Week: End Game: On 04.12.2014

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

Anthony Vigna

I haven’t really had time for video games this week, as I’ve been slammed with college work as of late. However, thanks to the magic box that is my iPhone, I’ve intermittently been playing Brave Frontier in-between my busy schedule. If you’re not familiar, this game is a free-to-play JRPG that I personally find extremely addicting. I’m usually not a big fan of games that utilize the free-to-play model, but the lack of blatant paywalls provides a huge incentive for me to play.

One of the best things about Brave Frontier is that the game is constantly updating. For instance, some prominent units got a new evolution tier this week! That may not seem like a big deal if you don’t play the game, but to me, this is an equivalent to the introduction of Mega Evolutions in Pokémon X and Y. A lot of the new units look absolutely insane, and I can’t wait to start using them.

Sam Stewart

Due to my brutal school schedule over the past few weeks, I actually haven’t played a console game since Dark Souls II came out. The only thing keeping me sane is Dota 2, which I play whenever I find the time for a short break. My backlog is growing so big I dare not even list it here, but if I do find some time this weekend, I’ll probably go back and start Dark Souls II New Game+ to see what the extra content is all about.

In other news, I finally bought a PS+ membership and I’m looking forward to trying out Mercenary Kings whenever it arrives. It looks like an interesting mix of the Metal Slug, Monster Hunter, and Borderlands series. Sounds like a winning combo to me!

Jake Shapiro

I’ve been playing Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies this week. Think the title is long enough? It’s my first-ever Ace Attorney game. The copious amount of text-based cut scenes isn’t quite my cup of tea, but it’s well-written, and the character sprites are gorgeous. When it finally gets around to the gameplay, Ace Attorney is the best lawyer simulator out there. Ya know, because the market is oversaturated with lawyer games. On that note, can we please get Phoenix Wright in the next Super Smash Bros?!

Robert Marrujo

Things just got cray cray in my house this week, because at the behest of Angela, the GameCube is back up and running. It’s at the sacrifice of my PS3, but ultimately if an earthquake hit, I’d be leaving it behind for the GC anyway, so… yeah. Lots of plans now, because of the switch, including playing some Super Mario Sunshine (this needs an HD remake, like right now), Luigi’s Mansion (still better than the sequel, also needs an HD overhaul), and maybe some Pokémon Colosseum, if I have the time to spare.

I was stoked to read that Titanfall was not junk on 360, so I went and picked up the copy I reserved a few weeks ago. It’s a good thing I did, because my copy and someone else’s were the only ones in the store! It plays great, by the way. It’s an oversimplification to say it’s Call of Duty with mechs, but in broad strokes, it’s a suitable description. Gunplay is tight, the graphics are awesome… I’m going to have to stay the heck away from it to get any work done, actually, haha.

Jon Stevens

Just like everyone else it seems, I have had so little time to play very much this week.

The update to FTL: Faster Than Light just came out, so I am playing that when I have a couple of spare minutes. It adds new ship rooms, scenarios and weapons, so is well worth a revisit if you have the game.

I’ve also been playing Blizzard’s free-to-play game, Hearthstone, on and off for the past couple of weeks. Despite the fact that I initially had no interest in it, the digital card game is actually really addictive. There are a number of characters that you choose to play (each with different cards and play styles) against others in relatively short battles. It’s got some fairly nice and subtle animations while you play it too. I can’t see myself laying down money to buy any new card packs– but I’m unwilling to buy DLC at the best of times! I really would recommend it to anyone interested.

Marc Deschamps

This week, my struggles with the World 6 boss of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze finally came to a close. It was a well earned victory, and while I have other levels still left to unlock, I think I’ll take this opportunity to play some other games. Perhaps games that won’t result in expletives hurled at my television screen in an immature fashion. After all, I do have several never-before-played titles gathering dust on my shelves. I think I’ll finally give Goldeneye on Nintendo Wii a try. While most reviewers seemed to agree that it didn’t hold up to the original, I was never particularly any good at playing the N64 classic, so maybe that’s a good thing. It could mean less cursing.

Speaking of the Nintendo 64, I’ve been eager to revisit Activision’s original Spider-Man game. With a new movie on the way and a video game tie-in, I’ve been thinking about the Neversoft classic a lot lately. It may even show up in an upcoming Retro Scope article…

Nicolas Vestre

I’ve finally made some serious progress through DoReMi Fantasy: Milon’s DokiDoki Adventure! I just defeated the lava world (which I think is world 6), with two more to go. The boss of the land of magma was the sun and moon, which was by far the hardest yet. The sun’s attacks were tough yet manageable, but the moon’s attacks were relentless! After launching himself at you, he can bring about a storm of shooting stars, which is all but impossible to avoid. I downed him by the skin of my teeth. That’s quite the deceptive difficulty for a friendly looking game!

Besides that, Animal Crossing: New Leaf is still going along slowly. I passed the 8 million Bell mark, and I’m not stopping! The power of 9,999 Bell blue roses at Re-Tail knows no bounds. Besides that, I’m on a mission to make sure my villagers aren’t wearing the patterns from the Able Sisters. Sometimes they accept my shirts and wear them (Agnes looks like Spider Pig now), and other times they won’t stop wearing the duck shirt! As mayor, I wish I could enact an ordinance that lets me choose what my villagers wear.

Sadly, Yumi’s Odd Odyssey is fairly low in the queue (Super Mario 3D World and Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze will take forever to complete), but that didn’t stop me from sampling it. The fish hook mechanics are amazing! I figured out how to scale a huge wall inch by inch, netting me a secret backpack. I can’t wait to see what else these mechanics can do!

Angela Marrujo

For whatever reason, I suddenly found myself really, really wanting to play Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door on the GameCube, so as an accommodating older bro, Robert hooked up our GameCube and now all I have to do is find the time to play it. Of the many great things about that game, in particular the writing always has me laughing out loud because it’s not only so good, it’s genuinely hilarious.

I also picked up a copy of Hello Kitty Kruisers for Wii U– yes, yes, laugh derisively all you want, even if it ends up being absolutely terrible I’m a huge Hello Kitty and Sanrio fan, so I was going to buy it no matter what. I haven’t taken it out of the plastic yet, but just the cover alone is outrageously adorable.

Finally, after the Smash Bros. Nintendo Direct, the competitive spirit in me got fired up and I felt like getting back into Brawl, not only to practice before I start destroying my opponents again, but also to unlock everything that was lost when Robert and I transferred our Wii data to our Wii U and it was all corrupted. I really enjoyed the Subspace Emissary and am looking forward to playing through that again and unlocking everything.

Anthony Pershkin

This week, I felt the urge to play Beyond Good & Evil once again, but since I’ve beaten it countless times, I decided to play Crystal Dynamics’ Tomb Raider before-the-reboot trilogy. I don’t know if there’s some sort of connection between those games, but for some unknown reason my brain went straight to Tomb Raider.

At the moment of writing this, I already finished Tomb Raider: Legend, which is a clunky, yet very enjoyable game. My next stop is Tomb Raider: Anniversary. I guess, you could say, it’s time to make dinosaurs go extinct again! Hahahaha! Ugh, sorry.

I’ve also been playing a lot of Fire Emblem Awakening lately. It took me about two days to finish side story 13. In that one, I chose to fight both armies (a total of 46 very strong units), which turned out to be quite a challenge.

What games will you be playing this weekend? Let us know in the comments!