What You've Been Playing This Week

[dataDave]

More DMC5 last night. How on earth something like Bayonetta 3 can rate so highly when something like this exists is beyond me entirely. I’m not even up to the Dante bits yet.

[Blobcat]

This month we have mostly been playing Sea of Theives!

[QualityChimp]

Elden Ring.
I'm actually playing a game released this year!

Enjoying it so far. Aiming to get OP, but some of the enemies have different ideas.
Quite funny just running past a lot of stuff, but sometimes I'm drawn into fight and can't resist the challenge.
I'm still a bit clumsy, but I've only been playing it one night!
Did play to 1am though and am suffering now!

The kids helped me choose his name...

[Atticus]

The kids helped me choose his name

Did they suggest the ‘Lord’ part?

[QualityChimp]

Yeah, they wanted Lord Poopsyworth The Second, but I hit the character limit.

[wakka]

Ah, number 2. Of course. I like the way they think.

[QualityChimp]

They were on the floor crying with laughter - it was top-tier comedy to them both.

I gotta admit, I love it in games when you have a stupid name and it's like:
"Why, we are honoured by your presence, Lord Poopysworth"

or

"Finally, the universe will get to the ULTIMATE power wielded by you, Keith."

[wakka]

Lol, yes. Even better when it's that Skyrim type cutscene where you can move around as the NPCs are carrying out the super serious dialogue so you're just bunny hopping round the room, bouncing off walls.

[QualityChimp]

My fave was Half-Life 2:
"Why if it isn't the famous Gordon Freeman, saviour of the human race, defeater of the Xen invaders and all-round particle fusion genius!"

GORDON IS CROUCH-JUMPING TO SMASH EVERY SINGLE CRATE IN THE ROOM LIKE A MAN POSESSED.

[Dogg Thang]

I have been jumping around a bunch of games. Since finishing Dead Space, I moved on to Dead Space 2. Visually it's so much more interesting but it's very much more of the same so maybe not best played straight after the original.

I also got God of War on Steam Deck, the first one with the son character and, honestly, I'm struggling with it. After the huge, simple to play original games, I'm finding this one slow and fiddly, with the controls not quite gelling with me at all yet.

And I've been playing Sonic Origins. Yes, I bought the Sonic games yet again. Playing through S3&K, it's still a wonderful game experience but those music replacements are terrible. They are really bad and don't fit the levels. So I miss the original music a lot. And yeah, this collection should have had more in it and should have included more Sonic novelties that we haven't seen properly released in years but still these are great games.

And I also got Doom Eternal in the Steam sale. It plays beautifully on the Deck, so smooth. The controls feel spot on and it is very easy to get into. I feel it's a little less natural feeling than the previous game though, in the sense that it's very much moving from one combat arena to the next. The previous game was like that too but a little less obviously so. It felt more natural in the first one. It also seems to have a story, as if I should remember characters from the previous game but I don't - I don't know if I wasn't paying attention but I feel like these story elements are new.

[MonkeyJuggleDX]

Art of Fighting 2. That is all. Literally.

[Cepp]

Back4Blood. My first time playing so followed the rest of the team to my death. Was fun, might stick with it.

[Atticus]

Played some Invasion on MWII with a mate last night. It's a 20v20 mode on an big map with bots added too to further flesh the numbers out. You get 1 point for shooting a bot, 5 points for a human player. There are vehicles aplenty too. Really good fun.

[importaku]

Dragon quest treasures it’s obscenely good. So much to see & do the battling mechanic is fun as is the treasure hunting the treasure serves a use too as the more treasure value you have in your vault the more your monsters can do. You don’t know exactly what you have till you take it back to get it appraised. So addictive already put quite a few hours in.

[MartyG]

As well as all the 365 Challenge games, I've managed to find 18 hours for the new Steam version of Dwarf Fortress.

It's such a fab game and once you get past the clunky UI (and trust me, the original version is far far far far far less approachable) it will absolutely hook you in.

I can only see the Steam release improving over time, and it's definitely made the game more approachable - as charming as all the ASCII-based graphics is, it was enough to make people run far away. Plus you still have the option to play the free version if you want to. It is expensive at £25, but you're supporting 16 years of development here, mostly just from two people.

It is a must-play game if you have a PC.

Edit - Also don't buy it because you'll be up till gone 2am playing - just one last mining job ...