True autumn lovers know that you have to adapt yourself. We have three months to fill with activities. You can’t go all in on pumpkin carving and slurping apple cider once the calendar says it’s technically fall. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
So this weekend I’m eating big warm bowls of pumpkin chili and playing games under three or four layers of blankets. But I’ll keep Gilmore Girls under glass in case there’s an emergency later in the season. That also means I haven’t started my seasonal fall games yet. The rest of TheGamer’s staff doesn’t look like much either. This week we return to Monkey Island, check out the NieR: Automata port on Switch and try some old 3D platformers. Most surprisingly, for perhaps the first time ever, there isn’t a single Yakuza game on this list.
Andrew King, Feature Editor
We’re in that little part of the year when it’s so cold that you have to be in blankets all the time, but it hasn’t been cold long enough for the heating in your building to be on. That means I’ll be burying myself under duvets and comforters this weekend and making some serious progress in Triangle Strategy. But I’ve also been on a 3D platformer trip at this point – which coincides with reading Chris Scullion’s Jumping for Joy: The History of Platform Games – so I’ll also be playing some classics in one of the genres I missed. the first time: Spyro: Ripto’s Rage and Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus.
James Troughton, editor of various departments
I played a game called ADACA for an Indie Spotlight piece, and it’s a treat. The visuals have that cartoonish simplicity, with flat colors and smooth details, while the gameplay is floaty and physics-based with intricate set pieces like a train you can jump on to skip an entire area. It’s all very reminiscent of Half-Life 2 – you even have a permanently equipped gravity pistol gadget for your left hand, which lets you throw hives at zombified androids while shooting cops in a dystopian police state. I found myself having a penchant for its SPAS-12 equivalent, where I had bad guys fly through the halls in one pump while guarding myself with a well-positioned box, suspended in mid-air as I run around.
Stacey Henley, Editor-in-Chief
We’re about to hit the monsoon season for games, when triple-A titles fall from the sky and crash hard on the meager leaves we use for shelter. Before that, I want to cross some 2022 games off my list, so I’m diving into Return to Monkey Island. I don’t like the drawing style and the humor is as entertaining as it is amusing, but hopefully it gets a bit better as it goes on.
Rhiannon Bevan, news editor
Covid decided to come back for round two so I’ve had plenty of time to play this week. Unfortunately my hands were cramped after five minutes with Cyberpunk 2077, so I’m pretty limited in what I can do. Fortunately, I have found that Outer Wilds is perfect for quarantine. It’s slow enough not to give me muscle aches all over my body, and cool enough to play while drowning in brain fog. And even better, if I screw up and die, that’s okay. I think there’s a reason timeloop games took over the industry while we were sick – we don’t want to suffer in-game consequences while we have coughing fits to contend with.
Ben Sledge, Feature Editor
I’m hosting my daughter’s first birthday party this weekend, so games aren’t really at the top of my agenda. That said, I’ll probably spend my evenings playing the story RPG Roadwarden, which is really hitting that fantasy spot for me right now. It’s like sitting down with a good book, only the book has no hero and you feel guilty about every conversation you have. Still, it’s beautifully written and tempts me to start another playthrough of Disco Elysium.
David W. Duffy, Evergreen Editor
It’s Valkyrie Elysium to me. I’ve been on the road for a few hours and the weather is going to be terrible, so it’s a good opportunity to hide under a duvet and get as far as possible. I’ve been waiting for the return of the Valkyrie series for quite some time, because for me the combination of Square RPG and Norse mythology is just my thing. I’m a little sad that Lenneth has been delayed as I probably would have played that first, but I’m looking forward to seeing how it transitions into a more action-oriented game in a fully 3D world.
Justin Reeve, news editor
I grew up on point-and-click adventure games, especially The Secret of Monkey Island. I mean, there were tons of others like Full Throttle and Grim Fandango, but The Secret of Monkey Island was kind of the king of them. As a result, I plan to play a ton of Return to Monkey Island for most of this weekend. The game has gotten great reviews and I’ve heard all sorts of good things, which made Return to Monkey Island a no-brainer for me. It’s finally time to click on everything in sight to see if anything happens.
Harry Alston, specialist writer
A lot is going to happen this weekend. I’m still in New World, but I also want to play FIFA Ultimate Team to beat my friend Ross (we played 300 matches against each other during the legendary Lockdown), and continue my journey towards the perfect gameplay loop that is Dome Keeper. Luckily it looks like a rainy weekend so I’m not sure what else to do.
Issy van der Velde, cross-departmental editor
Lord help me, this weekend, October 1, in this, the year of our Lord 2022, I’m playing Watch Dogs. Not the latest, Legion, not 2 that many people say is really good, but the original that disappointed everyone. It’s actually okay if you ignore most of it and just play the campaign missions. Listen, why am I trying to justify myself to you? I don’t know you and you don’t know me. I’m having fun, I guess.
Andy Kelly, Feature Editor
I’m juggling a few Switch games right now. I need to finish Return to Monkey Island, I just started shooting weird monsters in Penko Park, and I really need to make more progress in Triangle Strategy. But I’ll probably still be playing Nier: Automata for another 20 hours, which got the high-quality Switch port it deserves.
Lex Luddy, Junior Editor
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Somehow, despite only just getting back from EGX, I’m already on my way. Luckily this time only for a day and there will be no airports where I can be stuck for 12 hours. I’ve been giving my Steam Deck a lot of love over the past few weeks and I think my Switch is starting to get jealous so this week I’m finally going to dive into Kirby and The Forgotten Land and I’m also looking at the physical version of Dicey Dungeons on Switchwhich I haven’t played since it was first released in 2019 and apparently has a lot more content now.
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