What We Played – The Alters, Mario Kart World & Switch 2

It’s been a long and busy week, with last weekend being a mad juggle of trying to play as much Switch 2 as possible while also covering Summer Game Fest streams and showcases. The Switch 2 gaming has continued through to this week, as Dom and I led the charge on doing a broad look at backward compatibility games, Cyberpunk 2077’s impressive port, and I published our Mario Kart World and hardware review after gathering my thoughts from the first week.

There’s still plenty more Switch 2 stuff to do, though. I’ll soon be telling you about how the Hogwarts Legacy on Switch 2 is a “transfigurational” port. Can you tell that I’m happy with this reference?

For some reason, I asked everyone to tell me relay their week’s gaming while making it rhyme. Not everyone was up to the task, but we did get some nice poems.

Here’s Ade:

For review I played Alter, and I didn’t falter. It was very hard, like frozen lard, but I saw it through to the end, and confirm that money on it people should spend.

Dom’s was more of a limerick:

I played Switch 2 with my wife
I thought to myself ‘what a life!’
But I didn’t let her win
My Switch 2 is in the bin
Who knew Mario Kart causes such strife?

And here’s Gamoc’s effort:

I start by playing Balatro,
Then Warhammer, I’m sure you know,
But then I remembered a review,
That is what I should do,
So I looked at Baldur’s Gate and said no!

Instead I played Zombie Army,
And after that the Atomfall DLC,
The reviews will come soon,
Before the full moon,
Because then a werewolf I’ll be.

Also, I’m a werewolf.

Sadly nobody else was willing to take on this task, Steve even said that these efforts caused him “significant discomfort as a lecturer in English Lit and Creative Writing.” So we’re back to the boring land of basic prose, and he played “a whole bunch of Steam demos and put a few hours into Mario Kart World.”

Speaking of Mario Kart World, Nic’s son decided to add a little bit of “4D haptics” to his gaming by whacking him in the Mushroom Kingdom’s crown jewels. Ouch! He also played Split Fiction, Survival Kids and Bravely Default’s remake on Switch 2, with reviews for them all still in the pipe.

Aran tired of playing games where he wasn’t the named protagonist, so went back to Blades of Fire to fight some things. He’s also reviewed Tainted Grail Fall of Avalon, which is a good game marred by so many technical issues.

After checking out Nioh 3’s demo some more, and revisiting Dynasty Warriors: Origins for a Shu playthrough, Jim moved on to the Cairn demo. “It’s a truly unique game about climbing a mountain, from the devs who created the fantastic Furi, that somehow manages to be zen and infuriating at the same time. I’m looking forward to playing the full release though I’m hoping the performance improves drastically on PS5 (the demo was super choppy).”

And finally, Tuffcub’s got to keep quiet about Death Stranding 2 a little longer.

Now then, what have you played this week?