It’s time to look back on the week we’ve just had! What did the weekdays look like for our writers? What was the biggest news from the week? and what are we looking forward to playing during the upcoming weekend? Our Eyes on the Week article will answer all three of these questions!
We’re curious about your opinion and played games, so be sure to share your stuff on our social media channels!
Victoria
Phew… Special occasions and many games were played this week so you may have to bear with me; apologies for the lengthy section in advance!
I started by returning to Microsoft Minesweeper which I can only play when I’m with Lewis due to not having access to the Microsoft Store on my Chromebook (I pray and await the day this arrives). I managed to grasp adventure mode but still can barely get to the second level, most likely because of my impatience but it’s still fun nonetheless.
A Little to the Left has been an absolute delight to add to my gaming time this week with my review being published early next week so be on the lookout, especially if you like your ‘cosy’ games which can be picked up and played whenever you feel like it.
Dead by Daylight got a small amount of playtime but barely enough to get a mention to be honest. A couple of new cosmetics brought to us by Iron Maiden look pretty decent but aren’t something I’ll be investing in.
Grand Theft Auto V has been my story game of the week, with me making more progress in story mode and dropping into online lobbies occasionally. Finally warming to Trevor but I still don’t have a favourite out of the famous trio. My next mission involves a heist so I’m looking forward to cracking on with that.
Added to Xbox Games Pass this week, Bluey: The Video Game was started early this morning and completed within a handful of hours. I’m not even embarrassed to say I had a wonderful time with the family, searching high and low for various collectables.
The second game I started today was a visual novel called Animal Lover. If you know me well enough, you would know visual novels are a sub-genre of games I love to play. I’ve only just scratched the surface with this one but so far, I’m intrigued by what’s to come.
Now, the game I didn’t expect myself to be playing this week, or perhaps ever, turned out to be addictive and full of giggles. Yep, I’m talking about Fall Guys. It’s pure laughter and chaos and I’m all for that! It’s definitely something that has pleasantly surprised me and a game that will be frequently played for the foreseeable I believe.
Most interesting news of this week: Age of Mythology: Retold is coming to Xbox this year and I couldn’t be more excited. The nostalgia it brings, being my favourite real-time strategy game I have ever played, has given me all kinds of emotions. Also, seeing the rebirth of Gigantic is pretty awesome.
Looking forward to playing: A Little to the Left, Grand Theft Auto V, Fall Guys, and anything else I get the urge to play.
Robby
I started the week by playing some more Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden and while slow-paced, I’m enjoying it. Then I just had to play the new Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Demo, which was shorter than the previous one but showcased some open-world exploring and I’m not sure if I’ll ever process the image of Red XIII riding a chocobo…
But the majority of my time was spent on playing Balatro. It’s a poker roguelike with tons of ways to break the game, while the game tries to break you. I’m totally addicted to it. as you can tell from my review [HERE]
Most interesting news of this week: On a personal note, I helped with the PR for Please, Touch The Artwork 2 and the game did incredibly well on Steam. After only 3 days, it breached the 500 reviews needed to get an “overwhelmingly positive” rating and it has been in New & Trending since launch.
And for the Dutch-speaking readers: We’re doing a Live Bitkroeg Awards 2023 show next Wednesday and will have amazing prizes to give! Tune in at 21:00 CET on twitch.tv/bitkroeg
Looking forward to playing: I may or may not be checking my inbox/mailbox a few extra times each day in the hopes of seeing a copy of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.
Missi
I have been playing Ultros at the beginning of this week. A beautiful and colorful Metroidvania, but it has some confusing parts. I did enjoy it a lot, but I don’t see myself going for 100% completion.
The next game I played this week was BeaureCard. Such a unique card game in which your deck of cards is also your life. So you want to draw cards to attack the enemy, but you also want to be careful. And when you get attacked, you lose cards from the top of your deck. This is the basics, the game goes deeper, but also has a character that throws this all on its hat with a character that draws cards from the enemy’s deck and the enemy from yours, this time you want to make a bigger deck but with as bad cards as possible, so the opponent isn’t so strong.
And last but not least… I played tons and tons of Balatro! This game has taken over a bit of my life so addictive and fun is it. When I’m not playing it, I’m thinking about playing it. It is a deck builder/poker hand kind of game that starts with a normal deck of 52 cards… but nothing stays normal about that deck and you can make such crazy combos. It is a challenging game, but when you get to combine different abilities that fit together, you will get crazy effects. And this is what makes it so addictive, seeing how crazy you can get with your deck of cards.
Most interesting news of this week: How well Balatro is doing after its release just days ago. The moment the embargo dropped, you could hear reviewers saying how amazing the game is, but I hadn’t heard much about the game before the embargo dropped. After the release, this game reached over 5000 reviews within 2/3 days. That is almost unheard of… let alone for an indie game with a solo developer. And while writing this the news broke that it sold 250k copies in 72 hours.
Looking forward to playing: I’m planning to play “Plantabi: Little Garden” &”The Lost Legends of Redwall: The Scout Anthology” next.
Hello, I’m Victoria. I’m from the UK and have been playing video games for as long as I can remember; back on DreamCast. I’ve pretty much fallen for Xbox since I was around eight years old and remember BioShock being my first game on the Xbox360. Although I find it thoroughly enjoyable to not only experience gameplay, I also find comfort in getting lost and engrossed in the online worlds that sometimes differ greatly from what we know. Another side of my Xbox passion would be achievement hunting and gamerscore. I thrive when I hear the little sound of one popping up on the screen and I’m always finding ways to work on my backlog when possible. Horror is my favourite genre so if you have any recommendations, don’t be afraid to send them my way!