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So, what are you playing?

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

Here's The Office and nine other TV shows that were turned into video games. The 1977 Porsche 930 is the only real-world car appearing in Cyberpunk 2077. And the upcoming Atari hotel in Las Vegas just revealed what its Ready Player One-looking interior will look like

So, what are you playing?

Charlie Coleman
I'm playing FIFA 21 this week—FIFA Ultimate Team more precisely—and I've just recently packed Mo Salah and built a new team around him. As well as this, I've also been playing the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War beta. So, it's been a very hardcore gaming week for me and thus I even had to pull out the G Fuel to get me by! 
 
Sean Colleli
I got tired of the brown water and corrosive air of my previously paradisiacal No Man's Sky home base, so I went looking for another planet. I found some lovely oceanfront real estate on an idyllic little world a few hundred lightyears away, so I tore down my old base and reconstructed it bigger and better. No Man's Sky has, in some ways, replaced Minecraft as my Zen garden. Whenever I'm stressed, I while away a few hours poking around a new planet or working on my habitat. It's taken four years and a lot of updates, but the game is finally the chill experience Sean Murray set out to create.
 
Conversely, I'm halfway through Dead Space, ticking away on my trusty old Xbox 360 Slim. I'm struck by how immersive and forward-looking this game was in 2007. Dead Space might get flack for being Resident Evil 4 by way of System Shock 2 with a dash of Event Horizon, but for all its homages and influences, Visceral put a lot of original writing and worldbuilding into this game. It's oppressively short-sighted; a future built on cut-and-run profit and bilking tired, desperate blue collar workers with an evangelical space cult. I like to imagine this is what the future will look like if Jeff Bezos wins the commercial space race instead of Elon Musk.
 
Eric Hauter
All of talk about Creed is going to have me redownloading that game. But for now, I'm still enjoying a more recent Survios game: The Walking Dead: Onslaught. I know that this game got middling reviews from a lot of outlets, but I really enjoyed it. Between the fun set pieces, the grotesque combat, and seeing all of my TV zombie-killing favorites in VR, I feel like this game is a great addition to Survios's already strong library.
 
I've also been playing Crash Bandicoot 4: Out of Time for review. I'm a little late to the party on this one, and almost everybody will have already read reviews talking about how well this game is made, and how fun it is. In cases like these, I always try to bring a little more personal perspective to my experience with the game. I'm hoping to have something interesting to say about Crash 4 by early next week.
 
Randy Kalista
I set my alarm half an hour earlier. I grab a glass of water, which I will spill across my keyboard later. I boot up my VR headset which, uncharacteristically, loads up perfectly on the first try. I slip the controller wrist straps around my wrists and hold up my boxing-gloved hands in front of my face. I am now the incredibly handsome Michael B. Jordan. I am Creed: Rise to Glory. I am looking down at my virtual musculature that I haven't seen on me, in real life, since my Navy days, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't even this muscular back then. I hit the VR gym, hit the punching bags, hit the training dummies, and hit the harder difficulty before I step into the ring with a big boy that plays a bouncer in the career mode, a gold "92" around his neck, and a tendency to leave his face wide open. By the end, my arms and shoulders are on fire, Michael B. Jordan's breathing ragged and distressed. But big boy ragdolls onto his back. Then I reach for my glass of water and spill it across my keyboard.
 
John Yan
I've been dipping my toes in Among Us and have been having some fun doing tasks and honing my skills as an Imposter. The game's so intense whether you are a crew member or an imposter. It can get pretty stressful, but with a group of people that you know it's so much fun.
 
I try to get at least one VR game in on the weekend, so I think I'll jump back into Fallout 4 VR where the mods I have: remove the HUD, make activating the Pip-Boy require the use of my virtual finger to push a button on my wrist, make the enemies more dangerous, and many others. There's over 200 mods that I have installed that make Fallout 4 VR feel like a new game.
 
I might also go a few rounds in Creed. It's good exercise and fun to beat up on Ivan Drago.