16th August

Hello and welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we've been playing. This week, we're making a slight change in an effort to get you a wider view of what the team - the entire team - has been playing. Expect to read more opinions on what we've been playing, but slightly shorter entries so we can fit them all in.

What have you been playing?

Catch up with the older editions of this column in our What We've Been Playing archive.

Mafia: The Old Country, PC

I've been excited about this for a while because who doesn't want to live their Al Pachina Sicilian Mafia dream? Those al fresco lunches are to die for. Sometimes literally.

The set-up here is turn of the 20th Century Sicily and you're a hard-up miner who: has a mine collapse on them, gets into a fight, goes on the run, and ends up working with a Mafia family. So far it's been linear and a bit boring. Gorgeous though - that scorched Sicilian landscape is to die for. Sometimes literally. (It's the same joke Bertie.)

But I haven't been able to experience anything else because the game keeps crashing on me. Six crashes in a row I had so I gave up. I expect it'll be patched soon, but that a game can perform like this at all, at launch, is outrageous, and definitely not to die for.

-Bertie

Rocket League, Xbox Series X

In an attempt to prove to my son that I'm not an inept old man who can no longer accomplish things in my life, I played a few games of split-screen Rocket League with him. Of course, he won, but importantly I wasn't rubbish and I did score quite a few goals. Well done me! Not time for the scrapheap yet.

-Tom O

The House of The Dead Remake, Switch 2

It's been a very busy and stressful time, as you can imagine, getting ready for Gamescom and helping the new, updated version of Eurogamer get to its feet. So as I was browsing the Switch 2 eShop and saw The House of The Dead Remake was going for less than the price of a pint, I snapped it up. There's nothing quite like the cathartic release of furiously tapping on a screen to blow the heads off zombies. It works just as well with your index finger as it ever did with a light gun.

-Dom

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, PS5

I'm not sure if the Wuchang developers' interest in sexy ladies with feathers and wings is down to the iconic status of Elden Ring's Malenia boss battle, or if they just like sexy ladies with feathers and wings. Regardless, it's a repeated design across the game, though it certainly speaks to the somewhat derivative nature of the game as a Soulslike. However, as I pointed out earlier this week it does have enough ideas of its own and a peculiar rhythm to combat that makes it stand apart. Annoyingly, I finished it a couple of days ago before the most recent patch came to console, with its much-needed balance tweaks and more controversial story adjustments.

-Ed

Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin, PC

Yes, Drangleic has called to me once more.

I don't know exactly what it is about FromSoftware's games, but there's something about the intricate spaces it creates - the sheer totality of their design - that worms so deep into my brain. Every now and then, I get a yearning that feels impossible to ignore, and this time around it was the melancholy song of Dark Song 2, and its blighted peaks and forsaken shores.

I appreciate I'm an outlier here, but I adore Dark Souls 2, warts and all; its sheer ambition, its idiosyncratic invention, and, yes, an atmosphere so overwhelmingly forlorn it practically seeps into your bones. This, I should say, is my very first dance with Dark Souls 2's Scholar of the First Sin do-over, and it's a lot like coming home after a long time away and seeing everything with brand-new eyes. Right now, I'm venturing hole-ward into Majula's suffocating, accursed depths - perhaps the closest From has ever come to full-on horror. It's good to be back, even if there's still plenty of pain to come.

-Matt

Silent Hill 4: The Room, PC

During a recent edit for a video feature about Silent Hill f, I had to source some gameplay for Silent Hill 4: The Room. I remember playing The Room on the original Xbox at an ex-girlfriend's house back when it released, but for some reason I never completed it. I've long since lost my original copy, but looking back at that footage inspired me to pick it up on GOG and give it another spin.

And you know what, I love the first-person stuff in room 302. It's kind of a proto-P.T. with its slight, sometimes unnoticeable changes every time you return to the room, which adds more mystery to the experience. There's some really neat touches too, like looking out of the window to see neighbours going about their business, through the windows of their homes across the street, or seeing handprints appear on the wall outside your room every time someone meets a tragic end.

The Otherworld stuff is definitely on the weaker side of the Silent Hill spectrum though, demonstrated in both its repetitive level design and the fact the game is full of bizarre stock sound effects that really don't fit the atmosphere. Special shout-out to the nurse monsters that emit echoing Homer Simpson burps every time you hit them.

Despite its flaws, I love that The Room is doing something a bit different. I'm about five hours in and determined to see it through to the end, mainly to finally finish what I started 20+ years ago. But also because I severely doubt this one will get a Bloober remake!

-Ian

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Definitive Edition, PC

I picked up this returning classic yesterday after work and am, so far, a very happy chap. I remember being a teenager and blasting through Dark Crusade on my friends PC, so seeing a lot of those old models reworked with shiny new graphics, in a proper resolution, has been wonderful.

I'm not too far through it yet, having only completed the first three missions of the base games' campaign, but I do reckon this'll be a game I'll chip away at over the next few months. Special shout out to the legendarily horrible yell during the game's opening cinematic, a relic of the original game the folks at Relic Entertainment could have justifiably removed. It's a proper AAARGH, one of the all time greats. Also, Chaos Space Marines forever.

-Connor

Tiny Bookshop, PC

Tiny Bookshop has been sitting at the back of my mind ever since I played the demo way back at EGX 2022. Yet, the more I longed for its release, the more a worry grew inside of me - would I enjoy the full game as much as I loved the demo?

Thankfully, the answer is a resounding yes. I've easily become completely absorbed in the world of Bookstonbury. In fact, it's to the point that some evenings I've forgotten I can go outside and read at a real beach rather than sell books in a virtual one. Still, it's a worthy price to pay if it means I can continue selling books and solving the occasional mystery in my little bookshop wagon. Who knows, maybe I'll be able to sell this pile of travel books and discover who destroyed the shopmarket mascot at the same time...

-Lottie

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Definitive Edition, PC

After reading above that Connor is a Chaos Marines guy I had to include this one, if only so I could comment on how appropriate that is. Anyway, it's an absolute treat of a game - look forward to a thousand-plus more words of waffle to the tune of that from me very soon. Alongside this I'm still chipping away at Pokémon TCG Pocket, and a couple of very, very good things that are under embargo, oooohhhhhh (sorry I realise that's actually really annoying to do that and not say what it is, promise I won't make it a habit).

-Chris T