What We're Playing This Weekend for March 29, 2013
posted:
3/29/2013 4:00:00 PM
One staff writer played the first BioShock ad nauseum. Literally. We've also come to a split decision as to whether BioShock 2 is worth your time. And BioShock Infinite has got our collective head in the collective cloud.
What are you playing this weekend?
RUSSELL ARCHEY | Staff Writer | Twitter @neoscyther
I'm out of town this weekend, so no major PC or 360 gaming for me. However, I recently picked up Kirby Mass Attack on the cheap so I'll finally be giving that a shot. I have yet to play a Kirby game I dislike (though I have yet to play Air Ride beyond a quick demo race).
NATHAN CARTER | Staff Writer | Twitter @natedoggcata
I’m still suffering from a post-PAX hangover, so I think I will be taking it easy this weekend and playing some games that I can play while relaxing. I still have Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward to finish. I am about 30 hours into the game now and I have only unlocked about nine or ten of the 24 different endings in the game. I also picked up Dead or Alive 5 Plus for the Vita, a far superior version of the game compared to its console counterpart. Finally, I’ll probably hop into some more Left 4 Dead 2 when I get some spare time. Left 4 Dead 2 is always fun to hop in, play for a bit, then do something else.
NATHANIEL COHEN | Staff Writer | Twitter @seven_hells
Funny BioShock-related story. Way back when the first one came out, I went and picked up my pre-order, then was promptly struck down by some sort of food poisoning. It was the grossest two weeks of my life, but I wasn't going to let something as insignificant as not being able to sit up keep me from BioShock. That had been a really bad summer for games and I needed to play it. So I did. I finished in between bouts of praying to the flush gods. When I was was over it,I tried to play through it again, only to find the experience inexorably tied to how I felt while I was sick. I found I couldn't look at it, let alone play it, without suffering from some kind of really unpleasant PTSD nauseousness. It was so bad I had to trade it in, and it was two years before I could think about BioShock again.
I was not a fan of BioShock 2. I thought that except for the slightly upgraded shooting, everything else was just a pale imitation with worse graphics. I don't expect the same disappointment from BioShock Infinite. You don't remake the same game for the third time and stick the word "Infinite" in the title unless you know exactly what you're doing.
I'll be playing BioShock Infinite and probably some FIFA Soccer 13. These international breaks are hard on fans of European club soccer. I gotta get my fix somehow. Watching the USMNT just isn't enough even when they have a particularly good couple of games.
SEAN COLLELI | Staff Writer
I'm actually revisiting BioShock 2 to get ready for SkyoShock. I kind of forgot just how good BioShock 2 was compared to the original. Most of the things that annoyed me in the first game--clunky combat, technical issues, a preachy story about a sociopolitical philosophy that hadn't been relevant for decades--was vastly improved in BioShock 2. Dual-wielding guns and plasmids really opened up the combat, and the plasmids and tonics were just overall cooler. Playing as a Big Daddy and escorting the Little Sisters as they harvested ADAM was also a lot of fun. Best of all, the story was just more compelling and didn't fall apart in the third act--it actually got better. Having Sofia Lamb as a foil for Andrew Ryan really helped, because it demonstrated that a philosophy on the other end of the spectrum--in this case super collectivism instead of Ryan's objectivism--could be just as bad if taken to the same extreme. Definitely check out BioShock 2 if you missed it the first time around.
CHARLES HUSEMANN | Editor-in-Chief | Twitter @chusemann
BioShock Infinite is sitting on my dining room table and I think that's going to be my main endeavor this weekend. There is a double XP weekend going for MechWarrior Online, so that will probably find it's way on to my playlist as well.
RANDY KALISTA | Staff Writer | Twitter @randykalista
SimCity is a problem. Losing sleep. Work suffering. Other hobbies collecting dust. Child doesn't even know me anymore. So, I'm grounding myself from SimCity (way to go, me) and heading back into Mass Effect 3 to finish the fight. If for no other reason than to get to bed on time. While I can't not read every single entry that pops up, the Codex should be renamed "naptime."
JOHN YAN | Senior Hardware Editor | Twitter @thejohnyan
So after finishing StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, I'm heading off to the city of Columbia to review BioShock Infinite. I'm really excited about this one as the previews at the past couple E3’s blew me away. I might jump into a quickie session of SimCity, but I'm at a point where I'm out of room. It was pretty quick to run out of room and I don't want to mess with it too much since I'm getting money and everyone's mostly happy. If someone wants to, I'll try out Dead Space 3 co-op, since I got that for free with my SimCity game.
