Most Interesting Games August 2024
This is a new article series which will be a bit of a side venture from the WTF Happened series, where we recap what happened in the past month. In the Most Interesting Games series, I'll be covering recent releases from the past 2 months as well as upcoming releases which recently released demos or just look incredible or are releasing within the next month. This is Most Interesting Games August 2024 edition!
VR Game Release Highlights
Metal: Hellsinger VR got its demo on June 26th! I haven't tried it yet myself, but I played the original flat version and thought it was pretty fun... and the VR port is looking pretty promising! I'll try the demo soon, I promise! 
Mini Market Simulator, released July 20th, looks like a promising setting for a VR sim game where you can manage a store and get up to shenanigans with the various items laying about. It is a bit overshadowed by a non-VR game demo of Sunset Motel: Prologue, released July 29th. This is a motel management sim. I wish the whole "prologue" thing wasn't a thing, and I hate to promote a demo as anything else, but this one was too good-looking to ignore! Unfortunately, again, Sunset Motel is a non-VR title at the moment, but most sims like this tend to get VR ports at some point.
Thrasher, released as a timed exclusive on July 25th for Meta, is a successor to the popular rhythm game titled Thumper. Unfortunately, the PCVR version of this game is not yet given an exact release date and is slated to come out later this year. The PCVR version is likely to look sharper and allow easier streaming, but overall, I'm sure the game will still look great on Quest 3 standalone.
Finally, Blade & Sorcery, originally released December 11, 2018, had its 1.0 update on June 17th, 2024, nearly 6 devs after its initial release, and considering its pivot to being a standalone game, I'm happy to report it doesn't suck! The game is available on both Steam and Meta and is available on Quest 3 standalone.
Fantastically Flat: Riven: The Sequel To Myst
Riven, released June 25th, has official VR support and is a true UE5 gem. I highly recommend grabbing this remake if you have nostalgia for the original Riven, though you should not buy it for the VR features and should know in advance that it's not a 1:1 remake of the original and has a lot of changes, both good and disappointing. Moving on....
Other New Release Highlights
Space For Sale, released July 30th, was something I was anticipating to get my Astroneer fix from as soon as we beat Astroneer on-stream a couple years ago. It got a demo and an initial Early Access release on July 30th, priced at $19.99 USD and on sale until August 13th for $15.99. I will admit I'm disappointing it released unfinished after so long a wait. I played the demo on-stream and was quickly frustrated and bored with it. Hopefully the game improves with future updates and isn't another abandoned Early Access title released too early.
Dungeons of Hinterberg, released July 18th and available day one on Game Pass, is a game I've been following closely since its initial devlog posts on Twitter. The game looks pretty awesome and I'll be playing it soon! Since it's on Game Pass, you have very few barriers to entry for this one!
Tomba! Special Edition released on Steam, Switch, and PS5 on August 1st! I really loved the game on PS1 way back in my formative years, and I must say, I'm disappointed this is just a port, because in 2024, I expect more! Tomba! is an easy game to emulate, so justifying that $20 price tag is difficult. That said, if you've never played it before and don't mind burning your money, grab this re-release! It's an amazing game and deserves a remake or another sequel (Tomba! 2 existed), not just a remaster.
WTF Was That?!
Chained Together, released June 19th, was a very interesting take on the now classic streamer-popularized genre of floating random platforms with jumping mechanics and all you do is get as high as possible. The twist in Chained Together is you get to coop it with other players who are attached to you via chain. Cooperation mixed with coordination. That's the soup! I haven't pulled the trigger on this one yet because I have few friends who would A. like to play this game at all and B. be fun to play with. Overall, it seems pretty tame when playing single player, but you can play with random people online, if you actually want to.
Hello Cruel World, released August 1st, is a scifi psychological horror escape room type game made for VR. It seems to focus a lot on stream chat features, and it's hard to tell what you'll be getting into just by looking at the store page, but it definitely looks eerie. It's on an introductory sale until August 8th, priced at $17.99, so it's actually pretty affordable if you're looking for a potentially awesome semi-social VR experience. I'll update my notes here once I've had a chance to play it myself.
Anger Foot, released July 11th, is a high octane boomer shooter with an emphasis on feet and sneakers! Yeah, it's weird! Anyway, it looks kind of fun, but it might suffer from an overpriced initial release. I'll be waiting for a sale.
The First Descendant, a third-person shooter online game, was released July 2nd. It is free-to-play but looks very promising. I may give it a try sometime, but my general thoughts on free-to-play online games is that their monetization is bound to ruin the gameplay because they have to motivate people to spend money.
Motordoom, released August 2nd, is the most anticipated game in this list for me. Think Tony Hawk's Pro Skater meets Vampire Survivors! The demo from a while ago hooked me, and I bought the full game as soon as I could and played through every level of it in one go. It is definitely a bit overpriced for such a small scale game, but it has a ton of replay value. Worth it.
Smack Studio, released July 31st, is a very promising 8-player brawler inspired by Fighter Maker and Mugen with asset creation tools being its primary focus in its early marketing. I would like to try this as a tool more than a game.
Upcoming Video Games
Age of Mythology: Retold is slated to release September 9th.
The Burst is a VR action game releasing August 8th!
Worth mentioning is the PSVR2 app on Steam is slated to come out August 6th. I know absolutely nothing about it other than the limitations involved in using PSVR2 on PC. You won't get the eye tracking nor the foveated rendering nor the front HMD haptics... at least not at first.
That's all I have to highlight this month, so tell me what you think and let me know how I can improve. This is the first entry in a new blog article series, and I hope it's helpful to you! If you like it, please let me know!