Now Playing at SUPERJUMP: Issue 9

We're back with another issue of Now Playing at SUPERJUMP! We've asked our global team of writers and editors to chime in with what they're currently playing, obsessing over, thinking about, and looking forward to in the coming weeks. Click each author's name to see their entire portfolio, and the links in the text will let you find out even more about them. So enjoy, and we'll see you back here each week for more recommendations and odes to the games our team loves!

Gavin Annand

This week, I returned to my playthrough of Baldur's Gate 3. It's an impressive game with a remarkable degree of player agency, and it's destined to become a classic. I've also been playing Paradox's sadly abandoned Imperator: Rome. It's a shame Paradox ceased work on this due to poor performance, because a few patches later, the game is one of their best grand strategies - a perfect mix of Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis.

Cat Webling

I got the opportunity to play some wonderful new games this week including the lovely Roots of Pacha, a life sim set in the prehistoric world with a strong focus on community. It's adorable and easy-going - the perfect game to play curled up in front of a Christmas tree. I plan to write a feature about the community aspect of the game sometime soon so this is a little preview.

Brandon R. Chinn

I finished the Law Route of Tactics Ogre Reborn (my least favorite) and jumped back into my Mega Man Battle Network 5 file for fun.

Joe Richards

I've been continuing my playthrough of Alan Wake Remastered over the last week - with how much praise the sequel has been getting, I decided to go back and see what the original was all about and I've been pleasantly surprised by what I've experienced so far! A unashamedly campy thriller experience, I look forward to seeing how this links into the sequel. The story has been really interesting so far, and I've enjoyed the various meta-narrative elements that Remedy has implemented. With the promise that Alan Wake 2 goes even further with these elements, seeing where it all began is really interesting!

Nathaniel Kelly

I’ve finally rolled credits on the incredible Cyberpunk 2077 and Phantom Liberty which was amazing and heartbreaking. All that energy was channeled into a story that was just submitted right here at SUPERJUMP, so stay tuned for that! Until the post-game depression leads me to start something else, my remaining time was - to no one’s surprise - channeled into Magic the Gathering. I won a game this week at Pod by adding a strategic Yawgmoth to my Rakdos sacrifice deck that helped me recover after a particularly devastating board wipe. I then just had fun, fell back in love with my artifact Alela deck, and caused so much chaos fine-tuning a Selesnya group hug which should almost be at just the right level of crazy soon. For next week I’m cooking The Mycotyrant in the lab which is a Commander from the newest MTG set The Lost Caverns of Ixalan. Going to do some graveyard shenanigans and hopefully, I can report back next week with some victory stories!

Joshua Gautreaux

After a recent BOGO sale on used games, I've acquired a copy of Pokemon Violet, into which I've sunk around 40 hours. While the game's technical performance leaves a lot to be desired, I appreciate the scale of what it's trying to accomplish and I'm having a fun time playing it. So far the open-world design has paired well with the choose-your-own-adventure story. And I'm so spoiled for choice on the variety of Pokemon that I can hardly pick just 6 to take with me at a time.

Jahanzeb Khan

Speaking of Pokemon, I've been playing the new Dragon Quest Monsters on Switch, which I think does Pokemon better than Pokemon. Dragon Quest Monsters as a franchise predates the original Game Boy Pokemon games by a few years. In fact, the very notion of monster wrangling was introduced in Dragon Quest V. History doesn't matter, though, as history is written by the one who invented Pikachu first.

Paul Barnes

This week I got back into playing Sackboy: A Big Adventure after taking a hiatus from it/playing it sporadically. One of my friends recently got a PS5 and we had been running into a few issues with Share Play for other games while he was on PS4. However, with him being on PS5 now, I decided (and remembered) that I should try it with this one and it went great. I really enjoy how Sumo Digital made so many creative choices with their platformer. I'm a big fan of the LittleBigPlanet games and while this one made some changes I didn't like from those, this is still a charmingly fun game.

When I'm not putting all my brainpower into timing a jump perfectly, I find myself happily nodding my head along to the music as I play. The costume choices are another favorite aspect of mine and I enjoy switching them out regularly depending on the world I'm in. At the time of this writing, I believe I only have one more level to beat until the final boss fight. I've been enjoying the story and really have enjoyed the voice acting throughout the whole game too.

That's a wrap for this week's Now Playing at SUPERJUMP!
Thank you for checking out the veritable treasure trove of games our team is playing right now, and be sure to check back next week when we're back with more.