It was barely a minute after Dom sent out the weekly call for What We Played that I popped up and derailed the process. “I’ve got a working theory,” I said. “All years ending in 7 are invariably fantastic for video games.”
Think about it, though. 2017 has been simply fantastic so far, 2007 had the likes of The Orange Box, Halo 3, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Uncharted, Mass Effect, Skate, Bioshock, and Super Mario Galaxy, 1997 had Goldeneye, Final Fantasy VII, Oddworld, Gran Turismo, while 1987 heralded the start of Zelda (outside of Japan), Metal Gear, Maniac Mansion, Mega Man.
Releases from these years have been embedded in my memory and had long lasting legacies in the industry, with a regularity that I don’t think other decade sequences can match.
Anyway, for sins, I’m now having to do What We Played in Dom’s stead. So, this past week, I played Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (obviously), even getting in some multiplayer bouts while on a plane. There was a fair bit of Watch Dogs 2 and Overwatch over the weekend, and I reviewed Introversion’s Scanner Sombre, the VR puzzling of Symphony of the Machine. This week also saw previews for Tekken 7, the new New Nintendo 2DS XL, and I will soon regale you of my time spent with Deck 13’s The Surge, which is shaping up very nicely.
Steve was the first to get us back on track, saying that he enjoyed playing World to the West for an upcoming review, but did not like Super Rude Bear, which he’s also reviewing. There was a platinum trophy for Severed on Vita, and he also rattled through the trophies of Type Rider, which he nabbed from PS Plus.
Dave, who correctly said “Yeah, I think the rule of 7’s is solid,” has returned to Nioh for its Dragon of the North DLC, which he says is incredibly tough, and he’s also delved into Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap, loving the modern art style, but preferring the original chip tunes. He was apparently in a rather agreeable mood, saying that he agrees wholeheartedly with Aran over What Remains of Edith Finch.
Tuffcub played Titanfall 2 – “I don’t you why you even bother asking, TBH,” he said – while Aran reviewed GNOG and played more of Final Fantasy XV, where he’s constantly being distracted by side quests.
Though he’s now swanned off on holiday, Jim put a shift in to finish Syberia 3 for our review, and Miguel popped by to quickly say he’d played Akiba’s Beat, a little bit of Overwatch and a bunch of Fate Grand/Order as they kick off a new event.
Last, but obviously not least – that’d be me, right? – Dom’s been continuing to love the Switch. It’s been The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for Dom, while he’s been happy to let his five year old son grind out all of the kart unlocks in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. He also reviewed Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap and the “fun, but not life changing” Dragon Quest Heroes II, with an eye to our upcoming Fire Emblem Echoes.
And now it’s over to you. What’s been on your playlist this week?
Pixel_nme
The usual multiplayer/co-op stuff with the usual people and quite a bit of Darksiders 2 and that’s about it.
Eldave0
Kart has taken up most of my gaming time this week. Like the Wii-U version the game is a masterpiece and, in my opinion, an essential purchase if you own a Switch.
Other than that, I started a new playthrough of BOTW and picked up a copy of Late Shift, which has been brilliant so far.
TSBonyman
I played three chapters of Little Nightmares. The horror …of the trial and error nature of some of the puzzles and the checkpointing. And the disappointingly not-quite-fully-realised death sequences.
I also tried the plus content Vita games, i’m getting the impression that UNITY means developed for mobile phone. Type Rider was okay, whizzed through 3 chapters but i’ve played enough of these games in the past that the art stye wasn’t enough to hold my interest beyond that.
As for Template of Borderlands .. well … actually.. i’m enjoying it :O I didn’t like the main character initially – then juxtaposed the humour and realised i probably wasn’t meant to like him. But what prevented me from turning it off after a few mins was when i realised who was voicing Vasquez. That allowed me to give it a chance and the humour has kept it bouncing merrily along and i’ve found myself chuckling out loud as i play it. Mind you by the third chapter i was invested enough in Rhys and Fiona to sacrifice Vasquez, lol.
So do i like these Telltale games now? Not really, i’m still not fond of the mechanics but this one has some great comedy writing so it get’s a pass in my book!
And some more NMS of course.
tactical20
Just a bit more Wildlands. Decided to completely clear each area before moving on to the next one. It’s making the scale of the game a little less daunting! Still enjoying it. Only criticisms are poor cover system and bad vehicle handling, particularly bikes.
ron_mcphatty
Lots of Critter Crunch for me! I decided to mop up some old easy trophies and ended up getting well stuck into Critters, which turned out to be a gripping and really well balanced puzzler, definitely worth revisiting if you have it on your plus backlog. Plenty of Force Awakens 2 too, is forgotten how great Lucasarts games were!
Andrewww
After a bad start with Fallout 4, with many crashes the previous week, I have to revise my statement. Gave it another go, and now that it is working, the game is excellent. There’s so much to do and to discover, the missions are funny, and the main quest is really good. Currently I enjoy roaming around the blocks with Piper, and repeatedly realised at 3am that I forgot about time, again.
MrYd
Apart from my weird Skyforge obsession (only 6 more classes to unlock, but money comes quicker once you’re a god)…
Picked up The Division finally, which is lots of fun. More fun than I had with the beta a year ago or whenever it was.
And Trackmania Turbo, which is stupid fun in short bursts. Then it gets annoying.
Tony Cawley
All about Alternation for me. Best ps+ game in a very long time. It has a similar hook for me to what Destiny had, all about the loot of varying degrees of rarity. Great game.
DividSmythe
I got the platinum out of Severed last Saturday which isn’t my usual style of game, as in touchscreen but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I got my Nintendo Switch on Sunday and the little amount of time I’ve had I’ve poured into that but it has been the most enjoyable family gaming experience I’ve had ever. I love Legend Of Zelda BotW and MK8 but the most fun I’ve had is with Snipperclips with my little one. Just as I think I’ve got the problem solved my little angel has to go and ruin it for me. It has lead too some very funny times.
Eldave0
Glad to hear you’re enjoying your Switch. Snipperclips is indeed awesome co-op fun :)
JR.
Got the platinum in Lego City Undercover (Wooo!) after many, many hours. It’s kind of hilarious that my great grandpa fought in the second world war when he was my age and here I am riding Lego pigs, watering plants for studs and painting things with my colour changing gun LOL. My life :D
Now I’m pretty sure no one knows exactly how many stars there are in the Milky Way but it’s probably half the number of Gold bricks and Character tokens there are in this game. Who knew there were so many Lego characters that aren’t superheroes!?!? Still, it was kinda fun and my Nephew is happy that he can play all 600 Lego characters… despite continuing to pick the same two characters every time.
Other than that, I had a second run on Yooka-Laylee and unlocked the trophy which bugged-out on my first playthrough (preventing me from getting the platinum!!). The trophy title was ‘Sssmashing’ but I made up my own title and increased my Christmas fund (swear jar) in the process.
And now I’m just sat here looking out of the window, hoping I spot a UFO so Will Smith will come round and flash me with his red laser pen and I can forget this game exists.