11th April

Hello and welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little about the games we’ve been playing. This week, Kelsey battles a terrifying enemy in real-life letting agents; Marie breaks her personal Jack and Daxter best – bravo!; and Bertie decides to do something he never thought he’d do and focus.

What have you been playing this week?

Here’s another question: do you remember what you were playing last week? You don’t have to! The What We’ve Been Playing archive has you covered.

Pokémon Champions, Nintendo Switch 2

I’ve admittedly been slacking when it comes to playing games in my personal time lately, as I’ve instead been playing mind games with letting agents galore in an attempt to find a new house to live in. Riveting stuff. Though I did make some time to try and get into Pokémon Champions this week, and, well, it’s not very good. I love battling Pokémon as much as the next person, and there being limits involved to the Pokémon you can recruit makes things a little more interesting, allowing me to experiment with what I have rather than cloning meta teams in Showdown. But it’s slow, connectivity issues are rife, and I think I’ll return to Pokopia as soon as the novelty of climbing up the ranked ladder wears off.

The good news is that Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream arrives next week and I absolutely can’t wait to share my cursed Mii creations with everyone.

-Kelsey

Lego Batman: The Videogame, PC (Steam)

First of all, a quick Jak and Daxter update from last week. Without counting the unskippable cutscenes, I managed to get it finished under my goal-time of five hours! I did it in around four-and-half hours; the timer said four hours fifteen minutes, but I like to account for stopwatch errors. It was a really smooth run, though the same part always trips me up: the blue-ring run in the Precursor Basin. One year, I’ll master it.

This week I’ve been playing Lego Batman: The Videogame. I’ve become very used to voice lines being used in Lego games, so it was a surprise when this one relies solely on music and grunts, or smug “ah ha” noises. Then again, that’s also one of the reasons I’m finding it charming. That and I’m still finding joy when certain villains appear – despite knowing this is a Batman game and Batman villains will appear! – and in the amusingly cartoon ends to their devious plots.

It’s definitely showing its age in a few areas, particularly in some of the in-game responses to actions or puzzles being solved, but it’s still an enjoyable way to spend a free hour or two.

-Marie

Slay the Spire 2 and Luigi’s Mansion 3, PC and Switch 2

I’ve decided to focus, which isn’t like me. I’ve never actually made it all the way to Ascension 10 in Slay the Spire 1 or 2, and I feel like there’s associated bragging rights that comes with doing that, and now I’ve decided I want them. So I’m doing it. Or rather: I’m trying to do it. And I’ve decided the divisive Regent character will be my vessel through which to realise it. I’m on Ascension 2 and counting; we’ll see where I am next week.

At the same time – not exactly the same time – I’ve been trying out Luigi’s Mansion 3 on Switch 2. This isn’t my usual jam, I must admit, but my partner bought it because it has co-op and here we are. I’m… warming to it. I didn’t like the saccharine start but now we’re actually playing and sucking things through the very satisfying ghost-vacuum, or whatever it’s called, it’s much more enjoyable. I’m also a big fan of Luigi’s ‘I’m terrified’ animation which, with this being a haunted mansion, plays very often.

But I am not a big fan of a control scheme that maps the torch’s movement to the right thumbstick while also requiring the same thumb to use the face buttons. I do not have three thumbs, Nintendo.

-Bertie

No Man’s Sky’s Xeno War update, PC

What’s next, I chortled to myself after No Man’s Sky suddenly turned garbage collection sim at the start of this year, Pokémon?! What a joke this entirely fictitious exchange with myself seemed at the time. But three months later, that’s exactly where we are. No Man’s Sky’s new Xeno Arena update really is Pokémon, or at least an amusingly close approximation – complete with fizzingly energetic battle music while it all goes down. And it turns out developer Hello Games wasn’t joking when it called its new creature-battling system an “entire multiplayer game all of its own”.

Now, all those procedurally generated creatures you’ll find fallomping around planets – those fluffballs, those metallic skyscrapers on legs, those sentient anuses – all have elemental affinities based on their planet of origin, as well as associated stats. And while I’m only a few battles in, and still trying to wrap my head around its slightly unorthodox version of space rock-paper-scissors, I’m having a blast.

Nokéman Sky (feel free to use that Hello Games) is slick, ridiculous, and weirdly more-ish – particularly when you win a match and get to fiddle around with your critter’s DNA to boost one of its stats. I’ve never really bothered with the pets in my collection that much before, but all of a sudden it’s like they have purpose and presence, and maybe I’m even feeling a bit of a bond as I watch them grow. So well done Hello Games, you’ve done it again. Your wily unpredictability has pulled me back in.

-Matt