Eyes on the Week (22nd-26th January)

It’s time to look back on the week we’ve just had! What did the weekdays look like for our writers? What was the biggest news from the week? and what are we looking forward to playing during the upcoming weekend? Our Eyes on the Week article will answer all three of these questions!

We’re curious about your opinion and played games, so be sure to share your stuff on our social media channels!

Victoria

Borderlands 3 has once again taken up the majority of my week with me and Lewis powering through the DLCS, with only Moxsi’s Heist to start and Bounty of Blood which needs clearing up to complete. It has brought back memories of the weapons I have thoroughly enjoyed throughout my many hours. I’m sure we’ll power through it and get Lewis his completion by the end of the weekend.

Sea of Thieves was played probably for about an hour this week to see what the new update had to offer. We’ve only touched the surface when it comes to the new season but I believe we’ll be back to sailing the seas in no time.

Most interesting news of this week: The growth of Palworld has skyrocketed. I will not be playing because I hate the thought of killing and cooking pals. I love and have far too much respect for Pokémon to get involved with that. Also, the mass amount of layoffs at Epic Games and Microsoft is upsetting to see. It doesn’t make a good impression on those wanting to get into the industry.

Looking forward to playing: Sorry to say this but nothing is grabbing my attention right now. I’m just not in the right mindset to enjoy video games right now.


Robby

Not much new from me, I’m still playing Prince of Persia on Xbox. On PC I did spend some time checking out upcoming demos for Steam Next Fest and was already happily surprised by two of them:

Voxlands, a kind of Minecraft-style RPG with guns and a storyline (and that looks amazing, I could hear my PC sweat), we’ll help them send out their Press Release soon! I played the first level 5 times already, but my Laptop can’t handle the recording it seems…

And Copy Cat is also amazing: an indie game in which you play as a cat who finds a second home after being adopted by an elderly lady in the final stretches of her life. She needs a feline companion to combat her loneliness and she picked…you! What makes the game truly stand out is the nature documentary voice-over that plays out at the same time, with lions and tigers on the TV and the narration perfectly matching your current antics. Check my video HERE.

Most interesting news of this week: Palworld, sadly. I’m not exactly a fan of their “copycat” use of Pokémon designs. seeing that sell 8M copies and all of that Twitter discourse has been interesting…

Looking forward to playing: Pacific Drive looks like it’ll be awesome. sadly a PS5-exclusive 😞


Thomas

It’s been a pretty standard week for me once again. I spent some time in Final Fantasy XIV leveling up an alt character on the one hand, and doing some extreme trials with my Free Company on the other. There I got to see that, while my skills are generally passable, I’ll need to up my game significantly should I want to do endgame content with the rest of them. A training dummy at my in-game estate has already seen significantly more use than ever before.

Dr Ratio has been a blast to play in Honkai Star Rail this week as I’ve finally farmed good relics and maxed out his abilities. He definitely needs some ramp-up time, but once he gets going he hits like a truck full of textbooks. But since the 2.0 update is right around the corner there’s not much to do for the time being.

I’ve also played a little more Dragon’s Dogma, but not near what I’d hoped to. I also didn’t do too much of note as I kind of wandered around the map to open it up further. And while I applaud the developers to not give in to common tropes and make fast travel an easy and plentiful option, it sure slows down exploring the world without a way to skip/sleep through the nights.

Lastly I also picked up Palworld earlier this week, but haven’t actually gotten to it yet. Something for this weekend decidedly. Time to see what all the hype is about.

Most interesting news of this week: Palworld released to an explosive amount of sales.

Looking forward to playing: I must say I’m curious to try Palworld for myself.


Colombo

I played through Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memory this week, and as a long-time fan of the franchise, I was pleased to play through it but also a bit disappointed that there were missing songs and even entire worlds not covered. Like Pirates of the Caribbean and Winnie the Pooh, probably because of copyright. Also, I started playing Far Cry 4, which so far has been pretty good.

Most interesting news of this week: The massive layoffs from Xbox / Activision Blizzard and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth releasing.

Looking forward to playing: More Far Cry 4 and also playing my next review game.


Missi

At the beginning of this week, I played a lot of Jett Rider. What a challenging but fun game, but I was not a fan of the speedrun achievement. That seems impossible for me. The rest of the game was just so much fun!

I have also started with Spells & Secrets, which I do enjoy a lot, fun most roguelites make me not want to quit a game and do another run, and another one. Somehow this game feels a bit heavy (taxing on my brain) and after a run, I’m done for an hour or so before doing the next run. I haven’t figured out why this is the case yet, but I hope it changes as I love the theme and artwork of this title a lot.

Most interesting news of this week: The amount of layoffs only in January already is depressing and it gives me a hard time enjoying gaming atm, as it all feels so heavy. Other sad news this week is the break-ins in the Aggro Crab Studios. Having a break-in was already sad, but having another break-in the next day was just crazy and unfortunate.

Looking forward to playing: More Spells & Secrets, I’m not sure what else to play. I have some days of work this and next week, but I can’t find that addictive game that I can play day and night now that I have the time… I hope to find it next week so I can just dive into a game and forget real-life stuff.