Good job, everyone! The cat talk in the comments has never been stronger. I miss my cats back in England very much. Though I did visit a cat cafe recently, and I got to boop some sphinx kittens on the nose. Life pretty much peaked then, so I'm in a bit of a slump right now. So do me a favour and sound off even more than usual about what your fur babies have been up to lately! And also, if you feel like it, let us know what you're playing this weekend too. Here's what we're clicking on!

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Over 2000 hours spent in various factory games makes me a bit of a purist, I suppose. In theory, I should then be the ideal reviewer to enjoy Shapez 2. But I'm also the ideal reviewer to tear it apart over the most minor hiccups and defects. I'm the Anton Ego of factory games. I don't like food, I love it. If I don't love it, I don't swallow.

Ah, you needn't worry. This is by far the most fun I've had reviewing a game, and Shapez 2 has, in my mind at least, turned the holy trinity of factory games (Factorio, Satisfactory, Dyson Sphere Program) into a holy quartet. Its pared back, everything-is-free-forever approach is quite liberating, and I've never had so much fun placing conveyor belts in my life. But 40 hours into my save file, I've often found myself yearning for a bit more creativity in the challenges, a few more curveballs sent in my direction.

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The search for the cheapest and yet best quality supermarket drink-as-you-go coffee continues. I know it's the first time I've made you aware of this project, but it's been going on since I moved to Glasgow. So far, Lidl's own brand remains the clear winner, a solid 8 on the taste meter at just 59p. But while writing this, I'm sipping an "Intenso" Arctic Coffee from Morrisons, which is giving the Lidl frontrunners some stiff competition at last, albeit at 145% the cost. Will one true victor emerge? Find out next week! For now, here's what we're all clicking on this weekend!

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Good job, everyone! The cat talk in the comments has never been stronger. I miss my cats back in England very much. Though I did visit a cat cafe recently, and I got to boop some sphinx kittens on the nose. Life pretty much peaked then, so I'm in a bit of a slump right now. So do me a favour and sound off even more than usual about what your fur babies have been up to lately! And also, if you feel like it, let us know what you're playing this weekend too. Here's what we're clicking on!

Read more

Over 2000 hours spent in various factory games makes me a bit of a purist, I suppose. In theory, I should then be the ideal reviewer to enjoy Shapez 2. But I'm also the ideal reviewer to tear it apart over the most minor hiccups and defects. I'm the Anton Ego of factory games. I don't like food, I love it. If I don't love it, I don't swallow.

Ah, you needn't worry. This is by far the most fun I've had reviewing a game, and Shapez 2 has, in my mind at least, turned the holy trinity of factory games (Factorio, Satisfactory, Dyson Sphere Program) into a holy quartet. Its pared back, everything-is-free-forever approach is quite liberating, and I've never had so much fun placing conveyor belts in my life. But 40 hours into my save file, I've often found myself yearning for a bit more creativity in the challenges, a few more curveballs sent in my direction.

Read more

The search for the cheapest and yet best quality supermarket drink-as-you-go coffee continues. I know it's the first time I've made you aware of this project, but it's been going on since I moved to Glasgow. So far, Lidl's own brand remains the clear winner, a solid 8 on the taste meter at just 59p. But while writing this, I'm sipping an "Intenso" Arctic Coffee from Morrisons, which is giving the Lidl frontrunners some stiff competition at last, albeit at 145% the cost. Will one true victor emerge? Find out next week! For now, here's what we're all clicking on this weekend!

Read more

It's Saturday morning, everyone! Birds are swaying, the trees are singing. Time to celebrate all the ways in which we'll be staying indoors staring at screens. I've given the outside world a go, but it feels a bit unbalanced, a bit glitchy. I think I'll wait until they've added a bit more content. So here's what we'll all be clicking on this weekend!

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Wrong answers only please: how did I slice open my finger earlier this week? Bystander in a climactic shinobi duel? Fell afoul of the local mantis shrimp? Got out of bed too quickly? Whatever the case, typing is painful for me at the moment, so let's get straight to it. Here's what we're all clicking on this lovely weekend!

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It's Saturday morning, everyone! Birds are swaying, the trees are singing. Time to celebrate all the ways in which we'll be staying indoors staring at screens. I've given the outside world a go, but it feels a bit unbalanced, a bit glitchy. I think I'll wait until they've added a bit more content. So here's what we'll all be clicking on this weekend!

