Play Now This Weekend - January 2016 Edition
January’s traditionally a quiet month in the land of gaming. That’s really not the case this year. Over the next fortnight we’re being treated to Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen, The Witness, Resi Evil Zero HD, Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak, and, who could forget, Rise of the Tomb Raider. Not too shabby for the off-season.
In the meantime, we wait. There’s a bitterly cold weekend looming here in the UK, and if I had a log fire I’d be setting that thing alight and settling into a weekend of pure gaming bliss. But I don't, so I'll sit about moaning about Spring not arriving. It’s alright though, the second part is still well and truly covered thanks to heaps of games arriving in the last couple of month.
Jon: Somewhat shamefacedly I’m planning to finish up XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Better late than never though, eh? In truth I’m ready for it to end. After about 15 hours I feel like I’ve seen all its tricks. It’s a good game, but that’s about as far as I’ll stretch it. There’s too many problems for it to be great. It’s infuriating to head into a room and initiate a cut-scene which sees a number of lethal enemies round on you mid-turn. Aside from three or four missions your objectives all identikit. I've seen the exactly same levels crop up time and again. There’s certainly plenty out there that do this sort of thing far, far better, but there’s still enough here for me to enjoy my time with it. I’m also optimistic Firaxis is all too aware of the problems, so hopefully that’s all ironed out in XCOM 2.
Elsewhere I’ll no doubt find time for far too much Rainbow Six Siege. There’s barely been a day since we got sent this that I haven’t logged in for a session. I know it’s got a few problems, but it’s the best damn fun I’ve had online in years. Tactically it keeps getting deeper every go, and me and some buddies have taken to using human/drone partnerships, with the drone acting as lookout and lure. I've got all the operators unlocked now too, so it's just a case of saving up renown for the DLC drop in a few weeks.
Felix: I think it must be time to head into Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen and find out what the fuss is all about. All I hear are great things, so I'm eager to give the 980 Ti a 4K DSR workout. It's full of kobolds, and dragons and beards and all things that make gaming great, so it can't possibly be bad. Wish me luck, I'll see you on the other side.
Squee: Where’s all the adhesive? I, like so many of you, will probably be spending the lion’s share of my weekend hunting for duct tape and wonderglue in a desperate attempt to complete all of the weapon mods I need for Fallout 4. And, for that matter, the weapons. Because in Bethesda’s glorious tradition, ain’t no Fallout party like a heavily-modded Fallout party, ‘cause a heavily-modded Fallout party allows you to craft your own weapons. And lampposts. And weird bridges that just don’t seem to properly fit anywhere…
Aside from that, I may dip back into Star Wars Battlefront for a bit, but while zooming around the forest moon of Endor on speeder bikes and ducking into shadowy doorways as the sinister warble of probe droids closes in is certainly amazing fun, I’m horrible beyond words at the multiplayer aspect, and I loathe the hideous matchmaking system. It’s rare that a Star Wars game makes me ragequit, but Battlefront often gets me there. Sometimes before I even get into a single game.
Note from Divayth: On the subject of adhesive, I have two words for you: Vegetable Starch.
That is all.
Divayth: It was December, and the third night in a row I was having a staring contest with my monitor, looking at my Steam library (and losing) when I ultimately caved in to what I had sworn not to do 2 years before.
I purchased the The Elder Scrolls Online.
I always thought the monthly subscription fee was a hellish idea for a game in 2004+10. But with that gone and no talk of a new actual Elder Scrolls game in the near foreseeable future I thought there was no harm in going back to Tamriel. After all, I did play the beta before release and the game couldn’t be worse now than it was back then.
With most of the holidays spent abroad and away from Tel Fyr (my pc) I hadn’t really had the chance to get into it yet. But now I do, and this weekend I will!!!
Now then it's over to you. What gaming are you going to be tackling this weekend? Clearing out that backlog or planning on picking up a new game? Let us know!
