Week: End Game: On 04.14.2012

After a long week of productivity and working hard, it’s finally that time to sit back, relax, play some videogames, and read this week’s awesome edition of Week: End Game: On! Will this week be dominated by Xenoblade again, or will a new game take the reigns? And of course, this feature isn’t complete without the readers’ help!  Tell us in the comments below what you’ve been playing and plan on playing this weekend! Game on!

Nicolas Vestre

I recently arrived in western Canada, and had a pretty uneventful flight. On the plane ride, I played Jumping Flash! 2 on PSP, and I’ve concluded that I can’t stand gaming on an aeroplane. It undoubtedly gave me a bad impression of the game I was playing, so I’ll definitely give it another shot and eventually beat it. Hunger and extremely cramped spaces (I’m not exactly short) are not good things. (I should have watched Mission Impossible.)

Life has been so busy in my new location that I haven’t got much of a chance to get gaming time in (except for five minutes of PSP), but I bet that will change soon. When I finally move into my new house (I’m staying in a cramped apartment at the moment) I’ll actually be able to have some alone time, hopefully making some progress with Mario Kart 7 and Donkey Kong GB.

Michael Contino

This weekend I have Rune Factory: Frontier to begin playing on Wii. In addition to diving into other Wii games I have had for awhile, like GoldenEye 007, I will be playing Team Fortress 2 on PC.

I have some extra money to spend on myself, if I so choose, and I am currently split between picking up a new Xbox 360 or 3DS. As a new member of Nintendojo, I feel 3DS can only expand my stories but Halo 4 is coming this fall and the Halo fan inside me cannot miss that. Decisions, decisions…

As a twenty-three-year-old gamer, I fear I may have outgrown handhelds and I do NOT want to waste any more money. Otherwise, after beating arcade mode in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars with Viewtiful Joe/Mega Man Volnutt, I should try out some new characters.

Bradly Hale

Today marks the beginning of Xenoblade Chronicles weekend round 2. At this point, I’m about 25 hours in with a party at level 46. It seems that I’m at a narrative crossroads, though, so I’m truly looking forward to how the latter half of the game unfolds. I honestly haven’t felt this invigorated with an RPG in years. So, kudos, Monolith.

Outside of Xenoblade Chronicles, the next 48 hours will most likely consist of consuming exorbitant amounts of beer and mashing buttons with Kid Icarus: Uprising until my fingers are numb. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make it to GameStop today to pick up those exclusive AR cards, so if you’re looking for someone to unload yours on, by all mean, I’m your man.

Xenoblade once again conquers the weekend!

Katharine Byrne

Pandora’s Tower finally arrived in the post today, so I’ll no doubt be knee-deep in harvested monster hearts by this time tomorrow. I must admit that I’m a little wary in starting this game. It hasn’t been getting particularly stellar reviews on this side of the pond so far, so I’ll have to see whether my apprehension is justified. Expect my review late next week.

I also started playing Kid Icarus: Uprising a few days ago, and I’m really enjoying it so far. I’ve been looking forward to this game ever since last February, but when I previewed Uprising last October, I had a sharp wake-up call when it came to the land battle sections. I couldn’t get a grip on the camera, there was a timer adding extra pressure, and it generally came across as a bit of a mess. It really put me off the game for a while, even though the flight sections were absolutely sublime. But I’m happy to report that something drastic must have happened between then and now, because the camera is infinitely smoother and much more manageable than before, and that pesky timer has disappeared too. It’s turned out to be a really beautiful game with a surprising amount of depth, and I’ve enjoyed every second of it, particularly Pit and Lady Palutena’s chats! I’m glad the humour hasn’t been lost in translation, and it’s certainly some of the best voice work Nintendo has done in a long time. Definitely recommended!

And of course, there’s still a bit more Bit.Trip Runner on the cards too. I’ve almost finished Zone 3 now– just a couple more levels to go– but it’s really stepped up the difficulty level now, so I’ve retreated to completing some of the new challenges for the time being. Then again, they’re also getting progressively harder, so I may have to call it a day soon and admit defeat. But as long as CommanderVideo keeps on running, I’ll keep on trying…

Kyle England

Unfortunately, schooling and personal matters have been taking up more and more time that I usually would play video games. The crunch at the end of the spring semester in college is starting! On one hand, I want summer to come so I can have more time. On the other hand, I’m still procrastinating on a bunch of things that will only cause me more stress as the days tick by.

When I can, I have been slowly working my way through Xenoblade Chronicles. I’m still not very far into the game, and my party has been getting soundly whupped by a giant spider. I have definitely not mastered the battle system yet, it’s very fun and fast, but it’s a learning curve. My favorite RPGs are the old school turn based games (with Final Fantasy IX being my favorite), and the only RPG with real-time combat I ever delved into was Tales of Symphonia. So, the battling in Xenoblade is very new to me, but I am getting better!

Kevin Knezevic

My copy of Xenoblade still hasn’t arrived in the mail yet, so I’ll be spending some more time with Kid Icarus: Uprising this weekend. I’m really getting into the Light vs. Dark mode, which is surprisingly robust considering we didn’t even know about it until last E3. It’s a lot of fun mixing and matching weapons and powers before each battle; it really adds a level of depth and replayability to the mode that I didn’t expect. I may also try to work my way through the story once more before I travel to Bionis, but for now I’m content to just battle it out with other angels.

I’ll also be playing a little bit of Ketzal’s Corridors if I have the chance. I purchased the game on a whim the other night, and while I have yet to put any substantial time into it, I think it’s a pretty neat little puzzler. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with it, the object of Ketzal’s Corridors is to fit your tetromino “Guardian” through a series of walls, rotating it in the appropriate direction to squeeze between the approaching gaps. It’s a little disorienting trying to remember which button rotates your Guardian which way, but it feels very satisfying to slip through a speeding wall right at the very last second (which is only augmented by the game’s fantastic stereoscopic effects). It might still be too early to tell, but it looks like this could be another winner for the eShop.