We’re back with another installment of what the Stately Crew and myself are planning to load up on our devices over the weekend. It sounds like you enjoyed last week’s entry which is great, because this allows me to get content up with hardly any work! Woohoo! It’s about time we made the other writers work a bit anyway, don’t you agree?
Of course, it’s with that in mind that I realized each writer can’t narrow down their selection to only one game leaving me with a load of work to do. Foiled again!
Portal Knights (and more…)
The Olympics are on this weekend and I’ll be couch side to check out at least some of the action. I’ll be armed with my iPad for a little slacker multitasking as well. It certainly makes getting through the 14 or so commercial breaks NBC squeezes into their coverage [every half hour -ed.] easier. My couch game of choice of late has been the surprisingly entertaining Portal Knights, which mixes Minecraft-style exploration and crafting with the questing and monster slaying of an RPG. It’s a lot of fun and scratches both builder and RPG itches to some extent.
Things should also be heating up in my four-player game of Blight of the Immortals this weekend. Blight is a cooperative game where players lead a faction of humans, elves, dwarves, goblins—among other fantasy races—and band together to defeat an undead menace sweeping the land. It has the same super-slow style of gameplay featured in Subterfuge—units move across the game board on average one hex every six hours—and you really only need to check in every couple hours to input new orders. Unlike Subterfuge, however, you can actually pause this game overnight, or whenever you like, which makes for much better game/life balance. Blight of the Immortals isn’t a great game, but it’s not bad and provides a chance for co-op mobile gaming with friends, which is sadly pretty rare.
My PC won’t get lonely this weekend however, thanks in large part to the Steam Lunar New Year sale. They got me, yet again, those crafty bastards. I reduced the size of my wishlist and bank account simultaneously and will be looking to take a couple games for a spin. I’m most intrigued by They Are Billions, which combines base building with a zombie apocalypse, and Battle Brothers, a turn-based tactical RPG where you command a mercenary company.
-Nick Vigdahl
- Portal Knights for iOS Universal, $5
- Portal Knights for Android, $5
- Portal Knights for PC via Steam, $12 (on sale)
- Blight of the Immortals for iOS Universal, free
- Blight of the Immortals for Android, free
- Blight of the Immortals for PC/Mac via Steam, free
- They are Billions for PC via Steam, $22.50
- Battle Brothers for PC via Steam, $19.50
Bayonetta 2 (and more…)
I’m traveling this weekend, so I’ve got to keep things portable and set Monster Hunter: World aside. Luckily, the Switch port of Bayonetta 2 comes out today, and I’m excited to finally play the sequel to one of my favorite action games. I also plan on logging a few single player games of Polytopia before wading into online matches, as it’s been a while since my last Polytopia phase. Despite these distractions, Monster Hunter will undoubtedly occupy the back of my mind as long as I’m away from my PS4.
-Tanner Hendrickson
- Bayonetta 2 for Nintendo Switch, $50
- Battle of Polytopia for iOS Universal, free
- Battle of Polytopia for Android, free
Moon Hunters (and more…)
The one thing I know for sure I’ll be playing this weekend is Kitfox Games‘ Moon Hunters on Switch. We got this thing mainly for couch co-op with the kids, and so far the biggest hit hasn’t been Mario Kart or Super Mario Odyssey, but indie games. We played the mess out of Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, and Moon Hunters is the new Lovers.
Our 7-year old loves the action, and the fact that players can “rescue” (revive) each other, and my spouse is taken with the art and the way players make decisions together. Me? Well, Kitfox has taken a page from King of Dragon Pass and combines it with exactly the way it felt playing the original Gauntlet, crowded in around a four-joystick arcade cabinet back in the day. We all love the iterative character of the game, where you retell/recreate the lost heroes and legends of a colonised people over a series of playthroughs. Or, as our 7-year-old put it “maybe this time that sun-man won’t be there anymore… maybe we killed him, or maybe we didn’t.”
I still haven’t even played Breath of the Wild. [I’m right there with you. We’re awesome! -ed.]
I’m also going to be returning to the visually-striking emotionally-intense world of The Arcana, now the latest of its Tarot-themed chapters (The Hermit) is out. There are other VNs I want to play, but The Arcana is the one that has me on tenterhooks. Beyond that, I really want to play Solium Infernum again, preferably against other human lords of the damned.
