GameSided Roundtable: What We’re Playing This Summer
Greetings! This is our weekly GameSided Roundtable feature, where our writers converge to provide their opinions, wishes, statements or critical thought on one general topic centered around video games. Sometimes it can be funny, sometimes it can be serious. Contemporary, classic; we hope to cover a wide variety of things in this segment as a group. If you wish to submit an idea for a GameSided Roundtable discussion topic, you can leave me an email at: daniel.george@fansided.com.
Summer has always been a dead period when it comes to video game releases. Historically, the best time to release a vide game has been the few weeks before Black Friday, as consumer interest in purchasing gaming and technological products is at its peak. That’s why it’s always been a good time to catch up on some quality games that may have slipped between the cracks, or revisit excellent classics to refresh nostalgia anew.
That’s why I posed this question to the GameSided Roundtable and to you, the reader: What video games have you been playing this and/or previous summers? Do you prefer to kill the backlog of games, or do you like to go back to the old school entries and revisit those experiences?
Rebekah Valentine
Summer is a time of flirtation. A time to make non-committal advances toward that which looks promising, and test the waters to see if it’s worth it in the long haul. In gaming, the best place to flirt is the Steam Summer Sale. Every summer, I skim Steam daily during the sale and buy whatever looks cheap and vaguely interesting. It’s a great time to experiment with other genres, discover quirky greenlit titles, and even get some big names on the cheap. Then, I flirt– only playing about two or three hours of each. If it’s not a keeper–no biggie! It was only a few dollars, and I always walk away with a title or two I’m both thrilled and surprised by.
This summer, I hit pay dirt: I chose four excellent games that I have every intention of finishing. I’m playing Child of Light, a beautiful fairy-tale RPG by Ubisoft with a story worthy of Hans Christian Andersen. It takes the traditional turn-based battle system I know and love, and adds little quirks like using your mouse (actually a helpful firefly) to slow down the enemy while waiting to attack. The second game I purchased was an indie title: To the Moon. The graphics are reminiscent of Chrono Trigger, the music sounds like Starbound, and it has all the makings of a tear-jerker. Last, I finally picked up Borderlands and Borderlands 2 with all the DLCs. Even though I’m usually not much for shooters, the RPG-like skill trees, strange characters, and intriguing plot hooked me, and I’m looking forward to joining the rest of the world in eager anticipation of the pre-sequel.