Read more

Wrong answers only please: how did I slice open my finger earlier this week? Bystander in a climactic shinobi duel? Fell afoul of the local mantis shrimp? Got out of bed too quickly? Whatever the case, typing is painful for me at the moment, so let's get straight to it. Here's what we're all clicking on this lovely weekend!

Read more

You may notice there's a stowaway this week. He crept in during all the recent kerfuffle, and secreted himself in a cosy little nook of the treehouse. He was quickly discovered, but despite patient attempts to explain that it's been several years since he was last here, and as per tradition he's now dead to us, we've so far been unable to dislodge him. Like the smiley face hidden in the above image, he's just... there. So I decided, hell, let's hear what he's playing this weekend as well.

Here's what we're all clicking on this weekend!

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You may notice there's a stowaway this week. He crept in during all the recent kerfuffle, and secreted himself in a cosy little nook of the treehouse. He was quickly discovered, but despite patient attempts to explain that it's been several years since he was last here, and as per tradition he's now dead to us, we've so far been unable to dislodge him. Like the smiley face hidden in the above image, he's just... there. So I decided, hell, let's hear what he's playing this weekend as well.

Here's what we're all clicking on this weekend!

Read more

Busy week, this one. We've had a whole load of games announced over the past few days, and there'll doubtless be a whole lot more this weekend. Most of them we can't play yet. But as a general rule, talking about games makes us want to play games, even if they're completely unrelated. Everyone has those moments where they see the trailer for a new multiplayer hero shooter or some such thing, and for reasons only known to themselves, they say, "yes, I really must play more Simpsons: Hit And Run." So: here's what we're all clicking on this weekend!

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Merry weekends, everyone! It's time for a chill couple of days, I think. A bunch of us have recently returned from trips down to the Brighton office to meet some new faces. Weird to think I'm now the most far-flung of the lot, living way up here in Glasgow. Maybe that's why I elected to take over these Playing This Weekend posts, to help fill the friendless void growing inside my heart.

So just know that if you don't sound off in the comments below with news of what you're playing this weekend, the void in my heart will grow, until one day it consumes me. And then who will write these posts? Here's what we're clicking on this weekend!

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It's been a week. Possibly, a three-day weekend of rest and games will do us all some good. And maybe by the end of it, it'll be a new week. Here's what we'll be clicking on this bank holiday weekend.

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This weekend is a big one for me. My brand new fancy shmancy ottoman bed is arriving in my new flat, after two weeks of curling up on the sofa with a weighted blanket. I'll also be topping it with my brand new ultra-thick memory foam mattress topper, raising me off the floor another crucial few inches. Think of the view I'll get from up there! To imagine there'll be any time for games! Pah!

I kid. Plenty of time for games for us all, even while reclining on gloriously beds with ungodly amounts of storage space. We love playing games here at Rock Paper Shotgun. Even Alice, who has routinely told me that actually there are no good games. Here's what we'll be clicking on this weekend.

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One or more of you raised suspicions a couple weeks back that I was a stone-cold liar. I told you that I was going to hide a smiley face inside every Playing This Weekend header image, and here's the proof! Naysayers, the lot of you! You may redeem yourselves by finding today's one above. And once you've done that, have a scroll below and tell us what you'll be getting up to this weekend, eh? Here's what we'll be clicking on.

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Hello! This is weird. Last time I was here, I predicted the future. I can't say I'm not proud of my clairvoyance, but sometimes it is a curse. In any case, I shall endeavour to continue Alice0's great work in finding endless excellent vintage illustrations to pop at the tops of these posts. And I'll also be hiding a little smiley face in each one, for giggles. Ooh, can you find it? What fun! Now then: here's how we'll all be dangerously blurring the lines between work and play this weekend.

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There's a little masochistic streak in me that croons with joy whenever I reach the moment of impending doom in turn-based strategy games. You know the moment I mean. The one where the world fills with enemies patiently bobbing and snarling while you try to conjure up an impossibly perfect set of moves that'll keep things going for one more turn? Cobalt Core is great at this. I've only played a couple of runs so far, but boy, you'd better believe I know when the end is drawing near. It's hard to miss, because the entire screen fills up with rows of damage numbers beaming down onto your hapless little spaceship.

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