Played Steamworld Dig 2. Pretty fun rogue-like platformer. Think Dig Dug, with RPG elements. Actually finished it, which is pretty rare for me.
100% this. Loved my ~10 hours with it and was disappointed when it ended. I could have happily gone for 10 more hours.
Games Coming Soon to Xbox Game Pass
July 17:
Night Call (PC)
July 18:
Metal Gear Solid V (Xbox)
Banner Saga 3 (Xbox/PC)
July 25:
For the King (PC)
Killer Instinct: Definitive Edition (Xbox/PC)
Resident Evil 4 (Xbox)
The Gears 5 tech test is playable by gamepass members on July 19.
Also apparently the $1 for 3 months of gamepass is back and gives you ultimate this time.
Also apparently the $1 for 3 months of gamepass is back and gives you ultimate this time.
It's insane how much of a deal this is. As of the time of this post:
247 Xbox One games.
116 PC games.
pandasuit wrote:Also apparently the $1 for 3 months of gamepass is back and gives you ultimate this time.
It's insane how much of a deal this is. As of the time of this post:
247 Xbox One games.
116 PC games.
Best $1 I ever spent upgrading all my gold months to ultimate
Jesus, I don't have time for all these games. Could they slow it down a little? Also, how are they making money off of this? A crap-ton of $1 conversions can't mean that much money to the game studios, can it?
Anyone heard what happened to Unavowed on PC game pass? It was supposed to be added last week but as far as I can tell it isn't there (I can see the other 3 games that were added on the same day no problem)
I finally installed the new Game Pass PC app on my PC and started installing some PC game pass games that I'd wanted to try.
I played maybe an hour of Battle Chef Brigade, which I thought was interesting, but I didn't really like the keyboard controls. I suppose I should've tried using my controller instead, it must support that too, right? I was a little surprised to see that it doesn't look like at least BCB has Xbox achievements in it--if there are, I didn't earn any during my hour and couldn't find a way to see a list of what the achievements might be. Some PC game pass games do have achievements though, right?
I installed several other games I've always wanted to play but never purchased--Opus Magnum, Slay the Spire, and others--but haven't had time for them just yet. Looking forward to them, though.
I also finally booted up Metro Exodus on Xbox after having downloaded it a few weeks ago. This is one of those Game Pass games I downloaded knowing that I was extremely unlikely to spend meaningful time with it, and I was right. I played through the first half hour or so and it was striking to me how this was a vision of what a AAA game was in like 2007 or so. Everything about the intro to the game was just not appealing to me: it was very dark and hard to see, I had trouble figuring out where to go, the monsters I encountered were just kind of annoying, I didn't like that there were multiple moments where my character was interacting with something in a way that I actually had no control over (primarily stabbing monsters, but I think this happened in other circumstances too). I didn't like the way the guns felt, and the mask overlay on the screen made everything feel slightly unpleasant to look at. The story moments I experienced seemed really bad, the most dated part of the game. Very stilted dialog (e.g. "I cannot have you do this to my daughter, your wife!" definitely a natural way people talk and not a hamfisted way to give exposition that was totally unnecessary) , NPCs that seemed like they were crafted entirely out of uncanny valley. Blech. I'd previously played maybe an hour of each of the previous Metro games, and I held out some hope that there might be something interesting in here I could latch onto, but after 30 minutes or so it was clear to me this was not going to attract my interest. Deleted, moving on. The one positive thing I will say is that Metro Exodus is a great way to show off HDR--the start of the first real mission, where you're looking out over the city covered in white snow, made me extra impressed with my TV.
The first 30 minutes of Metro Exodus do not give you an idea how the game is actually going to play. What you call "the first real mission" is still a part of the intro/tutorial/exposition.
I am not saying you are going to all of a sudden love the game once you get past intro, who knows, but it needs to be said. 
And yes, I hate it when games have such a long intro part.
Anyone heard what happened to Unavowed on PC game pass? It was supposed to be added last week but as far as I can tell it isn't there (I can see the other 3 games that were added on the same day no problem)
No and I can't find anything about why it wasn't. Hopefully they just had the date wrong and it is in fact coming.
The first 30 minutes of Metro Exodus do not give you an idea how the game is actually going to play. What you call "the first real mission" is still a part of the intro/tutorial/exposition.
I am not saying you are going to all of a sudden love the game once you get past intro, who knows, but it needs to be said.
Agree on all points.
Blackice wrote:Anyone heard what happened to Unavowed on PC game pass? It was supposed to be added last week but as far as I can tell it isn't there (I can see the other 3 games that were added on the same day no problem)
No and I can't find anything about why it wasn't. Hopefully they just had the date wrong and it is in fact coming.
