Spotlight Sunday - Week 6 - 2015

Starting today, I thought I would make Sundays a day to cast a "spotlight" onto games that are released on the following week (where weeks start on Monday). Next week is Week 6 of 2015 so this will encompass games that are released from 2 - 8 February 2015. Most of the games I'll be checking out are mostly Steam games, but you might find the occasional GOG game or retail game from EB or JB Hi-Fi as well.

I'm also planning to no longer aim to generate daily posts on Choicest Games anymore. Considering it takes on average two hours to prepare, draft, proofread, type and format each blog post, it really is eating into my time for what is essentially a hobby. Also, the more time I spend typing up posts, the less time I have playing the games I'm supposed to be reviewing!

So from now on there will be three regular posts on Choicest Games each week: Video Games Music Monday, Where are they now? Wednesday and Spotlight Sunday, with this Sunday being the very first one.

So which games do I think is worth checking out next week? Here are my picks:


Apotheon

As you know, I'm not really into platformers but this one definitely stands out from the rest of the crowd. The developer, Alien Trap Games, who previously worked on a game called Capsized (another platformer which has rated pretty well with Steam users) have now decided to set a platformer in the world of Ancient Greek myths and legends. Not only have they done that though but they've managed to make it look pretty choice too, like the art you see on the side of Grecian urns. If you're into platformers or Greek mythology, this is definitely one to look out for.



To Be or Not To Be

  • Release Date: 4 February 2015
  • Availability: Direct for $11.99 USD
Steam has been recently releasing a whole bunch of "Choose-Your-Own-Adventure" style digital gamebooks, visual novels and interactive fiction. While some gamers might deride these as not being "real" games, little do they realise this is exactly the sort of games people used to play back in the 1970s and 1980s, and that without them, the PC games industry wouldn't be where it is today (thanks to the growth of adventure games during the 1980s and early 1990s). Anyway, this is another one of those Choose-Your-Own-Adventure games and in this one you get to play as three characters in Shakespeare's Hamlet! You're able to stay to the original plot or try things your own way. The game also has a lot of artwork by some famous comic strip artists such as Mike Krahulik (Penny Arcade) and Matthew Inman (The Oatmeal).



Cities XXL

  • Release Date: 5 February 2015
  • Availability: Steam for $39.99 USD ($31.99 USD pre-order, $19.99 if you own a previous Cities XL game in your Steam library)
While I never really got into Cities XL I can appreciate that there isn't actually much competition at the moment for good city builders. Sure, the Tropico series is pretty good (and probably still one of my favourites) but the recent SimCity while pretty to look at and observe, was severely lacking in the epic scale department - something that the Cities XL series does really well. So enter Cities XXL which is apparently a more polished version of the game with a better engine and UI. Also if you pre-order now you'll get 20% off and if you owned one of the previous Cities XL games you'll get a whopping 50% off. Not too shabby especially if you like the series.

So are you interested or excited about any of these PC games being released next week? Which games are you looking forward to?

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