New Game Releases: Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, DuckTales Remastered, Payday 2 And More

Darn you people! Don’t you know New Game Day is supposed to be on Tuesday?

Ahem, sorry about that. People can and do release new games whenever they want, but the traditional release day has always been Tuesday, and if everyone would just stick to that, I’d have two more days to write these posts.

As it is, some cool, fairly important new stuff has been dropping on Sundays, Mondays, and whenever, forcing me to do this at the very beginning of the week now. Or is it the end of the previous week? I was never real clear on that.

Regardless, this is a juicy launch week indeed, with games worth checking out on just about every platform. Here are my top four in chronological order of release, and yes, the first one goes live today:

“Mario & Luigi: Dream Team” (3DS) – August 11 

I always thought the Dream Team was the one with Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird that embarrassed the whole world in basketball back in the 90s. As revenge, I guess, everyone got to play this game except for North America about a month ago.

If you own a 3DS, this is no doubt very large on your radar, because who doesn’t want to help everyone’s favorite brothers fight their way through Luigi’s dreams? I’m guessing there is some jealousy of Mario in there, along with some naughty stuff about Princess Peach. Hmm, maybe Mario doesn’t want to help his bro after all.

“DuckTales Remastered” (PS3, PC, Wii U) – August 13

People were so excited for this at E3 this year that they were willing to embarrass themselves in public singing the theme song for a pin. Can you imagine what would have happened if they were giving away the actual game? Folks would have lost their minds!

The orginal “DuckTales” is remembered so fondly that this HD remake is bound to be a smash. It ‘s done with 2D characters over 3D backgrounds and has a bunch of additional goodies on top of the stuff everyone already loves. Just fork over your money already, unless you only own an Xbox 360 — you have to wait until next month.

“Payday 2” (PS3, Xbox 360, PC) – August 13

On my paydays, money just shows up in my bank account through a magical process called “direct deposit.” I assume that’s an incantation of some sort. In this game, you’ve got to work a little harder to get paid, and by that I mean actually taking your money from the bank by force.

So, yeah, robbing banks. This looks like a lot of fun, but strikes me as a game we probably want to keep out of the whole “Do video games influecne people to do bad things in real life?” debate, no?

“Space Hulk” (PC, iOS) – August 15

If you’re like me, one of your earlier geek phases revolved around Games Workshop games. And if you’re not? Well then you missed out friend.

“Space Hulk” is a longtime favorite that has been released as a board game and video game multiple times. This version is supposed to be a very faithful rendition of the battle between Space Marine Terminators and Genestealers, and it supports solo play and cross-platform multiplayer. Time to suit up!

Also out this week: “Europa Universalis IV” (PC) – August 13; “Dishonored: The Brigmore Witches” (PS3, Xbox 360, PC) – August 13; “Angry Birds Trilogy” (Wii U, Wii) – August 13; “Phineas and Ferb: Quest for Cool Stuff” (Xbox 360, Wii U, Wii, DS) – August 16