What are you playing this weekend?
RUSSELL ARCHEY | Staff Writer | Twitter @neoscyther
I'm out of town this weekend, so no major PC or 360 gaming for me. However, I recently picked up Kirby Mass Attack on the cheap so I'll finally be giving that a shot. I have yet to play a Kirby game I dislike (though I have yet to play Air Ride beyond a quick demo race).
NATHAN CARTER | Staff Writer | Twitter @natedoggcata
I’m still suffering from a post-PAX hangover, so I think I will be taking it easy this weekend and playing some games that I can play while relaxing. I still have Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward to finish. I am about 30 hours into the game now and I have only unlocked about nine or ten of the 24 different endings in the game. I also picked up Dead or Alive 5 Plus for the Vita, a far superior version of the game compared to its console counterpart. Finally, I’ll probably hop into some more Left 4 Dead 2 when I get some spare time. Left 4 Dead 2 is always fun to hop in, play for a bit, then do something else.
NATHANIEL COHEN | Staff Writer | Twitter @seven_hells
Funny BioShock-related story. Way back when the first one came out, I went and picked up my pre-order, then was promptly struck down by some sort of food poisoning. It was the grossest two weeks of my life, but I wasn't going to let something as insignificant as not being able to sit up keep me from BioShock. That had been a really bad summer for games and I needed to play it. So I did. I finished in between bouts of praying to the flush gods. When I was was over it,I tried to play through it again, only to find the experience inexorably tied to how I felt while I was sick. I found I couldn't look at it, let alone play it, without suffering from some kind of really unpleasant PTSD nauseousness. It was so bad I had to trade it in, and it was two years before I could think about BioShock again.
I was not a fan of BioShock 2. I thought that except for the slightly upgraded shooting, everything else was just a pale imitation with worse graphics. I don't expect the same disappointment from BioShock Infinite. You don't remake the same game for the third time and stick the word "Infinite" in the title unless you know exactly what you're doing.
I'll be playing BioShock Infinite and probably some FIFA Soccer 13. These international breaks are hard on fans of European club soccer. I gotta get my fix somehow. Watching the USMNT just isn't enough even when they have a particularly good couple of games.
SEAN COLLELI | Staff Writer
I'm actually revisiting BioShock 2 to get ready for SkyoShock. I kind of forgot just how good BioShock 2 was compared to the original. Most of the things that annoyed me in the first game--clunky combat, technical issues, a preachy story about a sociopolitical philosophy that hadn't been relevant for decades--was vastly improved in BioShock 2. Dual-wielding guns and plasmids really opened up the combat, and the plasmids and tonics were just overall cooler. Playing as a Big Daddy and escorting the Little Sisters as they harvested ADAM was also a lot of fun. Best of all, the story was just more compelling and didn't fall apart in the third act--it actually got better. Having Sofia Lamb as a foil for Andrew Ryan really helped, because it demonstrated that a philosophy on the other end of the spectrum--in this case super collectivism instead of Ryan's objectivism--could be just as bad if taken to the same extreme. Definitely check out BioShock 2 if you missed it the first time around.
CHARLES HUSEMANN | Editor-in-Chief | Twitter @chusemann
BioShock Infinite is sitting on my dining room table and I think that's going to be my main endeavor this weekend. There is a double XP weekend going for MechWarrior Online, so that will probably find it's way on to my playlist as well.
RANDY KALISTA | Staff Writer | Twitter @randykalista
SimCity is a problem. Losing sleep. Work suffering. Other hobbies collecting dust. Child doesn't even know me anymore. So, I'm grounding myself from SimCity (way to go, me) and heading back into Mass Effect 3 to finish the fight. If for no other reason than to get to bed on time. While I can't not read every single entry that pops up, the Codex should be renamed "naptime."
JOHN YAN | Senior Hardware Editor | Twitter @thejohnyan
So after finishing StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, I'm heading off to the city of Columbia to review BioShock Infinite. I'm really excited about this one as the previews at the past couple E3’s blew me away. I might jump into a quickie session of SimCity, but I'm at a point where I'm out of room. It was pretty quick to run out of room and I don't want to mess with it too much since I'm getting money and everyone's mostly happy. If someone wants to, I'll try out Dead Space 3 co-op, since I got that for free with my SimCity game.
