Well, a week without board games. Need to fix that!
Between work, the site backend redesign and feeling ill, I didn’t get as much gaming in as I would have hoped.
But as usual, that doesn’t mean no gaming goodness was had!
Phoenix Point – PC
From the designer of the original XCom, Julian Gollop, comes a game I backed a while ago. And I finally had time to play it!
All of the familiar squad based turn tactics are there, as well as some new twists. Improvments over the Firaxis XCom franshise are here as well. For example, when you put a soldier in Overwatch, you get to set the Overwatch arcs. The ability for deeper planning is great, but it is still a fairly streamlined experience so far.
I am only a couple of missions in, but when I get a solid afternoon to go for it expect to hear more.
Tetris 99 – Switch
Well, Nintendo dropped a huge update – and I decided to give it a spin.
Daily missions and new play modes are always appreciated, and the new Invictus mode was certainly a challenge! Invictus mode is free, but only players that have achieved a win in previous games can enter it, so it’s definitely a top tier event.
There are a bunch of new modes now including head to head play, and I can’t wait to try them all out. I am sure there will be an unofficial Tetris 99 area somewhere at PAX Aus this year, even if I have to try and start one 😀
Word of warning if you haven’t already played the new version – the update took a good 20 minutes to download – it’s a big one!
Astral Chain – Switch
Well, I heard a lot of hype, but this weekend I finally got to sit and try Astral Chain for myself.
The game just oozes Platinum Games DNA. The combat is satisfying, the animations are amazing, and almost everything clicks.
The story is fairly standard anime trope so far, but that hasn’t stopped me from enjoying it. It might be a week before I can sit down with it for another few hours and try and finish another file, but so far so good.
I might need to remap the controls though. That so far is my biggest issue. And the auto-assistance I found just before I finished I am going to try and turn off to see if that helps.
