What we’ve been playing: Week of 29/5/2011

Hello and welcome to this again. My head hurts and I feel quite sick at this moment because my head hurts. Is that a good enough intro? It better be. Hit the jump to read it or don’t to not read it. God I need to sleep.

Stevie Grant- Writer of Top 10 Worst and Boss Attack:

I got LA Noire, which is pretty engrossing so far. I also finished Plants Vs Zombies on DS which was pretty amazing. Really fun game, can’t believe it took me this long to get around to playing it. Also just a hint for next week, I’ve just ordered Power Stone 2 so I shall see how that stacks up to the first one. I am excited.

Alexander Sargeant- Writer of Retro Reviews:

After a conversation about The Club with a friend online, I ended up replaying it on the PC. Actually enjoyed it more than I remembered from when it came out, and with similar styled games out recently at much more competitive pricing it was definitely interesting to go back to.

Demonbane is finally out as a download game (I dare not order a box copy for a number of reasons) and it’s a pretty damn swell visual novel so far. It’s old-school Nitroplus, so the characters a lot more overtly sexualised than their more recent games like Chaos;Head, Steins;Gate or Saya no Uta. The world is a hell of a lot more imaginative so far, and I’m really enjoying the writing which was translated originally by some TL-Wiki guys and is hopefully part of much more grand designs on the whole Jast-USA catalogue. Along with the localisation of Eien no Aselia it seems they’re even branching out to more socially acceptable titles, which is incredibly encouraging. There are so many games out there like Twinkle Crusaders/Galaxy Angel and the entire Infinity series by Kid that I’d love to see translated sometime which contain next to no sexual content.

And Terraria again, where I just made a Grass Sword and battled the menacing Skeletron atop the keep of his dungeon/castle. Shit is so cash.

Josh Newey – Writer of With Great Power Comes Great Games and Underappreciated Gems:

I finally passed the kidney stone that was Thor earlier this week. My neighbors are now afraid to go outside when I’m nearby, since the ceaseless stream of obscenities that has been pouring from my apartment over the past week has everyone on their toes. Thank God that’s over.

On the bright side of things, I finally got myself a Sega Saturn this past week! Oh lord the delight! I have literally been pining for one of these bastards for years, and I have never been able to rationalize picking one up until I started writing for this site. I feel like I should be in some Sega Addicts advertisement, wearing a polo shirt with a sweater draped over my shoulders, standing in front of a convertible sports car and holding my new Sega Saturn – “Thanks Sega Addicts!”

I have been playing a bunch of games I’ve always wanted to try, including Panzer Dragoon II Zwei, Clockwork Knight II, Bug! and Astal. I’ve only really got to play bits and pieces of each, but I’m pretty much in love so far. The early 32 Bit visuals aren’t the easiest thing with which to reacquaint myself, but the experimental flavor that comes with early 3D games is undeniably refreshing. Hooray

And with that, the saga of the kidney stone has passed. Get it? ‘Passed?’ Bah, my jokes are wasted here.

John Doherty- Writer of Take Cover:
I recently held a League of Legends tournament at the college I attend. It was a blast. I worked with the school to allow us to use one of the large TVs in the lobby to broadcast the game.

I have also been trying to work through my pile of shame. Games that I have been meaning to play and just haven’t yet. I started off by giving Assassins Creed a try. After about 20 minutes I turned it off, and will probably not return to it. The controls were horrible. Maybe it’s because I was playing on PC instead of a console but there was way to many things to keep track of. The story as well had me very uninterested in the first 5 minutes. Maybe I will go back to it eventually, but for now I have no interest.

I did just start Far Cry 2 as well. I’m not very far in so I haven’t figured out how I feel about it yet. So far it’s really pretty and pretty fun, even though it’s a little generic.

I did play some board games this week if that counts. I had a couple of great Puerto Rico games, which I of course lost. Does anyone here play board games?

Tom Kyzivat- Artist and Podcast Co-host:

I went crawling back to Marvel vs. Capcom 3 this week, even though it mistreats me. I can’t stay mad at it.

Alex Riggen- Editor in Chief and Podcast Host:

I’m still working through LA Noire. The game gets much better after you finish the homicide desk with more creative cases and settings. I’m still not a huge fan of the interrogations due to it feeling a little too much trial and error and it doesn’t always seem to matter if you respond correctly or not. When the interrogations do work though it feels amazing. I think Team Bondi has definitely created something that could be turned into a great franchise if they work on the mechanics. It’s nice to see a game be so successful that isn’t about running around and shooting everything in sight.

And that was this weeks thing of it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to lie down. Tell me whatever you want to tell me in the comments and I’ll get back to you next time. Laters.