Emma Matthews played Apex Legends' new Arenas mode, which ditches battle royale (though it's still got a closing circle and care packages) for a three-on-three setup. What's different is that, while you buy gear each round like in Counter-Strike, your weapons are wiped at round's end. That encourages mixing things up, and short rounds on small maps mean if you choose a duff loadout you're not stuck with it for long.
Wes Fenlon and Chris Livingston played Operation: Tango, a co-op spy game where one of you is the secret agent and the other is the computer expert guiding them over an earpiece. It's a fun concept but it doesn't quite nail the sense of tension you need for that real Mission: Impossible vibe.
Jacob Ridley went to Secret Sky, a music festival held in virtual reality. It's all silhouette people on green videogame hills watching musicians perform via giant screens. In a nice touch, the sky gets dark as the day goes on. Another nice touch is that you see the real-world location of other guests above their heads. Honestly, a music festival without the vomit and where I have control of the volume sounds ideal.
Katie Wickens has been gaming without a gaming PC, testing out streaming services to get around the Great GPU Shortage. In theory, you don't need a sweet rig if you can rent one out there in the cloud and stream it to your laptop or whatever. While Google Stadia expects you to buy new games, as well as have faith Google won't shutter the service next time they see a different shiny thing, Nvidia GeForce Now and Blade Shadow let you play games already in your library and seem like decent options.
Enough about us. What about you? Have you returned to Total War: Rome Remastered, or gone to the underworld for genre-blending hell-em-up Smelter? Are you still playing Doom Eternal because it's ruined other shooters for you? Let us know!
