11th April
Hello and welcome back to our usual corner where we talk about the games we’ve been spending time on. This week, Kelsey takes on a tough real-world challenge in letting agents; Marie beats her own Jack and Daxter personal best—great work!; and Bertie decides to try something he never expected to do: focusing.
So, what have you been playing this week?
And here’s another question for you: can you remember what you were playing last week? No worries if you can’t—our What We’ve Been Playing archive has everything covered.
Pokémon Champions, Nintendo Switch 2
I’ll admit I’ve been a bit light on personal playtime lately. I’ve been tied up with strategizing around various letting agents while trying to find a new place to live—so, fairly engaging in its own way. Still, I managed to spend some time with Pokémon Champions this week, and honestly, it hasn’t wowed me all that much. I love battling Pokémon like anyone else, and the restrictions on which Pokémon you can recruit bring a welcome twist, giving me space to test out my options instead of just running the usual meta setups from Showdown. That said, the game drags along at a slow pace, connection problems show up regularly, and I’m expecting to head back to Pokopia once the urge to push up the ranked ladder cools off.
The bright spot is that Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream lands next week, and I can’t wait to show everyone my oddball Mii creations.
-Kelsey
Lego Batman: The Videogame, PC (Steam)
To start, here’s a quick update on Jak and Daxter from last week. Ignoring the non-skippable cutscenes, I managed to finish it within my goal of five hours. I wrapped it up in roughly four and a half hours—the timer said four hours and fifteen minutes, but I like to allow for small differences you can get with timing tools. It was a very smooth run overall, though I keep stumbling on the same part each time: the blue-ring section in the Precursor Basin. One day, I’ll finally nail it.
This week I’ve been playing Lego Batman: The Videogame. I’ve gotten used to the voice snippets you hear in Lego games, so it threw me off that this one leans entirely on music and sound effects—plus those smug little “ah ha” noises. Still, that’s part of what makes it enjoyable for me. I keep getting a kick out of seeing the villains pop up—despite knowing full well it’s a Batman game and Batman villains will show up—and I especially enjoy how the storyline wraps up their schemes in a deliberately cartoonish, tongue-in-cheek way.
In a few places it’s showing its age, particularly in some of the in-game reactions to actions you take or puzzles you solve, but it’s still a fun option for filling an hour or two when you’re looking for something to do.
-Marie
Slay the Spire 2 and Luigi’s Mansion 3, PC and Switch 2
I’ve decided to take it seriously, which is a little out of character for me. I’ve never actually managed to reach Ascension 10 in either Slay the Spire 1 or 2, and it feels like there’s some bragging-rights status tied to doing it—so of course I’ve now decided I want those rights. I’m working on it, or rather: I’m trying to work on it. To get there, I’ve picked the divisive Regent as my route forward. Right now I’m sitting at Ascension 2 and moving upward; we’ll see how things look next week.
At the same time—though not exactly at the very same moment—I’ve also been trying Luigi’s Mansion 3 on Switch 2. It isn’t my usual preference, I’ll be honest, but my partner bought it because it includes co-op, and now we’re here. I’m… starting to enjoy it. I wasn’t keen on the overly sweet opening, but once we actually started playing—wandering around and vacuuming things up with the very satisfying ghost vacuum (or whatever it’s called)—it became a lot more enjoyable. I’m also really taken with Luigi’s “I’m terrified” animation, which, considering we’re in a haunted mansion, shows up surprisingly often.
One thing I don’t like, though: the controls that make the torch’s movement depend on the right thumbstick while also asking you to use that same thumb for the face buttons. I don’t have three thumbs, Nintendo.
-Bertie
No Man’s Sky’s Xeno War update, PC
So what’s next? I laughed to myself when No Man’s Sky unexpectedly ended up acting like a garbage collection simulator right at the beginning of this year. Pokémon?! At the time, it sounded like the kind of completely ridiculous idea you’d come up with during an imaginary chat with yourself. But three months on, here we are. The new Xeno Arena update for No Man’s Sky genuinely does bring to mind Pokémon—at least in a funny, close-to-the-real-thing way—right down to the battle music that ramps up alongside the action. Turns out Hello Games wasn’t kidding when it described its new creature-combat system as an “entire multiplayer game all of its own.”
Now, all those procedurally generated creatures you’ll spot roaming across planets—the little fluffballs, the metallic skyscrapers on legs, the sentient shapes—come with elemental ties to the planet they originate from, plus matching statistics. I’m only a handful of battles in and still trying to get my head around its rather unusual take on space rock-paper-scissors, but I’m absolutely having fun.
Nokéman Sky (go ahead and borrow that, Hello Games) is polished, ridiculous in the best way, and weirdly addictive—especially when you win a match and can tinker with your creature’s DNA to improve one of its attributes. I never paid much attention to the pets in my collection before, but now they feel like they have real personality and intent, and I might even be starting to form a connection as they change and evolve. So well done, Hello Games—you’ve pulled me back in again. Your clever unpredictability has done it.
-Matt