Nothing this year will match the impact of Pokemon GO on gaming culture. No Man's Sky's install size is 6 GB (for comparison, GTA V is 49 GB). And Hollywood is adapting Battlefield 1 into a TV series.
What are you playing this weekend?
Sean Cahill, Staff Writer, @seancahill24
This weekend I will continue my trek into the world of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Eyes of Heaven, a game where I still have no idea what is truly going on. But I get to beat up characters that seem to have a second god-like character to them. It's completely over the top. When I'm not playing that, I'll take some time out for Rocket League and Destiny.
Sean Colleli, Staff Writer, @scolleli
I'll probably get around to some Super Mario 3D World with my girlfriend, as we continue our quest to conquer the star world. I wouldn't be surprised if we join some friends for a Pokemon GO hunt either, as she's gotten me interested in that. If I have time, I might also check out how the Vulkan API improves DOOM's performance on my modestly new rig. DOOM already ran pretty swiftly on my Radeon R9 390x and AMD FX-8370, so I'm hoping Vulkan can boost the game's framrate past my monitor's refresh rate.
Chapel Collins, Staff Writer, @ChapelCollins
I've relapsed into a complete Medieval II: Total War binge. This happens to me from time to time; I am wary of the game because I know it's a slippery slope for me. Aside from that, I've recently started working my way through the Mass Effect trilogy again, this time playing as the default male Shepard, just to see what changes.
Charles Husemann, Editor-in-Chief, @chusemann
My folks are in town this weekend, so there won't be a lot of gaming. I have been playing the new Firefight mode in Halo 5 this week, and will probably score a few matches this weekend. The mode is kind of fun when it works, but it seems ill-fitted to the maps. The difficulty of the waves is all over the place, with some round 2 battles being significantly harder than later boss fights. The mode is fun at times, but it's becoming more and more of a struggle to fire up the game. I'm hoping to spend some time with Raw Data on the Vive, too. I'm hoping this is an actual game instead of a VR "experience." The Vive is a cool piece of technology—but right now it suffers from a major case of the "Wiis." There are lots of cool things to do with the platform, but they are all very shallow.
Randy Kalista, Staff Writer, @randykalista
I'm being pulled in a few different directions. My six-year-old daughter is playing and loving LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens. "It's obviously better than the other LEGO Star Wars games, Dad," she tells me. I shrug. Apparently Gaming Nexus has found its newest reviewer. I'm tooling around with both Paragon and Hawken, but both are so story-starved that I know I won't stick around for long. That's a personal problem I have. Otherwise, GN owner John Yan talked me into playing the classic Chrono Trigger. And by "talked me into" I mean that he "yelled at me in all caps." John never uses all caps. I did indeed catch a few in Pokemon GO, and I did visit a Pokestop or two, but now I’m downloading developer Niantic’s proto-Pokemon GO, Ingress. Cyberpunk speaks more to my upbringing than Pokemon. But either-or is a wonderful way to get out and about in my town, appreciating major (and, admittedly, minor) works of art.
Rob Larkin, Staff Writer, @Rob_GN
Another weekend of no gaming (or at least close to it) for me. Last weekend was the wedding in the Netherlands. This one is a long road trip to Scotland. I don't even know if I'll have much of an internet connection either. I can pretend my GPS is a game though, because it will be the closest I'll likely get to some screen time. So I'll be playing that latest hit from Garmin, Follow the Directions. Weeee!
Matt Mirkovich, Staff Writer, @Stillmywords
I'm still plugging away at Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness. Hopefully I'll wrap up my review this weekend. I've also got Odin Sphere Leifthrasir and Zero Time Dilemma sitting on the Vita. And then I picked up Umbrella Corps on PC as kind of a cruel joke to play on myself. I've also got PC parts arriving! Which means it's time for a new build!
John Yan, Senior Hardware Editor, @TheJohnYan
Two new VR games are out that I'm pretty excited about. First up, NVIDIA is releasing their VR Funhouse that has gotten a lot of great word of mouth. While I don't have a Pascal card to play it with, I think my GeForce FTX 980 should be able to give me some solid performance. Raw Data is the other big release that I've been looking forward to for a long time. Guns, swords, and co-op play make this one that I'll be spending a lot of time on this weekend.
