What We're Playing: PlayerUnknown's Astroneer Edition
Steam and Bethesda got yelled off the stage when they tried introducing paid mods to Skyrim in 2015, but Minecraft is ready to give it another shot this spring. If you're wondering where Pokemon GO went, don't worry, the game still nets 65 million active users every month. And Forbes declares the Xbox Scorpio as the Rolls-Royce of video game consoles.
What are you playing?
Patrick Aloia, Staff Writer, @PatchesAloha
My PC finally works! So I am going to dive heavy into Overwatch. But I also think I'm going to need to explore more games again with this new console. I really want to play some Quadrilateral Cowboy since I feel newly empowered by performing advanced LEGOs on my PC (I know coding is wildly different/more difficult). Also Shower With Your Dad Simulator 2015: Do You Still Shower With Your Dad is unavailable on Mac for some reason, so I'm excited to crack that open. Also I'm playing For Honor co-op with my brother on the Xbox One, if I have time.
Russell Archey, Staff Writer, @NeoScyther
I'll be spending a good chunk of the weekend playing Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap for my upcoming review. Despite having a Sega Master System for a while now, I've never played this entry in the series. Needless to say, I'm constantly going back and forth between the new and retro graphics because I'm a sucker for 8-bit games.
Sean Colleli, Staff Writer, @scolleli
I've skipped WAYP? the past couple of weeks because it would basically just be "Zelda, Zelda, Zelda," so this week I'm doing Zelda detox with Turok 2 Remastered and No Man's Sky Path Finder Update. Turok 2 is fascinating, especially when viewed as Iguana Entertainment's 1998 answer to GoldenEye 007. It's also delightfully gory and unashamedly cornball. The Path Finder update for No Man's Sky adds a lot more meat, but unfortunately most of it is still just busywork. It takes a lot of grind to get to the good stuff, especially considering the in-game economy is still borked beyond imagination and there's still no satisfying endgame. I shouldn't have to save and update scum a game to have a good time with it. No Man's Sky is more fun to play than ever, but in my estimate it's still only 40 percent of a full game.
Kinsey Danzis, Staff Writer, kdanzis@gamingnexus.com
It's Overwatch time again for me; I'm looking forward to grabbing as many of the new skins and intros for my mains as I can. I'm a little iffy about this new update (first of all, what's up with that Widowmaker skin, and second of all, why have a game mode where players gun down a bunch of omnics if Blizzard wants to paint omnics as an oppressed group?) but I'm going to take it with a grain of salt and play it anyway. Hype about the new Mercy skin. But that being said, it's Spring Sale time on Xbox, and you better believe I have a shopping list. In the week(s) to come, expect me to be talking about some combination of these games: Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris, which I have on PC, but it's corrupted, Astroneer, Just Cause 3, Mirror's Edge Catalyst, and GTA V. Yes, I really am that slow.
Charles Husemann, Editor-in-Chief, @chusemann
I finally picked up the Horizons expansion pack for Elite Dangerous, so I'm planning on spending the weekend exploring planetary surfaces and tracking down materials so the engineers can upgrade my current fleet of ships. Outside of that, I'm hoping to wrap up the demo of Dishonored 2 and decide if I want to purchase the full game. I left a trail of blood through the first level-and-a-half, and, while that's fun, I feel like the game is silently judging me for not using all of the stealth mechanics.
Randy Kalista, Staff Writer, @randykalista
I snagged the Elite Dangerous: Horizons season pass just in time for the launch of "The Commanders" update. The new camera suite is the biggest seller for me, but John will be the first of us to get into a big huge Anaconda ship and let us multicrew that bad boy. Hopefully I'll put away the screenshot button while I'm manning the gunnery station. No promises, though. LEGO City Undercover is the new couch co-op game for the kiddo and me. There's a LEGO City Undercover movie on Netflix we watched, and it's pretty cute. Having a more open world approach should keep me entertained, while my seven-year-old will enjoy putting the bad guys behind bars. I hope. She has a disconcerting level of empathy for bad guys, wondering what got them to behave badly in the first place.
Aidan Kelly, Staff Writer, akelly@gamingnexus.com
This weekend is a long weekend in Ireland; Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, all for gaming. For the weekend I'll be squadding up with my regulars for some PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. It's a tense battle royale on an 8 x 8 km island with 99 other players. Totaling 100 players per round, players must scavenge for weapons, kills, and survival. I picked up Dark Souls III and its respective season pass for PC recently and hope to tear a chunk out of the DLC during the weekend. A Str/Fth build could provide some lean dividends and massive banter. Saying that Overwatch is still dominating my game time—even though the latest character to drop was arguably a failure, unable to hard counter, and lacking the consistent DPS to make her a deterrence.
Rob Larkin, Staff Writer, @Rob_GN
I've gotten sucked back into Destiny a bit. Stayed away for months because of Bungie's broken promises about vault space. But with old raids at new difficulty with increased loot, my clan dragged me back. I'm also finishing up The Last of Us multiplayer for my final remaining trophies to platinum. Just play a game or two a day to whittle it down. I'd like to start something new but I'm heading to Devon and Cornwall [England] on Sunday and through most of next week on a scone-stravaganza so it's not time time crack open something new only to have to step away from it for days. So maybe that's for next weekend.
Nicholas Leon, Staff Writer, nleon@gamingnexus.com
I'll be flying through as much Dragon Quest VIII as possible. Pun intended. I'll also be drooling over the latest Dragon Quest XI info. Seriously, this franchise has its hooks in me. Did you know that there will be three graphical options for the game? One's a hip modern version, the other is an old school PS2-looking style, and the third is like an 8-bit. It's amazing. While doing that, I'll also be wishing that I could play more of The Witcher 3 (I'm away from my console at the moment). I really need to finish the DLC for that title, that way I can truly feel done with the game.
