I’ve been starting 2025 with a bout of flu – thanks, 2025 – but on the plus side that’s meant I’ve been tucked up in bed with my ROG Ally, Balatro, and the end of Metaphor ReFantazio. These are all good things. Other than that, I’ve been slowly making my way through Indiana Jones and The Great Circle (Microsoft’s cloud streaming for this is impeccable), some Kingdom Come: Deliverance to see what it’s all about, and a tiny bit of Marvel Rivals too. Life could be worse, in other words.
But what about everyone else? Aran played Space Marine, the first one, as it’s been in his backlog forever. He told us, “It’s a nice throwback to the PS3 and 360 era of third-person shooters with obvious heavy influence from Gears of War. I was also surprised to see that the online was still quite active. I’ve also been playing more Witcher 3 and have just landed on Skellige.”
Meanwhile, Jim has been hopelessly glued to Dynasty Warriors: Origins which he says is easily the best game in the series to date. Giving us some detail, he said, “After the mess that was DW9 I honestly didn’t have much hope for the series, but somehow Omega Force has managed the impossible. Although there was a cathartic joy in mindlessly hammering out button combos, Origins offers a genuine test of skill and a wealth of content I’m actually eager to explore and replay. Hopefully its glowing critical reception will translate into commercial success, cementing a sequel, and an “Origins” style shake-up for Samurai Warriors.”
Tuffcub has played the System Shock remake, which he says “could have done with a bit more remaking, I get it’s a classic game but it just feels so dated.” He hasn’t really enjoyed much gaming this week, to be honest, saying, “I also played The Stanley Parable and I am going to be a grumpy old man and say I didn’t think much of it at all, the narrator started getting on my tits mansplaining everything. I also played Suicide Squad (spot the theme here?) which I didn’t get past the Shark guy tutorial because it was so fricking dull, it felt like someone had tried to make Destiny by committee. I also played the new Destiny 2 episode which wasn’t particularly great either. I do have LEGO Horizon sat on my table so I’m hoping that will save the week.” Let us know if it’s saved the day TC!
Gamoc has continued playing Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 for review next month, Cuisineer also for review, and a bit of Black Ops 6 Multiplayer for not review. That’s not all, but much like TC, the further gaming hasn’t been all that enjoyable – “I’ve also been playing Veilguard, which is about fifteen layers of disappointment. It feels shallow, dialogue is poor, a main character’s voice can’t pull off the role, I can’t explore during actual missions without hitting twenty dead ends I have to come back to later. The only thing it almost excels at is graphics, but even then the generic aesthetic where even Qunari don’t look particularly alien anymore is just shite.”
Reuben has only been playing Marvel Rivals, hammering away at the season pass and getting reasonably good with Squirrel Girl and Rocket Raccoon. He says, “I’m loving the new additions to the game with Season 1 and looking forward to seeing what the second half of the season brings.”
Steve has played through the first Gears of War on Series S (360 rather than remaster) as he fancied actually playing the series through (previously only played the remaster of 1 on PC). What did he think? “It was fun but hasn’t aged that well. Started the second one now which feels like a pretty big leap forwards. I’ve reinstalled Another Crab’s Treasure after getting distracted and completely forgetting what I was doing in it and it is still one of the best Souls-likes out there. Not resorted to using the gun yet but leaving it open as an option if I get super stuck. Picked up Blade Chimera on Steam (cheaper if you already own Bloodstained) as that’s been on my radar for a long while.”
And we’ll round things out with Tef. He dabbled with a little bit of the original Space Marine, similar to Aran dragging it out of his backlog, stomped through the opening level of RoboCop: Rogue City (which he previously played for preview), and played something secret and shadowy that he’ll talk about next week. He’s also just about to start playing Assetto Corsa EVO and a roguelike Tetris kind of thing called Drop Duchy.
What about you? What have you played?