Before I get going with the usual Weekend Whammy spiel I want to quickly mention something that you might have already noticed: I’ve setup a GoFundMe campaign for a dear family friend who is a terminal cancer patient. Thanks to the UK government and it’s horrendous Universal Credit scheme she’s been left in horrible debt and as I write this has about £15 in the bank. That’s some serious bullshit, and while I’m helping her out as much as I can I’m asking you guys to consider a few coins. Even a little bit will help her out, and I would deeply appreciate it. She deserves to live out the remainder of her life without fear of debt or eviction. Please visit the GoFundMe page for more details. Thank you.

Right, onto the Weekend Whammy. Hello again my friends, another week has somehow slipped by like a ninja in the night, so let’s jump into it.

So my big review for this week was Control, the brand new paranormal action-adventure game from the folk over at Remedy. Maybe you’ve read it, but if you haven’t then I spent about 3,000 words talking about it before giving it a 5/5 score. I don’t think this is my best review which is disappointing considering how much I adored the game, but I hope you enjoy it and can understand my love for Control after reading it.

In the review I briefly touched upon the weird feeling of writing in a void. It’s been a strange experience, because as the site has grown I’ve been lucky enough to get early access to some games. Now, quite often it’s just a few days before a game launches because I’m still just a small fish in a massive ocean and so my review typically goes up after a game’s launch. I can read other reviews and check out what players are saying, not to influence or alter my own views but just to see how my opinion lines up with the rest of the world. With something like Control, though, I was granted the game close to two weeks before it launched and had my review ready to go as soon as the embargo lifted. Honestly, seeing my review going up on Opencritic as one of the first 23 was a gratifying feeling. But the point is I found it odd writing in a vacuum. I had no idea how others felt about Control and so when it came time to publish the review I was genuinely really nervous. Was I going to be the only one who loved it? As it turns out, I wasn’t. It was still strange, though, to write out my thoughts in a complete void before throwing them out into the world.

Anyway, onto the upcoming reviews: I’m working on a review for Gibbous – A Cthulhu adventure and also plan on covering Decay of Logos, a game I’m quite excited about but so far have heard nothing but bad things about it. I’ve got the game downloaded onto my PS4, so I guess I’ll take the plunge shortly after writing this. There’s also my first computer monitor review coming this week.

I was considering reviewing Remnant: From the Ashes especially because a lot of people seem to be loving it, but I think I’ll keep the money and put it into the GoFundMe campaign. I’d be a hypocrite if I asked you to donate money and then went out and bought games, even if they are to review for the site. So I’d recommend checking out this awesome review of the game from SkillUp:

As you might already know if you read this Weekend Whammy’s consistently I’ve been catching up on the substantial Nintendo DS/3DS catalogue. This week I borrowed Luigi’s Mansion 2 from a friend and sweet Jesus Christ why did I never play this sooner? Seriously, I’m loving this game. It’s absurdly charming in its characters, locations and wonderfully simple yet fun mechanics. I think the thing I love the most are Luigi’s animations: the way he carefully, reluctantly pads through the levels conveys so much about his personality and makes him incredibly easy to like. He pushes open doors like he is afraid of what’s on the other side, he runs like a goofball and occasionally he stops to shiver. Luigi doesn’t want to be hunting ghosts, but the little green brother of Mario sucks up that fear and sucks up some damn ghosts! I can see why everyone is so excited by the prospect of the upcoming sequel, and I admit that I’m tempted to try to get my grubby mitts on the Nintendo Lite just to play it.

I have discovered something I don’t like about my 2DS XL, though. I own a big white German Shepard and I allocated big chunks of my day to just sitting outside with him. He loves to chill out in the garden, but he’s also a bit of a douchebag who demands that someone goes out with him. So each day I head outside to read, but of course I figured that the 2DS was the perfect gadget for these little chill sessions. However, you can’t see the screen outside. The brightness is so low that even on overcast days I can barely see anything. What kind of handheld, portable gaming machine sucks at actually playing games on the go?

This week I also got seriously excited about the lengthy Dying Light 2 gameplay video that was released. I mean, I got a tad aroused. It looks gooooooooood.

And finally I’ve been rewatching Futurama which I think is the best animated TV show ever. It brings the comedy, the great characters and the charm, and then smashes you in the face with genuinely heart-warming and heart-wrenching moments.

Anyway, that’s all for this week folks. Once again, please do check out the GoFundMe page and consider helping out my friend. It would mean the world to me.