Beat summer’s heat with August’s best titles, from ‘No Man’s Sky’ to ‘Madden’

By Joshua Smith July 30, 2016

Summer heat brings summer boredom, especially when all you have are the same games to play month after month. While E3 brought plenty of games to get pumped up for, August actually puts some of them in our hands as it kicks off the fall gaming season with an array of exciting titles. With the return of fan-favorite heroes such as Batman and the long-awaited release of No Man’s Sky, you can beat the heat with these new games.

Here’s an inside look at the hottest games coming out this month, and when exactly you can snag them. Get your month started off right by prepping yourself for the weeks to come. Fighting the illuminati, scoring touchdowns and saving Gotham City are all things you can do this month. With Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and Madden 17 you can hit the future and the gridiron right after each other. Don’t miss a thing this August!

Topics

Joshua Smith

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Just another not so ordinary kid living this thing we like to call life.

Gaming

Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore is an honest love letter to the worst Zelda games

A character ina yellow shirt points off screen in Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore.

The Phillips CD-i video game console has one unfortunate claim to fame: a pair of notoriously panned Zelda games that have been memed into the ground. In 1993, the platform got Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon, each starring the aforementioned character in their respective game. They are both 2D level-based action-adventure games with relatively straightforward hack-and-slash gameplay along with the ability to use some items along the way. They were torn apart by players at release, creating a pair of black sheep in Zelda’s family tree.

Considering its reputation, you might be surprised to learn that the CD-i and its Zelda titles do have sincere fans … and one of them is making a spiritual follow-up to them with Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore. After playing a full level, as well as speaking with its creator, it's clear that Arzette is an earnest love letter to those despised Zelda games. It’s a wild “what if” scenario, imagining what a new game inspired by those titles would even look like in the modern age.
Creating a love letter
Arzette is an animated adventure from Seedy Eye Software and publisher Limited Run Games, which will release a physical edition of the title this year. The project is primarily developed by Seth Fulkerson, who has had a long and intimate history with the Zelda CD-i games. Fulkerson is responsible for creating the fan-made remasters of both Zelda titles and among those as well as other personal game projects, Fulkerson decided that he wanted to make a true spiritual successor based on whether the CD-i console had a future that serves as “a passion project that sets out to respect and pay loving homage to those original games, not make fun of them.”

Gaming

Almost 300 Lego sets are on sale today — from $6

Lego version of the International Space Station

While many folks tend to associate Lego sets with children, there's a whole universe of toys made and targeted to adults, whether it's fancy Star Wars themed Lego sets or big architectural sets that recreate things like the Pyramids or the Eiffel Tower. So, Lego sets are really made for all ages, and with so many choices, it can be hard to pick a good set to start with, especially since some of the fancier and bigger sets, and sets attached to intellectual property, tend to come with a significant cost.

Luckily, we've done a lot of heavy lifting for you, and with almost 300 hundred Lego sets to choose from, it was a tall order. Even so, we managed to round up some of our favorite deals; whether you're buying something for a kid or yourself, we've picked a little something for everybody. That said, there are just too many Lego sets on sale to cover everything, so we encourage you to check out the full sale at Best Buy using the button below.

Gaming

You can kill your 2023 backlog and prepare for Halloween with these 7 creepy games

The Garrador stands tall in the Resident Evil 4 remake.

Dedicated gamers have two specific, and often competing, goals whenever October comes around. On one hand, the fall season is a sign that the year is winding down. Anyone who wants to finish off their backlog of games released in 2023 before the 2024 flood begins needs to start finding ways to cut down their backlog. Though there are even more pressing matters in October: it's spooky season! With a month-long Halloween celebration in full swing, October is also the perfect time to marathon some creepy games. Usually, that might mean going back to play some classics like Silent Hill 2, leaving little room to catch up on new games.

But what if you could kill two vampires with one stake? Well, you can this year because 2023 has been a wild year for horror video games. From two high-profile remakes to a slew of indie greats, your backlog this year might already be full of great, creepy games. To help organize your October, we've put together a list of seven eerie 2023 releases that double as great Halloween games. You can fly your freak flag and cut down your list of game to play in one go -- that's efficiency!
Resident Evil 4