A little notice to head up this week's roundup, dear readers: Sega's going to be delisting the standalone purchase of Sonic Generations when the remaster drops in early September — they've acquiesed to fan demand and will be allowing the original version to remain available in select legacy game bundles, but if you want to grab it standalone, you've only got a few weeks left to do so (and given Sega's recent track record with Sonic remasters, there's no guarantee you're going to want to play their new version over the original.)

ARCADE ARCHIVES

Knuckle Heads

• Platform: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4
• Price: $7.99 / €6.99 / £6.29
• Publisher: Hamster / Namco

What's this? Namco's first and only 2D arcade fighting game, originally released in arcades in 1992 and reissued just once via the Japanese Wii Virtual Console in 2009; up to four players can choose from a six-fighter roster and duke it out in 1v1 matches, which play out on a single plane a la a traditional fighting game, or 2v1/2v2 matches which allow free brawler-esque movement.

Why should I care? Knuckle Heads' integrity as a fighting game is incredibly suspect — of all the fighting games that attempted to integrate additional players, this one feels the most like a square peg being crammed into a round hole, and having to use a button to jump makes even the 1v1 mode feel immediately unnatural , let alone the lack of all the other mechanical details that the likes of Capcom and SNK had already codified — and combined with the meager roster and blatant padding of the single-player mode, one would presume it was released unfinished, but that's not to say it's not fun: the character designs are ridiculous, Takayuki Aihara's soundtrack offers one of Namco's earlier dalliances with hardcore techno and fighting game barrel-scrapers are not going to have to work hard to figure out some really degenerate stuff.

Useless fact: Namco shelled out for several marqueee voice actors for this game, long before SNK and other companies would use their voice actors as a selling point; the most high-profile actor might be Megumi Hayashibara, known for playing female Ranma in Ranma 1/2 and Rei Ayanami in Neon Genesis Evangelion, among many other roles.

G-MODE ARCHIVES+

Tantei Kibukawa Ryousuke Jiken-tan Vol.15: Ouma ga toki wa Kyoushikyoku

• Platform: Nintendo Switch (Japan), PC via Steam (worldwide)
• Price: $7.99 or equivalent
• Publisher: G-MODE / And Joy

What's this? Volume fifteen of And Joy's (formerly Genki Mobile) series of popular detective mystery adventure games, originally released for smartphones across 4 episodes in 2010 and presented here in one package; in this volume, members of the agency field a request by a friend of the agency's owner to investigate and protect a family heirloom that is under threat of theft, and in doing so, discover a naked corpse on the premises...

Why should I care? I might be, like, nine volumes behind, but it's not because these games are poorly-constructed or dull — Takanari Ishiyama can tell a tale, dontcha know.

Useless fact: This series received a few non-ADV spinoff apps, most of which were fairly frivolous, but this specific volume did receive a companion game that adopted an escape-the-room/point-and-click-esque format. Will it also get a reissue? I can only imagine so.

OTHER

Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse Remastered

• Platform: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox, PC via Steam
• Price: $19.99 or equivalent
• Publisher: Skunkape Games

What's this? A remaster of the third and final episode in Telltale Games' episodic revival of LucasArts' cult adventure game series Sam & Max, originally released in the late '00s for iPad, PlayStation 3 and PC. Produced by ex-Telltale folk, this new version boasts higher-resolution 2D art assets, modern lighting and post-processing, remastered and higher-quality music and voice acting, the integration of true point-and-click controls a la previous episodes, a more refined film-grain filter (which can now also be turned off completely), the addition and re-integration of certain bonus content that was previously PS3-exclusive and much more.

Why should I care? All I can tell you is that the people I know who've played these remasters have nothing but unreserved praise for them, and if Bob hasn't already done so on the podcast, I'm sure he's queueing up a new episode right this moment.

Helpful tips: Tip one: you can grab this game in a three-pack with the prior two episodes for a substantial discount (and it'll subtract the price of either or both of the previous episodes if you already own 'em. Tip two: they're also going to be offering the original, untouched episodes as free DLC on PC in the very near future.

BIG OL' UPDATE

DOOM + DOOM II two-in-one refactor update for existing Bethesda reissues

Surprised-dropped in tandem with Quakecon, Bethesda's once-maligned reissues of the classic Doom games have been replaced by Nightdive Studios into a two-in-one app that's not only far more performant but also boasts cross-platform, 16-player deathmatch, a new remastered soundtrack option, compatibility with Boom and DeHackEd, a full-on mod browser (yes, even on consoles, somehow) and a brand-new additional episode, among many, many other features and additions. It'd be nice if these updates weren't in the service of Bethesda slowly but surely closing the walls around gaming's greatest open-source success story, but it is nice that all traces of the previous reissue are being scrubbed, I suppose. (If you owned either classic game on consoles, you should be able to claim this "update" for free.)

LIMITED-EDITION PHYSICAL PRINT RUNS

Glover (Switch, PS5) physical versions from Limited Run Games 

• Price: $34.99 (standard) / $74.99 (30th Anniversary Edition)
• Availability: sales end September 14 23:59 Eastern; ETA February

Must we continue to love the glove, even post-Piko co-optation?

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