energy investment required to pour into them. Whether it’s mixing modern gaming styles and techniques with the old, the novelty of turn-based combat in an unlikely genre (like martial arts in Yakuza), or the resurrection of a beloved franchise whose identity is tied to it, there needs to be a “reason” for players to engage in those legacy designs. More than that, it seems as if simply creating a new world and hoping that turn-based RPG elements will be serviceable enough to carry the player through it doesn’t work as well as it once did.

The aptly-titled Midgar Studio – named after the primary city in the classic turn-based JRPG Final Fantasy VII — have delivered Edge of Eternity on the hopes that its sci-fi/fantasy fusion of storytelling will still get the job done. As the story follows along weatherworn tropes of a corrosive “taint” spreading across the open-world realm due to an advanced race of alien invaders and the chosen pair of heroes hoping to cure it, the gameplay centers on both hex-based and semi-live combat scenarios that pay homage to many classic JRPGs. Both critics and players have pointed out that Edge of Eternity has significant roughness to its execution and drags in pacing throughout, though players have also commended it for the nostalgic spirit, flickers of ambitiousness, and eventual spikes of intensity in the story.

Nobody Saves the World

Guacamelee remains one of the more overlooked action games on consoles. The folks at Drinkbox Games telegraph heaps of Mexican lucha-libre bravado and beat-‘em-up Metroidvania gameplay in a setting that repeatedly shifts between the realms of the living and the dead — long before Pixar did similar things with Coco — all beautifully rendered in vibrant colors and charm. The developer’s success with Guacamelee and its sequel can’t help but make one enthusiastic about what they’d do with the fantasy dungeon-crawling subgenre, how they’ll possibly make it jut as vivid and humorous. The result is Nobody Saves the World, the tale of a stark white protagonist with no personality of their own who must adopt the “skins” of other fallen heroes to power through their dungeons.

With a magical wand in hand granting them the power to transform into an assortment of critters and characters – from rats and slugs to rogues and monks – Nobody delves into a world of procedurally-generated dungeons packed with quests and challenges, which naturally earns experience points.   The signature personality of Drinkbox once again comes through in both the character animations and the ways in which the energized gameplay interacts with the characters. Perhaps the sweetest detail about Nobody Saves the World is that one Nobody doesn’t have to go at it alone: the game not only features multiplayer, but encourages it through how the magical forms can interact. Both players and critics have been enthusiastic about what Drinkbox has created, even if the general dungeon-crawling repetition still seems to set in after a while with the game despite the variety of forms.

Hitman Trilogy

Like many franchises moving from console generation to generation, the Hitman franchise of stealth-action games hit a lull near the end of the Xbox/PS2 era. Eventually, this led to a new release in the PS3/360 era, Hitman: Absolution, but it didn’t quite capture the same tight experience of the originals and, thus, didn’t have the kind of sales performance that’d reignite confidence in the franchise.  Hitman was, once again, put on the shelf for a number of years to better figure out how to make it work in the current gaming era. Eventually, developers IO Interactive and Square Enix made what seems to have been the correct decision: it was time to “soft reboot” Agent 47 without fully starting from scratch, taking the lessons learned from Absolution and applying them to a version of Hitman that gets the series back to its open-ended, puzzle-solving roots.

Despite the minor snafu of initially releasing it in episodic segments, the full breadth of 2016’s Hitman reestablished the franchise as a contender in the increasingly crowded space of quality stealth games. This eventually led to a pair of sequels, the simply-titled Hitman 2 and Hitman 3, that understand their audience and what they want: while IO Interactive does experiment with the zaniness of the missions, landscapes, and skills, they never stray very far from the core enjoyment factors and mechanics that satisfy their player base and connect them into a cohesive trilogy. Thus, it’s no surprise to see them package in a Hitman Trilogy such as this, which utilizes the Access Pass system through Hitman 3 to access all three titles.

Xbox Games With Gold

Sure, the Games With Gold program has been going for quite a while now, and it might be slightly difficult to come up with feasible higher-profile free Xbox One and 360 titles to include with Xbox’s baseline subscription service … but other options are still there. Instead of pinpointing some of these exciting titles perhaps as a last hurrah for a fading subscription service, we’ve once again got a pair of low-attention indies for the Xbox One and less-than-stellar inclusions for the legacy consoles. Now, admittedly, it does make me smile to see something like Broken Sword 5: The Serpent’s Curse (February 1-28) available as a free download, since some of my fondest gaming memories come from similar point-and-click adventures (LucasArts, Sierra, etc) to that of the globetrotting adventure and murder mystery it provides. The stylish but repetitive indie puzzle runner Aerial_Knight’s Never Yield (February 16 – March 15) feels like an obligation filler instead of an excitement driver.

