What are we playing? Call of Speed, Need for Duty
PlayStation Trophies can now earn you money through the Sony Rewards program — 10 platinums (which is a lot) will get you a $10 PSN voucher (which, admittedly, isn't a lot). Microsoft says it will now acquire or open new game studios, pivoting its direction from last year when it shut down both Lionhead and Press Play. And computers may be able to destroy us humans at Chess and Go, but we still have the upper hand when it comes to StarCraft.
What are you playing this weekend?
Russell Archey, Staff Writer, @NeoScyther
I'll be giving Super Mario Odyssey a bit of a rest...meaning maybe a day or so. I'm still trying to get enough moons to unlock the final area. Beyond that, I'll likely be working on more of Raiden V: Director's Cut on Steam in preparation of my review. I haven't actually played a Raiden game since the Super NES and Atari Jaguar, so I'm a tad out of practice, as the first couple of stages have shown me. Let's just say that getting any high ranks to open up alternate stages might be a bit more difficult than I first thought.
Sean Colleli, Staff Writer, @scolleli
This weekend my Switch is DOOMed, as I'll be running through the "I can't believe it's a real thing" port of last year's Doom reboot. If you read my 8-page exegesis on the original PC version, you know that I really loved the game. I'm hoping the Switch port measures up. I'll also be diving into Earth Atlantis on Switch as well, which looks like a fun little bullet hell game with a cool 18th century cartography art style. I suspect between those two games my fiancee and I will also be fighting over the Switch to get in more Super Mario Odyssey time. We're both pretty in love with that game and it just gets better the more you explore it.
Kinsey Danzis, Staff Writer, kdanzis@gamingnexus.com
Unless you can call "writing a 10-page research proposal about media and the Boer War" a video game, there won't be much gaming in the books for me for the next few weeks. If I have some free time, I might keep chipping away at RiME — which, by the way, is gorgeous, and I know I'm late to the party but I love it.
I've also been dipping my toes back into Sky Factory; my partner and I got as far in as the nuclear reactor — which we have no idea how to work, but it's been built at least — before getting distracted. I'm currently neatening my chicken farm a la Geoff Ramsey and expanding my cloche system a la Jack Pattillo, while simultaneously working on a secret project involving the End and some jet packs. But who knows? I might not be able to work more on it until December.
Dave Gamble, Staff Writer, dgamble@gamingnexus.com
If there was a Heliborne addiction clinic, I would check myself in tomorrow. Instead I'm distracting myself with Mutant Football League. The review is done, but I'm not. The current challenge is to make the jump from Rookie to Normal, which always seems to be an insurmountable step. I go from winning in a shutout to losing the same way. Such is my life, even in virtual athletics.
Eric Hauter, Staff Writer, ehauter@gamingnexus.com
I've been considering starting a new feature called "What's this thing in my Steam account?" where I dig into all the random stuff I picked up in Humble Bundles and have never booted up. So, I might put on a blindfold and point at my Steam library and just pick something that way.
I've also been looking at League of War: VR Arena, which is looking fun. I'm unclear about the multiplayer, so if I determine that it is network multi, I'm going to pull the trigger. If it's just local, I might skip it for now. My wife does not want to play League of War: VR Arena with me.
And, as a last resort, there is always Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 2, which I am convinced does not really have an ending.
Randy Kalista, Staff Writer, rkalista@gamingnexus.com
God, give me the strength to stop playing Skyrim's Random Start mod over and over until the day I die. I don't know what's wrong with me. I fire up the Random Start mod, punch up a character and race, then hit the "Surprise Me" button. It throws me into some even-more-random scenario. I might end up playing just an hour of "I'm shipwrecked off the coast," or "I'm camping in the woods," or "I was beaten and left for dead." I'm okay with the vanilla start to Skyrim. But after playing it dozens of times over half a decade (happy sixth birthday this week, Skyrim!), I'm glad to try anything different. Plus, the Survival Mode makes that first hour even more "fun." Sure, Random Start could place me in a warm home, next to a fireplace, with food on the table. Or it could wake me up in the middle of a blizzard, with nothing but the clothes on my back and a couple green apples in my pocket. That's when Survival Mode and Random Start get really interesting.
I'm teaching my seven-year-old how to play chess. To warm myself up to the teaching process, I downloaded the Play Magnus chess game on the phone. Magnus, as in Magnus Carlsen, the current World Chess Champion. It's cute: you select the difficulty level by choosing Magnus's age. The game starts with Magnus at age five. That's the easiest level. I smoked that five-year-old punk. It goes up to his current age, 26. I was doing pretty good, beating him at five, five-and-a-half, six. I beat him up to seven-and-a-half. But I haven't beaten eight-year-old Magnus yet. In real life, that's when Magnus first beat his sister at chess, and it's when he started reading books on the subject. Also, my seven-year-old got me in checkmate last night, and it was only our second game. So, there's that.
Nicholas Leon, Staff Writer, nleon@gamingnexus.com
I'll be playing the multiplayer segment of Call of Duty: WWII. I finished the campaign in between my classes, and had quite the experience. Hopefully, the online portion will prove to be as fresh as it's been advertised. Zombies will probably be a thing, too. I'm hoping for Spooky, rather than Spoopy.
Kevin O’Connell, Staff Writer, koconnell@gamingnexus.com
I am deep into Need For Speed: Payback and should have the review done very soon. My impressions to this point are stuck between a really good Outrun game or a really bad Forza 2 game. Time will tell.
I am also having a good time with Forza 7's auction house. This really did make the game a whole lot easier to play. You can get three or four cars of the same category for each race instead of just one because the money saved is outstanding. You can also auction cars you've purchased from the level-ups and make money. There are a couple of glitches that Forza has not fixed, but I'll be mums the word on those. Still waiting Forzathon, but at this point, it is a little extra to a game that works without it.
I will be taking a mini vaca this Friday and Saturday as well, so I won't be gaming for a bunch of days there. Can't wait for Turkey Day either.
