What we're playing this weekend: Titanfall 2 Bound Edition
NeoGAFer datamines No Man's Sky, finds possible unicycle/hoverboard-riding protagonist. August 31 is the beta-testing Battlefield 1 day you've been waiting for. Although the final piece of Fallout 4 DLC—Nuka-World—pops some caps the day before, on August 30.
What are you playing this weekend?
Russell Archey, Staff Writer, @NeoScyther
I've been working through my Steam queue as of late, which means a lot of Ys VI: Ark of Napishtim. I've only played a couple of the Ys games. The two I've really enjoyed are Ys VI and Ys Origins, the latter of which I got stuck at the final boss, so I started up VI. It's a fun game, if you don't mind constantly grinding. Every time you beat a boss, get ready for a grind session to level up your swords, buy better armor, and hope that you can make a dent in the enemies in the next area of the game.
Sean Colleli, Staff Writer, @scolleli
No Man's Sky is still refusing to work properly on my far-above-minimum-spec PC, so I think I'll go back to playing AM2R, which just had a minor bugfix update despite Nintendo trying to keep it off the web. I haven't run into any problems with AM2R personally—so hey, at least the free fanmade game works. I'll also keep playing the first episode of Telltale's Batman game in preparation for my review. Hopefully the bugs are getting ironed out of that one too, but it does make me wonder if major PC releases in the future will ever be remotely playable at launch anymore.
Chapel Collins, Staff Writer, @ChapelCollins
I've hooked up my (old, crappy) laptop to my huge TV, and after scouring the Oblivion Nexus for mods that might enable my computer to wheeze its way through it, I'm playing Oblivion for the millionth time, but for the first time on PC. As a console plebeian, I've never known the wonders mods can work with games you know so well you could play blindfolded. But by and large, it really does feel like a new-ish game, even after all these years. I'm also trying to learn how to play Total War: Shogun 2. I can play a mean Medieval II: Total War, but I'm always so intimidated by learning a new Total War game that I often find myself returning to what I know rather than trying to expand. After doing lots of YouTube research, I think I may finally be brave enough to try it. Maybe.
Jeremy Duff, Senior Staff Writer, @Duff3c
I am not sure I will get to do a lot of gaming this weekend. I'll be traveling a bit to visit some friends out of time. My hope is to squeeze in some time to wrap up the first episode of Telltale Games' Batman and then dive into a game that shall remain nameless until the embargo lifts next week. Let's just say that GN writer Matt Mirkovich and I will be working together to take down some big problems over the course of the next week.
Charles Husemann, Editor-in-Chief, @chusemann
This weekend will be an open beta/technical test weekend for me. I dig into the Paragon open beta as well as the Titanfall 2 technical test. I've had my eye on Paragon for a while as the videos and streams of the game have looked great. I'm interested to see how well the Epic MOBA plays and if it can make me a MOBA fan.
As for Titanfall 2, I wish this was a demo of the single-player campaign rather than a beta of the multiplayer. The multiplayer portion of the first game was solid and I'm more interested in what Respawn is doing with the single-player side. Either way, I'm always up for giant robots shooting each other.
And of course I'll be playing a lot of MechWarrior Online this weekend as I continue to grind up my Marauders.
Randy Kalista, Staff Writer, @randykalista
I don't care, I'm still free, you can't take No Man's Sky from me. [Insert microphone emoji.] That's where you'll find me this weekend, somewhere out in the black, planet hopping and jump driving. I'm scanning, renaming, and uploading anything and everything, no matter how miniscule the difference. And, as I do with every openworld games at some point, I'm playing the Red Dead Redemption soundtrack in the background.
My dance-loving six-year-old is hitting up Bound. I'll ride shotgun on this one. Bound is a rewind through one woman's diary, as she plies and pirouettes through the brazen metaphors of her past. It looks like Anna Pavlova in The Lawnmower Man.
Aidan Kelly, Staff Writer, akelly@gamingnexus.com
Earlier in the week, I finished my first play through of The Witcher 3 and immediately purchased a season pass. I was so worried that the DLC would be unable to deliver the same experience that the main game does. My worries were put to rest at the bottom of a scuttled ship headed for Ofieri lands. Other than The Witcher 3, I'll be sleeping and reading Sword of Destiny and prowling the r/witcher subreddit.
Rob Larkin, Staff Writer, @Rob_GN
It's Iron Banana a week early, so I'll be playing some Destiny PvP. Also, still working through The Witcher 3. As I always do with open world games, I play with a constant sense of guilt that I'm not following the main storyline as quickly as I should be. I just don't want to miss all the side quests. I really wish some of these open world games would do a little better of a job of balancing the two. They play up the main story as something important that, by any realistic scenario, should motivate the main character to take a singular, focused determination to see it through. But developers provide endless distractions along the way. The solution: motivate the player through the main story but artificially create gaps where you must wait for it to progress to stomp along on the side. For example, I'm about to board a boat to the islands to proceed in my main quest; make the boat not be able to depart for two weeks, waiting on some other cargo or a stormy season to break. That doesn't disrupt the main quest, but gives me ample time in the game to clean up quests on the side. Instead, I have to play out that little narrative in my own head to stave off the guilt stemming from my frolicking about, monster slaying, when I should be diving deeper into helping out my missing adopted daughter. I guess you can also add that I will be playing TitanFall 2 as well this weekend, as it was just announced the Technical test will be starting August 19.
John Yan, Senior Hardware Editor, @TheJohnYan
I'm going to take a deep dive into Elite: Dangerous this weekend. It looks like I got it all setup to work with the HTC Vive, so this should be a fun time flying around in space. I'll also be playing some Pool Nation VR and Hover Junkers with some friends. But I think Elite: Dangerous will take up most of my time.
