Posted in: Movies, Recent Updates, Video Games | Tagged: blizzard, Darksiders, Diablo, Diablo III Reaper of Souls: Ultimate Evil Edition, Duelshock 4, grand theft auto, inFamous: Second Son, Last Light, Namco Bandai, playstation 3, playstation 4, Red Faction Collection, Steam, sucker punch, Tales of Xillia, Xbox 360

Sweet Release! Diablo III – Reaper of Souls: Ultimate Evil Edition, Hotline Miami, Infamous Last Light DLC

By Jared Cornelius

The summer season is edging closer and closer to an end for many of us.  September brings a lot of things including a brand new school year, a return to college, or maybe even a revised work schedule and it's almost a little difficult to believe another summer has  practically come and gone.  At the cost of many of you losing your weekday freedoms is the promise of a robust and amped up release calendar and this week we edge ever closer to the big fall releases with some quality titles.

Over the year's we've seen plenty of isometric hack and slash games of varying quality, but I think you could make a strong argument for Blizzard's Diablo series being one of if not the best of the bunch.  This week marks the upgraded launch of the series with Diablo III Reaper of Souls: Ultimate Evil Edition coming to new generation consoles.  Arguably the weakest part of the game falls to its semi generic narrative about angels, demons, and titular Diablo, but the game is propped up by its excellent hack and slash mechanics that have transferred incredibly well from the mouse and keyboard to controller.

The Ultimate Evil Edition features all the content of the original release including 5 playable classes, online and couch co-op, and mixes in the upgrades from the Reaper of Souls add-on including 6th character class, The Crusader, an open world Adventure Mode, and bounties with high level item loot as rewards.  Players who've already played the original release on PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 will be able to take their saves to the new version on last gen consoles or move them to the new gen consoles, so no lost progress!  The original versions were incredibly well received on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 with some players touting the console versions as the superior way to play and I can only imagine these new gen versions will be even better.  Diablo III Reaper of Souls: Ultimate Evil Edition released Tuesday on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, and Xbox 360.

PlayStation 4 is also getting the closest thing to an American Psycho: The Movie, The Game with Dennaton Game's Hotline Miami.  The overhead kill streak game has been out for quite some time on PC, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Vita, but this week marks its new gen console debut.  Driven by a series of strange answering machine messages you're soon committing violent murders while wearing animal themed Halloween masks.  The games overhead perspective is reminiscent of classic Grand Theft Auto and tasks players with eliminating the levels enemies in a quick and continuous kill streak earning grades for your performance.  Hotline Miami features a quick restart mechanic for that one more try gameplay, a creepy pixelated 1980's aesthetic right down to the games fluorescent neon tint, and a fantastic soundtrack.  The PlayStation 4 version will also have exclusive functionality with the Duelshock 4, including touchpad support, and speaker output.  Hotline Miami releases Tuesday on PlayStation 4, with a PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, and Steam version already available.  Hotline Miami is also part of PlayStation's Cross Buy program, so if you already own one version you'll get the PlayStation 4 version for free.

I really enjoyed Infamous Second Son despite the game ending with a cough instead of a roar, but maybe the folks at Sucker Punch can rectify that with their Last Light DLC.  Instead of playing as Second Son's protagonist Delsin Rowe, you'll take up the role of laser light love interest Fetch.  Taking place during various points of the game as well as fleshing out her back story, Last Light takes players back to Seattle for more conduit adventure with neon sniping and super speed action.  We'll also get our first look at the games Curdon Kay superhuman prison for those deep into the lore.  If you live in Europe Last Light is getting a box copy release, otherwise it's available to download Tuesday and is stand-alone so you don't need to own Second Son to play Last Light.

For our JRPG fans, Namco Bandai continues their Tales series with Tales of Xillia.  I'm not going to get deep with this one, you already know if you like this sort of game or not.  Just ask yourself if you have a hundred spare hours to play this.  The game features what you'd expect including a "Bleak World" with a "noir atmosphere".  I'm always really skeptical of these kind of releases these days, especially when I hear noir but despite my objections Tales of Xillia is out Tuesday.

In ports nobody cares about, Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare is available for PlayStation 4 this week.  I've heard it's not bad, but now that EA have implemented a microtransaction system it puts me off playing it in any form.  EA originally released the Xbox One version against Titanfall and now its PS4 debut only a few weeks away from Destiny.  One can only imagine this is being sent to die.

In delay news, the Darksiders and Red Faction Collections were pushed back again.  Unless there's nothing out the week they actually launch you won't be seeing them on this column again.  I'll take the opportunity to espouse the virtues of Darksiders one more time, as it's a great interpretation of the Legend of Zelda series with a death metal overlay on it.  You can still pick up the original and second game for cheap even if the collection never releases.

Another solid release calendar, admittedly it's a PlayStation heavy list this week but still plenty to play.  I'd say Hotline Miami is a shining star this week, it's actually a terrific game and it and wonderfully captures the 80's look and feel really well, with a simple and authentic art style.  If you have more than one Sony platform this should be an instant purchase with it being cross buy and having cloud save support.  I'm curious about Last Light, I hope if nothing else it does well enough to warrant a second piece of DLC focusing on Delsin and his under supported rock powers.  You can check out my other regular article, Typing on The Dead: Bleeding Cool's Walking Dead recap, where I give you rundown and analysis of the new issue.  I've also got an interview coming up with Sam and Sara Ellis who did this month's Adventure Time backup.  You can find me on Twitter @John_Laryngitis where I always try to respond to every message so come over and say hello.  Until next time, Stay Gold.

Jared Cornelius is some guy from New Jersey's coast who played a lot of JRPG's at one time, if you'd like to tell him how many hours you wasted, contact him on Twitter @John_Laryngitis.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!