What are you playing right now?

[Sharecrow]

I’m still wrapping up Assassin’s Creed Origins. I’m so close to being done with it...

I think I’ll work on NNK, Tales of Graces, and God of War until Detroit comes out.

[SkyPikachu]

Minecraft (XBO) - Having achievements to achieve have made the game a lot better in my opinion and has reknewned my love of the game.

Fable Anniversary (XBO) - A gamepass title I played a little of the original on the original Xbox before I had to sell it but I’m really enjoy it.

God of War (PS4) - Really enjoying the story however it’s been put on the backburner because of my $1 gamepass subscription. I’ll get back to it in June as it’s a tone of fun. I just want to make sure I play my “rented” games first.

[Kong Wen]

I'm primarily playing God of War (PS4) right now. I've been gunning through the story first, tackling whatever side-business I happen to notice along the way, but I'm planning on going back and discovering everything, completing side-quests, etc. eventually. There's a good chance this will be my 50th Platinum trophy, if I can rescue the Valkyries without getting too frustrated.

I'm also still playing Monster Hunter: World (PS4), especially when Bacon & Rob are online. We've been whittling away at Arch-Tempered Kirin this week, trying to collect enough tickets to get the full armour set. Kulve Taroth comes back this week, Arch-Tempered Vaal Hazak is on deck for next week, and then Final Fantasy's Behemoth is coming sometime this summer. The summer festival should actually be starting pretty soon. If I get lucky with giant gold crown RNG, this could also be a contender for my 50th Platinum. I only need Black Diablos and Kushala Daora.

After I'm done with God of War, I'm moving on to another undisclosed Platinum project.

[Jordan]

Started Shantae Half Genie Hero DLC featuring Rottytops, Bolo and Sky.

Also started Ni-Oh.

Will have more impressions later, but so far I'm finding both to be pretty fun.

[The Shoemaker]

Started Shantae Half Genie Hero DLC featuring Rottytops, Bolo and Sky.

Also started Ni-Oh.

Will have more impressions later, but so far I'm finding both to be pretty fun.

You know I would have liked to have gone back to the Shantae DLC, but I just couldn't find the motivation to play the Wii U again.

God of War - Enjoying this one quite a bit. It has an excellent balance between story and gameplay due to the "one shot" nature of the game. Hard to say how far I am into the game, I feel like I might be halfway?

West of Loathing - Just beat the game yesterday. A very amusing black and white stick figure open world-ish RPG. The actual RPG mechanics were good enough to be engaging and motivated me to make a pretty good build.

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle - Started playing the game again a couple weeks back, I'm in the final world now nearing the end of the game. It's actually a lot easier the second time through now that I really have a handle on the mechanics. I'm not going for all the bonus exp so we'll see if that catches up to me in the end.

Splatoon 2 - Always playing this game here and there. Splattershot Pro has been speaking to me lately, and I made it to S rank in clam blitz last night. I also picked up the DLC expansion which I've been slowly playing through.

[Jordan]

West of Loathing - Just beat the game yesterday. A very amusing black and white stick figure open world-ish RPG. The actual RPG mechanics were good enough to be engaging and motivated me to make a pretty good build.

I'm very tempted to get this. It's on sale on Steam for under $10.00. I liked the humor in Kingdom of Loathing so this seems right up my alley.

Impressions on Ni-Oh: Wow, what an amazing gem. The only other "Soulsborne" game I've played is Demon's Souls, which is like the OG, unremembered, unloved, uncared about title. I had mixed feelings about it when I played. By contrast, I like Ni-Oh much better. For one thing, the setting immediately makes me immediately invested. I'm really into historical allusions in video games. The lore in Ni-Oh is personally appealing in a way that the wholly fictional universes of the Souls games aren't. Secondly, I just think I appreciate the gameplay more. The stance system is cool and I like the way you can use ninjitsu, guns, bows, cannons and omyoji as part of an overall "loadout." I've been having a blast with this one. I've sunk in 20 hours so far, almost entirely using tonfas.

Shantae DLC: All of the new DLC works the same way. You collect rupees to level up your character(s) and fight the stages and bosses of Shantae's story mode with some deviations.

In Beach Mode, Shantae has to collect sunscreen or else she dies. She can also float in a bubble, very slowly, in order to get past obstacles. It's very silly but not very fun.

In Ninja Mode, Shantae gets all kinds of powers such as teleportation, stealth and wall jumps. Surprisingly, I found this the most fun out of all the DLC modes I tried.

In the DLC featuring Rottytops, Sky and Bolo, you have to switch between the three characters in order to overcome obstacles. It's not as fast-paced or enjoyable as Ninja Mode, but the stages are a bit more inventive because they forcibly take into account these characters' movesets.

My overall impression is that this DLC is fun and adds a little bit to the game. However, I still feel like 1/2 Genie Hero is lacking compared to Pirate's Curse. The new modes don't pack as much punch as I'd like because all of the levels are still essentially the same. Because of that, they all sort of feel repetitive. Pirate's Curse had much less content than 1/2 Genie Hero, but I'd trade that in a heartbeat for the far superior gameplay in Pirate's Curse. The power ups and awesome level design simply make Pirate's Curse a better platformer.

