It feels weird to have gone a whole week without writing a news article, it feels weirder that this would be the third and final article of my week. Nonetheless, David wrote about Steam’s “experiment 008,” Taylor wrote about Rainbow Six Siege coming to the next-gen, and Dari covered the LittleBigPlanet fan-game getting killed by Sony. All the while, Abdul covered Atlus responding to fan desire for Persona 5 on the Switch, as well as fan outcry for a homophobic scene in Persona 5 Royal. Finally, Ahmad wrote his first news article about Dissidia: Final Fantasy NT‘s final update.

To the Epic Games Store and the free games this week; yes, there are two once again. As of midway through the week it was announced we’d be getting another game to use Uplay with. Let’s get that out the way, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate is another Assassin’s Creed game. Recently I did a video review of the latest in the series because I like that one; it has boats, I like boats. However, in the review, I joke that the Abstergo nonsense is dead and a majority of the game ignores the “real-world events.” Syndicate doesn’t forget about boring near-future people, they’re front and center.

I’ll admit, exploring London when an old woman sat on a throne, poverty was high, and people argued that slave labor was ok, was interesting. No, I’m not talking about last month, I’m talking about when people weren’t partying like it was 1868, but it was 1868. Something about seeing that setting ahead of Watch Dogs Legion‘s near-future dystopian take is interesting. At least from a point of view of someone who’s been to London and knows enough about it.

The second game available, and the one that was announced last week before we did the article, is Faeria. Faeria is a game that’s split into two, one half is a board game of putting down enough controlling tiles, and the other half is a card game that sits atop those tiles you control. I’ll say it, the only card-games I like outside of poker and solitaire have catchphrases like: “Who’s that Pokémon?” and “It’s time to D-d-d-duel!!” That’s why I was surprised that I wasn’t entirely hating my time with Faeria.

I did hate how slow the AI would play on every turn, it does make it feel more natural, but also annoying. If I had another player to play against I could at least talk to them, with AI I have to sit awkwardly waiting for every card animation to be drawn out. At least if I’m playing a card game with a human in front of me and they are slow, I can shout, punch them, or walk away and annoy them. I’ve never understood the Chess clock rule until now, otherwise, a rook would be the cause of an anal fissure.

Anyone who’s played a card-game before will know, there are health points, there are damage points, and there is a whole lot of math as you figure out if Neo Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon would kill Slifer The Sky Dragon. Yes, there’s some of that as you work out what islands you need to summon X card on, but it is a lot more simplified. I don’t hate it, but I don’t find myself playing it well into the night.

Both Assassin’s Creed Syndicate and Faeria are free on the Epic Games Store all this week. They will both be available until the 27th of February. From the 27th through March the 5th, InnerSpace will be the next game we’ll be talking about. A game about exploring artistically rendered depictions of… nothing. Part of it makes me think of ABZU, a game about exploring under the sea, but a lot less interesting.

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