20th September
Hello and welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we’ve been playing. This week, Kelsey discovers a game like Unpacking on Steam; Tom manages to get his Steam Deck working; Marie puts her Spider-Man suit on; Ed goes with Blue Lions; Ian enjoys drop-kicking; Will argues that Battlefield 2042 wasn’t as bad as people made out; Chris can’t tell us what he’s been playing because it’s top secret (but also: Pokémon); and Bertie is smitten by the Vampire Survivor formula all over again.
What have you been playing?
Catch up with the older editions of this column in our What We’ve Been Playing archive.
Whisper of the House, PC
Whisper of the House is a charming little game that I came across on Steam when it launched at the end of August. Those who have played Unpacking will immediately see the appeal of this game, which has largely the same premise. You’re tasked with decorating, reorganising, and cleaning various homes and businesses for townsfolk while sprucing up your own abode.
It’s a great time sink, especially if you couldn’t get enough of Unpacking and wanted more. Most notably, Whisper of the House features tons of customisation. There’s loads of furniture and décor options, a colour mixer for many of these, and you’ve plenty of different environments to decorate how you see fit. This is the one thing that Unpacking lacked – understandably so! – but it is satisfying to finally scratch that itch and design more personal spaces.
-Kelsey
Control, Steam Deck/Geforce Now
I finally managed to get my Steam Deck to play ball after what seemed like days of wasted free-time, so installed Geforce Now (which you can do via Nvidia’s website while in Desktop Mode) and had a jolly good time. I’ve said it numerous times before but Geforce Now is exceedingly good, and I reckon the majority of people wouldn’t know they were playing a game via cloud-streaming if they weren’t told (and if they had a solid enough internet connection).
My issue now is I want to be able to make the best use of all of Geforce Now’s new features and tech, and to play on my TV – something that seems like it’s going to take a bit more time to sort out.
-Tom O
Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered, PS5
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has to be one of my favourite games to guide, so swinging into Spider-Man Remastered was an easy choice. Even though I played the successor first, this one still has plenty of surprises that make my comic-loving heart flutter.
Battling criminal thugs, saving citizens from car wrecks, and taking on some of Spidey’s most iconic enemies was, in my opinion, a good use of a Friday night.
-Marie
Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Switch
After the reveal of the next Fire Emblem game Fortune’s Weave in last week’s Nintendo Direct, and very much needing a break from the horrors of Silksong, I finally decided to boot up Three Houses and start the second run I’ve been intending for years. First time, I went with the Black Eagle house; now I’m Blue Lions. And I’m loving it! I’d forgotten how much I enjoy this game, with its likable characters, magical school vibes, and breezy battles. There are always numbers going up in some form, always things to achieve, and that’s had me instantly, utterly hooked, all over again.
-Ed
Dying Light: The Beast, PC
Drop-kicking zombies in the head and watching them rag-doll into the distance is one of life’s great pleasures, especially if you aim the kick just right. Punting a zombie across the road is fun, don’t get me wrong, but nailing the angle and wanging one off the side of a cliff? That’s comedy gold.
The Dead Island series might have pioneered the act of introducing an infected skull to a pair of high velocity boots, but the Dying Light series perfected it and, for the last day or so, I’ve foregone the main quest of the newly released instalment Dying Light: The Beast to two-foot ferals in the face. It’s the kind of mindlessly satisfying fun you only really get from schlocky horror games, and it’s my gaming equivalent of comfort food. There’s no benefit to any of it in gameplay progression terms, it just makes me laugh. And that’s why I’m giving my short time with Dying Light: The Beast two big feet up!
-Ian
Battlefield 2042, PC
I’ve been playing Battlefield 2042 for the past month, and I’ve been surprised to find just how much fun I’ve been having on “the weakest Battlefield”. Sure, the Battlefield 6 open beta demonstrates a huge step forward for the series, but the number of maps, modes and weapons available right now in 2042’s latest update has certainly seen the cream rise to the top. Many of the later additions show clear learnings from the muted response to 2042’s launch state, in the form of more lively maps and better-feeling guns. Returning to Iwo Jima has been a particular delight, with Conquest delivering all of the 360-degree vehicular chaos I’d missed in other shooters, and Breakthrough scratching that super-dense ‘Operation Metro 24/7’ itch. I’ll be glad to jump to BF6 when it launches in October, but if you ask me, 2042 deserves a critical re-evaluation.
-Will
Stuff I can’t talk about which is annoying sorry
Right, look, it’s very annoying when game journos do the whole “Oooooh,something VERY exciting just turned up in my inbox” thing but, well, that’s all I’ve got at the moment. All I’ve had time to play is several things under embargo for some time soon (I am actually allowed to tell you one of them is Ghost of Yotei, but I can’t say anything at all about what I think of it; so there you go, that’s one). I’ve also been playing Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket! Again! Do you want to hear more? You do?! Okay so I’m currently running a counter-meta Alolan Exeggutor dec– [gets rugby tackled by Bertie].
-Chris
Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, PC
I haven’t played a Vampire Survivor-alike in a while (Karate Survivor was the most recent, and it’s great) so playing Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor relit all those dormant synapses and reminded me why I fizz with such excitement playing games like this. And I know what it is: I love games that just get on with it. And Roguelikes are primed for this because they don’t need to teach before they let you play. It’s actually better if they don’t because it leaves things for you to discover as you loop round and round again. Play first, learn later. It’s so immediate. Emoji heart-eyes.
-Bertie
