Battlefield Hardline makes its delayed debut this week, taking the franchise’s large-scale battles and transposing them into fast-paced, cops and robbers pursuits on the streets of Miami with a TV-style campaign broken. More pacifist gamers can take refuge in the colorful mini-games of Mario Party 10, the long-running party game’s first entry on Wii U.
What will you be playing this week?
Battlefield Hardline
PS3/PS4/Windows/X360/XB1 (March 17)
From the jungles of Vietnam to the hills of Afghanistan, the Battlefield series spanned the globe for both historical and fictional theaters of war. Now that fast-paced gunplay comes home to the streets of Miami for intense, cops-vs.-criminals urban warfare. This is Dead Space developer Visceral Games’ first foray into the franchise.
The new setting is supported by a variety of new, thematic PvP modes. In Heist, criminals race to blow open a vault or armored car and escape to an extraction point before police arrive to stop them. Hotwire replaces the control points of Conquest with cars waiting to be stolen or recovered by the police.
Mario Party 10
Wii U (March 20)
Nintendo’s long-running party game franchise, which began on Nintendo 64, comes to Wii U. The GamePad, Amiibos, and all of the console’s other bells and whistles allow for new kinds of gameplay never before seen in the series.
Mario Party mode mirrors the gameplay of Mario Party 9, with characters racing to get to the end of a path while collecting the most Mini Stars. Amiibo Party mode lets players scan in compatible, Mario-verse Amiibos to play on smaller boards similar in play-style to the series prior to 9. Bowser Party sets up one player with the gamepad as Bowser, chasing down up to four others in a series of bite-sized 1v3 minigames.
Final Fantasy Type-0 HD
PS4/XB1 (March 17)
Behemoths, Cactuars, Moogles, Chocobos, airships, probably a guy or girl named Cid; all of the standard Final Fantasy tropes that fans have come to love over the last few decades are back in full force in this action role-playing game. Gameplay is reminiscent of Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, with players controlling one character at a time in a swappable party of three in real time battles.
Originally released for PlayStation Portable in 2011, this HD upgrade removes multiplayer functionality in lieu of more difficulty options for solo play and vastly improved visuals.
Tales from the Borderlands episode 2: Atlas Mugged
Android/iOS/Mac/PS3/PS4/Windows/X360/XB1 (March 17)
Telltale Games’ episodic take on the colorful, sci-fi bulletstorm of Gearbox’s Borderlands series continues this week with the second installment. Protagonists Rhys and Fiona find themselves regaling a masked stranger with a tale of their race to uncover a new vault on Pandora, but the truth lies somewhere between their conflicting accounts of what happened..
Handsome Jack, thought dead after the events of Borderlands 2, played an unexpected role in the events of Episode One. He’s not the only familiar face, either; Pre-Sequel Vault Hunter Athena showed up in the trailer for the second episode, and there are no doubt others to come.
What else is coming:
- Resident Evil Revelations 2: Episode 4 (PS3, PS4, Win, X360, XB1/Mar. 17) — This final chapter concludes the episodic survival horror saga of Claire Redfield and Moira Burton, no doubt with some shocking revelations about their island prison and overseer.
- Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas (Win/Mar. 17) — First released for mobile platforms in 2013, this exploration RPG is a loving tribute to Zelda games, particularly The Wind Waker and Link to the Past.
- Jamestown+ (PS4/Mar. 17) — This vertical-scrolling shoot-’em-up takes place in an alternate history steampunk 17th century Mars, mixing classic arcade gameplay with weird sci-fi colonialism.
