There's not much to report this week, what with the overseas delay of the latest Sega Ages release and all, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the limited-time Tetris Effect demo currently available for PS4 — yes, it's a new game, but it's also friggin' Tetris so I think we can swing it. The demo's playable in VR or regular ol' R and will cease to function on November 5, so hop to it.
ARCADE ARCHIVES NEOGEO
Pleasure Goal: 5-on-5 Mini Soccer
- Platform: Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, Xbox One (worldwide)
- Price: $7.99 / €6.99 / £6.29
- Publisher: Hamster
What's this? A five-a-side futsal game, developed in 1996 by Shock Troopers devs Saurus and most notable for sporting pre-rendered sprites with exceedingly peculiar animation.
Why should I care? You've been waiting for a soccer game that's several shades dumber and a hundred times uglier than Super Sidekicks.
Helpful tip: Futsal is the term for five-on-five hard-court soccer, something I didn't know until two minutes ago and will probably resume not knowing thirty seconds from me.
XBOX 360 TITLES ON XBOX ONE
- Platform: Xbox One (worldwide)
- Price: $9.99 / €9.99 / £8.99
- Publisher: Eidos
What's this? The first entry in Avalanche's long-running series of archipelagic open-world action games, released for consoles and PC way back in 2006; the versatile game-defining gadgets that dominate later entries are largely absent from the debut game but the series' other signatures — namely, player-character Rico Rodriguez, an egregiously large island map and a handful of physics-laden vehicles — are present and perhaps even somewhat as fun as you remember them to be.
Why should I care? This particular version of Just Cause features quite a few significant visual enhancements that can't be found in any other version, including the PC port, so if you really want to revisit this incredibly dated game you might as well do it on XB1.
Useless fact: This game originally straddled PS2, OG Xbox, PC and X360 and while the changes between versions aren't comparable to something as drastic as Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, the stratification of graphics capabilities between platforms was particularly evident even back then and continues to serve as an interesting time capsule of 3D graphics rendering in the mid-'00s.
OTHER
Kingdom Hearts: The Story So Far
- Platform: Playstation 4 (North America)
- Price: $39.99
- Publisher: Square-Enix
What's this? An all-in-one box set containing the two recent Kingdom Hearts HD collections, 1.5+2.5 Remix and 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue; nothing more, nothing less.
Why should I care? You want a foolproof way to get a version or distillation of every previous KH game in the leadup to KHIII and you don't want to have to decipher any of Tetsuya Nomura's nonsensical crap to do so.
Helpful tip: I'm reliably informed that these games should be played in chronological order, if at all, with the order being as follows: Kingdom Hearts Final Mix, Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories, Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep Final Mix, Kingdom Hearts Re: Coded, Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance, Kingdom Hearts X Back Cover, Kingdom Hearts 0.2. Don't ask me to elaborate because lord knows I don't have the answers you seek.
SOUNDTRACKS & VINYL
ART OF FIGHTING 2 The Definitive Soundtrack by Brave Wave Music
- Format: CD, vinyl (2-LP0
- Price: $15 / €15 (CD), $36 / €36 (standard vinyl), $49 / €49 (limited-edition vinyl)
- Availability: ships early January
It's been a long time coming but the second announced Art of Fighting soundtrack is finally ready and will be available for order on November 2; as with Brave Wave's previous Generation Series releases, this soundtrack has been remastered from the original hardware and is packaged with liner notes from SNK developers past and present. Should you require it, the LP is also available in a limited-edition package that includes a certificate of authenticity, limited to 150 copies.