Stately Scrying: What we’re playing this weekend

You ever have one of those Fridays where you look at your weekend schedule and it’s so full you wish it would just be Monday already? Yep, that’s what we’re looking at. Baseball and soccer in full swing and a family gathering at our house all day Sunday? Yep, no gaming going on this weekend. That said, everyone else at Stately Play is still doing their thing. Let’s take a look at what they have planned.

Star Trek Adversaries

Ah, the tribulations of being a PC owner and a Halo fan. In the wake of the ElDewrito mod exploding in popularity — a fan resurrection of a defunct Russia-only F2P Halo experiment — Microsoft have understandably fired up their legal team and halted any further development of the community effort. More a case of protecting IP than outright viciousness. Will this finally encourage Microsoft to make good on half-hearted ‘We’re going to take the PC market seriously!’ utterances and throw the PC crowd a bit of Mjolnir Green? Fingers crossed. I mean, it’s only been a very short eleven years since Halo 2 Vista.

Still, that’s what I’ll be largely dabbling in this weekend. Alongside Halo Online, or ElDewrito, or whatever it wants to call itself for the time it has left. But you didn’t hear that from me. Forget you even read it.

Elsewhere on the menu, Maelstrom continues to captivate. And even a spot of Battletech multiplayer is planned.

However, Star Trek Adversaries is the dark horse of the weekend. I generally don’t care for the franchise, unless it’s a hearty old joke-watch of Enterprise. That said, Adversaries is a tidy little card-battler that has just enough complexity to make it a Good Time. That acrid taste of free-to-play has yet to cloy on the palate, but there’s ample time for that. Good production values go a long way, and the fan service is something to behold. Phasers set to rather impressed.

In the spirit of Stately Play, I also just might break those two little Decision Games’ minis, Phobos Rising! and Ceres: Operation Stolen Base. The Expanse is back and they are the perfect ziplocked accompaniment. Done.

-Alex Connolly

• Star Trek Adversaries for PC/Mac via Steam, free
• Maelstrom for PC via Steam, $20
• BattleTech for PC/Mac via Steam, $40

Nintendo Labo

Two words: Nintendo Labo. Labo has taken our household by storm, and there’s no going back. I think Nintendo has clinched the title of “best family game system” once again with this one, and frankly I expect that nerdier office workspaces are already swarming with wheel-less Labo RC cars and pampered Labo House “Tamagotchi.” In short, it’s rad like the NES Zapper was in 1985, and I think it has longer legs. Case in point: there’s a near-professional quality recording studio included with the Labo Piano, as well as kid-friendly play apps.

Now we just need to find a place to store all of the cardboard creations we’ve built, and convince our kids that we can let go of the punched-out leftovers. Mercifully, Nintendo is making replacement cardboard sheets available for about $2 each, ’cause casualties are inevitable.

Other than Labo? Well, we had family visit us from the states and they brought us the handheld Oregon Trail game we’d requested demanded asked nicely for. It’s pure nostalgia, but it’s all worth it to hear my spouse inform me that I’d died of dysentery (and now I’ve got a rotovirus… coincidence?).

-Tof Eklund

• Nintendo Labo Variety Pack via Amazon, $70
  

Robothorium

One beta and two old action-RPGs are on the docket for this weekend. Robothorium is a turn-based, roguelike RPG (all words that tend to resonate with me) based in a futuristic world where robots have thrown off their shackles of servitude and are rising up against their human overlords. It’s coming to Steam Early Access on June 7 but has been testing for quite a while with an open beta this weekend. I’m looking to kick the tires a bit and see what’s what.

My RPG kick continues as well and I’m sure I’ll fire up both Path of Exile and Torchlight II at some point as well. The quality of the latter makes me sad Runic Games was shut down.

-Nick Vigdahl

• Robothorium for PC/Mac/Linux via Steam, coming in June
• Path of Exile for PC via Steam, free
• Torchlight 2 for PC/Mac/Steam, $20

Star Wars: Destiny

I feel the need to offer excuses, like Han Solo repeating “It’s not my fault”, but this weekend I’ll probably be playing Star Wars: Destiny. I know! I know. Blind-buy boosters, reputed to be very expensive. Just a terrible idea. But the 2-player starter was less than $10 at Target, so I tried it out. I think it’s the first time I’ve seen my kids really grasp a game with substantial card text, and they were very enthusiastic. So I popped into my FLGS, thinking I’d get them a booster each, and they’re having a sale with $1.50 boosters (and $55 36-booster boxes, if I wanted a volume anti-discount). I held myself to two boosters per kid, but I think I have to go back tomorrow and load up at least a little.

Also, has Nintendo trademarked “Ratory”?

-Kelsey Rinella

• Star Wars: Destiny for tabletop via Amazon, $20

Yakuza 0

I figure I’ve got maybe two more weekends of Yakuza 0 left before I’ll feel comfortable moving on. I’ve only got a couple of chapters left, but I’ve barely scratched the surface of the real estate and cabaret club management mini-games and will not stop until I have conquered them.

Besides Yakuza 0, I’ve fallen into a replay of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. I know it’s not as deep as the original game or Tactics Ogre, but it was my first entry in the subgenre, and the shorter battles and gentler difficulty curve are more respectful of my time. And honestly, that’s one of the best qualities an RPG can have.

-Tanner Hendrickson

• Yakuza 0 for Playstation, $60

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