It’s the weekend before Christmas, and that means it’s going to be one of the busiest weekends of travel in the entire year. Even on a perfect day, it’s going to be hellish trying to get on the motorways or catch a train, but with the weather over the last few days having led to a fair old bit of flooding up and down the country, here’s hoping any travel plans you have go smoothly.
This has also been the last week of regular content on TheSixthAxis. Between now and the new year we’ll be featuring the rest of our Game of the Year awards, continuing to look at the year that various publishers and manufacturers have had, and checking in with the games that we most want to get our hands on in 2020.
Plenty to come and read still, but this will be the last Something for the Weekend of the year. So let’s crack on!
In the News This Week
- The Xbox Series X is actually just called ‘Xbox’
- DualShock 4 mappable Back Button Attachment announced, adds a hint of pro controller in February
- Stardew Valley update 1.4 now live on consoles, read the patch notes here
- PlanetSide Arena is being killed off after just three months in Early Access
- THQ Nordic owner Embracer Group buys Little Nightmare studio Tarsier
- Google acquires Journey to the Savage Planet developer for future Stadia titles
- Google Stadia’s achievement system now live on most platforms except mobile
- Arsenal’s Mesut Ozil has been taken out of PES in China for speaking out against internment camps
- Puma are making a gaming chair that is perfect for your sex dungeon
- January’s Games With Gold confirmed, includes Batman, Star Wars & Tekken
Games in Review
We rounded out the year with a bit of catch up, a bit of DLC and a bit of VR… oh, and a review of a game coming out next year. Welcome to 2020, everyone!
- Jurassic World Evolution: Return to Jurassic Park – PS4, XBO, PC – 8/10
- The Sims 4: Discover University – PS4, XBO, PC – 8/10
- Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs – PSVR, Vive, Oculus – 8/10
- Wattam – PS4, PC – 7/10
- Heroland – PS4, XBO, Switch, PC – 4/10
- Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training for Nintendo Switch – No Score
(Reviewed platform in bold)
Game of the Year 2019
Our Game of the Year awards are well underway. Here’s all of the awards we’ve awarded so far:
- Best Remaster/Remake
- Best Visual Design
- Best Soundtrack
- Best Ongoing Game
- Best Multiplayer Game
- Best Gameplay
- Best Narrative
This Week’s Features
Struggling for something to pick up at the last minute? Catch our appropriately titled last minute Christmas gaming gift guide!
We’ve been taking a look back at 2019 through the lens of each publisher. EA had a rather strong 2019, it turns out, while Ghost Recon Breakpoint’s flop saw Ubisoft drastically adjust their plans for 2020, and Bethesda had 76 reasons to forget 2019.
We rounded out the week, as always, with What We Played, featuring the surprisingly good Cuisine Royale, Brain Training and going to watch Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
Trailer Park
Star Wars Battlefront 2: The Rise of Skywalker is now live
My Hero One’s Justice 2 character trailer shows some new gameplay
Seth is shown off in new trailer for Street Fighter V: Champion Edition
Your Achievements
Time to catch up with you, our fine readers:
- Andrewww went back to Resident Evil HD, just to get into the spirit of Christmas, and then went to see Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. “It’s not bad”, apparently.
- It was mostly Death Stranding for Crazy_Del, who’s now just two trophies away from the platinum after more than 100 hours play.
- MrYd is still enjoying Injustice 2, dipping into PvZ:BfN, BFV, and Honor & Duty in VR. He also loved the VR missions in Ace Combat 7, having nabbed it in the sales. Oh, and he also watched The Expanse – “as good as ever” – and The Witcher on Netflix – “I’m not convinced”. Hmmmm.
- Finally, TSBonyman has loaded up No Man’s Sky to check out the new audio sequencer…. but got sidetracked by the whole exploring thing.
That’s it for this week and, in fact, last year. We’ll see you again in 2020!
