Wes Fenlon has been playing Receiver 2, a game that simulates a gun down to every step of reloading being initiated by a separate keypress, with mistakes potentially resulting in disaster. You might even shoot yourself in the foot. At the same time it's a permadeath roguelike where the enemies are all drones and turrets, which are boring to shoot at. It sounds a lot like the first Receiver, which I bounced off for the same reasons Wes seems to have bounced off the sequel.
Andy Kelly has been playing Over the Alps, a visual novel that's a bit like 80 Days if it was a ski resort spy mystery directed by Wes Anderson. The story is told through picture postcards, with your choice of stamps determining what kind of spy you are. It's designed to be both short and replayable, a perfect combination.
Emma Matthews has been playing Hearthstone's recent Ashes of Outland expansion, dealing with overpowered demon hunters and endless galakrond warlocks. I enjoyed Hearthstone back in the day and stopped in part because it consumed so much of my time, but now that I'm out it's hard to hear about what's been going on and not zone out instantly. The word 'galakrond' hits me like a sleeping pill.
Chris Livingston, James Davenport and I have all gone back to Fallout 76 for our sins. Actually, it's not that bad. It's always been a 6/10 game with the reputation of a 0/10 disaster, and with the Wastelanders update it's crawling from "good-ish" toward "good". James has been concentrating on his CAMP and Chris wants his to be nicer too, so his NPC ally has somewhere pleasant to live. The more people there are, even AI ones, the more you want to treat it like a real place. The simple act of tying quests to NPCs has made them feel more urgent too. I never felt guilty about ignoring an audiolog, but I don't want to disappoint these scrappy settlers by delaying their quests.
Enough about us. What about you? Have you been trying out Total War: Warhammer 2 or Borderlands Enhanced while they're free on Steam? Enduring the bugs to test Bannerlord? Playing fantasy turn-based tactics game Fort Triumph now it's out of Early Access? Let us know!
