What We Played News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

It’s been the season of chocolate eggs and extended bank holidays, and if your children are still on holiday you may well be hitting the point where they’re hitting each other. Can I suggest some video games to while away the hours? It’s been word games in our house, and Wordscapes on iOS has been the surprise winner of the week. I’ve meanwhile been tinkering away with our Planet Zoo Console Edition review, carrying on with Dragon’s Dogma 2, sampled the idisyncratic delights of the Playdate Catalog and rounded out my playthrough of Unicorn Overlord.

What a week it has been, with the sun finally showing its face again after a chilly April for the UK. We’ve still had plenty of time to play games though, and I’ve been continuing to plug away at Fallout 4 and No Rest for the Wicked, as well as taking some time to chill out with Endless Ocean: Luminous which is just a little bit too calm for its own good. Besides that I’ve made a start on Sand Land for our review which will appear after the weekend.

As we come to the end of another cold and grey week, I’m heading into London to see what’s what at WASD. Before getting to that, though, I’ve had a few different games on the go this past week, with the remake of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door in my Switch and the puzzle-sniper action of Children of the Sun on my PC. I did also squeeze in one solitary mission in Helldivers 2 – every little bit helps when spreading Managed Democracy!

The sun has got his hat on, at least in the north of England, but it’s still bloody freezing so I wouldn’t bother going outside quite yet. I’ve had a week of playing Fallout 4, and it’s very good indeed. Almost as good as the TV show that made me start playing it. Besides that, I’ve been sampling the somewhat confusing delights of Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road, and made a start with No Rest For The Wicked’s Early Access launch. It’s very good!

It’s Friday! And with Friday comes a look back at all the games we’ve played this last week. I’ve been hammering Unicorn Overlord, which might just be the best game of the year, while I also spent a bit of time sobbing over the Wii U and 3DS being fully put out to pasture. Beyond that there’s been a lot of Party Animals during the school holidays, and a spot of New Star GP to round things out.

It’s always a good week when there’s a bank holiday involved, but the Easter Weekend gets the special bonus of being a double bank holiday. I’ve no doubt many of you have some big games that you’re planning to tackle today and through the weekend, but let’s look back on the week that was and what we’ve been playing first.

Another hectic week is in the bag, and I’ve been playing Dragon’s Dogma 2 so I could collect the video footage for our review and obviously not for any kind of enjoyment. It is definitely very, very fun though, even if you have to look out for the odd disappearing Pawn on PS5. Other than that it’s been New Star GP, Unicorn Overlord, Street Fighter 6, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and some Songs of Silence for my gaming week.

This week the big question has been just what the hell Warner Bros. have managed to do with the Arkham/Batman franchise after the unsurprising failure of Suicide Squad to revive the series’ fortunes. For the record, Suicide Squad is well worth playing just to experience the storyline and the characters, but as a long-term live-service game it leaves a lot to be desired. It’s clear that live service is no longer the golden goose the industry thought it was, and with more games battling for our multiplayer hours, including a batch of thoroughly great free-to-play titles, the outlook has to change. Hopefully it’s in the player’s interests, rather than in the shareholders’.

Given how often I’ve used the weather as an excuse for staying indoors and playing games, it’s fitting that I could take the opportunity with the sun showing itself to spend a little time on outdoorsy tasks. But when darkness falls, it was back to Helldiving into the morass of robot and bug enemies on alien worlds (often with terrible weather), and then enduring the horrors of The Outlast Trials with Tuffcub and Steve.

It’s been a miserable week for people that like weather that isn’t just varying amounts of rain, though the odd bit of hail has helped to add a little variety to proceedings.

Depending on where you are, it’s been half term this week. That means that your delightful children/siblings/distant cousins are at home and potentially getting in the way – I mean, spending quality time with you doing a variety of thoroughly lovely activities. Hopefully, that’s included some video games, though I’ve been playing Banishers which is not suitable for the small people in my house. I’ve also played some more Granblue Fantasy Relink, clocked up yet more hours on Monster Hunter Rise, and taken a look at a few other titles along the way.

It’s been another cold week, and one that’s proven perfectly suited to wrapping up and playing video games. I’ve been working my way through Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden, and we’ll have the review for that one on Monday. Other than that, there’s been a chunk of Suicide Squad, a heap of Naruto X Boruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm Connections, a spot of Granblue Fantasy Relink, a smidgen of Dave the Diver and a soupçon of Street Fighter 6 as well.

It’s been another frigid week here in the UK, so we’ve naturally taken the opportunity to stay inside as much as possible and play some video games. And since it’s the middle of January, that’s also meant playing games from before 2024… with a few notable exceptions.

Week’s done. Friday’s here. Time to chill, to rest, to reset and probably play some video games through the weekend, but What We Played is about what has gone before, not what’s coming up. I’ve been playing New Cycle, a bleak post-apocalyptic city builder, and I’ll have some thoughts on it next week. Besides that, I’ve been continuing my playthrough of TheWitcher 3 on Steam Deck, VR’ed my way further into Asgard’s Wrath 2, threw some punches in a spot of Street Fighter 6, and got in a hefty dose of Monster Hunter Rise that I’ve seen fit to restart from the beginning.

Happy Skull and Bones beta day for all that sail with her! I’m definitely going to be taking to the seas this weekend, and seeing if all those years of development have panned out. Hell, all I want is multiplayer Black Flag, and the trailers sure look like that’s what Ubisoft has made, so fingers crossed I’ll be pleasantly surprised. Other than that, I’ve been playing lots of another Ubisoft joint, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, and I’ll be popping a score on that one after the weekend. It’s safe to say I’m thoroughly enjoying it though!

