What are You Playing - May 11th

Written by Colby Friday, 11 May 2012 10:20

Here is another entry in our series "What are You Playing?"  With no big releases this week, it seems everyone is headed to their backlog to fill their gaming time.  If you're looking for something to play we've got a variety of suggestions across all platforms.

Mark Del Rio

Having finished Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood last week, I’m about to play Trine 2 on Steam. I played the first one and loved it. I’m really looking forward to this one though I must say that I’m a little disappointed with the achievements. None of them are for level or difficulty completion. Oh well, that’s not going to stop me from enjoying it.

Jon Morris

I am still playing a lot of Tribes: Ascend, which is easy to get addicted to because no other game is quite like it.  I know I’m a bit late to the party, but I’ve also started fooling around in Super Monday Night Combat.  Counter Strike: Global Offensive Beta is in the mix as well.  I want to start playing Orion: Dino Beatdown, but unfortunately I am one of the people who cannot get the game to work properly yet so I’ll have to see if a second patch addresses my issues.  If all of these are not enough to fill my gaming time, I’ll try to plow through some more of my singleplayer backlog.

Ryan Johnson

Given that most of my gaming time is dedicated to story driven games, I feel many of my “what are you playing's will be very similar. Perhaps a commentary on the situation would be best. Other than SSX, Metal Gear Solid 3 is still eating up most of my minimal gaming time, in the hopes of getting to #4. For the "best game in the series," it sure is bogging me down with annoyances. I LOVED 1 and 2, and all I hear is that it's worth getting through to the end of #4...but all I have so far is a lot of menu swapping. I'm not even all that bothered with the dialog: it's the "oh, you got shot, you're bleeding to death until you dig out the bullet, use a styptic, sew up the wound, put on antiseptic, bandage the wound" only to get out of the menu and get shot again. That and the clothes changing in split seconds, sometimes mid battle, are what make me feel like the fourth wall is down, wide open. As I fumble through a pitch black tunnel looking for the torch that just happens to be there on my way to fight a man who controls hornets in the middle of an underground lake, I just start wondering what I'm doing. Looking forward to starting #4...just how long is 3 though?

Erik Kubik

This week is rough; think of it as the calm before the storm. I’ve been looking at trying to start and finish Mass Effect 3 before the Game of Thrones game and Diablo III comes out. I have decided that isn’t going to happen. I recently finished the original Fallout and I’m thinking between draining “3s” with Lebron James in NBA Live 10. I need to fire up my Onlive Microconsole and give Deus Ex HR another shot. Who’s knows with a slow weekend coming up I may have to play some more Dead Island or try to finish Heavenly Sword. Starhawk, Binary Domain, and Yakuza Dead Souls are all on my radar as are the next three games I need to get. Now to find them for less than $30 apiece.

Craig Will

Besides playing Rage of Bahumut on my phone I’ve spent a lot of time playing Disgaea 3 on the Vita. Since you’ll see my full review of the game soon I won’t say too much about it here except that it is so easy to lose hours to that game.

I also picked up Battlefield 3 from Best Buy for $20 last week and have put about 5 hours into that. I love it. When the beta came out I remember playing it and not being remotely interested in the full game because of how much fun I wasn’t having in the beta. I am very happy to say that I was wrong and I’m having such a blast with it. 

I know it probably doesn’t count since I’m not the one playing it but I’ve watched my wife sink a fair amount of time in Alice: Madness Returns over the past week. It starts out super disturbing, almost to the point that we just shut the game off, but really picks up once you hit Wonderland.

Colby Sorensen

This week has been a mixed bag.  I finally had the time to finish Deus Ex: Human Revolution and while I have an overall positive opinion on the game, I thought it was a little too long and by the end I was happy for it to be over.  I love that feeling of making it through an area undetected like in a Splinter Cell game or one of Rocksteady’s Batman games.  

I attempted to get going in several games from my backlog, but it wasn’t until this morning that I found something that hooked me.  Surprisingly, it was Too Human. That game kept me intrigued past the first hour, I just couldn’t get into neither Lost Odyssey nor Left 4 Dead 2 (I really liked L4D, but I was so poor a player that I kept getting booted.)  I think Too Human probably actually deserves more credit than it has got.  I think that the combination of sci-fi and mythological aesthetics is incredibly unique.  The controls and combat aren’t the greatest by any means, but I still find it enjoyable.

On the multiplayer front I also put in quite a bit of time on MW3 and Dungeon Defenders.  If there are any Dungeon Defender regulars out there that are normal human beings, feel free to friend me on XBL, gamertag sikapwach.

Mike Rohde

I finally found out why everyone likes Minecraft. I bought it for the Xbox 360 and played it the past two nights in a row. I haven't progressed very far because everytime I die I just start a new game because I didn't like how the current game was progressing. If only I could discover a way to make fire and torches; then digging a deep mine would become a lot easier. I did once find a lava flow that kept my area lit during the night, but I foolishly deleted that game and now I can't find any more lava. This is a game that I might play for awhile just for a good change of pace from The Witcher and MW3.