On the retro console side, there’s Hydrophobia (February 1-15), an action game that received middling reviews over a decade ago and only succeeded as, essentially, a tech demo for environmental water effects. Rounding out the offerings is Band of Bugs (February 16-28), a turn-based tactics RPG-ish game with a Hero’s Journey type of story, several multiplayer modes, and a level editor for continued enjoyment after finishing the game.  Both have middling critical and audience scores, leaving one to wonder why they aren’t at least pairing iffy titles with at least one solidly good one.

Xbox Game Pass, Gold Titles for February: Nobody’s Saving the World With This Middling Lineup

Competition has greatly benefitted subscribers to Sony’s PS+ program, because the company’s desire to keep up the pace against the awkward tiers of Microsoft’s cluster of services led to a surprisingly robust and consistent 2021, full of both next-gen and current gen free downloadable games.  One would assume that so long as one studio maintains the status quo, the other likely will as well, and the start of 2022 seems to convey this as well.

Sony continues their streak of offering both a decent pair of titles for the legacy PS4 and at least one attention-grabbing title for the PS5, though there’s a little added spice this month: there are actually 2 PS5 titles here, one being a heavy hitter and another being a well-reviewed, badass action-fueled title. It’s not a groundbreaking month for the service or anything, but it does reinforce why the Plus subscription service remains a tremendous value for Sony’s customers.  Let’s take a gander at the titles, but before doing so, make sure to Grab a 1-Year Subscription to PlayStation Plus at Amazon.

PS5

Dirt 5

There was a time when Codemasters explored different genres with the games they developed, yet ever since they discovered exactly what works for them with the racing genre, they’ve become reliable industry leaders with a predictable calendar. That consists of the annual F1 title based on the corresponding year’s season, and … some kind of offroad/rally racer, usually alternating between GRID and DIRT. DIRT 5 marks the last title independently developed by Codemasters before their acquisition by Electronic Arts – cue cartoonishly ominous music here – and they make sure to do so with a bang by delivering one of the most refined iterations of the rally racer yet.

For the most part, DIRT 5 doesn’t try to deviate from the formula that works, telegraphing much of the same satisfying borderline-arcade racing action of previous entries in its most refined, graphically impressive state. Some new additions that come along with the jump to next-gen hardware include dynamic weather changing that inherently affects the gameplay, as well as impressively stable 60fps splitscreen compatibility for up to 4 players. There’s also a more story-focused, forward-moving career mode featuring the voice of Nolan North in the lead. Most critics and players have been kind to DIRT 5 and how the PS5 version exemplifies the franchise’s evolution, though players have also dinged it for wonky AI, gameplay that’s tilting too arcade-like, and online connectivity issues.

Deep Rock Galactic

Sometimes, just describing a game with a single sentence is enough to capture one’s attention. With Deep Rock Galactic, it’s this: “First-person shooter dwarves use lots of neat gadgets to blast their way through randomized caverns and alien foes, and you can do it with up to 3 other friends.” The combination of elements has such a wonderful flow to it. Dwarves? Already sold. Not enough games with dwarven playable characters.  First-person shooter gameplay? Even the staunchest of opponents to the genre has got to be mildly intrigued by how these things would fit together.  Procedurally generated caverns/landscapes? A surprise at every turn, and that’s not even taking the destructible aspects of the environments into account.  Aliens? Yup. And 4-player co-op? You have my axe.

Deep Rock Galactic marks the first outing for Danish developers Ghost Ship Games, though they’re also powered by partners Coffee Stain Studios, the folks also responsible for Goat Simulator.  Billed as “Minecraft meets Left 4 Dead”, the end result is a delightful blend of genres that hinges on class selection, progression and upgrading along the way, driven by the dwarves mostly just doing honest work of retrieving resources and gear while demolishing their way through colorfully rendered caverns. Both critics and players have noted that the premise does have some slight longevity issues once you’ve been in the caverns repeating tasks for a while, but otherwise it delivers on the concept in an exceedingly fun way that heavily encourages playing with friends (or matchmaking).

