It’s so hot, my laptop’s fans kick into high gear the moment you open it up. It is pretty spectacularly wonderful outside though, if you like the sun gently cook you, and I’ve been carefully slow-cooking myself all week. Based on the colour of my arms and head, I’m definitely nearly done.
I have found some time to play games still, though there was a laughable attempt at playing the Switch outside which was really just me holding another piece of angry sounding technology and staring at my own reflection in the sun. It’s been Monster Hunter Stories 2 all week anyway, which is a much more relaxed monster hunter experience, and one that I’m greatly enjoying.
Other than the game of breaking a tooth and paying a dentist to fix it, Steve has played lots of the superb Ragnarock, sweating his way through the rather active VR game. He tells us he’s “Resorted to wearing a bandana under the headset to soak it up.” Lovely…
Who would be silly enough to play VR games in this heat? Well… Steve would be.
Aside from that, he’s been reviewing Night Book, snapped up Midway Arcade Origins on Games with Gold – “Smash TV and Gauntlet are still great” – and ditched Quantum Break to start on another early Xbox One game, Ryse. Finally, he rinsed The Touryst and got quite into Undermine before they leave Game Pass.
Nic B has been playing an ungodly amount of Pokémon Go, as part of the annual Go Fest event. He said, “You know what? Niantic actually did a bang-up job — I had a great time. When not attached to my phone, I’ve been continuing my way through Shadowverse — full review to come in a couple of weeks!”
Ade hasn’t played much this week other than a spot of Streets of Rage 4, and finishing Lego Incredibles with his little one. He says, “I’m just waiting for something new and exciting to come along. Came to a sudden stop playing Doom Eternal, it’s very good, but far too hardcore for me. My fingers can’t keep up with all the onscreen chaos!”
Meanwhile, Aran has been playing more Thronebreaker, saying, “I’m really liking it and I think I’m about 2/3rds through. It really captures the grey nature of decisions that the main Witcher games have where you think the decision you make is a good one only for it to bite you down the line.”
Gareth is playing Cotton Reboot for review. It’s also a bit too hot for his crazy plans, “This heat wave is playing havoc on a Beat Saber bet I made myself that I will full combo High Hopes on Expert – I’ve been one away multiple times, but the dreaded temperature has put a stop to that for obvious reasons. So instead I’ve been playing Watch Dogs Legion and I just got Outriders is the sale, which turns out to be pretty great.”
Reuben finished off his review of Cris Tales this week.
Miguel has been playing lots and lots and lots of NEO: The World Ends With You, with a little bit of Fortnite and Apex Legends mixed in. A wonderful mix! Reuben on the other hand has been playing a lot of things this week. “Still on Fortnite, which feels like an obsession at this point, but also extensively dived into Cris Tales and played a little bit of Dodgeball Academia, with a side helping of courtroom drama with Great Ace Attorney Chronicles. Also, still plowing on through Persona 5 Royal, which I’m amazed I’m finding the time for.”
Jim has been banging away at Final Fantasy IV on mobile. “Quite fitting, considering it’s the game’s 30th anniversary. I’m hoping to have it finished up before either moving onto Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy X. FF4 has been a decent romp though not on par with FF6 despite some cool characters (Yang being my fave).
“I’ve also been zooming around Dirt 5 looking to bag those last few trophies. It’s been the perfect game to zone out to though I’m getting serious FOMO from some of the new exotic race tracks added to the game. I’m also playing a game for review which I’ll have more to say about next week. Here’s a clue : it’s the 239th (probably) instalment in a popular hack n’ slash franchise.”
Tuffcub has played about ten seconds of Destiny 2 but as he’s finished everything from this season there’s no reason to play it for four weeks. That’s not all though! “I did play some more Returnal but honestly I can’t be arsed slogging my way through so many battles just to get a tiny power up, got very boring.” Oh, well, at least he tried something else.
After playing Psychonauts 2 on the weekend, Tef went back to the original.
And finally, having played Psychonauts 2 for a preview at the start of the week, Tef was left wanting more, so he’s gone back to the original on Xbox to finish off a playthrough that he started sometime late last year.
Now then, what have you played?
ron_mcphatty
I managed to get a GTX 1070 for a decent price on fleabay, now I can run more or less everything on high or ultra settings, something I’ve never been able to do before! Cyberpunk looks pretty spectacular now, but not good enough for me to throw much time into, so I’ve been playing the Battlefront 2 story through and that looks the nuts. I’ve downloaded Destiny 2 to enjoy this weekend, along with some thunderstorms.
TSBonyman
Two weeks into my PS5 and i’m convinced that the PS button and the Mic Mute button should have their Dualsense locations swapped. The PS button on Dual Sense is by design just out of reach of ever being as instantly accessible as it was on the DS4.
As i renewed my plus sub i’ve been dipping back into some of my fave plus games – Binding of Isaac, Dead Nation, Resogun and CounterSpy and i was delighted to see my PS5 profile confirms that i’ve played NMS for 1127 hours but i was really surprised to see that i have invested over 1000 hours into Dreams already!
Needless to say, i spent some time with Dreams again this week but i haven’t plugged in my PSVR for NMS yet due to the unnatural heat.
willbuchanan
Just Borderlands 3 for me this week, I’ve completed the main story and I’ve leveled up to level 50, I’m just going through all the side missions and content aiming for the platinum. Then begins the DLC, which there appears to be a lot of so I might be playing it for a while yet! XD
Jag
Did you complete this solo? Always wondered how well it plays in single player this as it’s a series I only really play coop with my brother.
MrYd
I’ve mostly been melting all week. So no VR because that’s not a good idea when it’s 30 degrees. Did get around to seeing Black Widow in a nice cool cinema with moving seats and extra windy fans and some water. If you’ve got a Cineworld cinema near you with a “4DX” screen, it’s worth checking out for the novelty value some time. And lovely and cool.
So with no VR all week, it was back to all those things I’ve been playing lately. Finished off the excellent RE2/3 remakes (well, played them once. Got to do it some more, I guess). Plenty of One Piece Pirate Warriors 4 (still very silly). A bit of Thronebreaker (that’s how you stretch out a mini game to a full length adventure).
And plenty of Splitgate, when the servers have been working.
Did the latest sale tempt me with anything? Maybe ;)
Of course it did. So some Planet Coaster, which is fun. And Operencia: The Stolen Sun, a surprisingly good RPG thing from Zen Studios, mostly known for their pinball games, that snuck out without many people noticing. Old fashioned, grid based dungeon exploring with turn based combat and some nice puzzles. And VR support I haven’t tried due to the heat. Worth a look for 10 quid.
Jag
F1 2021 has dominated most of my time. Love the new handling as it’s both more responsive and more challenging at high speed in particular. My favourite thing is the two player career and coming up with our own little canon for all the drama this season with my brother has been some of my favourite gaming moments ever.
I’m really enjoying the new survival mode in Streets of Rage 4 especially playing with the new characters and unlocking new moves. As a little tease for people, there’s actually 4 new characters in the dlc but I won’t spoil who for you!
Otherwise I’m still doing the daily challenges in WreckFest, slowly making progress in Doom Eternal and I jumped back in to try the new updates for Dirt 5, Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Sniper Elite 4. The new haptics in Dirt are brill btw you can feel every change in surface and it even has a weird undulating feeling when cross streams!