Thanks for looking! I did manage to find one tweet on the official "Game Pass for PC" account, that said they were working on it and hope to update as soon as possible... but that was 10 days ago so who knows what happened.
pandasuit wrote:Blackice wrote:Anyone heard what happened to Unavowed on PC game pass? It was supposed to be added last week but as far as I can tell it isn't there (I can see the other 3 games that were added on the same day no problem)
No and I can't find anything about why it wasn't. Hopefully they just had the date wrong and it is in fact coming.
Thanks for looking! I did manage to find one tweet on the official "Game Pass for PC" account, that said they were working on it and hope to update as soon as possible... but that was 10 days ago so who knows what happened.
It got added today
Great news, I'll check it out after work for sure.
I've played it a bit of the newly released NIght Call and I'm quite liking it. The murder mystery bit feels underdone (you just stumble upon clues and they get added to the pin board automatically) but the conversations in the cab are mostly excellent. I'd recommend checking it out.
I also started up Night Call last night. I'm intrigued so far, although I find the amount of time I spend that is just 'read line of text, click, read line of text, click, read line of text, click, read line of text, click, read line of text, interaction' is a bit frustrating. This is a thing I struggle with in visual novels generally, and more often with Japanese-developed games, I find: too much text, too much clicking. It makes me impatient.
Also, it would be nice if it'd do a bit of tutorializing? Some dialog options have little icons on them, I guess indicating that selecting them means taking a certain type of action, but I'm still fumbling my way through figuring out what the effect of those choices is. And I have no sense of the game-layer related to your work as a cab driver: how do I select one passenger over another, does it matter how long of a route they're asking me to drive, do I need to do anything about fuel, etc. The game hasn't punished me for not understanding this yet, so that's good at least, but I'm a little wary. But I'm intrigued and will definitely stick with it. And I'm glad that it's a PC Game Pass game that has Xbox achievements, which is always something that matters to me for reasons I cannot defend.
I also started up Middle-Earth Shadow of War on Xbox via Game Pass. I played probably 10-15 hours of Shadow of Mordor and liked it, even if I never cared for the story (Tolkien is one of my rare total blindspots as a nerd), so with the game available free on Game Pass, I thought it might be fun to dive in enough to at least play with the nemesis system a bit. The game starts with a lot of cut scenes, and I probably should've decided to skip them sooner, given my lack of interest/understanding. I only played enough to get through the initial game play section, enough to say "oh right, I like the Batman Arkahm combat," but I hope to play more over the weekend. A question for those who know more about the game: when I went to start a new game, I was given three options for my player character: Talion, an elf lady, or a human. It indicated that each of the characters had some sort of different quest, and explained that the human character meant playing a sort of iron man mode where death would be final. Are these choices just a matter of who your player model is (with the exception of permadeath for the human), or are these entirely different stories and mechanics? Are the non-Talion players both some sort of separate campaign, or is it more cosmetic? I assume these were not part of the game at launch, or else maybe they would have explained more...I went with Talion because I assumed I should pursue the default experience, but then again, if the elf lady has like a 5 hour campaign to complete as opposed to Talion being the likely much longer base game, maybe that's a better choice for what I intend to get out of this game.
I started up Graveyard Keeper.. seems like a lite but fun version of Stardew Valley.
Played a bit of Unavowed over the weekend. Better than I was expecting. I’ll have to check out more Wadget Eye games going forward. Other than a little Gemini Rue years back I haven’t looked into any of their other games.
Played a bit of Unavowed over the weekend. Better than I was expecting. I’ll have to check out more Wadget Eye games going forward. Other than a little Gemini Rue years back I haven’t looked into any of their other games.
Gemini Rue was great. I played Whispers of a Machine from Wadjet Eye and it was pretty good. You're a cybernetically augmented detective looking into a murder. I don't think it rises up to the level of Gemini Rue but it was enjoyable.
Having just googled it, Whispers of a Machine does look like a Wadjet Eye game, but I don't think it is? I was surprised to hear of that, since I follow WE's releases fairly closely even if I haven't played all of them, and that name wasn't familiar. The Steam page says it's by Clifftop Games and Faravid Interactive, published by Raw Fury, FWIW. Ahh, but it looks like Dave Gilbert (the main Wadjet Eye guy) directed the English voice acting. Interesting, I wonder how that happened...
Having just googled it, Whispers of a Machine does look like a Wadjet Eye game, but I don't think it is? I was surprised to hear of that, since I follow WE's releases fairly closely even if I haven't played all of them, and that name wasn't familiar. The Steam page says it's by Clifftop Games and Faravid Interactive, published by Raw Fury, FWIW. Ahh, but it looks like Dave Gilbert (the main Wadjet Eye guy) directed the English voice acting. Interesting, I wonder how that happened...
Doh! I trusted my "Wadjet Eye" search in Steam a little too much, looked down the list for games I remember in my Library and that was the main one.