PS4

Persona 5: Strikers

 It’s difficult to imagine a more popular spinoff video game series than Persona, originating from the consistently appreciated JRPG series Shin Megami Tensei; the third installment in the series, Nocturne, was recently remastered to critical acclaim. Persona operates around a cluster of focal high-school aged students who utilize the power of “personas” – a real-world materialization of the individual’s psyche – to engage in combat against evil enemy types. Labeling them by genre isn’t very successful since all of the entries incorporate a little something new, though they generally involve turn-based combat scenarios and traditional dungeon crawling exploration.  And from those, there are other spinoffs: Persona 4 Arena delves into fighting game mechanics, while both Persona 3 and 5 have rhythm game modeled after their particular settings.

Persona 5: Strikers finds the series in the hands of Dynasty Warriors game-makers Omega Force, serving as a crossover event between the two franchises and, thus, employing a much more action-oriented gameplay style. A continuation of the Persona 5 narrative in a new gameplay space, the game latches onto the series’ classic role-playing aspects in combat and its vibrant almost-cartoonish visual style, but it also amps up the pacing through the more twitch-based action and dazzling chaos of Dynasty Warriors.  Much like the way the Yakuza series was received when it shifted from straight action to turn-based combat in Like a Dragon, both critics and players have praised the way Persona took a detour into direct action-RPG territory, though a lot of it simply roots in the reunion of the Phantom Thieves in any capacity.

PS+ Titles for January: Dirt, Strikers, SPACE DWARVES

Well, we’ve entered into the year 2022, and Microsoft continues to maintain both their Game Pass Ultimate and Games With Gold programs, available separately or the more common priced-reduced bundled service. One remains an outstanding value, and the games introduced into the Game Pass library this month only strengthen those impressions, making available both heavy-hitters and indie darlings alike. The other … ? Well, the benefits of Games With Gold continue to center on access to sales and being able to play online with friends, though that’s rumored to be on the chopping block in the near future to make online gaming free for both paid and free-to-play titles. The free titles are a footnote upon a footnote, and continue to become more discouraging with each passing month.

The baseline subscription fee for both Game Pass + Gold is still worthwhile, however, and should be considered the ideal way to be a member of Team Xbox, whereas Microsoft’s making it harder and harder to justify being purely a Games With Gold subscriber. Let’s take a closer look at what’s on offer from both sides, but before doing so, be sure to head over and Grab a 3-Month Subscription to Game Pass Ultimate Card at Amazon so save a few space bucks.  

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate – New and Upcoming Titles

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition

This year will mark a decade since the original Mass Effect trilogy concluded in spectacular, albeit polarizing fashion. Despite the nature of its ending, the series has maintained a loyal, passionate fanbase who — whether through the good old passage of time, the assistance of end-game mods, or understanding that it wasn’t so bad after all — has come to accept what’s there and clamored for a remastering of the emotive space opera RPG. Years passed without a peep, and then rumors emerged about a new “legendary edition” that would be bringing the games to the new generation of console gaming. Would it just be a simple pass-through remaster to get the visuals up to proper HD strength, or would they be overhauling the gameplay and tinkering with a few things, such as the disparity between the first clunky, RP-centric Mass Effect and the more fluidly engineered third-person shooting of ME2 and ME3. And up until release, this kind of remained a mystery.

The answer, as seen in the Legendary Edition remastered bundle of all three Mass Effect games with every ounce of story DLC included, is something in between. ME2 and ME3 have seen subtle, but noticeable improvements in graphical prowess, environment layouts, character cohesiveness, the morality system’s levels and other aspects, but by and large remain “the same”. Mass Effect 1, however, has been dramatically altered in terms of both impressive visuals and gameplay, yet in such a way that doesn’t stray from the original game’s intentions; weapon access, using cover, squad control and general AI, gunplay accuracy, and enemy vulnerability have all been overhauled. Those looking for a remake with additional content will be disappointed; those looking for a vastly superior upgrade in how they enjoy the Mass Effect universe should absolutely suit up to turn some virtual asses into actual dust.

