While we here at Operation Rainfall love covering the latest in gaming news and sharing our reviews of titles new and classic, we also just enjoy playing games in our downtime. So with that, sit back, relax, and check out what the oprainfall gaming crew have been up to this week!
Spent the weekend at my favorite gaming convention, RetroGameCon! I look forward to this con every year, and this was no exception. I spent the vast majority of my time walking around checking out the booths, and grabbed myself a physical copy of Star Ocean The Last Hope International (I only had the original version on Xbox), as well as a proper boxed copy of Til the End of Time (I misplaced my box at some point). I also grabbed a copy of Raji, which I thought looked really interesting but never had a chance to play. And of course it wouldn’t be a con if I didn’t come away with a couple handmade tchotchkes, so I am now the proud owner of an Umbreon hat.
I also got to sit in on a couple fun panels. The first one was a Q&A with John Riggs and Metal Jesus which was just a fun chat about a variety of subjects, including music and video games (considering the panelists). There was also a Sonic mega-panel with several voice actors, including Jon St John, who I didn’t know voiced a Sonic character! Learn something new every day. My favorite panel though was a nostalgia panel about retrogaming. The panelist, ND Bowman, is a professor at Syracuse University. It was a really interesting panel discussing what nostalgia is, how gamers who were born after certain systems were even made could still feel nostalgia for the time and games of those systems, and how generational play can build nostalgia in the participants. Knowing there are folks in academia talking gaming and its impacts on social structures and families seriously fills my nerdy little heart with joy.
Lastly, I of course played a bunch of games at RetroGameCon! The free play area is always fun, and my son of course sought out the vintage computers so he could play a plethora of Pac-Man clones. He also won his first game of Solitaire and was incredibly proud of himself. We all did terrible at DDR and tried our hand at some notoriously bad video games (my game of choice was the 3DO’s Shadow: War of Succession). A bunch of indie games were also available for demo, including a fun little twin shooter called CyberPigeon, which is currently available for Steam Early Access. I really liked the aesthetic for this game, with your adorable little 2D pigeon flying through a constantly shifting void being attacked by robots. You can collect coins to buy upgrades, which range from additional pigeons with special abilities to gun upgrades. The game is fast-paced and addictive and definitely something I think a lot of our readers would find interesting.
In non-convention news, we finally started our playthrough of Resident Evil 8! Ethan Winters continues being the unluckiest man alive. This game is definitely not as scary as RE7, leaning more into camp than horror, but that suits me just fine. It reminds me more of RE4, and I loved the way that game balanced horror and humor. So far we’ve defeated Dimitrescu (what a fantastic character, from design to personality) and are moving onto Angie and Donna’s domain. We’ve been playing in the third-person mode, but I think I’m going to swap back to first-person when it’s my turn to play again. I think having the third-person perspective is interesting but it causes some jarring changes when the game swaps between gameplay and cutscenes. So far though, I’m loving the game. It drips character and the Village itself has a ton of personality. I like how it’s broken into regions, and the villains are all fantastically over the top and hilarious. That doesn’t mean I haven’t had my share of screams, but I welcome the more lighthearted nature of RE8 over RE7‘s overbearing terror. – Leah
I’ve been pretty invested in Dragon Quest XI these last couple weeks. Since I last updated you all on my DQXI adventures, I’ve secured all of the orbs in the first story arc, I went to Yggdrasil, things happened, I got to the point in the game where the party separates, relocated everyone thus re-securing all of the orbs, got myself a very important sword at the volcano forge and that’s where I left off. I’m at the end of the second arc and decided to take a break right about here. I don’t want to run off and end this arc just yet, I’d like to make sure I’ve fought any unique monsters in this part of the game and then head off and grind in the last area before the boss. I decided it was time for a break though because I’ve been so glued to it for the last few weeks and I don’t feel like running around to do those leftover things just yet. I might go back to some other game for a little bit, but I’m not sure yet.
Other than Dragon Quest XI, I’ve also been playing a lot of Riichi City lately. They just started a new Lycoris Recoil collab event last night. I was hoping to unlock a new character of some kind, event exclusive or otherwise, but after using eight of my freely earned summon chances on the gacha, I’ve come up empty. I unlocked the same new riichi stick twice and that was it, the rest was just gift items, which you give to your characters to raise their bond level. I did rank up though while I was doing ranked matches for event points. I’m hoping to earn more gacha chances and get a new character in the next couple weeks, but it’s looking very unlikely that I’ll get anyone. I have very sparse luck with these things and considering I got my first non starter character a couple weeks ago, I probably won’t unlock anyone new, anytime soon. – Jenae
What games have you been playing this week? Let us know in the comments!
You can read previous Week in Gaming entries here!
