This weekend, I’m going to a not particularly good football stadium to watch assorted famous people play not particularly good football. No, not the average [team you don’t like] match, but Soccer Aid. Why isn’t there a Games Aid, huh? Oh, there is. And they do great work, from the looks of it. Maybe one day we’ll use our own games-playing powers for good, but for now, it’s just the following:

Julian:
I’m going to say it quietly so as not to jinx it entirely, but I am making some progress in Cyberpunk 2077. I’m only whispering because I have a horrible habit of bouncing off RPGs after a few hours anyway and I’ve never got past the opening section of CD Projekt’s other games, as good as I hear they are. Something is clicking here, perhaps it’s the Deus Ex-ness of it all, but I hope to push on a bit through the weekend.

Edwin:
I should probably be finishing Zero Parades, but I have a sickening desire to play a Penumbra game – this being wot Frictional did before they found Real Fame with the Amnesia series. I’ve played an hour or so of Penumbra: Overture and am trying to backtrack through an area that harbours something nasty. What better way to cleanse the palate before KeighleyFest next week.

Ollie:
Aside from our regular Overwatch shenanigans, I’ve been sucked back into Dyson Sphere Program for the first time in a while. The opening few hours of this game are just marvellous, and once you rocket off your starting planet (a feat which comes much more easily than in Factorio), it only gets better. Please play it if you like factory games. It might be the second-best of them.

James:
I feel morally obligated to play Mina the Hollower, if only so at least one of us can write about this big popular thing, though I’m not quite clicking with the combat and wish I could bury underneath more obstacles than it actually permits me to. That said, I have played a grand total of 39 minutes, which is not enough to render judgement on a game even if it were only 35 minutes long. Further investigation/burrowing required.

Mark:
Probably more Forza Horizon 6 now its festival playlists are in full swing, as a palate cleanser following a rapid inhalation of pure Bondiness this week.

Jeremy, Dion, and Callum were all killed in a freak guides accident, from which Ollie emerged miraculously unharmed and somehow the sole beneficiary of all three of their wills.

And you, reader dear, what are you playing this weekend?…