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Welcome to the latest, most awesome edition of Week: End Game: On, the weekly rundown of what the lovely Nintendojo staff have been, and plan on, playing this week! In this week’s round table, the staff have all coincidentally been playing some random old-ish games, but with some newer ones thrown in here and there. But, of course, who cares about what we have been playing (you, of course!), not us! What we want to hear is what you, the readers, have been playing this week! Tell us in the comments below!
Kyle England
For the past week or so I have been deeply engrossed in EarthBound for Super Nintendo. I don’t want to pour my heart our just yet, but it’s one of the best RPGs I have ever played. You guys might read about it in a future article (wink wink). But unfortunately all good things must come to an end, and I finished the glorious game the other day.
So in my post-EarthBound stupor, I wound up just outside Vegas in a ramshackle hotel. Okay that’s not quite true, but I’ve done the next best thing by playing Hotel Dusk: Room 215 on Nintendo DS. Hotel Dusk is a good pulp mystery novel in video game form, and it’s got a great charm. The game also has a really interesting pencil-drawn art style for the characters (A-ha’s “Take on Me”, anyone?). And because the main character happens to be named Kyle, I feel a sort of kinship with him. He’s like… my bro, ya know?
Joshua Johnston
In preparation for summer travel season, I picked up and started into Dragon Quest IX and Nintendogs. Nintendogs is, as I generally assumed, is a solid casual game, and it is so simple and addictive even my four year-old daughter loves it. DQIX is the quintessential DQ experience (plus a bit of online, minus pesky random battles), and the ability to create your own characters, while a bit of a negative to the narrative, makes the game a nice bit of fun. In true geek dad fashion, I fashioned a party of four on DQIX out of my own immediate family, complete with a wife who knows kung fu and an infant daughter who can shoot fire.
Nintendogs makes its unexpected return!
And I’m starting to get the Xenoblade Chronicles itch again.
Mel Turnquist
This weekend is going to be a weekend from hell for me at work. With a huge invitational soccer tournament and record highs in the forecast, the weekend is going to probably going to test my patience with other human beings. Weather permitting at least…a good thunderstorm can make all of it go to hell in a hand basket. Anyways, this means I’m gong to be playing a lot of Kirby video games to calm myself down. I’m not going to get too crazy with my gaming. I’ll also be playing Mario Tennis Open which I’ve done pretty well in lately…well other than last night. I did not have a good time let night playing. I got pwn3d pretty hard in the stupidest of ways.\
Bradly Hale
So I picked up Shin Megami Tensai: Devil Survivor Overclocked earlier this week, and, wow, that game is all sorts of fantastic. I’ve never been much of an SMT fan, having really only liked Digital Devil Saga 1 and 2, thus I was skeptical going into the game. Don’t get me wrong, I love the setting and concept of the Shin Megami series, however, they’ve never hooked me for whatever reason. People think I’m crazy when I say I don’t like any of the Persona titles, but it’s true – they just aren’t something I can get into. Needless to say, I’m sure you can then understand why I was pleasantly surprised with Devil Survivor after only playing the first thirty minutes. The game has so much vibrancy, and character, and the story – hot damn, I haven’t felt this compelled to play through a game just to see the plot unfold since probably MGS4.
So yeah, Devil Survivor is definitely in the gaming queue for this weekend. Aside from that, I’ve also spent an embarrassingly large sum of money over the past few days, thanks to the Steam Summer Sale. While my mind is delighting over all the fresh games I have sitting in my Steam library, my bank account is lamenting. This happens every year, though, so you’d assume I’d just get used to it – Steam Summer rolls around, I unload a few hundred dollars, and end up with 30 new titles, half of which I never actually get around to playing. I still have so many great games from last year’s sale that I haven’t even bothered to installed yet; it’s sort of pathetic, but I mean, who in their right gaming mind can pass up these sales?! So, from the cache of titles I’ve bought in the past 24 – 48 hours, I’m especially pumped to tear into Ys: Oath of Felghana, Hard Reset, Binary Domain, Lost Horizon, and Crusader Kings II.
So. Many. Good. Games… System. Overload.
Now we’ve discussed what we’re playing, it’s your turn! Let us know what you’re getting on with over the weekend in the comments’ section below!
For what I think is the 10th, or maybe 11th, or 12th weekend in a row, Xenoblade Chronicles is getting most of my playtime. I did go over the 100 hour mark recently. I have no idea how far along I am in the main story, but with so many sidequests, I hardly care. There is something satisfying about completing that affinity chart for all of the NPCs in that game. Still greatly enjoying it.
I also recently picked up Mario vs DK: Minis March Again on DSiWare thanks to the Nintendo coins. I owned this before I traded in my DSi for the DSiXL and of course couldn’t transfer at the time. I think I’m having more fun with it now than I did before.
I’m also nearing the end of Retro Game Challenge on DS, on the last challenge of Guadia Quest. This game nails what it was like to play games back in the late 80s, early 90s. The magazines you can read are a riot and bring back memories. Guadia Quest is just Dragon Warrior, all over…awesome!
Finally, thanks to Nintendo’s e-shop sale, I’m now the owner of Mighty Switch Force. I’ve just started but I’m VERY impressed with what I’ve played so far. I also just ordered Rhythm Thief online so I should have that sometime later in the week.