So, what are you playing?

by: Randy - posted: 9/18/2020 6:42:00 PM

Sean Colleli

I've got Serious Sam 4: Planet Badass in hand so I'll be going hard at that for my review. It's currently under embargo so all I can say is that it takes place on a planet and it is, in fact, badass. When I can climb out of the herds of Kleers and Werebulls I might find time to work on the shared Stardew Valley farm my wife and I are running. We aren't married in-game yet—that takes an awful lot of money and home expansion—so for now I'm relegated to a sad, tiny shack on the property. All the more reason to get that turnip crop in the ground that I spend my last dollar on.

Now that I have Mario 64 DS pretty well established on my home theater PC, I might continue my trek into the scurrilous world of emulation by getting Mario Sunshine and Mario Galaxy running in HD. Dolphin is a truly beautiful thing.

Eric Hauter

While I've been super busy at my day job, I've been resisting my typical five-games-at-a-time review schedule. In the meantime, I've been resorting to video game comfort food.

I recently restarted The Unfinished Swan on my Vita - rescued from the top drawer of my dresser. I don't know why I've left The Unfinished Swan unfinished - it is an absolutely delightful game. Throwing paint in all directions and exploring storybook castles? Totally what I need right now.

I've also been poking at Spiritfarer on Stadia, which is also a nice, cozy game. I like the cute little characters, and the graphics are super nice looking in 4K HDR. I've only just started the game, but I can see that it is something that I could easily zone out and lose hours to.

I've also been regularly dipping into Marvel's Avengers endgame. Yes, it is super samey, but I'm having a good time jumping around as Hulk and smashing up stuff with my son whizzing above my head as Iron Man. My Hulk is slowly approaching the soft level cap on PS4, and my Black Widow isn't far behind on Stadia. It makes me wish they were on the same system, or that there was cross-progression. But you can't win them all.

Randy Kalista

See, when I was a young'un, there was time to play all the big games coming out. They were few and far between. Today, you'd be hard pressed to keep up with any one genre, let alone all the triple-A's (and hella good B's) entering the gaming space every single week. I mean, four weeks ago, Microsoft Flight Simulator launched and that was all I could think about. Three weeks ago, the makers of No Man's Sky launched their next game and I didn't have a single minute to check it out. Two weeks ago, Crusader Kings III launched and I was a Viking legend. Last week, Star Renegades launched and I'm still desperate to carve out the time. This week I'm hoping Medieval Dynasty shows up somewhere easy for me to pick up. Great! Railway Empire is free on Epic right now. And Xbox Game Pass on PC has no chill. I started giving them $5 a month one year ago, and they've basically given me a new video game to play every day of the workweek ever since. How will I ever?

Video games. This way lies madness.

John Yan

With the beta for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War out this weekend, I think I'll pop in for a few round of deathmatch and get pummeled because it's been so long since I played a Call of Duty game on a console. Should be fun to get back into that world again. I love the Black Ops series.

I'm looking at my library of VR games and I think I'll try some Pavlov VR. It's a Counter-Strike like game with a pretty good modding community. The gunplay I hear is top notch and since I'll be in a shooting mood with Call of Duty, Pavlov VR should continue that but give me some exercise as it forces me to move around.

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