What Are You Playing This Weekend? (February 24th)

Ollie Reynolds, Staff Writer

I’m obviously going to be playing some Penny’s Big Breakaway this weekend, come on now. I’ve put in, like, half an hour or so at this point, but once you get passed the initial learning curve with the controls, it’s an absolute blast and I can see myself sinking hours into this one and really perfecting my runs.

Elsewhere, I was pleasantly surprised to see Dead Island 2 drop on Xbox Game Pass recently, so I’ll be giving that one a whirl. It’s seems like the quintessential ‘7/10 game’, but I’ve seen the impressive zombie gore tech floating about in videos and I can’t wait to grab a crowbar and get whacking.

Gavin Lane, Editor

I dipped back into Trombone Champ for a quick toot recently. It’s a huge hit with the fam, especially the bit where you turn cards into turds and create other cards from said turds. Never gets old.

Elsewhere, ignoring the bigger names on the backlog, I fired up Astrologaster this week after getting it on sale over Christmas. I’m only a little way in, but the voice work and presentation are excellent. Looking forward to seeing more of that. I had fun grabbing screens of Blast Corps for ten minutes on Thursday, so some more therapeutic demolition is calling. Most importantly, Pocket Card Jockey finally dropped on Switch; it would be rude not to saddle up with that, too.

Felix Sanchez, Video Producer

I finally finished The Great Ace Attorney 2, so that means it’s time to start a new game on the Switch. I’m not entirely sure what I’ll dive into since there are so many games, but it’s either between Pentiment, EarthBound, or Ace Attorney – Justice for All. Either way, I’m excited to play some games this weekend; it’s always exciting when you have to choose the next chapter in your gaming story!

Kate Gray, Contributor

This weekend it’s a new game for me: Balatro! It’s a deckbuilding roguelite, so that’s all I needed to know before slamming my credit card onto the table. It’s a lot of fun, and it’s all based around making the most ludicrous deck of poker cards — having nine Kings, or an entire deck of hearts — but I can already tell that it doesn’t have quite as much staying power as Slay the Spire. That’s not a problem exactly, it’s just that sometimes you play a game in a genre you know so well that you can predict the next 20 hours. Sometimes that can feel a little disappointing, even if you are having fun!

Alana Hagues, Deputy Editor

It’s a weekend of demos for me following the Partner Showcase! I’ve snapped up Unicorn Overlord — because I loved what I played a couple of weeks ago and need to see how it is on Switch — as well as Pepper Grinder. I think both of those will keep me busy for the next few days. I’ve still got to finish Persona 3 Reload on PS5 before the big RPG hits the console next week. I’m sorry Switch.

Gonçalo Lopes, Contributor

After what seemed like an eternity my physical copy of DoDonPachi Blissful Death ReIncarnation finally arrived, ensuring a bullet hell weekend complimenting the other games of the genre I have been messing around with on my Anbernic all week. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is coming to its climax but I will listening to the game’s OST for months ahead. I also hope to spend some quality time with qomp2 and the sublime Mario vs. Donkey Kong. Among the RARE goodies on NSO I will be having a blast in Blast Corps the most since I no longer have the mad Killer Instinct skills of my youth.

Game of the week is Lords of Exile. Sometimes out of nowhere a game like this pops up on the eShop but thanks to the lack of curation it is easy to miss on retro masterpieces in the middle of the all shovelware. Those who have been lucky like me to stumble upon it will be rewarded with a stiff challenge, memorable boss fights and awesome soundtrack.

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That’s what we have planned for the weekend, but what about you? Fill in the following poll with the game that you will be maining over the next few days and then slide into the comments to let us know what other titles are on the cards.