What we're playing
posted:
5/15/2020 4:00:00 PM
More On:
What we're playing
We're not halfway through the year yet, but Vulture already has a list of the best video games (so far). GameSpot reminisces on some of the dumbest stuff they've ever done as gamers. And Critical Hit has put together a guide to all the video game digital events headed our way.
So, what are you playing?
Josh Bennett
I've been a bit busy battling some respiratory infection over the last few weeks. No, it's not COVID (at least I don't think it was). It seemed to be mostly sinus with migraine level headache—which is the bane of my existence. Naturally, my What We're Playing remains mostly unchanged. Mostly.
I finished the beta of Mars Horizon on the 4th, and will be putting some comments together to share with everyone soon. I am still considering Fallout 76 or No Man's Sky as my next venture, but I noticed that I added the The Nathan Drake Collection (Uncharted 1-3) as well as Uncharted 4 to my library over the last month and a half. With PlayStation's and Naughty Dog's quarantine-stay-home incentives, I might play those, as I missed that series when it released. Several people I know have sworn they are amazing.
With Naughty Dog's recent announcement of The Last of Us Part 2's June release date—I might just go full on Naughty Dog fanboy—I'll start with checking out Uncharted 1-4, replay The Last of Us, and jump right into The Last of Us Part 2.
It is a good time to be a gamer, even if the world is a bit more chaotic than usual.
I've been a bit busy battling some respiratory infection over the last few weeks. No, it's not COVID (at least I don't think it was). It seemed to be mostly sinus with migraine level headache—which is the bane of my existence. Naturally, my What We're Playing remains mostly unchanged. Mostly.
I finished the beta of Mars Horizon on the 4th, and will be putting some comments together to share with everyone soon. I am still considering Fallout 76 or No Man's Sky as my next venture, but I noticed that I added the The Nathan Drake Collection (Uncharted 1-3) as well as Uncharted 4 to my library over the last month and a half. With PlayStation's and Naughty Dog's quarantine-stay-home incentives, I might play those, as I missed that series when it released. Several people I know have sworn they are amazing.
With Naughty Dog's recent announcement of The Last of Us Part 2's June release date—I might just go full on Naughty Dog fanboy—I'll start with checking out Uncharted 1-4, replay The Last of Us, and jump right into The Last of Us Part 2.
It is a good time to be a gamer, even if the world is a bit more chaotic than usual.
Sean Colleli
The recent GOG sale got me to pick up a hefty haul of classic games for a mere $17.50, including the entire Deus Ex series. I’m a huge fan of the franchise so I had all of them already in one form or another, including the latest entry, Mankind Divided. I may have bought it day one at full price, but getting it DRM-free with all DLC for less than the cost of a Chipotle burrito was too good to pass up. So, having never finished it in 2016, I dove back in. It’s already a great game, in Warren Spector’s tradition of the RPG that’s a city block wide but several miles deep. Prague isn’t that big but nearly every room has a story to tell, the mechanics are extremely well-polished, and even four years later it’s a gorgeous scramble of Eastern European elegance and meandering cyberpunk rot. It’s also marginally better than when I played it at launch, thanks to some much needed patching and fine tuning. Mankind Divided is one of those games that frustratingly assumes you beat the previous game on hard/expert, so on normal difficulty, everything from the hacking to the leveling to the combat is just slightly more difficult or obtuse than it needs to be. Still I can’t put it down, so maybe 2020 is the year I beat this slightly short but incredibly dense RPG.
Eric Hauter
I've been playing a couple of new PS VR releases. The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners is an amazingly immersive tour of New Orleans, sending the player into various regions of the Big Easy to soak in the culture, architecture, and general atmosphere of America's most interesting city. Over the course of the game, players can expect to see such iconic sights as the French Quarter, the Garden District, and Jackson Square. Of course, the entire time, the undead are attempting to eat your organs, but still, Saints and Sinners is a nice trip to a beautiful city.
Pixel Ripped 1995 offers a trip of another kind, a time-machine journey back to the mid-'90s. Players will have the opportunity to engage in some amazingly realistic representations of the video games of this forgotten age, played on simulated period televisions and handheld systems. Pixel Ripped nails the look and feel of '90s video games, and with the added bonus of VR, sometimes the games's sprites come spilling out of the TV and into the room you are occupying. Super fun!
Pixel Ripped 1995 offers a trip of another kind, a time-machine journey back to the mid-'90s. Players will have the opportunity to engage in some amazingly realistic representations of the video games of this forgotten age, played on simulated period televisions and handheld systems. Pixel Ripped nails the look and feel of '90s video games, and with the added bonus of VR, sometimes the games's sprites come spilling out of the TV and into the room you are occupying. Super fun!
Randy Kalista
I'd never thought of Rimworld as a post-apocalyptic simulator, per se, but it might as well be. I'm hobbling together a place to live from corrugated metal and clearcut trees; I've got a woodfired stove to cook up the catch of the day, the plate garnished with freshly harvested wildberries; and one of my dudes might have a gun, but the second guy only has a knife, and the third has nothing—not even a will to fight. Safety is not guaranteed in Rimworld. I'd send John out to hunt, but he's a prima donna that can't be bothered to haul back his kill, let alone clean up after he eats. Randy is a neat freak that sweeps everything, even dusting off raw materials sitting in storage. And Eric is the only guy that can get anything done, if only he'd quit talking about his mortifying fear of mechanoids. There he goes, playing another round of horseshoes to relax. Can't blame him, though. If there was only one outdoor activity left in the world and it was horseshoes, I wouldn't even be mad. And now you know what my family reunions are like.
I'd never thought of Rimworld as a post-apocalyptic simulator, per se, but it might as well be. I'm hobbling together a place to live from corrugated metal and clearcut trees; I've got a woodfired stove to cook up the catch of the day, the plate garnished with freshly harvested wildberries; and one of my dudes might have a gun, but the second guy only has a knife, and the third has nothing—not even a will to fight. Safety is not guaranteed in Rimworld. I'd send John out to hunt, but he's a prima donna that can't be bothered to haul back his kill, let alone clean up after he eats. Randy is a neat freak that sweeps everything, even dusting off raw materials sitting in storage. And Eric is the only guy that can get anything done, if only he'd quit talking about his mortifying fear of mechanoids. There he goes, playing another round of horseshoes to relax. Can't blame him, though. If there was only one outdoor activity left in the world and it was horseshoes, I wouldn't even be mad. And now you know what my family reunions are like.
John Yan
I've had some issue with my Samsung Odyssey+ headset that I've finally fixed. The audio was sporadically coming out of the left headphone and I found out that the main cable would rub on the audio cable near it and sometimes detach the wire. Opening it up and fixing it, I am finally able to get stereo sound from the headset so I'm going to try and go back into some VR Elite Dangerous to see how the latest updates are. I'm really just going to test fly my Sidewinder around and get used to the HOTAS again.
Other than that, I'll probably dive into some retro gaming on my NVIDIA Shield. Maybe play some old arcade games just for the fun of it.
Other than that, I'll probably dive into some retro gaming on my NVIDIA Shield. Maybe play some old arcade games just for the fun of it.