Gears (of War) 5

While Mass Effect often showed up on short lists for one of those “must play” games for the Xbox 360, it was almost always guaranteed that the original Gears of War would be near the top of ‘em all. Other games did it well enough before, but the sci-fi shooter mastered the art of designing levels and gameplay intensity around cover-based action. Cap that off with an undeniably cheesy ‘80s-movie amount of bravado from the heroes and their thirst for bloody violence, and you’ve got the recipe for a franchise that runs strong for an entire trilogy … and then carries over into less iconic, yet still enjoyable spinoffs and additional games.  Thing is, with both the games outside the original trilogy, it became obvious that both the narrative and the third-person shooter gameplay were starting to show some rust. The excitement’s still there, along with the fanbase, but the series just needed something fresh.

Gears of War 5 makes it clear that they’re getting things up to new standards by dropping the “of War” from the title that so often gets left off anyway in casual conversation, delivering just Gears 5. On top of developing the younger, newer characters from the previous games, game-makers The Coalition also get their hands dirty with semi open-world gameplay concepts and very light RPG aspects for variety and breadth. When adding these things, The Coalition makes sure to preserve – and, in a way, recapture – the bravado of the earlier titles from Epic Games, showcasing a devotion not just to getting back to the series’ roots, but also to spruce them up and make them feel relevant in the new generation.  Both critics and players agree that the craftsmanship was largely a success, praising the campaign and the open-world implementation, even though some feel it retreads old storytelling elements.

Outer Wilds

What started out as a college thesis project made by someone who wasn’t really interested in crafting full video games at the time, soon developed into a fleshed-out, commercial sci-fi exploration experience that shows up on numerous “best of year” lists and even a few “best of all time” lists as well. Outer Wilds – not to be confused with Obsidian’s Outer Worlds, which shares a few similar gameplay and atmospheric elements – takes the player on an adventure through a solar system caught in a time loop.  Every 22 minutes, a star goes supernova and effectively resets the clock, sending our stalwart alien astronaut character back to square one in his search for an answer.  With some help from alien technology, he’s able to remember anything he’s learned in the previous loops, so his objective becomes to explore the galaxy and gather as much info as possible to discover a solution to the supernova.

Outer Wilds relies entirely on the immersion of its exploration, a combination of the general atmospheric intentions and objective-based adventuring of the likes of No Man’s Sky, Mass Effect, and Outer Worlds. The activity isn’t about engaging enemies, though, instead about discovering answers, solving puzzles, and unearthing knowledge at the various points of the solar system to fix the problem. This pieces together into more of an interactive experience than a traditional game, though survival is a concern and death can reset the clock if not monitored carefully.  Both critics and players have heaps of wonderful things to say about Outer Wilds, from the direction and destination of the narrative to the  execution of exploration and atmosphere.

Xbox Games With Gold

The strategy behind the games selected for Xbox’s Games With Gold doesn’t make a whole lot of sense at this stage, unless one applies a simple, pessimistic line of thought to it: they’ve stopped being concerned with keeping their subscriber base satisfied or interested. For the Xbox One, they’ve selected a retro twinstick shooter indie called NeuroVoider (January 1-30) that blends pixel graphics with robotics, as well as a 8-bit sidescrolling building/resource sim called Aground (January 16 – February 15) that shows some clear similarities to Minecraft. Both seem well-crafted and potentially engaging, yet neither have pulled enough attention from critics or players to have much of a reputation, certainly not on the level of the bounty of high-profile titles that Microsoft could theoretically include with the program. This signals de-prioritization.  

The legacy titles are about of the same caliber, though a bit more significant than the Xbox One offerings as of late.  Radiant Silvergun (January 1-15) is a polished “restored” version of a popular late-‘90s arcade shoot-‘em-up featuring futuristic fighter pilots versus alien forces, and is viewed as the precursor to the classic Ikaruga. Space Invaders: Infinite Gene (January 16 – January 31) takes the classic arcade title and spit-shines it for the semi-modern era, capturing a similar tone and excitement to the updated iteration of Tetris or Geometry Wars. These will at least ignite a spark of nostalgia.

Xbox Game Pass, Gold Freebies: Lotsa Sci-Fi For the New Year

Throughout the year, Sony seems to have viewed the release of the PS5 as a transition point for their PS+ program, ensuring that there has been a mixture of both a shiny new PS5 game and a unique pair of PS4 games with each month. The quality of the games has wavered, for sure, but when compared to the base subscription service of their competitor, they’ve sustained the reputation since the release of the new consoles.

