Something For The Weekend – 08/07/17

Stefan L 08/07/17 Comments Closed

Well, a draw was not the result any of us expected or really wanted to cap off the British and Irish Lions tour to New Zealand. With honours all even though, it’s a remarkable testament to the strength of the northern hemisphere rugby that they’ve managed to go toe to toe with one of the best rugby teams of all time.

With one sporting event out of the way, we’re barely getting started on a summer of sport. We’re half way through Wimbledon, there’s test cricket between England and South Africa, the Tour de France, the Austrian Grand Prix in Formula 1… and the weather outside is nice and warm and sunny in London (I don’t know about the rest of the UK).

Perfect time for me to stay inside and get on with a bunch of game reviews, eh?

In the News This Week

The Tomorrow Children servers will be shut off after just a year
Ron_mcphatty said, “Sony need to consider donating server space to allow games like this to limp on and remain playable, even if it’s for a very small number of users.” And I completely agree.
Project Cars 2 will feature over 180 cars, and one of them’s a Ferrari
Tekken has a character with shock absorbing breasts
Because of course it does.
You can bring your top nemesis from Shadow of Mordor into Middle-earth: Shadow of War
The Splatoon 2 Direct revealed a lot of details about the game
It’s looking pretty great from what they showed here and what I’ve played in the past
The Nintendo Switch Online app launches alongside Splatoon 2 on 21st July
Horizon Zero Dawn’s 1.30 update adds New Game+, Ultra Hard difficulty and face paint
Halo 5 will be updated for 4K on Xbox One X, and all X360 games getting backward compatibility support
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds now won’t his full release until Q4 2017
Sammy said, “The game can stay in “early access” forever for what I care. It’s a moniker that doesn’t mean much a whole lot. The game is getting updated a lot, which is good. What I’m hoping for is that going multi-platform is not going to slow down their dev time or weigh them down with unnecessary bug-fixing for consoles.”
A partial list of Star Wars Battlefront II hero characters has leaked
Rocket League’s Anniversary Update has gone live

Games in Review

An interesting week in reviews, as we largely played catch up when it came to games, returned to games for major expansions, reviewed a ludicrously expensive racing wheel, and then even had a rare movie review!

Mages of Mystralia – PC – 8/10
That’s You! – PS4 PlayLink – 7/10
Dead by Daylight – PS4, XBO, PC – 6/10
Perception – PS4, XBO, PC – 6/10
The Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind – PS4, XBO, PC – DLC Review
Diablo III: Rise of the Necromancer – PS4, XBO, PC – DLC Review
CSL Elite Racing Wheel for PlayStation 4 – Hardware Review (Video)
Spider-Man Homecoming – Movie Review

This Week’s Features

We’ve been given the opportunity to catch up on a lot of games and demos from E3 this past week, with Nintendo inviting us along to see what they’ve got in store for the Nintendo Switch. Obviously, the biggest attraction is with Super Mario Odyssey, which is a wonderful new Mario platformer, even if it could do with some refinement of the controls.

I also greatly enjoyed my time with the fast and slick tactical action of the Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle mash-up, as bizarre a combination as it is, and playing a quick match in FIFA 18 on Switch left me coming away impressed at how good it looks and how well it handles on the system.

Sticking with Nintendo, the end of last week saw the release of The Master Trials DLC expansion for Breath of the Wild. It adds plenty of things, upping the challenge for those who want it, but is it essential?

Jim ventured into the world of gaming without a screen, discovering how Invizimals have made the leap from augmented reality PlayStation exclusive to trading card game. With the rising popularity of the asymmetrical multiplayer horror genre, he also delved into both Dead by Daylight and Friday the 13th: The Game to determine which of the two is better.

Wrapped in alongside his review of Spider-Man Homecoming, Tuffcub also had a go at actually being Spider-Man, donning the tight fighting suit for the Spider-Man Homecoming VR Experience. Sadly, it gets good just as it ends…

Finally, there’s What We Played, featuring Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy, Super Mario Odyssey and a holiday to Wales.

Trailer Park

Watch 20 minutes of Assassin’s Creed: Origins

Watch Doomfist’s origin story as he joins the Overwatch PTR

Watch 26 minutes of Monster Hunter: World gameplay

Minecraft: Story Mode gets a trailer ahead of next week’s premiere

Sonic Forces’ theme song is called ‘Fist Bump’

Your Achievements

Now that he’s back off the naughty step, Crazy_Del has hopped back into For Honor to quickly bag the platinum trophy. He’s also been grinding the DiRT community events to grab the online trophies and enjoying a bit of Friday the 13th: The Game multiplayer. On the single player side of things, it’s been all about Crash Bandicoot time trials and grabbing that game’s platinum.

Tactical20‘s found Crash driving him mad, though, so he’s gone back to Lego Jurassic World instead and suddenly found himself just a few trophies off the platinum. Meanwhile, Steelhead generally enjoyed his time with Game of Thrones, playing through the last couple of episodes and earning the platinum.

A surprise trophy popped up for TSBonyman this week, as he booted up No Man’s Sky to get away from the stickiness of wearing his new PlayStation VR in the hot weather. It was a shiny trophy, as the platinum popped up!

Eldave0 has traded in both his Xbox One and PlayStation 4, but that’s not because he’s sick and tired of gaming. Quite the opposite in fact, as it was the purchase of a 4K TV and an upgrade to a PlayStation 4 Pro. So he’s spent the week revisiting the likes of The Last of Us, Rise of the Tomb Raider and Rocket League to see just how pretty the games can now look.

Last but not least, Tony Cawley invites people to join him, Berserker and MrYd on Monday at 8:30PM for Killing Floor 2, a game from last month’s PlayStation Plus list. Not only that, but Tony managed to grab the final collectables in The Division and finally got the kill 20 rogue agents trophy, all of which means he’s grabbed the platinum trophy!

The Week Ahead

There’s some interesting games coming out next week. For one thing, the remaster of Final Fantasy XII looks great, while Minecraft: Story Mode has been huge for Telltale and is back for a second season. There’s also a good few indie efforts worth a look.