What We Played #212: Rocket League, Street Fighter & Batman

As another week draws to a close, you can count on another edition of What We Played, the weekly piece where we tell you all about what the staff here at TSA have been up to. I mean… we’ll tell you what video games we’ve been playing. It’s best if you don’t know what goes on outside of that.

We’ll start with the birthday boy this week, Dom! He might be getting on a bit, but it was a Mad Catz TE2 fightstick and not a nice new walking stick that he got as a gift, so he’s been testing it out with Ultra Street Fighter IV and Injustice, and will soon be trying it out with Guilty Gear Xrd Sign. He’s also been playing Disgaea 4 and One Piece Unlimited World Red on Vita, the latter of which he says translates flawlessly on to a bigger screen via PlayStation TV. 

Speaking of One Piece, he’s also been playing Pirate Warriors on PS3, and he started the TV show from scratch. Finally, a bit more Lego Jurassic World and Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4, and he also lent us his first impressions from Rory McIlroy PGA Tour, as we head toward a review.

Next is Tuffcub, who has continued playing Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag. He’s still enjoying it but he did stumble across a nasty bug involving eagle vision. TC is actually in Hawaii right now, and the long plane ride over there made for the perfect time to play some Vita games. He played Geometry Wars 3, which he says is fabulous, and season two of The Walking Dead, which suffers from framerate issues on Vita which make the combat very difficult.

Stefan managed to gather 8 people to play Rocket League last weekend, which he said was quite awesome. He also played and reviewed F1 2015, which he says isn’t perfect but does give Codemasters a good platform to build off. Next he spent some time with God of War 3 Remastered, played as cat and unicorn in Trials Fusion Awesome Level MAX, both for TSA articles, before dabbling with Destiny, Call of Duty: Ghost’s Extinction mode and more Fallout Shelter maintenance.

Kris continued his run through Batman: Arkham Knight, with only the Riddler trophies standing in his way, but that’s not all that he’s has been up to:

I also played a few things at a fun indie showcase and party called Games by the Sea, which is a spin off from the Develop conference in Brighton. Played Starwhal, which has been out for a while but is completely bonkers fun and a great game for a party, and returned to Gang Beasts after I saw it for the first time at the same event last year. It’s still as much fun, and I think it might be the best fighting game for a party, even better than Smash Bros. And Porcunipine as well, which reminds me of Towerfall in a lot of ways.

Next up is Aran, who played a variety of cool games this week, starting with The Witcher 3, which he’s now completely and utterly finished, including all side quests and contracts. Beyond that, he played and finished a season in Rocket League where he a won the championship, and he’s in the middle of reviewing a game called Tembo The Badass Elephant.

Next was a game called The Moon Sliver, which had him exploring an abandoned island while trying to work out the plot on his own. He said it managed to create “a creepy vibe and gave me a sense of unease.” Finally he played a small game titled Greyfox, which he described as an RPG lite that led him to face several moral conundrums.

Miguel kept up with Grand Theft Auto Online this week, doing a heist with friends here and there. He also continued his way through Zero Escape: Virtues Last Reward, which he thinks he’s about half way through now.

We’ve got a new arrival on WWP this week: Dave. You might know him from his days over at OneHitPixel, but he’s now joined the staff here at TSA. This week he played a bit of Rocket League, spent hours wishing he could beat the final boss in Puzzle & Dragons Z, and went through a few dungeons in Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, which he says is superb. Here’s what else Dave has been up to:

My weekend was spent losing my marbles playing Cast of the Seven Godsends, a game I found had the potential to be a great Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts clone, but ultimately had significant performance issues and a severe lack of polish.

While I hadn’t started Batman: Arkham Knight until last week, I’m progressing at a brisk pace. For me, it’s so far proving not to be the best in the series, as Arkham Asylum’s comic-book structure was more appealing, but it isn’t awful by any means! The Batmobile however is not a great addition in my eyes.

Finally we have Mark, who has nothing left to do in Arkham Knight but collect Riddler trophies, but he says he’s actually enjoying it. He also started playing F1 2015 and he’s been loving cruising around Monaco and Canada. He has had issues with qualifying and other cars messing up his laps, but outside of that he seems very happy with it.

As for me, I played some Enslaved on PC but ran into a nasty bug with the cinematics that wouldn’t let me progress past the fifth mission. From there I then went and played through Wolfenstein: The Old Blood, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I also spent a few minutes on Rust and I’ve queued up Alan Wake: American Nightmare and Street Fighter IV to be my next games on PC.

There’s another week in the books. Head to the comments and let us know what you’ve been playing, and be sure to give Dave a warm welcome and wish Dom a very happy 54th birthday.