December continues this, but in a clumsy fashion.  The two PS4 games are arguably more satisfying than other months, containing both a successful family-friendly action game and a layered action-RPG for the more intense gamers.  The PS5 title is … a portion of a game? A booster? It’s several things at once without being the full experience of the title it’s representing, ending 2021 on an awkward note for the Plus service. Let’s look closer at all the titles, but before doing so, be sure to head over and Grab a 1-Year PlayStation Plus subscription from Amazon.

PS5

Godfall: Challenger Edition

So, what exactly is the “Challenger Edition” of the action-RPG Godfall? After checking around a bit, you’ll discover that this version of Gearbox’s game offers a catch-me-up experience that drops the players into “endgame-level content”, and in turn powers up the player accordingly.  From there, the player engages in a trio of challenge modes that flex the maximum of what Gearbox wants to accomplish with their intense gameplay, where adept player characters – solo or in co-op groups with up to 2 others – can be customized and power through with what’s described as “looter slasher” game design. Essentially, the Challenger Edition jumps ahead of all the grinding and gets the player to the good stuff, then gives them lots of fun trials and tribulations with this newfound power.

What’s missing, however, is the entirety of the campaign of Godfall, which makes this a complicated inclusion for the PlayStation Plus program as its PS5 title. For those who are interested, the Challenger Edition can seamlessly integrate with the preexisting version of the base title, or the rest of the campaign can be purchased later as an add-on. That’s the thing, though: the base game itself simply doesn’t come with this iteration, and considering the state of the game itself – it received middling reviews from critics, harsher impressions from gamers, and can be purchased for $20 – it seems much wiser to include the whole package and spark some positive word of mouth and goodwill instead of providing additional hoops to gamers. The Challenger Edition is a budget title otherwise at $15.

PS4

LEGO DC Super-Villains

By now, most people – not just gamers, but people in general – know what to expect from one of the LEGO video games. While uncomplicated, the third-person action controls are merely there so players of all ages can gain control of toy iterations of their favorite characters, interact with a block-built versions of the worlds in which those characters live and work their way through exaggerated spins on their familiar stories (usually popular movies). Since their rise in popularity, however, there have been new movies made about the LEGO versions of the characters featuring unique stories, which has snowballed into unique games that don’t rely on those familiar stories to push them forward.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it does, but rarely are the games simply unfun to play … especially those from DC and Marvel wing of the work done by Traveller’s Tales.

LEGO DC Super-Villains takes all that to another level, allowing the player to create and customize their own super-villain who powers through levels and bumps into the familiar faces of the DC Rogues Gallery. Instead of getting involved with a “bad guy” plot, however, the villains are forced to take the place of the Justice League and fight against villains from a parallel universe: the Justice Syndicate (aka Crime Syndicate of America), evil counterparts of the Justice League characters from another Earth. As the story progresses, the player’s customized character develops their attributes and eventually gains access to superpowers, the most novel aspect of this LEGO title beyond the gameplay’s pillars of a wide roster of other playable characters, exaggerated environments, and vibrant sense of humor.

Mortal Shell

Sometimes, it can seem unfair to compare one game’s style to another or label it a clone, something that’s fairly common in the arena of third-person action-RPGs. Cold Symmetry doesn’t shy away from those comparisons, though, as they’re happy to prop Mortal Shell up as a “soulslike” game that’s heavily inspired by the Dark Souls franchise. Designed as a pint-sized indie version to scratch the itch in a period when there weren’t any other uncompromising, aesthetically and emotionally grim dungeon crawlers out there, it showcases many evident similarities to the design of the Souls franchise and many areas where they obviously tweaked aspects for specific effects.

Players gain control of an “empty shell” of a character who roams the landscape of a world in the aftermath of humanity’s collapse, and in that collapse they encounter the bodies of the fallen, who provide different shells that the player can occupy and embrace their skillsets. The environment looks and feels like an extension of those from the creations of FromSoftware: shadowed yet stunning, grim with glimmers of possibility, and full of obstacles. Through it, the player engages a layered, weighed third-person combat scheme and intuitive RPG skillsets, and it all gains even more respect when taking the studio’s small size into consideration.  Mortal Shell certainly isn’t perfect in the eyes of either critics or players, with some not seeing enough difference or longevity inside, but most view it as an admirable and engaging soulslike crawler.

December PS+ Freebies: Mortal Shell, LEGO DC … Part of Godfall?