I met Dave Gilbert at the last Steam Dev Days and kept naming games 'of his' that I liked, they were all Daedelus. I guess I'm still doing it.
Not so hidden gem: PUBG. With all recent updates it is a great experience on xb1!
If You want a friendly swedish drill sergeant to play with add: FSA ZD
I noticed that Shadow Complex left in the last month or so. I really wanted to play it so now I have to decide if I want to pay $15 for it.
I guess that is the downside of a subscription service. If I really want to play games on game pass I need to jump on them rather than just add them to my backlog.
Anyone got good words for Space Hulk Tactics?
I don't have a particular love for the 40k IP, but I do love me some tactics games.
Curious about Slay the Spire due to all the hype, but, hey, I know we've all been waiting for a cricket game, right!
I nearly completed my playthrough of Night Call last night--I got to the point of identifying the killer (for the "Judge" scenario), which the game seems to suggest I did correctly, and now it looks like I have to complete one more day to actually finish it.
In that time, I've seen a bunch more stories, and I think they're generally pretty good and at least somewhat interesting/amusing/affecting. The rest of the game is still pretty baffling, and I wish it had any kind of tutorial. I'm not quite sure how anything works in the cab driving mechanics in terms of time, money, and fuel. I generally get that rides take time, that you need fares to keep yourself running, and you need to fuel up from time to time. But anything more than that is very confusing, and the "end of day" reports on the effects of my day are always confusing, particularly the accounting it does, where it will say something like "starting money", then "profit," and then it will deduct all kinds of "costs" from the profit, which is not how I generally understand the meaning of the word profit. Even allowing that they mean something like "revenue" instead of "profit," I still don't get it, as you'd think your new day's total would be basically starting money + "profit" - costs, but somehow it isn't? I am thankful I seem to have completed this scenario without running out of money, because that would be pretty infuriating.
The system where you evaluate clues is also very confusing. You have a Charlie Day stringboard with 5 names at the top and various clues you've found. Some of those clues have lines pointing to one or more of the names at the top. Some are just free-standing with no connection, and the distinction between the two types was not clear to me. Most importantly...it was not until I got the prompt of "okay, who is the killer?" that I discovered the 5 names at the top were potential suspects rather than the killer's victims. Maybe that's me being an idiot and/or clicking through some bit of info too quickly, but I blame the game.
And yet, I still like this game rather a lot. I'm definitely curious to see what it will be like to start another run with a different case, incorporating some of the understanding I've developed so far. But man, there are a lot of ways this game could be improved.
Anyone got good words for Space Hulk Tactics?
I don't have a particular love for the 40k IP, but I do love me some tactics games.
Played it on Steam almost a year ago. Pretty solid turn based strategy game where unit placement is key. If you like the 40k universe it's a decent game.
Bard's Tale Trilogy and Wasteland 30th Anniversary Edition coming to Gamepass
Downwell was recently added to game pass on PC. I believe it would be called a “vertical shooter rogue-like” as it has permadeath, randomized levels, and you shoot vertically as you fall down a well.
I’ve owned it on Steam for quite a while and although I’ve only played it for 3 hours so far I enjoyed that whole time and plan to play it more. It’s a game I play when I have a few minutes and just want some quick pick up fun. I think if I owned it on Switch or iOS I would have played it a lot more by now as it fits those devices a lot better than a PC. The last few times I played it was because I was on my Windows tablet at the time and it feels just right on a device like that.
My daughter and I had a blast playing Human Fall Flat. Its a physics puzzle/platformer where your sticks individualy control each arm and the trigger is used to hold onto things. I have been a gamer for many moons and I was surprised at how fast she picked up the controls. Reminded me a lot of little big planet in a more 3d world. It was also fun to see how we could circumvent some puzzles with clever workarounds.
Slay the Spire is on Game Pass, and I'd heard a lot about how good it was. It's . . . fine? I played a game called Meteorfall on my phone that's the same thing, except that had a cuter art style. I'm vaguely underwhelmed by Slay the Spire after all I'd heard about; I only did one run and got through a level and a half so maybe it pops later, but it felt pretty standard.
Slay the Spire is on Game Pass, and I'd heard a lot about how good it was. It's . . . fine? I played a game called Meteorfall on my phone that's the same thing, except that had a cuter art style. I'm vaguely underwhelmed by Slay the Spire after all I'd heard about; I only did one run and got through a level and a half so maybe it pops later, but it felt pretty standard.
I find the Ironclad a bit dull now, but the other two classes are much more interesting mechanically, especially The Defect (character 3) so it's probably worth playing a run with The Silent to unlock The Defect and try them all before writing the game off.
But personally, I am finding with Game Pass I'm much more likely to write a game off pretty quickly - mentally ticking a game off as "yep, played it" after just one or two goes, before moving onto something new. I guess it's the inevitable way to be when given access to a large number of games all at once. I must try harder to focus!
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