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So, what are we playing?

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

Illustration by Matt Rhodes
 
Just because you create a best-selling video game doesn't mean your studio won't shut down. The AV Club remembers when ads weren't just in games, but entire games were ads. And for folks with ADHD, video game worlds sometimes make sense where the real world doesn't.
 
Eric Hauter
I've recently finished up with my review of Subnautica: Below Zero, but that doesn't mean I'm 100% finished with the game. Having rushed through to meet the embargo, I feel like I missed a ton of stuff. I've been circling back, hunting down recipes I overlooked in my first playthrough and growing the ever-expanding pile of junk I have heaped outside my door. Remember when people would pick up every cabbage they found in Skyrim and dump it in their house? It's like that, but underwater and outside.
 
I've also started looking at Hood: Outlaws and Legends. Graphically beautiful, I'm having a hard time getting into the flow of the game, primarily because everyone else playing seems to have done the whole "preorder and get access three days early thing." So I'm a gnat trying to steal treasure among giants. They all have full perk access and know the maps, and I'm just a little newb stumbling around getting smacked every three steps I take. I can't remember the last time I felt the dis-balance between players in a game quite so keenly.
 
Elliot Hilderbrand
Hot off the heels of enjoying Knights of the Old Republic I decided to try the second since I had only played it once, a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. For me something just felt off. It didn't feel the same as the first one, mechanics we're decent, but it lacked in story. The twist wasn't as good. 
 
But enough Star Wars. I'm on the Mass Effect hype train, baby! It's downloading as I write this and I'm planning a full weekend of ignoring all adult duties to play this bad boy.
 
Randy Kalista
I'm replaying Days Gone on vanilla PS4 for next week's PC release. Sony is selective about what it ports from PlayStation to personal computer—namely that they're PlayStation exclusives, so the level of control and quality assurance has been top notch, all things considered. That includes games like Detroit: Become HumanDeath Stranding, and Heavy RainHorizon Zero Dawn was the premier first-party PlayStation Studios game to go from PS4 to PC. The PC audience went wild. Up next is the broadly dismissed Days Gone. While the Sony Bend studio couldn't pull much more than a C- on Metacritic, audiences thought critics gave it short shrift. I'd agree. And hot on the heels of the news that Sony rejected a Days Gone sequel, an online petition appeared on Chage.org that's got over 100,000 signatures on it as of May 10. The idea of a sequel is getting harder to ignore. And if all goes well with this PC launch next week, that will add even more signers to that petition. Probably mine.
 
Also, I'm Commander Shepard and Mass Effect Legendary Edition is my favorite remake in the Citadel.