THE LOWS
Tom Senior: November rain
I’m looking forward to getting stuck into Battlefield 5 in a few weeks after having a great time with the Rotterdam map at Gamescom 2018. Sadly it has been delayed for about five weeks, but apparently not for technical reasons. Instead EA and DICE stated that they want to make “some meaningful improvements to the core gameplay experience, including adjusting the gameplay tempo, improving soldier visibility and reducing player friction.” These will apparently be trialed in the upcoming open beta, which is going to be worth a look if, like me, you have drifted away from the series for a while and might want a route back in via the World War 2 setting.
Wes Fenlon: 100 hours: definitive edition
I played 104 hours of Divinity: Original Sin 2, every single one in three-player co-op with my friends. It took months, and was one of the best RPG experiences I've ever had… which kinda makes me want to do it all over again with the Definitive Edition, which just came out this week as a free update. I'd have happily recommended OS2 to anyone prior to this update, but I imagine the past six months or so of work has given the team a lot of time to polish and rewrite parts of the game they weren't happy with the first time around. Besides, there are two characters whose stories I haven't seen at all, and I bet there are some great mods out there by now. Can I take a month off to play through OS2 a second time?
Tyler Wilde: Burnout
I’m in one of those moods where nothing looks interesting (with the exception of replaying Divinity:OS2, but even then I haven’t been able to get myself past character creation yet). The Cyberpunk 2077 gameplay video was impressive, but I hoped to be dazzled by a take on the genre I hadn’t seen before, and that didn’t happen at all. Two Point Hospital looks like a lot of fun, but my interest in actually playing it is lukewarm at best. In times like these, I tend to go back to comfort food—Rocket League, Civ, Stardew—and that’s been nice, though I hope I’m out of this natural funk in time to be hyped for My Friend Pedro, which looks like everything I could want from a 2D action game.
Samuel Roberts: Onimusha returns
I'm not sure how excited I am about Onimusha coming to PC early next year (for the first time outside of Asia and Russia). It's $20 for just the first game, when I feel like a collection containing all three of the original game for like $40 would've been a better deal. The first game is just okay, and I can imagine it's dated pretty badly, given its lack of a 3D camera and sluggish combat. The second and third games are superior from what I can recall—I was a huge fan of the series back in the PS2 days—and a drip feed of the games isn't exactly how I'd like to revisit them. It's nice that so many old console games are making their way to PC, though.
Andy Kelly: Square go
Everyone wants to know what's inside the giant cube that's recently appeared in Fortnite. I don't. Whenever the contents of something mysterious is revealed, it's always disappointing. The hatch in Lost? A Scottish guy on an exercise bike listening to Mama Cass records. Peter Molyneux's Curiosity? Peter Molyneux in The Matrix banging on about being a god. The vault in Borderlands? A big stupid monster. The mystery is always the most interesting bit, so I hope we never find out what that cube is, or what's in it, or why it exists, ever.
Chris Livingston: Not my desk
Much like upgrading part of your PC can lead to upgrading most of your PC—a new GPU might need a new CPU which might need a new power supply or motherboard, and so on—I’m wanting to make a change to my desk setup. I’d like a new chair because my current one is old, uncomfortable, and doesn’t give me much support, but my desk is also kind of a weird height and doesn’t have much room, so I might need to get a new desk to go with that new chair. And with all that, I’ll probably want some better lighting in my office, too. And maybe a new monitor? Ugh. Changing one thing always results in needing to change a bunch of other things, which often makes me not want to change anything after all.