It’s bitterly cold. You can forget playing your Switch outside, and Monster Hunter Now is basically Dark Souls for your extremities, so isn’t it a lot more sensible to stay inside? I’ve been playing the new Avatar for review – not the bald one, the blue one – as well as exploring a world of racing games, hopping back to GRID and Need for Speed Most Wanted on Steam Deck, while also enjoying the new Forza Motorsport. I also finished my run-through of Gravity Rush Remastered, and I enjoyed it even more on the big screen than I did back on the Vita.

I kind of miss the days where Black Friday was just one day of over-the-top sales and discounts. Back in the early 2010s, the US shopping bonanza was just finding its way across the pond and that’s pretty much all it was. Then we had Cyber Monday tacked onto the end, and then shops started their sales a week or two before the day, and now, as we sit through actual Black Friday, there’s just not much excitement to see what’s on offer… because it’s all been on sale for the last week.

After a busy week full of exciting work courses and trips to the cinema, it’s going to be time to sit back and relax this weekend. However, we’ve still managed to sneak in a whole heap of gaming as well. I’ve been playing through Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin and really enjoyed it, particularly the terrifying Nighthaunt, as well as cleaning things in Powerwash Simulator VR and bounding across rooftops in Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR.

It’s the end of another week, and it seems that the stopped clock of GTA 6 rumours has finally come right. “The next Grand Theft Auto” is actually going to be revealed in December! Shocked faces all round!

Just because storms Babet and Ciarán have made it rather prudent to stay indoors and play video games as much as possible this past week doesn’t mean I haven’t been keeping active. In fact, not since Ring Fit Adventure’s heyday have I swung my arms around around or done quite so many squats as when playing WarioWare: Move It! Sure, it’s a bit ropey with its motion controls, but it was fun playing with friends last weekend.

A week down, and it’s firmly in the half-term books, with everyone at home playing video games. Hooray! I’ve been mopping up all the collectibles and side quests in Spider-Man 2, sneaking in some Quest 3 action with NFL Pro Era II and Beat Saber, playing even more gridiron in Wild Card Football and half enjoying Hellboy Web of Wyrd.

It’s been a week of gaming contrasts for me, as I juggled playing the rather delightful Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Cities: Skylines 2 for their respective reviews. To be honest, once you’ve got your city to a happy place and want to accrue cash for that next big township expansion, I could have “played” them both at the same time.

Another somewhat worryingly warm week is coming to a close, so it’s time to check in on the video games that we’ve been playing. First and foremost in my own gaming time has been Forza Motorsport, which toes the line between reinvention and continuation for Turn 10’s Xbox counterpart to Gran Turismo. It’s a game that I’m looking forward to seeing grow over time, that’s for sure.

Autumn has finally arrived in the UK, with blustery winds and heavy downpours washing away a lot of the recent warm weather, doing so just in time for the autumnal equinox this weekend. It’s really been a “stay inside and play games” kind of week, in other words, and we’ve been doing just that!

We’re on the cusp of the weekend once again, and as is usual for this time of year, there’s a fresh batch of big games that are releasing. From Mortal Kombat 1 and The Crew Motorfest to Trombone Champ on Switch, Super Bomberman R 2 and Dune: Spice Wars, there’s a little bit of something for everyone, it feels like.

It’s been an awfully hot week in the UK, the kind of week that means that VR headsets remain resolutely in the box. So it’s a good thing that the massive games out this week have been of the non-VR kind.

We’re already halfway through August! How did that happen? What that means in terms of the gaming world is that it means Gamescom in Cologne is next week, and we’ll be at the conference to bring you coverage of as many games as possible (we’re seeing about 50 between us!). In the meantime I’ve been playing a lot of American football as the preseason of the NFL has started. That’s been lots of Legend Bowl, and then a heap of Madden 24 in the last two days. We’re not quite ready to put a score on it, but we’re impressed so far. Besides that I’m trying to get through Baldur’s Gate 3, and it is overwhelmingly big. It’s wonderful too.

We have seen the sun! And it was good! It’s going away now though so you can all retreat into the safety of your gaming rooms again. We’ve also been looking at our Gamescom appointments for a couple of week’s time, and things are looking very exciting! You can be sure that we’ll have a ton of coverage from the conference, so that’s something to look forward to as well.

The British summertime is in full effect, and I’ve been doing the right thing by braving the beach and getting sunburnt despite then being soaked through by a rainstorm a few hours later. There’s definitely been time for some gaming as well, and I’ve been spending a whole heap of time with Baldur’s Gate 3 as I attempt to deliver our review. It’s a BIG game! I’ve also been playing the brilliant Thronefall, based on Aran’s recommendation, and he was right! (You should listen to him too)

The school holidays have begun which, predictably means that it’s been raining and drizzling up and down the country. Luckily, we have the technology to deal with the rain – we can sit inside playing video games. This week I’ve been playing loads of multiplayer, first in Exoprimal, and second in Remnant II. I’ve had a whole hell of a good time with them both, though one is clearly superior than the other. Can you guess which one it is? Besides these two, I’ve carried on playing more Advance Wars 1+2 Reboot Camp because… well, it’s Advance Wars.

As someone who loved Terry Pratchett’s Bromeliad Trilogy growing up, I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the return to the Earth-like planet PNF-404 in Pikmin 4. Who knows what has befallen this planet in the Pikmin-verse, but it’s quirkily enjoyable to have our general detritus as collectable treasures for the diminutive Pikmin and Hocotatians. Pikmin 4‘s pretty great, by the way.