What are you playing this weekend?
Time to relax and get your game on.
It's the weekend once more, and it's time to put work behind you, relax, and play some video games.
This weekend, we're testing our rhythm skills, jumping into the latest MMO, enjoying a bit of Kung fu, and doing a bunch of fighting.
Here's what we are currently playing.
Connor Makar, Staff Writer - King of Fighters 15
This weekend all I'll be playing is King of Fighters 15. If you've read the review that went live yesterday, you'll know I "capital L" Love this game - and I'm excited to drop countless hours into it. If you're also picking it up, maybe I'll see you online.
I'm also going to find some time to play more Lost Ark of course - this game has absolutely blown up this week and you don't have to be a genius to anticipate long queue times will only get bigger with free-to-play players getting onboard. It'll be worth it though - that game is brill.
Dom Peppiatt, Features Editor - OlliOlli World
I skate! Or, at least I did until I dropped in off a half-pipe after one-too-many beers and dislocated both – yes, both – of my bastard knees. Nowadays, I still skate a little, but it’s mostly only very basic street stuff that poses minimal risk to my battered sinew and cartilage. How does the song go? “Mid twenties skateboarder, I hope I don’t get hurt.” Yeah, that’s it.
OlliOlli World came out this week, and though it promises to save my battered knees, it threatens to absolutely body my fingers. It’s a perfect skate game – and I mean that with every fibre of my being. It’s incredibly hard, ludicrously satisfying, unremittingly goofy, and bloody good fun. Just like skating should be. Yeah, there’s no pop-punk riffs or famous Santa Monica landmarks here, but so what? It’s a lo-fi game to relax and grind to, and that’s exactly what I need this weekend.
Dorrani Williams, Video Producer - Lost Ark
This weekend I'm playing Lost Ark, the new free-to-play MMOARPG that’s actually four years old.
It was released long ago in Korea and found a lot of success over there, so much so, that they decided to give it full release in the rest of the world and it’s the real deal. All the elements of an ARPG scaled up to fit into an MMO.
I'm still working my way towards the end game but I'm enjoying learning a new MMO. Most of the quests are your typical fetch this, kill five boar or deliver a message to someone across the map which can get a little stale, but the over the top and flashy combat makes it all worth it.
I'll report back once I've conquered the end game and all its offerings.
James Blillcliffe, Guides Editor - Sifu
There comes a time in every young nerd’s life when an inescapable fact draws sharply into focus: kung fu movies rule.
My gateway was the Saturday morning cartoon, Jackie Chan Adventures (which is in retrospect an absolutely wild concept only surpassed by the Hanna-Barbera Kiss movie from the ‘70s), where Jackie fights dragons and various other magical shenanigans.
Then I realised you could rent VHSs from the video shop that actually had him, the real guy, in them, and from there I never really needed to pick anything else.
This all happened to coincide with the Oscar buzz around Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Jet Li’s Hero, and the release of Stephen Chow’s action-comedies Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle - all sleepover favourites.
Sifu looks like it was made with an appreciation for all the same stuff I loved, and what more of a nostalgic hit could you want from a weekend’s gaming?
The "every time you die you age a year" mechanic has seemed really interesting to me since I first heard about it in Gunfire Games' Chronos: Before the Ashes, so let's see if it's actually fun in practice or incredibly frustrating!
Sherif Saed, Staff Writer - Lost Ark
No surprises there, I am sure, but yes, I will indeed be jumping into Lost Ark this weekend. I will try, at any rate, because judging by how popular the early access launch has been, the free-to-play launch will likely be significantly rockier. The buzz surrounding the game has largely been positive, so don’t underestimate that word of mouth bringing in a lot of players who just happened to be browsing Steam at that point.
I’ve been playing the PTS version pre-release, so I already have an idea of the gameplay flow. I also already know I like how Lost Ark feels to play, but I didn’t want to make a lot of progress there since it wouldn’t carry over to the full build. Such restrictions don’t exist now, so wish me luck!
Tom Orry, Editor-in-Chief - Taiko No Tatsujin: The Drum Master
Having initially dabbled with this rather frenetic rhythm game to get some easy daily achievements for Reward Point reasons (you can open some settings menus to earn a couple!) I've found it to be a great deal of fun.
The selection of music on offer here isn't Guitar Hero levels of good, but it's also a far more eclectic bunch of tracks to drum along to. What's more, I can play in front of my son, even choosing an easy song, and he thinks I'm some kind of non-human being whose mind is fused with the controller. It seems kids aren't great at timing button presses in rhythm games.
Anyway, this is on Game Pass and pretty much a guaranteed good time if you are at all into the concept of tapping buttons as if they were drums.
That's what we're up to this weekend. What about you? Playing anything new? Or do you have a backlog you're tying to get through? Let us know! We love hearing from you.