What we play: music videos, gaudy zombies and camouflage tunes

November 23

Hello! Welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little about some of the games we’ve been playing over the last few days. This week, we’re exploring a game that’s also a soundtrack album, trying to get used to extreme violence in a supposedly goofy zombie splatfest, and engaging in an age-old video game pastime: grinding.

You can find old editions of this column on our website. What We Played archive.

Dead Island 2, PS5 Pro

Dead Island 2 unmerciful. It’s an over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek portrayal of a zombie apocalypse, but it’s still brutal. I know some people will say that this slightly absurd mix of parody and brutal violence makes it easier to swallow, but I guess I’m at the opposite end of that sentiment. On the contrary, bright colors, ridiculous characters, and fun boss encounters make the moments of terror even more surprising. The bombastic nature of the game had me letting my guard down, but then a walking corpse with half its face missing burst out of the suite bathroom, almost causing me to add a dash of brown to the vibrant color scheme.

If this sounds like your thing (gaming, not my thing about horror), it’s currently available on PlayStation Plus as part of the Games Catalog in the Extra tier and above, and is available on all tiers of Xbox Game Pass. You can also buy directly if you want. Anyway, I go for a laugh as I drill a clean hole into a zombie’s head, and then I cringe when I hear the satisfying “noise” of a piece of pipe being forcefully attached to a skull. Video games, well… what a welcome escape.

-Tom O

Asterism, P.C.

I love seeing people play with the idea of ​​what games can do and Asterism is a good example of this. An indie-rock music album discovered by playing games, because why not?

In the game, if you can call it a game, you’re a space explorer of sorts who picks up strange signals – because that’s what all space explorers inevitably do – and you hop on a spaceship to check it out. The signals naturally turn into songs, and each planet you discover them on features a new interactive music video. It’s only loosely interactive, remember – you move a camera or a character and that’s it.

I think the appeal comes from the distinctive papercraft look, which has a cute stop-animation vibe. It takes me back to the 80s and the children’s TV series of those times; It also reminds me of music videos from that era, where newfangled ‘animation’ techniques were used to surprise the audience. It’s fun to watch.

Whether you’ll stick with Asterism after the demo probably depends on your love of the indie-rock genre and whether you’re patient enough to sit still while listening (I don’t think so). Still I appreciate the designer Claire Morwood’s efforts; It’s a name you may remember from Before I Forget and Windrush Tales. Give it a try!

-Bertie

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, PC

33. That’s how many weapons you need to coat in gold and diamonds to unlock challenges that lead to the awesome “dark spine” and shape-shifting “dark matter” weapon skins. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. My handwritten notes show that I’ve unlocked more than a third of them so far; 14 gold (and sometimes diamond) skins are enough to push me into the third “Prestige” levels of the game and send me into as much mental devastation as I actually enjoy.

It’s been slow and steady work, as I’ve doggedly started with the toughest and most annoying guns, launchers, pistols, and melee weapons, in hopes of finishing with easy assault rifles and SMGs. It’s nice to have a meta goal in mind, especially one without any real time pressure, as it means you can enjoy the fact that you’ve managed to score a handful of goals, even in matches where you’re absolutely blasted from all sides. headshots or a nice string of double kills.

Getting headshots is the most demanding part of the various camouflage challenges, and is essential even for weapons where your precision isn’t really rewarded in general gameplay (shotguns, sniper rifles, and the like). Fortunately, melee weapons only require a certain number of kills – although the baseball bat requires two hits for a kill (!) is easily picked up on smaller maps – and the same goes for launchers, although there are tougher requirements after you. We’ve unlocked the initial military camouflage challenges for each. For example, using the unguided HE-1 launcher to shoot down small UAVs and very high-flying CUAVs required real learning to master.

It’s the kind of innovation I wish Call of Duty developers would embrace a little more when it comes to designing these challenges. For example, in past games you had to kill lines With the riot shield, it’s something that requires a whole new style of play, essentially based on hiding in the corners of maps, waiting for someone to pass and then pinning them down, dodging grenades and panicked gunfire, and slowly killing them with minimal damage. The weapon that deals damage in the game.

I feel like there’s enough leeway for a real gun mastery left undiscovered – what if instead of headshots you need to kill with a selection of suggested builds that dramatically alter where weapons work best, disrupting ranges, firing patterns, stealth and mobility? Or what if you had to recreate some of the gun’s famous look from the movies? Please voice your opinions in the comments below.

-Will