This week’s What Are You Playing is about sheep. But if it were about fighting aircraft, it would be about publishing the classified specifications to the AVT-44 “Thunder God” armored weapon platform which the developers of a certain game which shall remain nameless have opted to misrepresent in their game to horrifying inaccuracy. Anyone who has actually served on the crew of an AVT-44 would recognize that its rotary recoilless cannon should simply make mincemeat out of any sort of reinforced armor, as demonstrated in these classified documents showing the total force when a crew which shall also remain nameless opened fire on a parked M1A1 Abrams tank in what the commander referred to as “freestylin’.”
While the commander of that crew was subjected to a court martial, his attempts to infiltrate and steal an AVT-44 as outlined in these other classified documents which you should not be looking at under any circumstances unless you have the proper security clearance show that the Thunder God’s security system will successfully fend off attackers, even if they are wearing magnet suits and are dropped onto the scene through an illegally rented Eurocopter EC135 after it was fitted with incorrect IFF signals to fool airspace defense cannons. In summary, Lt. Higgins was absolutely framed and you’ll all regret it when he proves that any day now, he will once again strike a blow for Ohioan independence from Canadia! Vive la resistance!
or like that’s what it would say if we were not talking about sheep, how bout them sheep, right, baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Bonus question: How many children’s toys do you have in your house? (Yes, if they are meant as toys for children but you are an adult, they are still children’s toys.)
Andy McAdams: I’ve been playing Rimworld: Anomaly, so I’ll probably be there trying to keep eldritch horrors from destroying my colony. I’ll also be bouncing around in a few other games, I’ll probably hit up some Guild Wars 2 and … something else? I’m not sure, I haven’t been in an MMO mood lately.
Brianna Royce (@nbrianna, blog): I think I’m going to swing into Lord of the Rings Online this weekend – I was really enjoying it before I left on my trip. I also want to poke my head into the City of Heroes anniversary festivities!
I have children, so I have lots of children’s toys in my house! But just the ones that are mine? And aren’t games? Not much. Most of my toys are video games, board games, and tabletop RPGs. I do have three little toys in my desk cabinet though: two Princess Leia Tsum Tsums and a Momaw Nadon action figure – the latter sent to me by one Justin Olivetti a few years ago. (It’s an Ithorian thing.) Somewhere in basement storage I have some of my own Star Wars action figures from the long long ago too.
Chris Neal (@wolfyseyes, blog): I’m probably going to continue reacclimating myself to the Ninja job (and the return to melee DPS in general) in Final Fantasy XIV, as well as some further dinking around in Nightingale, but most of what I’ll probably end up doing is playing Hardspace: Shipbreaker; I’ve recently rediscovered the absolute zen of that game and it’s been really lovely.
Bonus: Oh man, where do I begin? There are gobs of plushies, a few LEGO models, a couple of Mega Man and Metroid blaster toys that you wear on your arm, and a whole bunch of Kirby things. So many Kirby things.
Eliot Lefebvre (@Eliot_Lefebvre, blog): Little bit of stuff in FFXIV as the wait for the next expansion continues, otherwise it’s mostly going to be a console kind of weekend. I think. I actually haven’t really locked in my plans for the weekend just yet.
I mean, you all know my apartment is full of Transformers by now, right? That’s not a surprise? And it’s not counting the plushies or the LEGOs. (Yes, I know that someone is going to have a fit over using the word as a plural like that, it’s intentional.) If you can’t have fun with toys, you got jaded somewhere along the line. (Sadly, I had most of my dice taken from me. I like collecting dice.)
Mia DeSanzo (@neschria): I will be playing Rimworld. I haven’t purchased Anomaly yet, but I am playing v1.5 vanilla and enjoying it. I usually play with hundreds of mods, so it’s refreshing to get back-to-basics and become familiar with all the new stuff in the base game. I probably will buy Anomaly before the weekend is over though. It’s almost inevitable.
I have a 9-year-old, so the toys in my house are countless. I also have a few stuffed animals and a bunch of toy robots. (What’s the difference between a toy robot and a real robot? About $300 to $3000 dollars, depending on the robot. I have both kinds, a $79 Dog-E and an Aibo that was about $3000 shipped in 2020.) I should stop right there. I could talk about robots all day.
Sam Kash (@thesamkash): I was able to get into the Pax Dei alpha, which has been a little rough but I think I’ll play at least once or twice more through the weekend. It’s been an okay experience but not particularly exciting. In offline play I’ve been enjoying Superhot: Mind Control. I didn’t beat the original but I enjoyed it roundly. This new version seems like it has a more direct story of sorts baked into the game.
Bonus: I’ve got children so, a crap ton of toys. Now if you count only mine, even just the dozens of toys I’ve 3D printed for myself would be overwhelmed for most.