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What we're playing

by: Randy -
More On: What we're playing
Don't geo-block video game sales inside the European Economic Area or you'll be fined a total of $9.5 million, Valve plus five other PC game publishers. Elon Musk tweets, "You can steal our name/logos & we probably won't sue you," to video game developer that stole SpaceX's name and logos. And Bloomberg [paywall] goes deep into what went wrong with Cyberpunk 2077's development and subsequent launch.
 
So, this is what we're playing.
 
 
Eric Hauter
I've still been logging into Red Dead Online every morning for about 45 minutes to keep up with my streak of daily achievements. It's been a long time since I worried about dailies in a game, but I'm to the point where I get a quarter bar of gold every time I do one of the 13 offered to me every day, so I can usually crank a full bar of gold before everyone else wakes up. This morning I had a weird experience where RDO loaded me in at someone else's camp, which was surprisingly disorienting. I stood at this stranger's stew pot, trying to eat stew, bewildered as to why I couldn't. Then I noticed that Cripps looked a little odd, wearing a sombrero and traditional Mexican garb. Then I noticed that the tent was much nicer than mine. For a moment, I thought that Red Dead was giving me cool surprises, but then I realized that I was simply displaced. I left the stranger's camp and set out for mine. I was immediately eaten by a bear. Sigh. Red Dead life.
 
I also just picked up Neoverse, a fancy deck builder with fun action sequences that play out when you play cards. Just scraping the surface on that one, but so far I like it a lot.
 
I'm also hoping to get through the rest of Hitman 3 on Stadia this weekend for review, but that depends on how much my kids leave me alone. The game is a slow burn that I find wildly entertaining, but three hours of me walking around listening to people talk makes my family whiny. They are fine with watching me skin animals, but carefully planned assassinations just bore the kids.
 
Randy Kalista
For full on decades, it seems, I've watched video game developers toss Werewolf: The Apocalypse back and forth—with nothing to show for it. Werewolf isn't a completely unpopular tabletop role-playing game, but it's not a surefire hit either. I mean, unless your name is Altered Beast or The Elder Scrolls Bloodmoon DLC, werewolves don't get a lot of play in video games anyway. But I've got Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood in my hands for review. Game launches February 4. There will only be a half moon that day.
 
I picked up a Bounty Hunter license in Red Dead Online to complement my Collector's license. Now I can shoot bad guys, loot them for a Nine of Cups or whatever, bring the bounty in warm, and hand in my baseball card collection to Madam Nazar. It's a self-sustaining ecosystem. My camp is way out west. And I thought it was the most picturesque portion of the map, as far as my high desert sensibilities were concerned. But every time I trot through a different region of the map, then that place becomes my new favorite. At least until I make it back to the dust and Saguaro of New Austin, then I'm home again.
 
Jon Krebs
I've finally reached the end game of Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom, and I couldn't be more ready to tackle it this weekend. I've been spending plenty of time letting the game run in the background to max out all my kingdom resources and gather every last resident into my kingdom and I'm now ready to utilize all of my resources to take on the labyrinth and the last Dreamer's maze. 

When I'm not living in my own little fiefdom I'm bouncing back and forth between a few games. My buddies and I just picked up Monster Hunter: World on PC as a multiplayer option. I want to unlock some optional quests for us to run through, because I've found out that to try and co-op the campaign is an absolute nightmare of going in and out and watching cutscenes and then inviting.
 
I'm also very curious about Star Wars: Squadrons. John shared a little about the VR performance updates and I've been looking for a good reason to have my VR headset plugged in more. I'll likely give it some time this weekend and see if I can find John's ship to shoot him out of the sky. 
 
John Yan
This weekend I'm going to get back onto the VR train with my FrankenQuest 2 now all setup. I have my new foam cover, prescription lenses, and Deluxe Audio Strap all put together. So, for some exercising, I'll be popping into FitVR to get my heart rate going. I enjoyed BoxVR, so I'm anxious to see how FitVR is on the Quest 2.
 
I think I'm also going to strap into my flight chair and play some Star Wars: Squadrons. EA did a bunch of fixes to the VR performance so, hopefully, everything runs smoothly this time around. Even when it was in a more stuttery condition, I was still in awe of being in an X-Wing cockpit. So, I'm crossing my fingers in hopes of a smooth gaming experience this weekend with Squadrons.