The new releases have begun to dry up as we roll towards the Summer and (in eight days time) the 2014 E3 Expo. Thankfully, Nintendo, Square Enix, NCSoft, and NIS America are here to give us a quartet of new games this week.
Nintendo’s 3DS life simulator, Tomodachi Life, will be available on June 6. Whether you’ve followed the debate over the game’s exclusion of same-sex relationships or not, Tomodachi Life looks like a skewed take on Nintendo’s already-established Animal Crossing franchise. Plus, it features Shaquille O’Neal as himself. If you’re looking for something a little less lighthearted, Square Enix and Airtight Games will release Murdered: Soul Suspect on Tuesday for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. The game follows Ronan O’Connor, a detective who has been murdered by The Bell Killer. As a ghost, Ronan has to deal with demonic spectres and solve the mystery of his own death. So like Ghost, but with less Whoopi Goldberg (Unless…).
Also available this week is WildStar, a new MMO from NCSoft that eschews the dark and gritty aesthetic of most MMOs and replaces it with colorful locales and anthropomorphized animals. And speaking of colorful, NIS America will release Hyperdimension Neptunia Producing Perfection, a diva simulator for the Vita.
Finally, Microsoft will roll out the $399 Kinect-less Xbox One this week. So if you’ve been thinking about adding a new-generation console to your entertainment center, perhaps now is the time.