-Tof Eklund
- Moon Hunters for Nintendo Switch, $15
- Moon Hunters for PC/Mac/Linux via Steam, $6
- The Arcana for iOS Universal, free
- The Arcana for Android, free
Agents of Mayhem (and more…)
Consider Freeman: Guerrilla Warfare a given at this point. But after taking a chance on Agents of Mayhem, Volition’s underperforming Seoul-set super-soldier sandbox, I’m all about that triple-jump, baby.
Look, I get it. While I can’t speak to the launch window stability and performance woes, even with the nuts thereafter ratcheted, Agents of Mayhem is an odd duck. But not that odd. It’s exactly where I want my comic book superhero fare. Irreverent takes on old cliches. While the mission structure lacks a certain variety, Agents of Mayhem’s king tide of synergistic combat washes away a week’s worth of drudgery.
Also hoping to aid beard growth with a few sessions of Eugen Systems’ Steel Division. As much as the studio have said all they can with the Wargame trilogy, going back to Normandy of all places isn’t exactly the most inspired of theatre selections. We’ll see.
-Alex Connolly
- Freeman: Guerrilla Warfare for PC via Steam, $15
- Agents of Mayhem for PC via Steam, $10
- Steel Division: Normandy ’44 for PC via Steam, $16
Fez (and more…)
This weekend, I’ll be seeing non-gamer family, so likely nothing on tabletop. On consoles, I’ve recently finished The Last Guardian, and am bopping around between Fez (which finally grabbed me, after an initially lukewarm impression), Hob, and RiME, both of which I’ve barely started. Meteorfall still has lots to offer my phone time, and I might use the iPad for a meatier old favorite after everyone else goes to sleep, like Twilight Struggle or Through the Ages, in addition to my usual relaxation with Race for the Galaxy, Honeycomb Hotel, and Ascension. But next week, I’ll probably try to work on my seamanship solo in Sails of Glory, and the kids have the week off from school, so there’s a good chance of some of their favorites (Tokaido and Smash Up being high on the list, but maybe we’ll try out the My Little Pony RPG or something else new to them).
-Kelsey Rinella
- Fez for iOS Universal, $5
- Fez for PC/Mac/Linux via Steam, $2.50 (on sale)
- Hob for PC via Steam, $15
- RiME for PC via Steam, $30
- Twilight Struggle for iPad, $6
- Through the Ages for iOS Universal, $10
- Through the Ages for Android, $10
- Race for the Galaxy for iOS Universal, $7
- Race for the Galaxy for Android, $7
Cities: Skylines (and not much more…)
After a week of brain bending efficiency in Factorio I need a break. I’m still craving the creative/building aspects, but I need something I can sit back and relax to and not worry about pissing off the biters. I was thinking Civ VI, but my sights are set on building something incredible in Cities: Skylines. I haven’t played much since the disaster pack and green cities expansions have been released, so I’m going to head out and build Neumann Heights, without worrying about biters coming to destroy my creation.
-Dave Neumann
- Factorio for PC/Mac/Linux via Steam, $20
- Cities: Skylines for PC/Mac/Linux via Steam, $7.50 (on sale, and a steal)
Can we have next week’s in the form of a montage?
After scaring myself shitless by checking out my reddit account with a third party site, I thought I’d give myself The Fear permanently with Orwell.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up-yaDbqH2kApart from that, it’s killing folk with surgical precision and madcap inventiveness in Hitman.
Polytopia when I’ve got free time.
The rest spent eternally constructing Gloomhaven shelves.
I’ll still be doing Dream Quest, of course, but when I’m at my PC watching Live PD tonight and tomorrow night, I’ll be playing a lot of Stellaris. Got it in the recent Humble Bundle along with Cities in Motion 2, Crusader Kings 2, and much more.
Haven’t played the others yet, but Stellaris has really hooked me.
I almost bought that bundle because of Stellaris but felt like I didn’t have the time to do a lot of PC gaming right now. Probably should have just thrown it in the backlog at that price.
I’m sticking with Meteorfall, Dream Quest, WHQ2 and Gems of War this weekend. I like WHQ2 much better after the update. The ambushes add enough tension to make it interesting again.
Still catching them all on Pokémon Online TCG.
Apart from that I am fumbling around with Civ 6. It’s odd, I remember playing the first one and memorising each tile and its bonus (loved the green plain with a circle that gave 2 good, 1 prod, and add irrigation/road for +1 food/ +1trade).
In civ6, I don’t know and it doesn’t seem to matter.