So, what are you playing?
These are some of the perks and drawbacks of famous YouTubers making PewDiePie amounts of money. Amazon is making it easier for game developers to create online tournaments and award prizes to the winners. And Waypoint looks at the way guns and violence are portrayed in our favorite hobby, examining in which ways we should be critical of their depiction.
So, what are you playing?
Sean Colleli
I might actually be picking up a PS4 this weekend, but the remainder will be spent on Wedding Planning: The Movie: The Game. I'm getting past the tutorial now and I can tell you this game is the Dark Souls of event planning sims. I figured it would just be a walking simulator what with the walking down the aisle thing, but I'm starting to feel like Steven Martin in Father of the Bride. This thing has brutal time management elements, and figuring out the budget is harder than any orbital dynamics challenge in Kerbal Space Program. The craziest part is you have to play it in co-op, but your skill at the game depends almost entirely on how well you communicate and work with your partner. Stay tuned for my full review.
Kinsey Danzis
Earlier this week I was at a bit of a standstill until I could finally elbow my way into the Sea of Thieves servers for my review. In the meantime, I'm polishing up my pirate persona and trying to settle on the perfect swashbuckling name and voice. I'm stuck doing other work, but I usually do it while my fiancee plays games in the background. I just finished The Turing Test, which she is now enjoying (both of us being avid Portal/Portal 2 players once upon a time) and she peppers in some Skyrim here and there, so it's basically like I'm playing. Right?
Dave Gamble
This has been one of those weeks that fails to coalesce around any single game, but I am spending more time than I would like with the "if you die, you start over" The Wizards VR. My problem isn't learning or remembering the hand-gesture spells, it's more that my aim is worse than my conjuring, and my conjuring suffers from a lack of consistency. Everyone looks funny while playing in VR, but they (well, I) look absolutely hysterical flailing their (my) hands around while a very noticeable nothing happens in game. The innovative swearing is really just a thick layer of icing on that unappealing cake. So yeah, the review on that one might be a day or two late if I want to be able to report on anything after the second part of level one.
I sought to take my mind off of my ignominious outing as a squib by going back to something I know, which is, of course, DCS. It seemed like a good idea, but the implementation may have been lacking. While it seemed like a good idea to load up the F-5E Tiger II with some Mk-82 SnakeEye bombs and do a low-altitude attack run against some soft targets, misloading with regular Mk-82 bombs, which differ from the SnakeEyes in that they travel right along underneath the airplane as they drop, caused a self-immolation even more humbling than having failed at first-year magic. It was just insult to injury to find that the targets had emerged unscathed.
Eric Hauter
I got started on Ni No Kuni II a bit late, but got the review ready for release day. I had been zeroed in on getting to end credits on that game so I could give it a fair shake. Spoiler Alert: I've been throwing around proclamations like "This is the best JRPG I have played since Final Fantasy IX." So yeah, I dig it.
I have also been spending some time trying to ramp up to Surviving Mars. My initial impression of, "Whoa, this is complicated," is giving way to, "I am kind of starting to understand this," which is a good sign. Surviving Mars runs deep, y'all.
Randy Kalista
Wooo, just wrapped Assassin's Creed Origins on an 80-hour completionist runthrough. Remind me never to go that far down the rabbit hole again. But it's opened up The Hidden Ones DLC for me to head straight into. The newly opened Sinai Peninsula is for high-level characters only. The scenery is dry but mountainous, the corridors are narrow and sometimes trickier to climb, while the bad guys are leveled up and eliminating the Brotherhood with extreme prejudice. The geography is so tight that I can't even whistle for my mount in most areas. Hi, camel. How'd you even get up here on top of Mount Sinai or whatever? Otherwise, The Hidden Ones does exactly what it needs to by providing a steady trickle of better gear and weaponry. Every time I think that Bayek can't look any more dope than he already does, then I get some Tutankhamun armor, or a winged bow, or now he's riding a black "cursed camel." If this DLC needed a high-concept name, they could've called it Assassin's Creed Dolly Dress-Up Time.
This just in: I fall sleep at night and wake up in the morning thinking of nothing but Sea of Thieves.
Rob Larkin
The key to my weekend is whether I can get around to installing my new SSD that will double the storage space on my PC. If that happens, the VR shenanigans on the Vive will greatly increase. There’s quite a few games in my Steam library I want to sample, like Thirst and Space Pirate Trainer but I do not want to juggle all the overhead of managing drive space to do it. If I don’t install the new drive, then I’ll probably stay in console mode, polish off a few platinums like for Horizon Zero Dawn and Fallout 4. And hopefully be working on an upcoming review of which I will not name here.
Kevin O’Connell
I have bought Plants vs. Zombies 2 for some fun co-op with my son. I had played it before and thought it a bit on the "kiddie" side, but as a co-op game, we were having a fun time with it. Can honestly say I am annoyed with their form of "loot crate" where coins buy items not necessarily intended for the character you are using. Best way I can describe the game is the XBox game Kameo mixed with some methamphetamine. Definitely worth playing, but not quite at the current $20 price tag.
I also bought NBA 2K17 over the weekend and am trying to get my team setup for a long season run. So far, the load times are lousy and the controls are meh, but the graphics are very good and some of the secondary things—like free throws—are better than expected.
So... we'll see if 2K17 is a good basketball sim, or if I should forget it for another three or so years.
My brother Scott will be coming into town next week, so it looks like I will be gearing back up for South Park: The Fractured But Whole. Still not as excited as the last one, but looking forward to it.
Just a quick question: How bad of a dumpster fire is your NCAA bracket? Mine is proverbial toast.
