What are you playing this weekend?
With a Saturday in the rain, here comes the weekend.
It's been a long week, but it's finally over. Huzzah!
The end of the workweek means it's time to kick back and play some games, and that's exactly what we intend on doing. We may even make some pasta, garlic up some bread, and pour a nice glass of Moscato if the mood strikes us. Then again, that sounds like work. Best just to get some takeout instead.
This week we're conquering civilizations, getting into some cyberpunk, and diving into a word puzzle game.
James Billcliffe, Guides Editor - Citizen Sleeper and Gamedec
One weekend, two cyberpunk adventure games.
On Game Pass this week you can get a really fun tabletop-style RPG, Citizen Sleeper, where you play as an escaped indentured android trying to build a new life on a far-flung space station.
It has that classic moody synthesizer arpeggio vibe that you look for in cyberpunk adventures, even if the heavy dose of random chance raises the bpm a bit. You can just never shake that X-COM thing where a 10% chance of something bad happening seems to happen 95% of the time.
On the less random, but similarly adventure-y, hand, I'm also giving Gamedec, where you're a metaverse PI who solves mysteries inside of game worlds, a try as well.
Not unlike Citizen Sleeper, it's one of those games that locks you into decisions to keep you progressing forward, but there are so many choices and abilities I'm interested to see whether you can actually make much of a difference on the story or if you're ending up at the same point either way.
Stephany Nunneley, News Editor - Age of Empire 3: Definitive Edition, maybe Banished
I know I sound like a broken record with my gaming choices, but it's hard not to go back to old favorites when you're too busy to get into something new. So, this weekend I plan on playing some Age of Empires 3: Definitive Edition.
I haven't played it in a while, so I want to brush up on my skills a bit before the new DLC comes out on May 26. It adds the civilizations of Italy and Malta to the game, which sound like fun to play.
Then again, I have also been in the mood to play Banished. It's been ages, and it's one of my favorite games. If you are into city-building strategy games, you should give the game a try. The developer, Shining Rock Software is currently working on a new project somewhat similar to Banished in gameplay, but with a deeper simulation and more focus on individuals. It follows a band of nomadic people as they travel, build, and grow from a small group to a whole village. Sounds right in my wheelhouse.
Tom Orry, Editor-in-Chief – Knotwords
I’m slowly coming round to the truth that I don’t have much time in my life to play games in my free time. I still love them, read about them all the time, and play what I can, but often when I only have a few minutes here and there little games like Wordle are the best I can do.
So, it was great to find Knotwords. Yes, it’s a word puzzle game. It’s free to download and play on mobile devices (with premium unlocks if you fancy having more available to you), and it’s £9.29 on Steam. The daily challenge, which is free on mobile, is enough for me right now, but I’ve been tempted to pay the full fee to unlock everything.
Why? The puzzle element here is just the right amount of taxing and achievable. It’s one of those games that makes you feel smart and that just maybe you did something others couldn’t do. Essentially you have to solve letter jumbles, but each set of letters only makes up a portion of a word and is also potentially part of multiple words in a kind of crossword formation.
It’s super neat and not nearly as complicated as I probably made it sound. Give it a go if you fancy something other than Wordle to do on the regular.
That's us for the weekend. What do you plan on getting into?