Welcome back to another installment of Week: End Game: On! After a summer detour through their backlogs, the staff look forward to returning to some more recent titles. Which ones will they be playing this weekend? Read on to find out!
Marc Deschamps
Having a newborn around the house means my video game time has dropped off quite a bit the last couple weeks, but I’ve found some time here and there. This week, I finally cracked into another game in my backlog: Mario & Luigi: Dream Team. I found it tucked under the Christmas Tree last year, but it’s been confined to a shrink-wrap prison since. A couple hours in and it’s proven to be a nice game to play for a few minutes at a time between diapers! Hopefully I’ll have a little more time when Hyrule Warriors comes out soon!
I’ve been playing Animal Crossing: New Leaf once a week or so when I’ve had time. I can definitely see my time with it drawing to a close soon, though. I’ve seen some of my favorite neighbors move out between sessions, and it totally bums me out when it happens. I really wish there was a way to get some of them back. Cherry was the latest casualty of the town of Johto. I’ll miss that little red dog!
Robert Palacios
I know I’m a little late to the party, but I have been cranking on Super Mario 3D World with my son. It’s a testament to great design that a five-year-old kid gets what he is supposed to do and understands how the levels work. We’re having a ton of fun getting all the green stars and exploring the worlds. We plan on getting through World 4. He’s hoping for another Plessie sighting, big time!
When I’m not rocking cat suits, I’ll be knee deep in Destiny. I really wish Nintendo had more third party support as this works great on my 360 and Wii U certainly could have handled it. The GamePad screen would have been nice for map management…
Anthony Vigna
Video games? What are those?
But in all seriousness, I’m also not playing many video games as of late. I’m starting to go through my senior year of college, so my academics are going to be the most important thing for me to focus on. I am excited to start playing games again, though, especially because we’re getting so many good eShop games. After a year of waiting, we’re finally getting Teslagrad on Wii U in all its puzzle platforming glory. We also got KickBeat: Special Edition on Wii U, which is a ridiculously cool combination of fighting and rhythm games! Oh, and let’s not forget The Keep on 3DS, which is bringing first person dungeon crawling games to a modern era!
Ah, so many good games are out! Yet, I have so little time. I’ll have to get to some of these eventually!
Robert Marrujo
Resident Evil: Revelations has been filling my time lately, for some reason. I think it’s a real shame that the port of the game to Wii U wasn’t as warmly received as the 3DS original. It’s pretty cool how Capcom was able to take all the assets from the 3DS version and upscale it all to HD. I don’t think the game is quite as scary as some of the other entries in the mainline series, but it really nails the atmosphere and quirkiness that the best Resident Evil games have. Parker’s a beast, by the way.
Mega Man X4 has also been getting some play time. Capcom finally put the game out on PlayStation Network, so it’s been a blast rediscovering the first X game to hit a Sony console. I love the look of the SNES X games, but the quality of visuals that the series experienced once it transitioned to PSOne is shocking. It almost looks like a little cartoon! Whenever Mega Man hopefully comes back, Capcom should revive the X series. Fast, fun, and brutal, just like Mega Man should always be.
Angela Marrujo
I’ll keep this short and sweet with three simple words: Smash Bros. demo. There will be nothing else played this weekend. Nothing.
All right, I always have time for Mario Kart 8 (erm, hours of it…) at the end of the evening, so Smash Bros. and then Mario Kart.
Jon Stevens
After having purchased yet another fantastic Humble Bundle, I’ve been really enjoying playing some indie titles this week.
If you happen to play PC games, then I cannot recommend the latest bundle enough. Papers Please and Gone Home, for example, have some incredibly surreal moments which are just fantastic, and it’s worth it for them alone. Gunpoint is created by a former UK games journalist and, despite it simplistic graphics, nails the action/stealth genre in a way that is almost as much fun as Mark of the Ninja. Meanwhile, if you haven’t played SteamWorld Dig on 3DS or Wii U yet, then this is also a chance to pick it up cheaply. I may go on to get it on Wii U, in fact, as it seems really suited to the GamePad.
Beyond that, my time with Prison Architect has made me fantasize about just how good strategy or simulation games could be on Wii U’s GamePad!
What games will you be playing this weekend? Let us know in the comments!