Week: End Game: On 02.04.2012

It’s finally time to cap off the week with another grand addition to Week: End Game: On, where we tell you, the reader, what we’ve been up to in the gaming world for the past week! However, we haven’t been the only ones playing games this week, so tell us what you have been up to in the comment below!

Nicolas Vestre

I’ve been loving my shiny new 3DS this past week by playing a lot of Super Mario 3D Land. So far, I’m well over halfway done the first eight worlds, and I’m extremely impressed. Of course, it’s a cakewalk, but that doesn’t diminish the fun in the least. After World 8, I expect things to heat up at least a little bit. Getting every Star Coin and golden flagpole as of yet has given the game a little more oomph.

Apart from Mario, I have Mutant Mudds and Pushmo waiting for me, but I probably won’t touch either until I’ve had some more quality time with the good ol’ plumber. I also downloaded Kirby’s Dream Land using Club Nintendo coins, so that should provide some classic fun.

But before any more 3DS gaming, I’m putting a Hori screen protector on the top screen. I’m extremely paranoid about screen scratching, almost to the point that I’m disappointed with Nintendo for its lack of oversight in the matter.

Pierre Bienaimé

I had been without an Xbox Live connection for a few weeks. The cause: laziness to un- and replug the router. The motivation to execute such action: the recent demo for Syndicate, a pretty sleek sci-fi shooter that I had the chance to preview a few weeks ago.

But now that I’m plugged back in, I find myself falling back to Halo: Reach, a game which, for all its camp divisions, just works. It’s a pure shooter. You’re never at a loss for someone to hunt down, encounter, and struggle against. I’m jumping into FFA deathmatches mostly, with a few team or multi-team based ones as well.

On the Nintendo side, I’ll have to bank new progress with escapeVektor: Chapter 1, which you might remember as our 2011 WiiWare game of the year. A simple story on one hand, and some serious challenges on the other. I’m on it!

Katharine Byrne

I’ve hit a bit of an impasse with Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light this week. I’ve managed to make it about halfway through the game but now an impossibly hard, crazy status-inflicting boss stands in my way and no matter what I try I just can’t beat him. I suspect some level-grinding may be in order, or a serious shake-up of my character jobs and equipment.

We’ve all had that boss that makes you put a game on hold.

But should that prove ineffective then I might retreat back to my PC and play some more Half Life or Deus Ex. I started the latter a while ago, but for some reason I just haven’t been sucked into it like I thought I would. Maybe it has something to do with the dodgy lip-synced dialogue and severe lack of necks on these characters… Anyway, Half Life on the other hand is great and now that I’ve cleared most of my Steam-binge purchases from Christmas I can’t wait to get back to shooting some more headcrabs in Black Mesa!

M. Noah Ward

I finally got a smartphone this week (Droid, in case you must know party alignments), and in this honeymoon of novelty, I’ve been quite enamored with it. The customization, the cool wallpapers, and yes, the Droid market, full of so many free or cheap games. As Evan once talked about when he got his iPod Touch, there’s something to be said for all these inexpensive casual games. I might have lost an hour or two to them– valuable gaming time I could have spent on a “real” gaming machine. But let’s be honest– this was just Bejeweled clone tripe and questionable-quality tower defense games. And a dash of Chu Chu Rocket, since I’ve long missed that game.

I’m pretty sure the new-toy-sheen will fade and my little collection of downloaded games will be relegated to the infrequent times when I’m waiting at the dentist’s or barber’s and, realizing I forgot to bring a book or my 3DS, remember that I have some games on the phone I could play. Because, as fun as they may be, they still don’t compare to the great full-sized games I intend to continue playing. I don’t have a hankering to return to those little games, even now. They’re made for when I absolutely need to waste time; they’re not something I’m truly passionate about.

So as for “real” games, today that means trying to finish, or get near the end of, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. (Yes, backlog seems to be quite a common theme amongst all of us on Nintendojo staff, eh?) My gamer best friend (who’s either moving to Pennsylvania, if not Japan, at the end of the month) and I have targeted Mercury Steam’s reboot of the franchise as the last game we’re going to try to power through before he leaves. And with as meaty as that game is, we’re going to have to dedicate some serious time. Other than that, some more League of Legends and Layton: Last Specter or Mario Kart 7 (REAL handheld games!) should be in order.