What We Played #316 – Sundered, Splatoon 2 & Uncharted: The Lost Legacy

This week I’ve been pondering about whether early access to a free-to-play game is ever worth paying for. I’ve been diving into Fortnite and Fable Legends, and enjoyed playing both of them, but have you in essence paid to be a beta tester? Some would argue that if you buy nearly anything on launch day, you’re a beta tester and willing to pay well over the odds for something that isn’t likely to be finished for at least another few months.

I understand the whole thing about needing revenue to start coming back in, especially as development schedules have a tendency to overrun, and paid early access hopefully gets the bank account heading back in the right direction. Early access also gets players in on the ground for what could be a great game, and if you’ve been looking forward to playing them, then where’s the harm? Assuming that the early access is at least remotely playable. Over the last year I’ve spent a lot of time with Epic’s Paragon as well, and for all that it’s not yet the finished article, I can’t say that’s bothered me in the slightest.

While most of the week has been spent on Fortnite, I also quietly enjoyed Cars 3: Driven to Win despite its flaws, while sneaking in as much time on Splatoon 2 as possible. Aran meanwhile has been playing Sundered, with his review arriving next week due to how tough it is. His summer of gaming will probably mainly consist of Yakuza Kiwami which he preordered after playing through the excellent Yakuza 0.

Kris mainly just played Paper.io for some reason, while Miguel has only really been playing Fire Emblem Echoes until he’s done with his “timesink summer job”, after which he’s planning on getting into Horizon Zero Dawn, cracking open Odin Sphere, and fighting his way through Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy.

Jim didn’t have a great week;

This week didn’t get off to the best of starts. After putting a dozen or so hours into Final Fantasy VI on my iPad, my save file was sadly corrupted. Serves me right for not backing it up or at least using different save slots, eh?

Things got much better, however. Aside from the mandatory dose of For Honor, I picked up WipEout Omega Collection and am loving it. I’ve never been a particularly big fan of the series though with Omega it’s finally clicked.

Tuffcub finished Battlefield Hardline, where he liked the story and found it didn’t go where he assumed it would. He’s also been playing Lovers In A Dangerous Spacetime co-op with a friend, which is apparently a great little game.

Dave played the newest Crash Bandicoot DLC level, as well as Miitopia all week. There were also spliced in sessions of Dr Kawashima’s Devilish Brain Training too, which he’s written a different type of article about.

Jake meanwhile has had a week of job interviews, (which is great!) but he still platinumed Crash Bandicoot 2 and 3 from the N-Sane Trilogy, and really liked how those two games shaped up when compared with the first game. He also enjoyed playing Destiny 2’s beta. It was better than he expected, despite playing it a bit safe with what was offered in the experience.

And last but not least a word from our editor Tef;

Well, I’ve had a rather busy week! Over the weekend, I managed to review Aven Colony, Tiny Trax and Pyre, it was then off to an event in London to play Uncharted: The Lost Legacy and chat to its creative director, I shared my impressions from Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, explored the career in Project Cars 2, and played Far Cry 5, which I’ll be telling you all about soon. And I still managed to find time to squeeze in a few matches of Splatoon 2!

Now then, enough about us, what have you played!