Ho ho hello! A merry Winterval to one and all. We're taking two weeks off to fully celebrate the winter solstice then will return on Tuesday, January 2nd. We'll have a few posts coming across the break, including opening more doors of the calendar to reveal our favourite games of the year and oh god more Christmas cracker jokes. But we're going away to feast for the solstice then spend a solid week recovering from the carb blast. See you next year!
What are you playing this holiday? Here's what we're clicking on!
Alice Bee
I leave for the county of my birth on Sunday, but it is a hellhole without decent heating and approx. half of my family does not see eye to eye with me on matters of e.g. politics or human rights. I will be taking a lot of books with me, and also my laptop, on which I will probably be playing restful little puzzle things like Glass Masquerade 2 or Pictopix.
Alice L
Christmas is all about finishing off all those games you've not quite finished in the past year like Control, Afterparty, Mutazione, and... Oh no, have I just accidentally started up a new Skyrim save? Oh well, I guess that's goodbye from me. See ya in 2020, suckers.
Alice O
I'm going travelling anywhere over the holiday so I have so many swims planned for the next fortnight. I will drink in every extra minute of daylight once that solstice hits. Video games... honestly, I'm going to have a go on many of the games on our advent calendar I haven't played much new this year. That's the curse of falling hard into Destiny 2.
Astrid
Over the hols, I'll be going back and playing Fallout: New Vegas. It featured in a Christmas mods video I made, and getting the footage reminded me how much I enjoy the best modern Fallout game ever made. I've always played it a bit straight-laced, so this time, I might actually take the character concept from that video, Horace the silver-tongued cannibal with a welding mask and a power fist, and see how she fares throughout the whole game.
Dave
I have a lot of games I need to finish from earlier this year and I aim to play as much as I can before I'm away from my PC for several days, most notably: Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, and Paranoia: Happiness Is Mandatory. I'm not entirely sure how much more time I'll give to Paranoia though as it's so far failed to grip me, but I'm only one mission in.
I also want to catch up on some Monster Hunter: World, as the expansion is coming to PC very soon, full of large and sometimes foul beasts to slay. I'm a little rusty though as I've not played the game for several months, not since the Witcher event was released, so clearly I need to sharpen my skills with a whetstone.
Graham
I am going to start on some of the games I've missed throughout the year. Outer Wilds? Ploughing on with Disco Elysium? I've got that new Pokémon on the Switch. And yeah, I'll probably continue with daily runs of Noita. This will, of course, all happen in stolen moments between family gatherings. Have a good break, everybody.
Katharine
I'll only have my laptop with me over the Christmas holidays, so I'll mainly be playing small things I've missed over the last few months. Frog Detective 2 and Dandy Dungeon are definitely on my list, and maybe this will finally be the time I also get into Slay The Spire!? Only time will tell. Wish me luck!
Matt
I'm not sure. I have a lot of time to fill without a PC, which in theory means going back to Fire Emblem: Three Houses on my Switch, but in practice probably means getting fed up with repetitive battles and characters I don't care about. Someone recommend me a beefy Switch RPG, plz?
Matthew
I tend to go game free at Christmas and get through some reading - hoping for some Japanese crime fiction on the day itself (The Honjin Murders is at the top of my list if Katharine is reading). If I do find the time will probably dip into Death Stranding or chip further away at Persona 5.
Nate
Crikey, the weekend that lasts a thousand years. Or a little under two weeks, I guess. It's a long time. At the moment I've got a book to finish over the break so I'm not planning on playing much (apart from finishing Final Fantasy 18 Part Nine The Lightning Returns, of course), but I dare to hope I might finally get to catch up on at least a couple of the gems I missed this year. Or just smash a load more Planet Zoo. I guess at the end of the day, Christmas is the greatest game of all. Hope you all have a good one xx
Ollie
Ollie is asleep in a big armchair by the fire.
Sin
I will be taking a much needed break from playing dozens of obscure new games every fortnight. I'm growing a stance that RPGs have been building to a huge moment over the last ~18 months and I want to get in there before everyone credits it entirely to Disco Elysium (not that DE isn't great or important, obv). That means playing a couple of dozen obscure new RPGs over the next fortn... oh no. Well. Maybe I'll just mainline Wildermyth or Kenshi until they completely format my brain instead. See you in THE FUTUREEE
But you, dearest reader, what are you playing?
