Dawn is breaking. Stray rays of light have snuck their way through this oppressive darkness that is the summer lull. The skies have given way to some brighter, cheerier colors. By that I mean we’re actually getting some games worth looking at, no matter how blasphemous it may be.

Remember. Release dates are quite literally made at the whims of the publisher.  The following are subject to change without any warning.

 

Honorable Mention

El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron (Xbox 360, PS3)

Tuesday August 16, 2011
My favorite uses of the Bible (Jewish or otherwise) will always be the ones that treats it like what it is: an interesting and fairly bloody story worth referencing.  El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron plays like your standard third person brawler with hints of side scrolling platformers here and there, but its source material and its visual style truly differentiates it from just about every other third person action game out there.

Ever heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls? Think of it as the cutting room floor for the Jewish Bible containing a whole of slew of stories that never got included. One of which tells the story of angels that fled from Heaven to be with mankind. God sent down a couple of archangels to deal with these fallen angels and their offspring, the Nephilim. El Shaddai takes this concept and ran with it adding a couple of twists here and there. Namely, instead of archangels, God sent down a lowly mortal to do it. That’s you! Another little twist involves God partnering you up with some relatively unknown angel named Lucifer or something or other. I doubt anyone knows who that is.

Can you tell that an artist helmed the development of this game? Watch the game in motion, and you won’t believe anyone else could have. Sawaki Takeyasu, the artist responsible for the visual style of both Okami and Devil May Cry, took the director’s seat for El Shaddai and probably budgeted more money to the visual design than most games normally would. El Shaddai presents a visually unique take on reality and reflects the angel du jour’s view of its ideal utopia. One fallen angel fell in love with nature, so that area takes an almost abstract and somewhat minimalist view of the world as seen from a mountaintop with clouds rolling across the land. Beautiful just can’t quite cover it.

The curse of every fresh idea ever thrown around in any medium follows El Shaddai. Unknown quantities tend to scare off prospective gamers, and given its lack of blood, gore, guns, bald space marines, and anything resembling military jargon, El Shaddai will have a tough time getting noticed. Than again, nothing else really is coming out this week so…

 

Coming This Week

Tuesday August 16, 2011

No More Heroes: Heroes’ Paradise (PS3)

We just can’t get enough of HD remakes it seems. This one sticks out a bit though given how recent the original material is. Originally for the Wii, No More Heroes has you playing as Travis Touchdown, an otaku who bought a beam sword over the Internet so he can become the number one assassin. Now you can do it all in glorious HD. Frankly, I don’t see how well that would work out given how the game’s visuals skew towards the 8-bit era moreso than the whatever-bit era we’re in now. Also, Heroes’ Paradise supports the totally optional PS Move for a much more authentic No More Heroes experience given the Wii’s control scheme. Have fun charging your beam sword!

Puzzler World 2 (DS)

Can’t get enough puzzles? Did the first one leave you wanting more? UFO Interactive feels your pain and has seen fit to release a sequel with 1,200 more puzzles spread across various puzzle types like Sudoku, Crossword, and I think I can spot Mastermind on the box cover. Enjoy.

 

Is it me or does the name Metatron sound way too futuristic to have been an ancient name for an archangel? Could be the Tron part, but still. Just one more week. Just one more week now.

 

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