20th February

Hello and welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little about the games we've been playing. This week, Victoria knows something her husband doesn't; Tom endures the perennial terror known as entertaining a child over half-term; Bertie realises he's missed something important again; and Will makes mech combat somehow sound rather fun.

If you're looking for something else to read, or a reminder of what you once wrote, there's a whole What We've Been Playing archive to delve into.

Far Cry 4, Xbox Series X

Last Friday night, I made a bet with my husband that I could start and finish a game well before he was ready to watch the last few episodes of Better Call Saul. He smirked and said fine, but it couldn't be a mobile game like Wordle or something similar. "No problem," I replied, for I knew something he didn't - I knew about the secret Far Cry 4 ending.

As my husband went upstairs to close down his work computer and get into his comfy non-work clothes, I booted up my Series X and settled in to watch Far Cry 4's opening cutscenes up until the point I found myself in front of a plate of monkey heads. Then, once the flamboyant and self-proclaimed King of Kyrat, Pagen Min, had made himself scarce, I prepared myself to do... absolutely nothing. Yes, I set down my controller and waited patiently.

After around 10 minutes (I didn't keep track of the exact time), Pagen Min returned to the dining table - which he had asked me to wait at - and proceeded to take me with him to place the ashes of Ajay Ghale's mother in a shrine within Far Cry 4's fictional Himalayan countryside. Some light button pressing later, to look around and set down/pick up items, I was ready to climb into Pagen Min's helicopter and watch the end credits roll.

20 minutes and I was done. A further five minutes later, my husband showed up. I was smug.

-Victoria

Mario Kart World, Switch 2

It's a school half-term holiday down this way, which means my son has been up late playing games. While he insists on playing EA Sports FC 26 on Switch 2, which I hate because of the sluggish frame rate in comparison to the other console versions, we have also played some Mario Kart World which is brilliant.

Nintendo's Switch 2 kart racer feels so great to play, the world is so colourful and alive, and the variety in locations is superb. This game always had a tough task following Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, a game that I and millions of others had played to death over years. There are few games I have ever become so familiar with, so change was also going to be tricky. Some eight-ish months since the Switch 2 launched, I'm starting to get some of that familiarity, and I'm able to enjoy the game more easily.

-Tom O

Overwatch, PC

It just occurred to me that you can't choose from all of the characters in Stadium. I've been playing for a week but somehow haven't noticed. Stadium is the newish game mode where you can customise your character between rounds by buying ability buffs, or ability tweaks. Example: you can change Mei's ice block ability into an ice boulder that rolls around and she can hurt people with, which is great, so you see that you can quite significantly change a character's behaviour over the course of a game. I wish there were more characters available here, especially the newer ones, but it's still exciting to alter characters I thought I knew so well. I'm re-energised, and it's only one small part of the reason why - I wrote much more excitedly about Overwatch's sort-of relaunch earlier this week. I'm also looking for people to play with because it's more fun with friends. Hop on the Eurogamer Discord and say hey if you fancy it.

-Bertie

BattleTech, PC

So it's me, Pontoon, Guano and Flapjack right? They're all newbies; the planet government has hired me to hold their hands while we level an "undefended" pirate base. They said that the bad guys were running bootleg holotapes out of it - I don't care, it was meant to be an easy paycheck. Just keep an eye on the other three and make sure their BattleMechs don't trip and fall off a cliff while they're shooting the place up.

Of course, the intel was wrong. By the time we'd got eyes on the base, sensors showed four heat signatures out there in the fog. I told them to get into the woods nearby quick-quick, and two of the stick jockeys managed to do it in time. Flapjack wasn't having it, though. He got so damn gung-ho he ran up to the base to take them all on.

He even got a few shots off against the tiny Locust that was out on patrol, but the light Mech was moving too fast to suffer anything more than a few scratches from his wild laser fire. Pontoon and Guano let it rip too, but from further back they couldn't hit it either.

The Locust wasn't the problem though. Flapjack's 45-ton Firestarter was twice its weight and three times as armoured. The problem was the three extra Mechs at the back of the base, brimming with long-range missiles, large lasers and extended-range particle projector cannons. Once Flapjack entered their line of fire, it was over - the first wave of missiles took his legs, and the next slammed mercilessly into the cockpit before he could punch out.

It's a damn shame. I tore up into the base in my 100-ton King Crab, soaking up the rest of the fire as best I could, and the rest of the green pilots made themselves useful in the background. Pontoon even took out a Panther with a lucky autocannon headshot to tip the battle in our favour. All three of us made it back in one piece. But I'm going to spend more on field repairs and ammo resupply than I'll have made on the job.

And that damn kid. I'll never see those oaty treats in the mess the same way again.

-Will