So, what are you playing?
[TERA]
Billy Mitchell, the Guinness World Records holder for the highest score in Donkey Kong, has been stripped of all his records for cheating; Mitchell plans to prove the validity of his high scores. Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice nearly swept the 2018 British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards. And Rampage is now the highest-rated video game movie on Rotten Tomatoes—at 50%.
So, what are you playing?
Russell Archey
I'll be splitting my time between a couple of games on the Switch. With Manticore: Galaxy on Fire coming out this week (should be out by the time this gets posted), I'm trying to move through it as fast as I can, but I'm also learning that trying to take space pirates head on as they fire a barrage of bullets at you isn't really the best way to go about things. When I need a break from that, I've been firing up Toki Tori and giving my brain a good workout. Sometimes you just need to make the shift from a difficult dogfighting game set in space to a puzzle game that features a chicken collecting eggs.
Sean Colleli
I'm chugging along on the BioShock Collection, almost to the halfway point with the big twist. My fiancee has guessed a few things so far but hasn't sussed out the big turnabout yet, so I'm curious to see her reaction. I'll also try to get more The Last of Us Remastered in, and maybe wrap up Far Cry Primal as well.
Kinsey Danzis
My fiancee and I just found a free Wii Balance Board outside a GameStop—no lie. The people there said they weren't allowed to take the return, and the dude that brought it in got upset because he didn't want to lug it home—thus, he left it outside with a sign that said "FREE" without the employees knowing. Cue the two of us arriving a couple of hours later, finding the board, asking the employees about it, taking it home, and cleaning it up. Sure enough, it turns on, so I'm waiting on a copy of Wii Fit to ship in so I can test it for real. I've been reliving my late childhood with the Wii, let me tell you.
I also finally invested in a copy of Skyrim for Nintendo Switch, regardless of the fact that I haven't finished my current (but far from first) Xbox One playthrough. I've lost track of the amount of times I've played that game. It remains, to this day, my favorite game of all time, and I will dump as much money in Todd Howard's lap as it takes to get my fix.
Dave Gamble
This week seems to be all about games that cause me pain. I'll play Gun Club VR for as long as I can, but I get into the action so much that I end up in all kinds of twisted positions, especially now that I've worked my way up to the more difficult levels where targets pop up in a much broader range than the easier levels. This game is so well made that it has ruined me for the vast amount of poorly implemented shooting mechanics to be had in lesser games.
Once I inevitably get to a point where I need to sit down, I wiggle myself into my racing rig for some laps with either iRacing or Project Cars 2, depending on whether I want a sublimely superb solo session or a little bit less superb session racing against what has become a field of pretty darn good AI opponents. The force feedback from the beefy Fanatec wheel causes a sharp ache in my shoulders after too much intensive driving, so racing is also subject to how long I can bear to do it.
Once everything aches, I'll fall back to some not-very-relaxing but also not-very-physical helicopter flying in DCS, where I have created a mission that allows me to depart from the fantail of some type of destroyer in my trusty UH-1 Huey and fly alongside an aircraft carrier that is in the process of launching a couple of flights of F-14s. A group of landing F-18s is also approaching from the south. While all of this is going on, my home ship is launching missiles at some shore targets and a pair of incoming attack planes. It's all very frenetic and invigorating, although landing back on the rising and falling deck of the destroyer is, more often than I'd like or will admit to, fatal for me and my co-pilot. When that gets too familiar, I exit the mission to do the same thing, but at night. In that mode, I seldom die trying to land, mostly because I don't live long enough to even try. Flying at night is crazy hard to do. Landing at night is simply another form of suicide.
Eric Hauter
I have been on a Tera binge the last couple of weeks, trying without success to prevent my MMORPG addiction from once again overtaking my life. Now I am forced to stay up for a couple of hours every night after my wife goes to bed, running dungeons and grinding for gear. I'm sad. It's glorious.
I have also been playing a few games on Switch for review, Layers of Fear and Brakes are for Losers. These two games could not be more different from each other, but I am enjoying them each for what they are. It's nice to take my Switch for a spin. I haven't really messed with it since the holidays, so it feels good to give it a workout.
Randy Kalista
This week I'm finally writing my own Endless Legend. My underground-loving people's religion is pretty much "No Gods or Kings, Only Rocks." Their cities look like carved out caverns with the mountain peeled away. My snow-shod marines do the heavy lifting when it comes to neighborly relations, but my hunger for gold drives most of narrative. I've spread too thin, the winters are unpredictably long, and I have the sneaking suspicion that the game isn't telling me something.
And God of War. How Kratos has gone from an angry-guy meme generator to the most thoughtful examination of fatherhood since The Last of Us is a minor miracle. Also, every skull he splits with his axe feels good, every treasure chest he bashes open with his fists feels good, and every bend in the map builds a wonderful Norse mythology that, up until now, was only a vague pantheon of easily forgettable fables.
Nicholas Leon
Well, since I finished my three Brothers in Arms games (which are all mostly great), I will probably go back to Battlefield 1. I just finished my thesis, and I'm honestly too tired for anything else. But hey, Shadow of the Colossus is on sale on Amazon, so I might pick that up if I'm in the mood for an amazing time.
Kevin O’Connell
This has been a slow gaming week due to my birthday and a hospital visit for my mother-in-law, but...I persevered nonetheless.
I have been playing a rather interesting game called Ys Origin for my next review and I can say it is a rather warmhearted dungeon crawler. So far, the game has a beautiful story—albeit a simple one—and has had no oddities. I am looking forward to another week of getting further into this one. More later in the review.
Titan Quest will probably consume the rest of my time this week (heck the next three months or so too) and I can say it is a nostalgic romp. I can say I have not played the PC version in years and the Xbox version is sooo much more smooth. I fired up the original and though the mouse made for easier targeting, the gameplay was choppier, glitchy, and felt more like an average app then a full-on PC game. Might be the newer operating system and the like, but that is what I have, so it is wonderful to have the Xbox version playing velvety smooth.
John Yan
It's Skyrim VR and probably only Skyrim VR this weekend. I'm going to try to do a few more things before I shore up my review and be done with that. I won't stop playing, but I'll stop messing around and get into the meat and potatoes of the game, like doing the Dark Brotherhood quest and joining the College of Winterhold.
Since it's my son's birthday party this weekend, I'm tasked with demoing the VR to a few kids, so I'll get to see if they prefer the HTC Vive or the Samsung Odyssey.
