This was a busy week. Monday, Dari covered the gacha game SINoALICE, and I covered the leak of Mafia II‘s definitive edition. Tuesday, after the article was already written on the leak, Saints Row: The Third Remastered was announced. Wednesday, David covered Rocksmith and it’s final DLC as Ubisoft pulled resources, and later that day he would speak about WoW‘s next expansion getting an Alpha soon. Taylor also spoke on Wednesday about Disco Elysium‘s Switch release being announced, the pc version is easily one of my game of the year contenders. Then on Thursday, Dari spoke of the latest update and event to Apex Legends.

To the Epic Games Store and a quick bit about the future of these articles; I should probably stop saying “X game is next week and only this game,” as it is another double-bill. That said, from now on, if a game isn’t announced the week beforehand, I’ll still talk about it in the article, but I’m not going to oblige myself to play it for two hours. Sometimes it is easy to download a couple of hundred MBs, but several GB (or in this case 50 GB) can swivel. However, let’s get to the actual games this week on the double-bill.

The first game this week is Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments, the second to last game in the Holmes series by Frogwares. The problem with talking about the Sherlock Holmes games is just how little variation they tend to show. Sure, the games have been fairly standardized since 2004, but that doesn’t mean they are lazy games, they just have the FromSoft or Ryu Ga Gotoku problem. If you’ve played one Souls game, you’ve played them all; the same could be said of the Yakuza games for the most part. All of them are well made, of course, but lack something standing out that screams that you must buy it and it alone instead of other games.

Of course, the argument here would be that you aren’t buying, however, picking it up for free on the Epic Games Store. The issue there would, indeed, be that one might not find that a good enough reason to play it this week. Let me give you a more recent example of the Holmes-like that people enjoyed; House, that thing that would make Americans love Hugh Laurie for being a horrible human being. If you want that pomp and arrogance while staying at home, play a Sherlock Holmes game. Plus you don’t have to put up with Steven Moffat’s crap writing of Sherlock, following season 3.

The second game is Close to the Sun. As in Icarus, don’t go “Close to the Sun;” Yes, well done you were paying attention when listening to someone talk about Greek mythology. In modern times it is more a warning for those that have lofty ambitions and little motivation, yet carry on anyway, usually ruining their own reputation. An apt phrase for something that’s flying a little too close to the sun with its entire premise. Stop me when you’ve heard this one.

A lone person is alone in an ocean, comes across a city powered by everyone’s praise of that Tesla bloke, and said city has a leader that’s a bit egotistical. The founder started this little sea city to allow genius inventors to work without regulation and earn the sweat from every pore on their body. Sooner rather than later, the leader starts talking to you in your ear, telling you what you should do, and eventually, takes you as a threat because he’s egocentric. Yes, it might as well time travel back to 1957 and 2007 respectively and fashion a robe out of Ayn Rand and Ken Levine’s skin.

The problem I have with it all is just how on the nose and lacking in vision it actually is. The foundation is Nikola Tesla fighting with Edison on who is better because, of course, it is! Sometimes I just want to take the collective hive mind of the internet that is deifying useless spods and pin it to the bottom of the ocean where it can drown with their deification of Ken Levine.

This week’s free games on the Epic Games Store are Close to the Sun and Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments. Free until the morning of the 16th of April. Next week, as far as we know, you’ll be able to pick up Just Cause 4 and Wheels of Aurelia. Just Cause 4 is a game about setting explosives, running away, and exploding something to have someone ask “Why did you do that?” Just Cause! With that dusty old joke out that way, Wheels of Aurelia is a game about a woman (Lella) driving through 1970s Italy. Expect several men that featured in your Dad’s porn and something quite sad as it is an indie game that describes itself as “gritty.”

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