Prime Gaming – September 2022

Oh, here we go again: Someone will have to wake me up when September is about to end for the next one of these. As usual, there is in-game “content” (how I hate that word) still available for games like Fall Guys, Red Dead Online, The Elder Scrolls Online, WoW, Two Point Hospital, Apex Legends, FIFA 23, and much more. All this month, you can pick up that load of useless (mostly cosmetic) tripe with your Amazon Prime/Prime Gaming subscription. Though that’s not what we’re here for, we’re here to talk about September’s games, and there are a lot.

I finally got my hands on Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor earlier this year, and unsurprisingly with the year we’ve all had, I haven’t had much of a chance to play. Known far and wide for the Nemesis system, you will fight your way across the realm of Middle Earth and through Tolkin’s tower of terror to claim revenge or something. Let’s be honest: Claudius Blandius Characterius isn’t the highlight of your walking tour of Dunedin, New Zealand. It is all the lovely and superficially vein Orcs you attempt to put on the opposite end of your big pointy stick, not sexually.

Released in a time when few people could spell the word xenoarchaeology without finding the dictionary propping up the dinner table, LucasArt’s The Dig did the plot that Armageddon would copy three years later. Well, kind of. Without Bruce Willis and a lot more pointing and clicking, you take control of Boston Low and have to figure out how some alien technology works alongside two of his five-man team. Like most of LucasArts’ games, you’re better off sticking your head in chlorine to solve the problems, though unlike other LucasArts games of the time, humor isn’t the focus.

Dyslexia struck when reading this title, and I’ll be honest, I don’t think Dwayne Johnson needs defending. Released last year, Defend the Rook is one of those Chess-based Rogue-lite tactics games that I’ll never understand. Then again, I’m stupid enough to be beaten by the easy difficulty bot on the DS version of Chess, so I’m possibly not the best to talk to about such a themed game. Focused on tower defense, you’ll have to protect your Rook (“the castle piece” – me) from the incoming hordes of ponies, prawns, his Holyness, Liz, and something Charles will never be.

With a title like that, it could only be one thing, a hidden object game. Word of the Law: Death Mask Collector’s Edition is one of those games where the word logic or laws of making bloody sense have gone out of the window and sank to the bottom of the ocean blue. Do you enjoy a hidden object game? More power to you! How you keep your sanity in the face of all-out mental logic is a secret you must pass on to us all in your memoir though, as I’ve wanted to kick in the monitor a few times with these types of games.

After a long history lesson on the fall of Maximilien Robespierre, I also need to go for a small we-we. We. The Revolution was released in 2019, and David did an in-depth review of the political simulation based on trials during the Thermidorian Convention of the French Revolution. As it so happens, you play the judge in the strangest episode of Judge Judy I’ve seen since that time a French court put a Labrador on trial in a murder case. Anyway, beyond the deliciously stupid concept to vest the powers of a judge in me, We. The Revolution has some of the most beautiful art for a game where I’ll kill everyone. Off with their head!

With an art style that is best described as the mid-00s at the latest, Castle on the Coast is a 3D Platformer in which you control a giraffe named George and complete puzzles around a magical castle. So it even sounds like a mid-00s game too. Despite all of this, I am sure this is the type of thing Alexx lives for, and I couldn’t blame him if I weren’t so busy looking at the many other titles available not only this month but all the time. Aimed at the nostalgic crowd of the late PS1/early PS2, this will be a great way to bore your child adamant on spending all your money via Fortnite microtransactions and such.

Yes, I also understand the offside rule, my fellow ball-kicking cyborg. Despite being perfectly poised to somehow think the only sport available is that of football (or “soccer” if you’re of that persuasion), I must admit I despise it with all my being for that precise reason. “The beautiful game,” which anyone from Scotland will tell you is about sectarian hatred and overall disappointment, hardly interests me though from time to time I have been known to look at spreadsheets and play FIFA. This month’s offering is last year’s spreadsheet simulator, in the form of Football Manager 2022, and I don’t know if I’m excited to play or bored at the accounting job ahead.

Indeed, I’m sure Assassin’s Creed: Origins lacks a wonderful alien, but it does have the Goa’uld. Ubisoft’s 2017 foray into the world of large RPGs following the year off of releasing an Assassin’s Creed, the Egyptian setting and large-scale RPG gameplay saw favor return to the series once again. It also opened up for “time-saving” microtransactions, which would be retained into the following game too, on my big fat Greek adventure. As wide as the ocean (possibly a desert in this case) and as deep as a Ubisoft game, Assassin’s Creed: Origins will be a highlight for some, and I can’t blame them.