What we played this weekend: Red Dead Battlefield 1 Edition
Metal Gear Solid's Snake and Mass Effect's Femshep are going on strike over higher pay. Rockstar has flipped the on switch for marketing its new Red Dead Redemption sequel/prequel. And if you'd like to get into the nitty gritty of procedural generation—from the game that's admittedly given procedural generation a bad name at the moment—then this blog looks at what No Man's Sky's code tells us.
Better late than never. What did you play this weekend?
Jeremy Duff, Senior Staff Writer, @Duff3c
All World War I, all the time, in the Duff household right now. Battlefield 1 has taken center stage in my gaming life for my pending review. I have to admit, I was feeling a little burnt out on the FPS genre prior to this (Gears doesn't count), but the change of scenery back a century has really gone a long way to freshen it up for me. I love the look and feel with the vintage setting and weapons. Plus, I have always preferred BF multiplayer to CoD multiplayer. Aside from working on this review, I also picked up WWE 2K17 last week but have yet to really dig into it. I played a few exhibition matches and really love the look and feel of this year's game; the character models are perhaps the best yet in the series. Is this the year I finally launch my own WWE Universe, with "live" shows on YouTube? Maybe. Just maybe.
Randy Kalista, Staff Writer, @randykalista
Red Dead Redemption 2 (it's official!) may be a year away, but that means there's no better time to fire up the original ballad of John Marston once again. I've made a habit of getting back in the saddle, at least at some point, every year since its 2010 launch. But in those six years since, I've only played to the credits that first time. Sure, I played Red Dead Revolver back in the day, too, but it made nowhere near the impact that Redemption did—and still does. Across all media, Redemption one of the finest Westerns ever made, and that's including Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, and, I don't know, Johnny Cash's At Folsom Prison. (Never mind. I can't speak for country music. But literature and theater, yes, I stand behind those statements.) Anyway, I'd started up a replay of Red Dead Redemption only a few weeks ago, actually, so I'm picking up from there. I've worked with the indomitable Bonnie MacFarlane, I'm getting roped in by the snake oil-selling Nigel West Dickens, and I've ridden with the hardboiled and cigar-chomping Sheriff Bartlett. It's probably my #1 game of all time, and I don't even know what #2 would be.
Aidan Kelly, Staff Writer, akelly@gamingnexus.com
The Dark Souls III community is as vibrant as ever with the introduction of The Crusaders Covenant. This player-driven covenant is the answer to all them nasty Bloodshades challenging the monopoly gank squads have had recently. Anyone want to build a SL140 character me? Before the weekend kicked off, I was playing Warhammer 40K: Eternal Crusade. It's an interesting concept and I'm very curious to see how it all fits together. I managed to get an hour in last weekend and spent it aimlessly chopping Chaos Marines down when I wasn't providing fodder for the rest of the team. Once I come to grips with Eternal Crusade it'll be all hands to battle stations to try the Destiny's Wrath of the Machine on hard mode. Although I picked up the DLC when it was released I've only had the time to do the raid once so far. This weekend I'll get to finish the Outbreak Prime quest line.
