25th Oct
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, Tom has a milestone first EA Sports FC match against his son, and respectfully destroys him; Marie plans out her seasonal planting in Stardew Valley; Will sees old FPS friends returning to play Battlefield 6; Kelsey feels the chokehold of Pokémon Legends: Z-A; and Bertie muses on the mutability of feelings about the survival crafting genre.
What have you been playing?
EA Sports FC 26, Switch 2
It’s finally happened. After years of trying to get my son into football (and he has shown some interest in watching Spurs, poor lad), he’s finally said the words every football-loving parent dreams of hearing: “Can I play FIFA (EA FC 26)?” The Switch 2 version isn’t the one I’d choose to play, but that’s what he wanted.
He played it for a few days and boasted about how great he is, so there was only one thing I could do: attempt to completely destroy him. Now, I’ve not played EA FC or FIFA for a good while, and the Switch controllers don’t love my hands, but I was determined to show my superiority – albeit with a few classic dad caveats to excuse any less than stellar skills.
Five virtual minutes in, and oh no, I’ve had a player sent off because I hadn’t changed the controls and accidentally did a horrendous sliding tackle. Oops. I needn’t have worried. My 10-man Spurs sliced through his defense and his Liverpool were 3-0 down by half-time. I let off the gas a little in the second half, accidentally paused the game three times due to the odd placement of the button on the Switch 2 Joy-con, but it was job done.
You’ll get there, son, just not yet.
-Tom O
Stardew Valley, Switch 2
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I’m back at it again on my farm. I have a habit of getting bored of the layout and starting from scratch, but not this time! This time, I am determined to stick with it and get further into Stardew Valley than I ever have before.
I’m currently in the Summer season, so I’m prepping as much as I can for Autumn and Winter. My orchard is growing nicely, the animals are happy, and I’ve got an abundance of crops waiting to be harvested. But as therapeutic as farming is, I can’t seem to pull myself away from exploring the Mines – there’s just too much to see!
-Marie
Battlefield 6, PC
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After putting in my time on Battlefield 2042’s “Road to Battlefield 6” missions, it’s perhaps no surprise to find that I’ve been mainlining the new game since its launch earlier this month. BF6 doesn’t run at as high a frame-rate as 2042, nor does it have as wide of a map pool just yet, but it looks and feels far more satisfying to play. The cracking feedback of a successful sniper headshot, the room-clearing bark of a shotgun, the whine of a helicopter overhead; at every turn, Battlefield 6 absolutely nails the audio-visual aspects to ground you in the greater conflict.
I’m looking forward to the upcoming Season 1 update, with new content that’s hopefully accompanied by continuing balance tweaks and performance improvements. There are still maps where I’ve never seen the game progress beyond the opening stage, such is the difficulty of attacking the objectives, but there is so much potential here that I feel invested for the long haul. Long-quiet online FPS friends have even begun popping up and asking for a game together, and that feels like the truest feedback of all.
-Will
Pokémon Legends: Z-A, Switch 2
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It’s been a few years since a Pokémon video game had a hold over me like Pokémon Legends: Z-A does. As much as I think Z-A is lacking in certain areas (as is the case for most new-gen Pokémon games), filling out the Pokédex all over again has me in a chokehold, and some of the new Mega Evolutions – as well as the new real-time combat system – are just great. I can’t help but feel like these are the foundations for a Pokémon MMO – albeit the very basic foundations – which is something I’d love to see an officially licensed attempt at in future.
When I’m not playing Pokémon Legends: Z-A, I’ve been dipping my toes into Persona 3 Reload again, and will no doubt be going all in on that once my Pokédex is finally complete.
-Kelsey
Icarus, PC
I’m not sure how or why this one passed me by four years ago when it came out, but this is the Dean Hall PvE survival game you can play with up to seven friends, if you have that many, and if you do, bully for you – aren’t you fantastic. It’s a lush kind of survival game with immersive worlds, weird alien horses (that want to kill you), and lots of bushes and trees and rocks and everything else you might need to turn into a three-story space-house of your design. But it’s also got skill trees and a campaign of sorts and bewildering depth. Oh and it’s coming to consoles early next year – it was announced this week.
But ignore all of that for a second because a bigger realisation has happened for me while playing this, and it’s that I’ve come to really like survival games. It’s the loop they all have, of starting out with nothing, then whacking a few trees down to create something – a home, a place to live amongst it all. A belonging. Is it a fundamental human yearning we have to do this or have I simply been exposed to this loop so much now it feels comfortingly familiar? My quest for the truth goes on.
-Bertie
