Prime Gaming - August 2023

Another month and another article to complain about what is available with your Amazon Prime subscription, it must be Prime Gaming for August. As always, you can pick up “in-game content” (tripe) for such nonsense as Overwatch 2, FIFA 23, Diablo IV, Roblox, Fallout 76, HI-Fi Rush, Two Point Campus, and lots more. Being a day with a Y in it, I’m tired of writing about repeats thanks to Jeffrey’s clearly tight wallet, the occasional obscurity, and the insufferable separation of the final game for this stupid Legacy Games.

We’ll start with Payday 2, which was offered for free weeks ago on the Epic Games Store, via Tim Sweeney’s storefront of absolutely no controversy. Available from the 3rd of August, you’ll get the base game of Payday 2, letting you descend on DC with full criminal intent but less intent to defecate on the House floor. To make the repeat a little sweeter, you also get “The Gage Mod Courier” DLC, valued at… about a buck. Jeffrey, that’s some highway robbery on your part.

Staying with Epic for the first game available on the 10th, you’ll be able to pick up Farming Simulator 19, if you didn’t already when it was free via Epic way back in January of 2020. What am I supposed to say that I haven’t already? Fun in that “stick a podcast on” way, I’m not leaping to open Epic to play Farming Simulator 19 after playing Farming Simulator 22 for a bit earlier this year around the time Clarkson’s Farm season 2 was released. If you want to be confused by farming equipment like Jezza or listen to The Wurzels on repeat, fill your boots.

Also available from August 10th, we’ve got TeamSuneat’s 2022 2D action Rogue-lite platformer with lovely pixel-y graphics and quite a bit of neon. From here on out everything but the final game is available through the Amazon Games App, and there isn’t much else to say about the mutant wasteland and its inhabitants. It is considered by some as short, and notably buggy for the console release earlier this year. I can read as much about Blade Assault as there is online to provide second-hand information, but there just isn’t enough.

Following on from July’s offering of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, the sequel starring Starkiller 2.5 Birth By Gungan is the next Star Wars property to bore us to death. I wasn’t nice about the original last month, and I honestly think that both games were made obsolete by the Fallen Order series. Available from the 17th as part of a triple-header for the third week of the month, you can pick up The Force Unleashed 2 to overpower the aimless Koopa Troopas of the Star War universe.

Gwent ’em up Foretales is next, a card-based narrative title with anthropomorphized animals from Alkemi and Dear Villagers that was released only last year. Another obscurity appearing on the list of this month’s offerings, there are obvious comparisons to Hand of Fate. However, Foretales is also highlighted for stepping into its own light. It looks to tell an adventure akin to the gamebook series Choose Your Own Adventure, while somewhat maintaining a sense of structure. Not instantly grasping for my attention, there is a good chance others will want to give it a try.

I think the best way to describe the last game available from the 17th of August is that Driftland: The Magic Revival is basically World of Warcraft mixed with a god game/city builder. Released way back in 2019 by Star Drifters, the studio’s first title is highly praised by those that have played, enjoyed, and parsed the somewhat initially confusing screenshots I’ve been accosted by on the Steam storefront. It seems to be focused on the strategy of the god game, with some reviewers linking it back to the Majesty series which you may already have due to Prime Gaming in previous years.

It might not be October just yet, but on August 24th you’ll be able to pick up We Create Stuff and Modus Games’ 2021 first-person saucepan clanging puzzle horror. In Sound Mind, which was previously available via Epic in 2022, is highly praised similar to the comparable titles of Bloober Team and the Amnesia titles. This also means that quite a lot of people will overlook it because of its style of horror and the established tropes of the genre. This is a treat for horror fans but also is a little early in the year for that.

The final game in total (that you’ll claim through Legacy Games) is available on August 31st, titled Summertime Madness. Surprisingly, it isn’t a hidden object title. Instead, it is a first-person puzzle platformer about an artist in post-war Prague, who has made a deal with the devil and is thus stuck in his paintings. It sounds surprisingly interesting for being one of these Legacy Games offerings with DP Games’ 2021 title. I still would have preferred something that was reviewed well and was more exciting, but it has been a move in the right direction.