[Kong Wen]

I got my God of War platinum so my plan is to play through a secret game, and then after that, I'm going to launch a project where I beat a game from each system I have in a rotation. This is partly driven by the fact that I've finally started putting my games up on shelves after building them a couple weeks ago, taking many gems out of boxes for the first time in years.

I'll cross that bridge when I get to it, but I'm pretty excited about some of my options (e.g. finally giving Dark Wizard the attention it deserves on a proper Sega CD).

[SkyPikachu]

Pokémon Platinum - I missed D/P/Plat, B/W, B/W2 & X/Y so I’m going back to play them all. Really really loving platinum I think I like it more than Emerald. Stuff from Gen 7 I miss is Ride Pokémon (removal of HM mainly), easier breeding and easier shiny catching. That being said it’s still much better than S/M. Currently 7 badges into Platinum so shouldn’t be far off finishing the main story

Skate 3 - Going to try and 100% the game as I currently have beaten the main story.

Will be renting Shovel Knight soon as I really disliked Pandora’s Tower so my focus will be that soon and I’ve also been meaning to get back to Metroid Trilogy. Though seriously Nintendo PORT THE GAME TO SWITCH (Same with Skyward Sword please)

[Jordan]

I've been alternating between Ni-Oh and Evenicle mainly.

Evenicle-This really isn't Alicesoft's best work. I judge games 90% by gameplay and 10% by story. The gameplay is a let down for me. It doesn't differ greatly from other generic turn based menu selection RPGs like Dragon Quest. It lacks both strategic depth and player interactivity, making it just an average game at best. The first few chapters are a steamroll with no challenge whatsoever. The difficulty level slightly picks up afterward, but only to a minimal degree. You unlock greater options to customize your characters and the enemies become modestly more difficult. Overall, however, the game is still easy and borderline simplistic. I've played many RPGs in my life and have specific expectations for what makes a "good" RPG. Good RPGs require the player to use specific strategies to defeat specific enemies. They require the player to think about their strategies and adjust them to deal with new circumstances. Good RPGs pose a moderate to high degree of challenge. Mediocre RPGs just have the player scale up in level and power as the game goes on and easily mow down everything with little to no effort. Good RPGs have a high degree of customization and/or a high degree of player input. Bad RPGs have a low degree of customization and/or force you to select everything from menus (however, many menu based RPGs can be good if they have the strategic depth to compensate for their lack of player input). Evenicle fails to stick out in terms of its battle system and therefore fails to leave a lasting impression on me.

The story has some interesting aspects and is the main thing that's driving me to continue playing. However, I'm pretty sure that Rance Quest Magnum will blow this game out of the water (the translation for RQ being nearly complete at this point). RQ Magnum has many advantages over Evenicle. It has a class based system inherited from Sengoku Rance, for instance, along with dozens of characters. To the best of my knowledge based on what I've gleaned from hearsay, RQ Magnum also offers a higher degree of customization for your characters. Furthermore, RQ Magnum has more challenging quests overall. Evenicle seems like an appetizer that was thrown out before the main course. It is by no means a bad game, but it is disappointing me with its overall mediocrity. Perhaps my standards are just very high.

[VictorViper]

Onrush - I picked this up in the summer sale, and with a 40% price cut just 4 weeks since it launched (and being essentially an online only game), red flags should have been everywhere. And they were, but this was just too damn intriguing. This is Codemasters with a big chunk of the team made up of Motorstorm and Drive Club devs, so the risk didn't come from any worry about quality, but of the game's support and longevity. That's still a concern, and given how little I've heard about this one since launch, I fear it may be suffering from Battleborn's fate (high quality/concept, no players), but that hasn't proven true yet in practice. I got into matches consistently and quickly last night, and the game is a bloody riot. I'll be enjoying this one for as long as I can. Wonderfully dumb fun and you could tell me this was the next project from the Rocket League guys and I'd believe you. That's high praise.

Steredenn - Putting this one back into my daily rotation after noticing a name change for it in the summer sale - Steredenn "Binary Star". This was a massive update that retooled the weapons system, introduced new ships, enemies, bosses and secret bosses, a rush mode, additional music for the ripping soundtrack and more. This is one of the best shoot em ups I've ever played.

Surviving Mars - Picked this one up just two days before it went on sale. Whatever, I'm not MAD ABOUT IT OR ANYTHING. But it's a goodun, so the salt stings but is delicious. Sim City on Mars isn't entirely accurate but it's as apt a comparative description as we're going to get, so I'm using it. These are always sandbox games so it's nice to see the game has a host of stories (mysteries) you can decide to include in your game files - more than a dozen of them - and so far they're pretty neat. If Sim City on Mars sounds good to you then I would recommend this to you because Sim City on Mars sounded good to me and it turns out it's pretty good.