Week: End Game: On 11.15.2014

Welcome back to another installment of Week: End Game: On! What games are the staff playing this weekend? Read on to find out!

Robert Palacios

This weekend, I will join the other 100,125,232 Links that have been Karting around Mute City and Hyrule!
The Mario Kart 8 DLC has really given the game a shot in the arm. Eight tracks?! Four new karts?! Three new characters??!!! Great move by Nintendo to provide such a bounty of content for really reasonable prices. I’m loving Excitebike and Hyrule the most, as they’re really great tracks that have extremely unique aspects to them. Bring on Smash next week!

Marc Deschamps

For me, this weekend is all about the new Mario Kart 8 DLC. Everything else is getting pushed to the back burner. I feel about as excited for this as I would be for a brand new Mario Kart title. I’ve even been trying to avoid watching much of the new tracks in action. I want to be surprised by what each one has to offer. My standby racer, Morton Koopa, is temporarily getting pushed aside for Link, that much is certain. I can’t wait to see how the hero of time handles!

I’m still playing Super Smash Bros. on Nintendo 3DS as next week’s Wii U release draws ever closer. My anticipation has only grown, but I wasn’t sure how to feel about Amiibo, for a little while there. This week’s plethora of news is making my wallet sweat in fear, however. These things have a lot of really neat potential! So far, I only plan on buying Link from the first wave, but I’ve been known to make an impulse buy or two. Pikachu is pretty tempting!

Nicolas Vestre

I’m still plugging away at Fantasy Life, experimenting with different Life choices. I’ve gone from Angler to Hunter to Cook to Carpenter (Cook and Carpenter have the exact same cooking/crafting minigame) and have discovered that becoming a Blacksmith and a Woodcutter would be a great idea before going further in the story. I’ve encountered so many trees and mineral deposits that I couldn’t do anything with, and that has to change. Even though the game can get a little repetitive, I’m still enjoying myself very much.

At this rate, I’ll never be ready for November 21, which will bring Pokémon Alpha Sapphire (I like the color blue more than red) and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. It’s also the tenth anniversary of the Nintendo DS in North America, unless I’m mistaken! My DS phat still works like the day I bought it, almost ten years ago! I still remember that feeling when I brought that bad boy home the second I could and tried Super Mario 64 DS even before charging up my new gaming device.

As usual, I’m going through the motions in Animal Crossing: New Leaf. Nothing about the game really excites me anymore, but I want to keep the game going just to say that I’ve played New Leaf regularly for almost a year and a half. It’s not necessarily a burden to play it, but most of the tasks to do have lost their luster. Something makes me want to continue, though, and I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon.

For some reason, I’m not going to jump right in to Mario Kart 8‘s DLC. I’m going to use Smash Bros. for Wii U to test if my Wii U has a tendency to scratch discs (it suffered a tragic fall from my desk back in February). Just in case it does, I don’t want to get heavily involved in a disc-based Wii U game because of the chance Nintendo erases all my save data if my console needs replacing– I got badly burned in that regard about a year ago.

I’ll probably buy an Amiibo, though. Yoshi is beckoning me! But I use Peach in Smash, so maybe she needs to be added to my collection, as well!

Robert Marrujo

So, it’s been the quiet before the storm when it comes to gaming for me, this past week. Still plugging away at Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley, which has been cool, but… well, let’s just say it’s not totally what I was expecting. Should have a review up early next week for those who have been on the fence (sorry for the delay). I’ve also been digging into Tales of Hearts R on PS Vita. It’s pretty good, but I’m right at the beginning with it, so my opinion could change fairly rapidly!

Next week, though– oh. My. GOODNESS. Seriously, Pokémon, Smash, and Amiibo, all at once! What?! I can’t even begin to process what I’m going to do here. It’s crazy, people! This coming Friday is destined to be one of the biggest for Nintendo fans in some time. Just amazing. Of course, with the Mario Kart 8 DLC dropping just a couple days ago, it’s a veritable Nintendo-palooza in my house lately, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Kyle England

I’ve got hundreds of games I still have to play, including new copies of Bayonetta 2, Layton vs. Phoenix Wright, and tons of older games sitting on my shelf. But I’ve gone back to Pokémon Y lately. Just this past couple weeks I’ve logged over 80 hours! But what does a trainer do in Kalos after mastering the Elite Four? Why, training and breeding of course. A buddy of mine keeps whooping my butt in battles because he has a slew of competitively trained Pokémon. So, just to get my revenge and satisfaction, I have been working on a new team of six Pokémon to dominate!

Each teammate has been painstakingly bred to have great natures and at least 5 perfect IVs. Then, I have to EV train them, outfit them with the best moves, and level those guys up. It’s taking me dozen of hours and every creature takes around 20-30 eggs before I get the ones I need. I have never done something so obsessive in a Pokémon game before, and I hope this pays off. I won’t tell you who my super secret team is yet, because it’s a secret. Ask next week!

What are you playing this weekend? Have you also downloaded the first Mario Kart 8 DLC pack, or will you be spending time with a different title? Let us know in the comments!