What are you playing this weekend?
Monster Hunter Rise? God of War?
There aren't enough days in the weekend. Two just isn't enough. Okay, sure, Friday night counts, so maybe weekends can be considered 2.5 days. Still, that's rather short, and there never seems to be enough time to do what you want before work rolls around again.
But, time is what you make of it. And we plan on using some of that time playing games over the weekend.
Over the next couple of days, we plan on diving into a backlog of RPGs, trying to get someone into gaming, enjoying playing an alcoholic amnesiac detective, and playing something that's both high risk and rewarding at the same time.
Here's what we're playing this weekend.
Dom Peppiatt, Features Editor - Disco Elysium, Spelunky 2
It’s been a long week of getting used to my new role here at VG247 and trying to stay sober as I (foolishly) attempt Dry January to give my liver a bit of a break after the Christmas excess. What better way to relax and get off-my-nut by proxy than playing Disco Elysium? I can be a raving communist cop, preaching the end of days and investigating what appears to be a small hole in the center of reality, all whilst taking liberal swigs of whatever alcoholic pish I’ve managed to magpie from the poverty-stricken streets of Martinaise. Yum!
When I’m not pretending to be an absolute disaster of a human being, I’ll be playing Spelunky 2 with my non-gaming partner, as it’s one of this week’s incredible additions to Xbox Game Pass. I introduced her to it last night, and after about 45 minutes of trying – and failing miserably – to get past the first level, she called it quits and we went and played something a little less stressful: Peggle 2. Well, we thought it would be less stressful, but she still ended up calling me a word I cannot bring myself to type here… let’s see if the weekend is a little nicer, shall we?
Dorrani Williams, Video Producer - Escape from Tarkov
This weekend I'll be playing Escape from Tarkov. I'm not in the mood for EFT all the time but right now I'm looking for some high-risk high reward gaming. One of the most satisfying feelings is going into a raid with a budget loadout and killing a player that has come in with all their best gear. It gets your adrenaline going.
There really is nothing like Escape from Tarkov, but it isn't for everyone - the skill ceiling is super high, it has terrible new player onboarding, you spend more time managing your gear than you do actually playing the game and the realistic weapon handling has a steep learning curve. But, if you can overlook those things and take the time to learn and understand the game, it can be a lot of fun.
Also, like always, I'll be playing Apex Legends. I’m currently ranked Diamond, and because the season is going to end soon, I'm hoping to make one last push for Master rank. Wish me luck!
James Billcliffe, Guides Editor - a stupid amount of huge RPGs all at once
Right now I have a ridiculous amount of pots boiling on the range across Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, and PC.
On the PS5, the main game I'm wading through is Horizon: Zero Dawn in preparation for Forbidden West next month, but I've also got the updated versions of Death Stranding, Final Fantasy 7 and Jedi: Fallen Order, along with the rest of Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart vying for my attention.
Then on Xbox, like I said last week, I have the DLC additions to the Mass Effect Trilogy I've never played marked as an absolute must. And there's also the ever-playable Forza Horizon and FIFA 22 ready to fill any gaps.
But then there's the end of Metroid Dread - a game in equal parts awesome and incredibly frustrating - threatening to be too inscrutable to return to with each passing day.
>And even with all of that, here I am installing the highly-rated indie Eastward on my PC. Pray, I see the light soon.
Sherif Saed, Staff Writer - God of War (PC)
I’ve been having a hell of a great time with the PC version of God of War 2018. As you may have seen from our tech review, this is a largely solid port that delivers most of what you’d expect, even if it misses a few crucial elements and ultimately isn’t that much better looking than PS4/PS5.
Nevertheless, the major framerate uplift, DLSS support, and sharper overall visuals got me hooked on the game all over again. I am nearly done with the main story, but I want to do a little bit of cleaning up this weekend. Much of the landmass in the Lake of Nine has emerged, and I want to clear off all remaining quests and pick up any collectibles I missed there.
I also have a few Realm Tears and a couple of other bits and pops to take care of before the final push. When I originally played the game on PS4, I had all but two Valkyrie fights left, so I also want to get them all done this time around.
Outside of letting me spend more time with the game’s combat, this playthrough also gave me an even deeper appreciation of the narrative, and how it’s laid out, particularly as a Norse mythology fan.
Stephany Nunneley, News Editor - God of War (PC), Pokemon Snap, probably something else
I don't own a PS4, so I was never able to play God of War (2018). Thankfully, Sony decided to put it on PC, so brought it on Steam, and I'm going to try to play it over the weekend. I say try because my partner is also a huge God of War fan, both of us having played all of the other titles in the franchise, so he will want to play it as well. I may let him give it a go first. Depends on if I am feeling charitable or not (wink).
I also haven't finished Poition Craft, which I played a bit over the holidays. So, I may jump back into that at some point over the weekend.
As I shared with you all before, my mother has become completely obsessed with Pokemon Go and Pokemon in general. She is quickly becoming a bit of an expert on which type works best against another, and what have you. Because she likes Pokemon so much, and she hasn't really played any video games since she tried Pitfall and Frogger on my father's Atari, I am going to lend her my Switch and pick up a copy of Pokemon Snap for her. I think it would be a great introduction to modern video games, plus, it's a Pokemon game. I will likely be showing her how to play it and how to use the controller for a couple of hours, but that will probably be rather fun for both of us. I will make a gamer out of her yet!
Tom Orry, Editor-in-Chief - The new(ish) Mortal Kombat movie
I can’t write about Wordle every week, I thought to myself moments before remembering that I watched last year’s Mortal Kombat movie earlier in the week. To my great surprise, it really wasn’t that bad, but it also wasn’t that great.
To me it all felt a bit like a slightly more naff gore-filled modern Marvel movie. Gang of superhumans teams up to take on a gang of superhuman baddies. The big surprise was the lack of an actual tournament, even though it was mentioned every five minutes. Kano stole the show, being by far the most interesting character, although this might have been because everyone else was supremely dull outside of their abilities.
There were enough knowing winks and nods to fans (or just casual players of the games) without it going overboard, but the whole thing ended in such a weak way that I was genuinely shocked it was over. When films set up sequels, that’s fine, but this ended like you might expect the first hour of a 10-episode Netflix show to finish.
In conclusion, the film was fine. 5 sawn in half bodies/5 sawn in half bodies.
