We do love video games here at TSA, and it will come as little surprise that we’ve been playing them this week. I’ve been balancing the very different New Tales from the Borderlands, Tactics Ogre Reborn and Sonic Frontiers. One of these things is not especially good, while the other two are. Can you guess which way around they are?
Jason played [Redacted] which is a fancy way of him saying he can’t tell us, but that’s not the only thing he’s played. There’s also been lots more Genshin Impact and he played some Soulstone Survivors, telling us, “It’s a take on Vampire Survivors with a more overt meta-upgrade system, a little more chaos, and a different graphical style. It’s a lot of fun, but I need to give it more time before settling on it completely. He wasn’t done yet though, “I also played The Unliving, which is a roguelike where you play as a necromancer, and you basically control the undead like Pikmin, and you get to resurrect everyone you kill as your minions. It’s great, looks fantastic, and I’m excited to try more.”
Aran played Yakuza 6 and Football Manager 2023. He says, “Yakuza 6 feels a lot more compact and shorter than previous games, but I’m liking it overall. Football Manager 2023 is something I’m playing for review and my thoughts will be out next week on that.”
Nick P has played the mighty God of War: Ragnarok, for me! He told us he’s “only a few hours in but enjoying it so far.” Then there were all his usuals, which included hitting the final level in the Overwatch 2 battle pass, killed some people in Dead by Daylight and maxing out some guns in Modern Warfare 2.”
It was more Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous for Gareth, whose character is now “so evil I’m starting to wonder if I’ve overdone it.” Beside that he continued on with Modern Warfare 2’s campaign, which he’s found relatively uninspired outside of one mission that felt like Far Cry. And he’s found a novel way to play PC games: “I played two hours of Max Payne 3 via streaming from my Dad’s PC (which I recently logged into my Steam account so he can play my games when he got the most powerful gaming PC I’ve seen in person). It was like playing on my own PC, quite impressive. Also Max Payne 3 is great.”
Nic B has jumped on the bandwagon and given Marvel Snap a go. Meanwhile he’s also been blasting his way through Harry Potter Lego (which is free on PS+ this month), with his fiancée, who is “a Harry Potter aficionado to say the least”. Also Pogo. Because obviously Pogo.
Strange things are happening with Telesto in Destiny 2 right now….
Tuffcub has played Destiny 2. He’s trying to “finish the grind before I bugger off to Hawaii.” He also has some thoughts about Telesto, saying, “I don’t know what Bungie are playing at but it’s fun. They deliberately broke my favorite weapon and all the socials are running with some sort of mini quest thing where the weapon has become sentient.”
There’s confusion within JIm’s household, as he’s spent another week “wondering why the hell I bought a Steam Deck as it sits in cellophane, untouched. It will no doubt get some use during the Christmas break but for now I’m honed in on Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord. The original game holds a very special place in my heart, even with its jank and low budget aesthetic. Bannerlord doesn’t completely reinvent the wheel, but there are some many improvements, it’s definitely got me hooked once more. Let’s just hope the console ports will get mod support one day. I’d love to drop in Middle-Earth or Westeros for a custom campaign.”
Tef unhelpfully suggests that Jim should play Mount & Blade II on Steam Deck.
Steve’s lingering Covid fatigue drove him back to playing a lot of Xenoblade on Switch – “I’m properly working through it now and have got Melia and Riki onboard (still very early days though)”. Alongside that he’s been enjoying the Metroidvania-light Legend of Tian-ding – “a bit of a hidden gem on Game Pass.” – and has been playing through “the beautiful medieval manuscript stylings” of Pentiment. I’m sure that’s helped with the pain of God of War: Ragnarok not yet appearing in the post for him. Hopefully today?
And finally we come to Tef. He blazed a trail through the new Escape Academy DLC, which was a lot of brain-teasing fun, and joined that with more of WRC Generations’ online Leagues mode. Lastly, he’s been reviewing A Little to the Left, which has been a wonderful way to destress at the same time.