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Sweet Release! Destiny: The Taken King, Forza Motorsports 6, Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows, 3D Sonic The Hedgehog 2

By Jared Cornelius

Welcome back to Sweet Release! Bleeding Cool's look at the new games hitting store shelves and digital platforms.  With games season in full swing I, like most gamers come to a crossroad about what to buy and what to play.  As tempting as some titles might be, there's never enough time in the day for all of them leaving me with a Sophie's Choice of what get's left behind.  2015 has already been a year hard choices with lengthy titles like Batman Arkham KnightThe Witcher 3, and Metal Gear Solid V, but also a ton of great smaller games like Invisible IncRocket League, and Hotline Miami 2, offering robust replayable experiences.  I don't expect the choices to get easier any time soon but this week the calendar is slightly smaller so, that should offer a breath of relief for weary wallets.

DESTINYTHETAKENKINGBack in 2001 when the original Xbox launched most people didn't expect Halo and developer Bungie to become monolithic entities.  Nor did many people see the company splitting off from Microsoft in 2007 and joining up with the perennial Call of Duty publisher Activision.  In 2014 the one thing most would've predicted, myself included was their new joint project Destiny taking over the gaming world.  And while it's true that Destiny did respectable numbers and reviewed fairly well, the series didn't light the world on fire the way Activision or Bungie would have liked.  Now slightly a year after the ambitious first person massive multiplayer online shooter launched, Bungie is releasing a do-over version of the title, Destiny: The Taken King Legendary Edition.

The sci-fi shooter takes place in a future where humanity has been uplifted via contact with alien species, but somewhere along the line it all went horribly wrong with several races of hostile aliens giving Earth a hard time.  Players choose from three classes of armored space soldiers with various different special abilities and fight back against the alien forces while protecting humanities last strongholds.  The Taken King contains the complete original game, but with a series of rebalances including tweaks to the game's leveling system that make it more user friendly and even adds veteran voice actor Nolan North to replace the much maligned Peter Dinklage as the narrator/companion.  (That wizard won't be coming from the moon anytime soon!)  The Taken King also includes the three downloadable expansions, The Dark BelowHouse of Wolves, and the titular Taken King.  The word on the street was the first two expansions were merely average with The Taken King being a fairly meatier experience.  Along with the expansion comes a level cap bump, new abilities, new weapons, and new locations.  Bungie have had a rough time dealing with Destiny's fall out, from the voice acting complaints, to unbalanced gameplay, loot caves, and broken up content, The Taken King is looking for a fresh start in the fan's eyes and hopefully will resolve a lot of the issues from its 2014 release.  Destiny: The Taken King Legendary Edition released Tuesday for PlayStation 3PlayStation 4Xbox 360 and Xbox One.

FORZAMOTORSPORT6I've always felt it was strange that Microsoft and developer Turn 10 could create pretty solid racing games in a quarter of the time it took Sony and Polyphony to put out a Gran Turismo title, but here we are again.  Only a year after the stellar Forza Horizon 2Turn 10 is releasing their more simulation version of the series in Forza Motorsport 6.  The realistic racer is pushing the Xbox One hardware running at a smooth 60 frames per second at 1080p resolution.  This year's version of the game includes over 450 cars with an extreme level of vehicle customization and realistic body damage.  Turn 10 have also included 26 real world tracks, and features online races with up to 24 people.  They're also bringing back the slightly silly, "Drivatar" concept that creates a virtual approximation of your driving that can be used to complete against friends and online players when you aren't around.  I'm a big fan of the more open Horizon version of the series, but if you love realistic racing you could do a lot worse.  Forza Motorsports 6 released Tuesday exclusively for Xbox One.

SHOVELKNIGHTPOSLast year's release of 2D platformer Shovel Knight was refreshing for a number of reasons.  First and foremost it was a Kickstarter game that came out in a timely fashion, it was also very good, and even though all the promised content wasn't in the initial release developer Yacht Club games strived to push out a full featured product.  But they've been chipping away at those Kickstarter stretch goals and one of the first big one's is finally upon us with the Plague of Shadows campaign featuring the Plague Knight.  The first of three extra playable boss characters the Plague Knight isn't just a re-skin of Shovel Knight, Yacht Club has gone in and built a character that plays completely differently with an emphasis of using potions, bombs and a heightened movement speed.  The good news is the Plague of Shadows content is free if you own a copy of Shovel Knight, the bad news is you have to complete the original game to get to the new content.  Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows releases Thursday, Shovel Knight is currently available on PlayStation 4PlayStation 3PlayStation VitaNintendo 3/2DSNintendo Wii UXbox One, and Steam.

3DSONIC2While other developers have dropped off the classic releases on Nintendo consoles, one company seems to be pushing out new old games fairly reliably.  This week Sega is continuing putting the 3D in the 3DS with its release of 3D Sonic The Hedgehog 2.  The 2D fast paced platformer is widely considered the best in the series and features Sonic and the first of his ever expanding cast of animal friends Tails taking on the evil Doctor Robotnik.  (Canonically they still call him Robotnik in this so let's let the Eggman thing go.)  There's not much else to say about it other than it's the same game in 3D, however Sonic 2 is genuinely good and you could certainly do worse from the 3DS's upgrades classics, I'm looking at you Urban Champion.  3D Sonic The Hedgehog 2 releases Thursday exclusively on Nintendo 3DS.

TOMBRAIDERJust a quick reminder, by the time your reading this Crysis 3 and Tomb Raider Definitive Edition should be free if you subscribe to Xbox Live Gold.

That's all for this week folks, check out my other regular column, Typing on The Dead, which get's a brand new installment this week.  You can also pick up the newest issue of Bleeding Cool Magazine at finer comic shops everywhere.

Jared Cornelius is some guy from the Jersey coast who's cold, tired, and hungry.  Help him fix one or more of those problems on Twitter @John_Laryngitis.


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Hannah Means ShannonAbout Hannah Means Shannon

Editor-in-Chief at Bleeding Cool. Independent comics scholar and former English Professor. Writing books on magic in the works of Alan Moore and the early works of Neil Gaiman.
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