Find out what we’ve been playing this week in the run-up to Fallout 4 here at Gaming Respawn and get to meet our latest addition to our team, Isaac Orr-Green. This may just be our biggest turn-out yet for Gaming Respawn Plays!!
Stephen Jackson – Chief Editor
Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 released on Friday and despite at the start of the week having no intentions of purchasing it, I went ahead and did so anyway. So far, It’s not a decision I am regretting just yet, it’s more of the same but there is a lot to keep you busy. I used to be a big Call of Duty player, however with recent releases I have been totally put off so Black Ops 3 saw me venturing back into the CoD universe on day one for the first time in several years. So far, I am a few hours into the campaign and as you would expect, it is all very Hollywood cliche, big explosions and big hits and all that. However performance is definitely a disappointment. If the game ran smoothly during the campaign on PC, I would have probably finished it by now.
However multiplayer does play smoothly, thankfully. In recent years, I’ve opted for more slow paced, tactical FPS such as Red Orchestra 2 but there was something refreshing about being thrown into fast-paced, action packed matches. It took some getting used to but I keep finding myself going back for more. Zombies is my least played mode so I will be looking at squeezing some hours out of that.
My review for Black Ops 3 should be finished in the next few days, although with Fallout 4 releasing in a matter of hours and more of Black Ops 3 to be played, I am not setting a date!
Isaac Orr-Green – Writer
This week I’ve been playing a lot of the PS4 HD remaster of 2014’s Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment, Sword Art Online Re: Hollow Fragment. While the game doesn’t feature any English audio, the story is intriguing and presents a unique alternative to the events that transpire in the anime and light novels it is based on. There is a lot of content within the game, with 25 whole floors to explore, complete quests on, and prepare for a large boss fight at the end of each floor. On top of this, every floor has its own town, and there is the massive Hollow Area to explore in a separate storyline running parallel to the main story. While the game is far from perfect – the relationship system is rather abysmal, and the UI is rather dated – the game does offer countless hours of fun for JRPG fans such as myself, and it certainly has me excited to play the next entry in the series, Sword Art Online: Lost Song.
Jorge Godinez – Writer
If you guys have been reading my weekly feature “Have you Played…”, you would know that I recently played and finished the Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. Playing that game got me into a Zelda “craze” so I have been playing more Zelda games. Specifically, Spirit Tracks and Skyward Sword. I have already beat these two games but replaying Zelda games is always fun. Spirit Tracks is a game for the DS while Skyward Sword is for the Wii. Both of these games are great but I would most recommend Skyward Sword. I would definitely place it in my top 5 Zelda games list. Still, if you have not played either of them then you need to get on it. That is pretty much all I am playing right now but if you want to know more about games you need to play, then be sure to check out “Have you Played…” if you have not already.
Kane Newell – Writer
Daniel Garcia-Montes – Writer
Raul Zaha – Writer
After attending DreamHack the week before, I got so pumped. I played a lot of Counter-Strike this last week. Well, I say a lot, but I really rarely play solo, so if someone invited me I was up for it. That’s not to say that the game isn’t fun. It’s a really good twitch-shooter, but I suck at FPSs in general so I get to a point where everyone’s better than me pretty fast and at that point I hate playing by myself. If you’ve never played it before, I definitely recommend playing it, but with a friend, or with 4 friends. At the very least, you’ll learn some East-European languages.
The other thing I was playing this week, when I wasn’t defusing bombs, was Dragon Age 2. I’m trying to power through it to get to Inquisition, but I had a bit of a set back with that bloody Arishok from the end of Act 2. I talk more about it in last week’s “Well, That Just Happened”, but the gist of it is that this boss fight was a nightmare for me. Mainly because the Arishok is a bit of a dick. Other than that, I still find the game pretty good. I can see why people have complained about it, but it really doesn’t bother me. I would still recommend the game to anyone.