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Summer may be drawing to a close, but here on the east coast, we’ve had a few brutally hot days lately to give us one last reminder of the season at its worst. Thankfully we can prioritize staying indoors, hopefully enjoying some air conditioning, and definitely doing plenty of gaming now that we’re officially at the end of the week.

Perhaps you, too, find yourself with a spare 48 hours to kill and a craving for some gaming time well-spent? Well, should that be the case, we have some recommendations for you. Come check them out.

Ovis Loop

Play it on: Windows PCs
Current goal: Defeat the Youngest Botanist

“Dead Cells meets Cult of the Lamb” is the pitch for Ovis Loop, a new pixel art animated action-roguelike that arrived in Early Access on Steam this week. While it doesn’t quite rise to the heights of either of those indie tentpoles, it’s definitely a better-than-expected one-of-those so far. You play a mechanical sheep trying to defend its flock from increasingly difficult cyber-wolf boss fights. The rhythm and balance of upgrades has been enticing so far, and the 2D combat controls tightly enough. But the real star of the show is the beautiful sci-fi art with levels that feel straight out of a post-apocalyptic Mega Man X. I’m excited to play more and see where LIFUEL can take Ovis Loop on its Early Access journey. – Ethan Gach

Off

Play it on: Switch, Windows PC
Current goal: Reach Zone 2

Off is a sort of spiritual precursor to Undertale that was developed by a tiny Belgian team called Unproductive Fun Time in 2008 using RPG Maker. The incredibly unconventional puzzle role-playing game has you take control of a character named The Batter as they try to purify the world by battling the four specters haunting its different zones. There are turn-based battles, esoteric conversations with NPCs, and plenty of weird mysteries to solve.

I never played the original, even after it got a sanctioned fan translation in the early 2010s, but the cult indie classic has returned nearly two decades later with an unlikely remake from the gaming merchandise company Fangamer. Imagine if Salvador Dalí hallucinated an 8-bit Final Fantasy and you can get a sense of what Off brings to the table. Shockingly, the creators had never played Earthbound when making it. Making a Mother-like happened completely by accident. – Ethan Gach

Silent Hill

Play it on: PS3 (Seriously, the digital version is kinda the only way to easily play it right now)
Current goal: Try not to be so terrified 26 years later

I often credit Final Fantasy VII and Metal Gear Solid with being the very reason I’m still playing video games. They taught me something valuable about the power of this medium, and it resonated with me throughout countless chapters of my life.

But you know, there was another game around the same time that also left an impression on me, though I don’t think a whole lot about it. Part of that is because I only ever experienced it on a demo disc (remember those?) and even that brief test was enough to scare me out of my god damn childhood mind. Unlike the capable cop protagonists of Resident Evil 2, Silent Hill’s Harry Mason was just an ordinary guy. Being uniquely vulnerable to the freaks that stalk the game’s titular town, the ever-present gray fog, and those dark, empty school hallways…no. Just no. I couldn’t back then.

But now, I think I’m ready. There’s a new Silent Hill around the corner, and this series is one that I never played a whole lot of outside of that demo back in the late ‘90s and Silent Hill 4: The Room on the OG Xbox. It’s time to remedy that, and probably give myself a few nightmares in the process. – Claire Jackson

College Football 26

Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S
Current goal: Find an online dynasty that’s right for me

In April, I wrote about buying College Football 25 nine months after its release and humbling a much more experienced trash talker. Well, College Football 26 dropped in July, and last night, I was the trash talker who got humbled, meaning I’ll be spending this weekend and many more locking in and trying to improve.

It all started when a homie of mine, Armon, told me about a league he was a part of in College Football 26’s online dynasty mode, a multiplayer feature in the game that allows people to build teams and compete against each other for National Championships. Still a relative rookie and having only played randos in the lawlessness of Road To The CFP, I was shocked at how many rules my friend’s league had.

Cooldowns on offensive and defensive plays, limitations on how many hot routes you can make per play, a three-second wait for when QBs are allowed to scramble out of the pocket, mandatory Twitch or YouTube streams so people can see the plays that you’re calling—to a casual like me, the shit sounded downright draconian.

“I ain’t joining that North Korean dictatorial ass league lmao,” I texted Armon sometime after my record against him improved to 11-2. After beating him so many times, my feeling was that there was no way guys who compete with such restrictions could be any good, and that what was touted as being in the interest of fair play was actually meant to make the game easier for bums who can’t hang with skilled play-callers and ball-knowers—and I have never been more wrong about anything in my video gaming life.

“You’ve disrespected my league,” a guy named Cornell wrote to me on PSN. “You must be dealt with.” Armon arranged a head-to-head match between me and one of the best players in his league. Cornell didn’t take too kindly to my calling his boys a bunch of “hall monitors,” nor did he appreciate my saying they were on Twitch playing “surveillance state ball”—two objectively true and funny statements.

Cornell kicked my ass for those comments, completely disproving my assumption that this gentleman’s agreement league was filled with scrubs running from the grind. He was a better play-caller and ball-knower than I was or will be for quite some time. He bent his league’s own rules—apparently, “scrambling” outside the pocket and immediately “rolling out” 15 yards behind the line toward the furthest bench to work your receivers open are subtly different things, and hot routing half those receivers is fine so long as you’re not hot routing all of them (cool story, bro). But that’s not why he won both games we played. The man reads defenses so well that he scored nearly every time he touched the ball, and he’s so lethal when switch-sticking around his own defense that going TD for TD with him for a little while felt like an accomplishment.

After those games, it’s clear my next accomplishment has to be improving weaknesses that Cornell exposed: learning to read defenses and memorizing which route combos beat them, being unafraid to “user” defenders on the backside of my own defense, not being so reckless with the ball the second I fall behind, and, perhaps most importantly, not being so quick to judge people for the way they prefer to play. – Austin Williams

Is This Seat Taken? 

Play it on: Switch, Windows PCs
Current goal: Enjoy this charming puzzler

When I first played the demo for Is This Seat Taken?, a puzzle game about organizing seating for cute little people made out of basic shapes, I was immediately hooked. The game’s charming visuals were a big part of what got my attention, but what kept me around for the whole demo was the puzzles. Turning the process of seat arrangement into a puzzle game is genius!

This person hates smelly things, this person needs to be at the front of the table, this person can’t stand kids, etc. We’ve all dealt with trying to get our family and/or friends seated in a way that makes everyone happy. It’s tricky, and Is This Seat Taken? turns it into a cute puzzle game that I’m excited to finally play all the way through this weekend. – Zack Zwiezen

And that wraps our picks for the end of the week. Happy gaming!

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