Something For The Weekend – 01/07/17

The British and Irish Lions might have made their lives difficult for themselves this morning, sneaking past the 14-man All Blacks with some vital tries and a last minute penalty, but it’s put some renewed momentum and belief that they could just maybe win this test series. After a very mixed tour so far, they’ll have be better still, cutting out the errors and penalties, but there’s just a glimmer of hope as they go back to Eden Park for the final test next weekend.

Fingers crossed, eh?

In the News This Week

• Nintendo announce the SNES Classic Mini for release on 29th September
  It bundles together 21 games, including the previously unreleased Star Fox 2. Oh, and it’s also already sold out.
• StarCraft: Remastered is out 14th August, and it’s pretty cheap
• Founder and President of Arkane Studios resigns
  “it is time for me to step out to spend some time with my son and reflect on what is important to me and my future,” said Raphael Colantonio.
• “World’s Fastest Platinum Trophy” game pulled from PSN
• Gran Turismo creator Kaz Yamauchi sounds disappointed in PSVR
  “If Kaz can’t do it right, then he won’t do it. This has been forced on him in my opinion,” said tonyyeb, and aerobes agreed, adding, “Given his perfectionist approach I think VR was pretty much a non starter for GT. Instead of shoehorning it in they may as well have left it out.”
• Pinball FX3 announced with a bit of a multiplayer focus
• Labelling Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 as AAA was “a mistake” says CI Games CEO
• Games with Gold has Grow Up and Lego Pirates of the Caribbean in July
• PlayStation Plus in July features Until Dawn, Game of Thrones & That’s You!
  A bloody fantastic month, I think you’ll agree.
• Finally, e-pleasure and teledildonics got a mention in a News Snatch this week…

Competition Time

There’s another competition running this week, this time to win big with the Invizimals collectable card game. One lucky winner will take home a copy of the Mega Starter Pack, a Game Guide Starter Pack, and 45 Boosters Packs. There’s also added bonuses such as a collector’s binder and game board, so you’ll have everything you need to start duelling and collecting.

Head here for more info and how to enter.

Games in Review

Quite the week for those with a hankering for a return to the 90s with their gaming, as Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy and Micro Machines World Series both launched, while those with more modern gaming in mind may be delighted with the latest few PSVR games, but how did they all fare in the review spotlight?

• Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy – PS4 – 9/10
• Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood – PS4, PC – 9/10
• The Golf Club – PS4, XBO, PC
• Arizona Sunshine – PSVR, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift – 8/10
• Chess Ultra – PS4, PSVR, XBO, PC, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive – 8/10
• Ancient Amuletor – PSVR – 6/10
• God Wars: Future Past – PS4, PS Vita – 6/10
• Micro Machines World Series  – PS4, XBO PC – 6/10
• New Nintendo 2DS XL Hardware Review – No Score

This Week’s Features

With the launch of the first DLC expansion for Breath of the Wild, Jake took a look back at the game and how it’s breathed fresh life into the open world adventure genre for him. Sega will be hoping to breath a similar freshness into the Sonic franchise with the latest 3D game Sonic Forces, which spans three eras of gaming as it hunts for its identity.

Jim feels its a great time to revisit For Honor and give it a second chance, now that Ubisoft have put some better measures in to prevent rage quitting and embarked on its first back of new content, while Miguel revisited Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls as it made the leap from PS Vita to PS4 this week.

With a couple hours of play under my belt, Aven Colony is looking like a great addition to the revitalised city builder genre, and works great on console. While it’s great to see one genre on the rise, Dave wishes that “Rogue-lites” would take a break and “Souls-likes” would get a rebrand to spur on innovation.

Finally, as ever, What We Played recounted our week in gaming, featuring Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy.

Trailer Park

Twelve minutes from the adorable but difficult The Swords of Ditto

Titanfall 2’s The War Games DLC lands with a bang

Final Fantasy XV’s Episode Ignis trailer is very foreboding

Your Achievements

While he’s still on the naughty step, Crazy_Del gets us underway this week with a platinum trophy for Injustice 2, started a collectibles playthrough of Dead Nation, got a few rallies under his belt in Dirt 4 and got going with Crash Bandicoot! There’s a few other game he’s bought recently as well, so plenty more gaming for this fellow over the weekend.

Tactical20‘s also been enjoying the first few hours of Crash, already nabbing one or two platinum time trials in the game, while DividSmythe finally got the “six wins in super star” trophy in PES 2017.

It might be on next month’s PS+ list, but Steelhead’s bought Game of Thrones for himself, working his way through the first four episodes in short order. Andreww might have been enticed by A Way Out’s E3 reveal (or he might not) as he went back and played through Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons.

Lastly, TSBonyman joined the PSVR party after seeing Skyrim’s VR announcement at E3. Alongside grabbing the Dirt Rally VR add-on, he’s been sampling a bunch of demos, including Rush of Blood, Driveclub, Call of Duty’s Jackal mission (which he enjoyed more than EVE: Valkyrie) and The Playroom. Best of all, he’s only been made to feel lightly queasy by Rez Infinite.

The Week Ahead

The week ahead is looking very, very quiet for game releases. Is the summer drought well and truly upon us?

• Earthquake Simulator VR – HTC Vive – 03/07
• That’s You! – PS4 – 04/07
• SpeedRunners – PS4 – 05/07 (already out on XBO, PC, Mac, Linux)
• Toby: The Secret Mine – PS4 – 06/07 (already out on XBO, Wii U, PC, Mac, Linux)

Have a good weekend, and we’ll see you again soon!