It’s already the second weekend of August, and no one else has realized that time is actually speeding up. We all put it down to aging, but what if kids are experiencing it faster too? We’d never know. I’m telling you, time is out of control, and the Earth will spin off its axis any day now. So we should probably play more video games.
But which ones? Is there even time to choose? What if it’s already tomorrow by the time you’ve found a game to play?! STOP! Calm down! Breathe. Breeaaaathe. We’ve got you covered. We’re the sort of heroes this rampaging space-time continuum needs.
Abathor
Play it on: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Switch, Windows
Current goal: Go on an epic, retro-inspired barbarian journey
Earlier this week I wrote about how we now have not one but two new games that follow directly in the lineage of classic barbarian games like Rastan. There’s Volgarr the Viking II, the mega-powered hack-and-slash action platformer that will kill you, a lot, offering you the tremendous satisfaction of mastery as you eventually learn its perils and emerge victorious. And there’s Abathor, a somewhat less grueling (though by no means easy) barbarian side-scroller in which up to four players can tackle an epic journey across its dozens of increasingly wild and inventive stages. While both games are calling to me, I suspect that this weekend it will be the more immediately approachable Abathor I gravitate to first.
I was introduced to Abathor by a Twitch stream from the always-entertaining Macaw45, a barbarian game connoisseur who, early on in the game, expressed mild disappointment with how plain its stages were. However, as the epic journey went on and on (and on), that disappointment gradually shifted to enthusiasm and awe as Abathor became more epic and crazed. In the days since, he has repeatedly gushed about how incredible the game finally becomes. I actually stopped watching his Abathor stream before he got too far, having decided that I wanted to experience its surprises for myself. This weekend, I intend to do that, at least when I’m not visiting the Long Island Retro Gaming Expo here in New York City. One thing’s for sure, it’s going to be an intensely retro-gaming-influenced weekend for yours truly, and I am stoked. —Carolyn Petit
Cat Quest III
Play it on: PS5, PS4, Switch, Xbox X/S, Xbox One, Windows
Current goal: Make this fantasy a reality
Look, I’ll be honest with you. So many of these entries I write are more wish than fact. They’re the games I wish I were going to be playing this weekend. And were life more generous, I totally would be! Sometimes I even do. But also, I have a child, and it needs to be taken to its swimming lesson at 9.15 a.m. Saturday, and then to its tennis club at 11, and then demands to be entertained in some manner throughout the afternoon, and by the time I’ve cooked dinner (chicken curry this Saturday) and got the smaller human to bed, the adult human demands I sit with her and watch shit on the TV. Then much the same for Sunday.
So, if a magic time fairy magically gives me an expanse of child-free time this weekend, I would really like to play Cat Quest III. Admittedly I’ve yet to get very far with Cat Quest II, having completed the first game last year, but still, it looks lovely. I want to be playing that. —John Walker
1000xResist
Play it on: Windows, Switch
Current goal: Cry, hopefully
I have had a rough week or so moving out of an old apartment and searching for a new one, and ya boy is emotionally drained. If you’ve been through the kind of experience you know is going to fuck up your nervous system for several months to a year, you know that there’s a lot of built up emotional anguish that can sometimes feel impossible to get out.
So my plan this weekend is to induce a full-blown cry by getting back to 1000xResist. I’ve unfortunately neglected the game for a few weeks, as I’ve gotten pulled around by other responsibilities. But the dystopian adventure game has already hit me in the gut multiple times just in its early chapters. I feel like I’m due a life-changing video game experience, and I can see it on the horizon with this game. —Kenneth Shepard
Baldur’s Gate 3
Play it on: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S
Current goal: Restart the game and catch up to my old file
Truth be told, I’ve been a little jealous of everyone who’s fallen in love with Baldur’s Gate 3. It seems like it’s genuinely one of the best games ever, but I wouldn’t know since I’ve hardly played it. I’ve restarted it a few times across a few different platforms and I just can’t stick with it. Maybe it’s that I’m burnt out, but it’s absolutely impossible for me to conceive of sitting down anytime soon and sinking a hefty amount of time into anything, let alone Baldur’s Gate 3.
However, as sure as the drop in the weather and the changing of the color of the leaves, the fall season always makes me crave a deep RPG to sink my teeth into while I melt into my couch or bed. As we get closer to the all-time best season of the year, I’m beginning to set out my plan of attack. Last year, the honor belonged to Cyberpunk 2077 and its wonderful expansion, Phantom Liberty. I think this year might be Baldur’s Gate 3’s chance to climb into my pantheon of autumnal dungeon crawls. I’ve already reinstalled it, so even if I don’t commit right now, I am committing to all 122 GBs that are sitting on my console at the moment. Considering how scuffed my last run was (Lae’zel is straight up dead) I might be due for a fresh new file. —Moises Taveras
Steamworld Heist 2
Play it on: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Switch, PC
Current goal: Five star the old missions I messed up
Steamworld Heist 2 is more or less exactly what you’d expect from the sequel to a tongue-in-cheek side-scrolling strategy adventure about robots being heroic. It takes place in a world of pirates rather than outer space, and there’s a whole lot more game this time around, but the fundamental moment-to-moment action is still aiming a gun and watching the bullets satisfyingly ricochet off the wall to hit your opponent from behind their cover.
I have a lot of gripes with Steamworld Heist 2, from its length to the late-game shallowness of some of its systems, but Thunderful (previously Image & Form) has refined the formula fans loved from the first game, without diluting it with too much junk. It’s still a lot of fun taking a small squad of robots into a hideout, killing everything in sight, and then stealing the loot before you get shot to shreds by overwhelming waves of reinforcements. Now I’m looking forward to going back and seeing if I can master some of the earlier missions I shit the bed on and see if I can complete them on the hardest difficulty. —Ethan Gach
Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess
Play it on: Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Windows, PS5, PS4
Current goal: Collect some more demon masks
Up until Ethan’s recent review of this new Capcom action-strategy game, I had no idea this thing existed. I’m not sure I’d have downloaded and played it, but after reading his review and other people’s thoughts on the game, I was curious. The pitch that it’s a PS2-like action-strategy game with simple base building and fun Dynasty Warriors-like combat intrigued me.
Since starting the game, I’ve been hooked. It’s not the best-looking game ever made, nor is it the most advanced thing I’ve ever played, but it does remind me of the random PS2 games I’d play back in the day. Back when I’d stroll through my local Blockbuster, looking for something new while my parents picked out a movie. Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess is the kind of game I’d see a few times over the course of a month or two, but never pick it up. Finally, I’d give it a shot probably because the games I wanted that week were already rented. And it was these random games that would sometimes blow me away. I can imagine a much younger Zack falling in love with this weird game about protecting a goddess and saving villages on a mountain. He’d get a kick out of it, even if he could barely pronounce most of the enemy names in it. —Zack Zwiezen
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