The last week of August is always a pretty barmy one for me. Coming back from Gamescom means I have to write up tons and tons of previews, and so I’ve been shouting about everything from Tides of Tomorrow and Crushed in Time to Toxic Commando and Pokémon Legends: Z-A in the past seven days.
But I have had some other things on the go. I played through the opening of Shinobi: Art of Vengeance, which is slick, empowering and satisfying so far, I got Gears of War: Reloaded downloaded, and The Rogue Prince of Persia is also ready to go when I find some time this weekend. I’m looking forward to both!
And with good reason, because The Rogue Prince of Persia is easily one of the best roguelites of the year, in Ade’s estimations, but he’s not limiting himself to just two dimensions as he’s also been playing plenty of Marvel Rivals and is getting up to an acceptable level – “I’m certainly not an embarrassment anymore as one of my supposed teammates so nicely pointed out.”
But Ade absolutely buried the lede on this one, leaving it to Laura to reveal that the pair of them are now engaged as of last weekend! Congratulations! This, she says, somewhat eclipsed her achievements in Islanders: New Shores, where she reached level 20, and made a start on Sword of the Sea.
Aran regaled us with tales of his musical skiing escapades in Fresh Tracks, which “honestly may be my pick for soundtrack of the year when awards season hits.” Alongside that, he’s been playing Wild Hearts, making his way past the chapter 3 boss thanks to a bit of weapons and armour upgrade grinding.
Something quite remarkable has happened this week, as Tuffcub followed up his Herdling review by installing a game on his PC for the first time! I mean, it’s Destiny: Rising, so it’s actually a mobile game that’s running in an Android emulator, but he’s got his DualSense plugged in and working and is having a pretty good time of it. So yes, Tuff is back to playing Destiny again… and he says, “Honestly, I think this might kill off Destiny 2. It’s Destiny, but all brand new and that’s what everyone wants.”
That’s got Jim a little curious about how tricky it might be to set up – it’s literally advertised on the Destiny: Rebirth site that you can do this – especially since he’s just finished the main campaign of Far Cry 5, just as he was starting to tire of its open world. He did play a bit of the Hours of Darkness DLC, though.
Miguel has been playing the Japanese indie FPS The Citadel, alongside his usual Fortnite and Helldivers 2, plus a review of Shuten Order which you’ll get to read a bit later today. Meanwhile, Gamoc polished off a review playthrough of Echoes of the End, and snuck in an hour of Mortal Kombat 1.
It’s been all post-apocalyptic in Steve’s world this week, as he returned to the cutest vision of this in Kirby and the Forgotten Land’s Switch 2 Edition and frosty DLC. He’s also been mushing fluffy creatures through The Herdling, but is weighing up whether to play Shinobi when there’s Silksong on the way…
And finally, Dom’s been away again, and has been sneaking in a bunch of Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar in moments of downtime. He also rather enjoyed playing through The Knightling and has made a start on our Madden 26 review. Is it good? “So far… yes?”
Now, what have you played?
