15th November
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 tries to get Dark Souls 3 working in co-op; a laid-up Ed discovers the thrill of speedrunning; Tom applauds the Viewfinder team; Marie is positively in love with Winter Burrow; Bertie is probably in love with Dispatch; Victoria has no idea what she’s doing in Hyrule Warriors; and Will gets really into mechs.
What have you been playing?
Dark Souls 3, PC
Watch on YouTube
I’ve been playing Dark Souls 3 seamless co-op with a friend this past week, and in two sessions, we’ve not made it very far. While the seamless co-op mod for Elden Ring was near-flawless when I last tried it, the Dark Souls 3 counterpart has been riddled with issues, especially when it comes to the loathed Curse-Rotted Greatwood. For a start, the boss won’t take any damage from my character, meaning my friend has to solo them (which isn’t at all fun for either of us). On top of that, there’s been more than one instance where we’ve entered the arena for the boss to remain inactive and take no damage whatsoever… Here’s hoping this doesn’t apply to upcoming bosses.
That said, we refuse to give up and will make it to the Kiln of the First Flame whether we like it or not. We just might have to miss out on the Transposing Kiln for now… RIP to my Farron Greatsword.
-Kelsey
Watching speedruns, GDQ
I’ve been off work for a couple of weeks on medical leave recently, so rather than playing games I spent time watching them from bed. I’m not normally one for watching speedruns, but I’ve become very into it recently – specifically Soulslike speedruns at various GDQ events. Be it Elden Ring, Nightreign, or Lies of P, there’s something incredibly cathartic and humbling about watching an expert absolutely fly through bosses that took me forever to beat. And now I’m almost back to full health, perhaps it’s time to give it a go myself with some of that newfound knowledge.
-Ed
Viewfinder, PS5 Pro
After being impressed by trailers for quite a while I finally decided to give Viewfinder a whirl. This is a puzzle game that essentially lets you modify the world by placing photos (or similar) into it, using the objects in the photo and perspective to your advantage. It’s got that “this is so cool” feel to it, and so far new tweaks to the gameplay have cropped up regularly enough to mean I’ve always been moments from another appreciative nod at what I’m seeing and doing. Good job everyone involved.
-Tom O
Dispatch, PC
Watch on YouTube
Dispatch is one of my games of the year so far, and I had a sudden thought yesterday as to why I’m enjoying it so much (I still have one episode to go). It’s to do with the quality of the scenes, or rather, the talent developer AdHoc seems to have for finding gags and memorable moments in them. I’d be surprised if they’re all hard-written into the script. I say that because I’m rehearsing a play at the moment and so many of the gags and moments we find come from the process of doing it again and again – of rehearsing it. It’s like hidden meanings are secreted by the script the more we use it. And I can only imagine something similar happened here.
Follow that thought through and it means AdHoc had to ‘rehearse’ Dispatch so many times it allowed the team to find and tease-out the many moments which make the game so successful for me. And I don’t think this is a common thing in games – I don’t think there’s often room for rehearsal and iterative development. There’s a sense of pre-programmed and pre-planned to their dramatic scenes. But it doesn’t feel that way here. I think I see the workings behind the reason why, and I respect it enormously.
-Bertie
Winter Burrow, Xbox Series X
Watch on YouTube
I’ve not fallen this hard for a game in years. Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Stardew Valley were the last two cosy-vibe games that nestled themselves into my permanent play collection. However, a new addition now joins them, Winter Burrow.
Scurrying around as a little mouse, helping out Aunty, crafting new furniture and items for my burrow, roasting mushrooms to beat the cold – it all adds up to one cosy experience. It’s yet to become dull.
In games where you have to think about survival, I admit that I tend to lose interest quite quickly – but there’s something magical within Winter Burrow that has kept that from happening.
Will the cosy feeling last? Yes, I think it will.
-Marie
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, Switch 2
Honestly, I have no idea what I am doing the majority of the time, and my overall Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment technique can, at best, be generously described as ‘button mashing’. But, even though this may be the case, by golly it is satisfying to smash through hordes upon hordes of Bokoblins at the end of a busy day.
-Victoria
MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, PC
After wrapping up Battlefield 6’s bland but fun single-player portion, I was craving something a bit deeper to play on these long, rainy nights. Enter 2021’s MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, freshly updated with the new Shadows of Kerensky DLC. The idea here is essentially porting over all of the exciting new stuff (mechs, equipment, proper 3D cutscenes, quality-of-life improvements) from the more story-focused MechWarrior 5: Clans that came out last year, back to the more sandbox-y Mercenaries.
I’ve been reading the Blood of Kerensky books, which cover the exact same time period in-universe as this part of the game, as the hyper-advanced and militaristic Clans return to invade the known universe, the place that they left before centuries of war and technological regression. So far, it’s been thrilling to experience the same “wait, WTF are these guys?” moment as the book characters, as you’re suddenly fighting mechs that are faster, stronger, longer-ranged and piloted by absolute weirdos.
The power imbalance between your mercenary forces at the start of the campaign and the invading Clans also heightens the importance of salvage, as even managing to scrape up a few medium lasers from the battlefield means getting access to technology that is better in every way than what you previously had access to – and managing to salvage a functioning Clan mech is an unbelievable jackpot, even if you have to sacrifice three of your own mechs to do it. I’m still barely into the 12-mission campaign, with the prospect of an even deeper sandbox than before after it, and I’m absolutely loving it.
-Will
