What We’re Playing This Week

By the Last Token Gaming Staff

Marshall Garvey: Aside from playing Red Dead Redemption for its upcoming Hall of Fame Review, I’ve also popped Donkey Kong 64 back into the old system for another go around. Right now, you’re probably instinctively ready for a warm, glowing burst of nostalgia about my days spent playing this game in 1999, and how amazing it is, and how delightful it is to have Grant Kirkhope on my Facebook friends list, etc. Well, you’re dead wrong! I’m here to bitch about having to play the original 1981 Donkey Kong arcade game in Frantic Factory in order to obtain the Nintendo Coin, a necessity in order to beat the game. Whoever chose to put that in this otherwise incredible N64 classic is a pure, unbridled sadist. Unlike the space game you play for the Rareware coin, you can’t just grind for a high score to win. You have to actually beat all four levels, with endless obstacles, irritating sound effects, and no option of restarting within the arcade game. (You have to keep pulling a lever to get back in each time you fail, which is incredibly tedious.) Not to mention, Mario dies from falls that are hardly falls at all. As you’ve guessed, this feature (which should have been nothing more than a fun tip of the hat to DK’s past) is the reason I haven’t beaten DK64 all these years. In the bigger picture, though, it was arguably Rareware’s only mistake until the infamous Microsoft purchase of 2002…

(Note: I may elaborate on this ordeal to the fullest extent in a Levels of Hell article like I did for Raid on Sullust from Rogue Squadron.)

Michael Ros: Let me tell you just how far behind I am on gaming. As of now I am playing Team Fortress 2 with my good friend Marshall. I’m still new to the game, and it is very different from other class-based shooters I’ve played in the past. I love the emphasis on the different roles of each class and how you have to really work together as a team in order to succeed. I’ve also been steadily building my PS2 collection. For nostalgia’s sake, I’m revisiting Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy. Having grown up with Legos since my preschool years and still being an avid collector to this day, to have a game built around it that is actually really damn good is incredible given the history of movie licensed video games. This will also be my first time playing through the original Kingdom Hearts and I can’t wait to dive into it. I hope to catch up by the release of the third installment coming out in 2015.

Michael Mygind: After leaving it on the shelf for a year, I’m revisiting Final Fantasy X (PS2) from my last save point with about a quarter of the game left to go. Aside from this, I’ll be playing a shoot ‘em up classic, TRUXTON (Genesis) for an upcoming review. I love me a good shmup, so I’m stoked to share my thoughts on this one! On the topic of shmups, I recently got Castle of Shikigami III (Wii) in the mail, so that’ll also be on my list of games to play.

http://youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1ZOyrdjMtk

Patrick-James Reyes: After having conquered the cliffs of Point Du Huc and stormed the African desert via Crusader tank in Call of Duty 2 Iast week for this Saturday’s Call of Duty Retrospective article, I’ll be shifting my focus to other fronts of WWII starting with Call of Duty 3 in preparation for next week’s write up. Not content to stop there I’ll also be tackling the campaigns and multiplayer modes of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty World at War as well in order to refresh my memory of what differences (little they may be) came about throughout the series. Hoping their respective articles more frequently before the latest installment comes out. Man, I’m going to be on CoD overload at this rate until mid November comes along.

Terry Randolph: After having finished Shadow of Mordor (Xbox One) for its recent review (which you can read here), I’ll be also finishing up Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance and getting into Alien: Isolation. Provided I have some time left over from the Spartan Run I’m doing this weekend, I’ll also play Kingdom Hearts (HD Remix 1.5 for PS3) to write up its Hall of Fame review. Let’s just hope I can do most if not all of this.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqWelDhUj7c]

Sean Willis: Been playing a lot of Carmageddon. one of the most violent demolition/racing game ever. It’s harmless fun, with depictions of unrealistic violence against pedestrians left in a city clearly taken over for a demolition race. A race in which all the cars get crunched up and smashed with what was at the time new 3D effects of cars crushing, depending on where you hit them. They have a new remake on Steam Early Access but its still in Alpha, plays the same though and it’s lovely. Taking time away from that for a little Smash Bros 3DS (also finishing Sukara Samurai, look it up) and way too much building and farming in the game Trove. I prefer to describe it as a mix of the games Cubeworld and Vox (it’s on Steam, look that one up too) together. Plenty of action RPG combat mixed with block building mechanics. It’s all voxels after all. It can get rather addicting digging for ores, though the F2P item grind is still there I’m still compelled to build my club world and grow plants so I can ride a silly rideable pumpkin mount. You can also ride a raptor…ya, I usually don’t like MMOs but this one got to me. Lots of player submitted equipment too which keeps things fresh.

Cameron Hall: Currently, I’ve just picked up Fantasy Life for the 3DS. This game is a god send for me and I think anyone else who loves JRPGs, non-toxic online interaction, customization, and long-time playability. It’s developed by LEVEL 5, the same studio behind Ni No Kuni that I’m also playing. It’s got an overall feel that would fit people from young to old. The best way to describe gameplay though is Elder Scrolls meets Animal Crossing. You can choose from 12 “Lives” or what most of us would think of as classes, but you’re not restricted to just one. More so, you can carry skills from one class to all the others and make your character custom fit to your play style, as everything you do gives you experience that deals with a Life in a manner similar to how Elder Scrolls levels up your skills as you do the activity associated with it. Besides Fantasy Life, I’ve been playing Smash Bros 4 for the 3DS as well as Legend of Legends. On Smash, I mainly play with Kirby, Pikachu, and Mii Fighter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBJMxdzzTnU

Jake Rushing: Currently, I’m playing Hyrule Warriors because there is something about bashing hundreds of Moblins and Skeletons that makes me get addicted to the game. Even though that some points of the story could use some redefining, it’s a fun game to play nonetheless. I’m currently playing the Adventure mode so I can unlock the remaining characters to play (which are Princess Ruto, Zant, Agitha, and Ghirahim). I’m also playing a little bit of Clock Tower (for SNES) just to give it a taste for my Halloween Stream this week, which will be one of my two streaming sessions I have going on this coming week. On Tuesday, I’ll be playing Ride To Hell: Retribution, and then I’ll play Clock Tower for the SNES for the stream on Halloween. Keep your eyes out for the times and link to my stream channel this week!