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So, what are you playing?

by: Randy -
More On: What we're playing


Creed: Rise to Glory

YouTube is shutting down its three-year-old gaming.youtube.com app and transplanting it, with a revamped look, to youtube.com/gaming. Telltale, who changed the face of adventure gaming for an entire generation, quickly and unexpectedly shut down. And riding on the success of the animated Castlevania, Netflix is now bringing an animated Diablo series to your TV.

So, what are you playing?

Zachary Atwood
This week has been all Destiny 2 all the time. The Forsaken DLC has sucked me back in and I'm grinding with any time I can find. If I finally start to feel burned out on Destiny, I'll probably switch gears and look for some relaxing—and mildly stressful—Two Point Hospital to round out the weekend.

Sean Colleli
Wifey and I are moving to a new apartment this weekend, so if I get any gaming in at all it will probably be on my Switch or 3DS. I'm thinking Ocarina of Time 3D Master Quest or Metroid: Samus Returns. Once we're settled in I'll continue work on my RetroPie; Nintendo's frankly insulting Switch online service and its weaksauce Netflix-style approach to retro games spurred me to once again take the Thanos approach: "Fine, I'll do it myself." I've decided to update the firmware, curate a new game library for it and put it in a new case. It's a little sad but it seems that retro enthusiasts like me care more about preserving gaming's history than any of the big publishers, but it's not hard to see why. Anyway, rant over, time to lift heavy things to the new apartment.

Dave Gamble
While cohabitating the TV room with the spouse when she's watching Hallmark Channel movies, I have to divert my attention due to the [sarc]incredible tension and surprise endings[/sarc] of their typical fare. This almost always involves random traipsing through the immense library of YouTube videos on my 'droid pad. Pretty much any subject is of interest, but this time I took a special interest in some GoPro footage of a guy landing a Harrier on the deck of a ship. My first thought was, "Hey, I know how to do that!" which was quickly followed by, "Or used to. It's been a month since I've flown that thing, and I've probably forgotten now." So, this week is all about relearning the DCS Harrier, if for no other reason than I feel like I owe it to Matt Wagner for providing such awesome answers for our interview.

The primarily sedentary lifestyle of the retired is catching up with me, or at least that's my rationalization for being winded by climbing the three stairs from our garage to the kitchen. In order to reverse some of the damage, I have decided to select at least one of what I call my "Cardio Games" to play each week. This week is going to be The Thrill of the Fight, a VR boxing game that has the amazing ability to make a three-minute round feel like half an hour riding around in an industrial-grade clothes dryer. There have been a lot of updates since the last time it played me out, so that should be interesting.

Eric Hauter
I am doing my best to find time to play Creed: Rise to Glory on the PS VR, but I'm having a few problems finding time in the living room by myself. My youngest is two years old, and he doesn't really grasp the concept of "don't come into the living room because Daddy is going to punch you in the face as hard as he can because he can't see you and he thinks he is Adonis Creed." So that issue presents a challenge.

This weekend, I'm going to be attending GDEX (https://www.thegdex.com/) at the Columbus Convention Center, so I'm excited to bring back a lot of news and good vibes from that event. There are a number of exhibitors and speakers that I'm really looking forward to chatting with, and I hope to have the scoop on the whole event for Gaming Nexus readers early next week.

Randy Kalista
Swore to myself I wouldn't do this. But having Red Dead Redemption 2 at T-minus one month has me replaying OG Red Dead Redemption. I'd only sworn I wouldn't do this because I'm trying to avoid burnout. But I think, ultimately, refreshing my memory on some old haunts in New Austin will only deepen my appreciation of those places once I revisit them. Next time I'll simply be wearing Arthur Morgan's hat instead of John Marston's. Besides, early word is that Rockstar is redefining open-world gaming with this one—the same open-world genre it had redefined 17 years earlier in Grand Theft Auto III.

Even with my Divinity: Original Sin 2 – Definitive Edition review just about wrapped, I might plug a few more hours into that game. Despite its numerous bugs and sometimes nonsensical tactics, it's grown on me. The story and characterizations continually take surprising turns. Moments of comedy errupt in drama, moments of gravity interrupt the laughs. The voice acting is hamfisted as all get out, but the world is richer for it. Rivellon is a bad, bad place. So it feels good to leave it a little nicer than I found it.

Nicholas Leon
I think it'll be another round of Battlefield 1 for me this weekend. The matches, at least in my experience, are nearly always packed, and it's still chaotic as ever.

John Yan
Hopefully, I'll have my Wireless Vive Adapter by this weekend, but if not I'll still be playing some Fallout 4 VR and Skyrim VR. I've gotten back into those two Bethesda worlds again. Getting a little bit of exercise to not exacerbate my sciatica, I've found that gaming in VR lets me stand and move around, which helps. I've actually done some new quests in Fallout 4, so there's some new content that I've yet to experience on my third playthrough of it. I'm also going to try Divinity: Original Sin 2 now that I've read there's touchscreen support. Sounds like a game that I can play on my lap with my Surface Book.