XBOX GamePass ~*OT*~ best service, best console (now with EA Play)

[demi]

Yes! I've already finished Omno and Dodgeball

Started Raji last night

[Polident Hive]

Escape Academy is a fun time. Short and simple. About an hour and a half. Puzzles are what you’d find in the Zero Escape games. At the beginning it recommends having a pen and paper handy. My memory’s shit and there’s never more than a five input sequence to remember.

[The Sceneman]

Gamepass has been slow bit that makes sense cos summer? I just play Hades now anyway

Looking forward to playing Plague Tale 2 on the series x

[Beezy]

https://twitter.com/Wario64/status/1559526602676920321

[pilonv1]

https://twitter.com/XboxGamePassPC/status/1559585933078437888

Will finally get around to playing Death Stranding now

[The Sceneman]

Coffee Talk looks like it could go either way in terms of writing, but it looks like a very good cloud game for mobile play... im sick of getting my ass handed to me in Slay the Spire lol

[Beezy]

https://twitter.com/XboxGamePassPC/status/1560582525096951810

[pilonv1]

Is it the Directors Cut version?

[The Sceneman]

Lol the only game Ive been playing for past month or so is Hades and its leaving Game Pass and I need to buy it now owned by le micro$ucc

[Supermanisdead]

so i played like 20 games on this today. amazing experience. so many good ones, i was actually surprised. some really good games u should check out:

one step from eden - rogue-like megaman battle network type game.
before we leave - city builder
moonglow bay - fishing/harvest moon style game
gorogoa - this one is pretty old so everyone's probably played it, but its such a good puzzle game
citizen sleeper - visual novel with dice rolling elements. pretty nice sci-fi setting
mighty goose - 2d pixel sidescrolling shooter. nice weight to the combat and jumping.

[therealdeal]

Lol the only game Ive been playing for past month or so is Hades and its leaving Game Pass and I need to buy it now owned by le micro$ucc

Big same

[Polident Hive]

Tinykin’s pretty good from what I played.

Checked it out for the aesthetic. My assumption was it being a Paper Mario RPG. Nope. It’s a N64 like collection 3D platformer, with some Pikmin tossed in. Plus it’s a game where you’re a miniature person in a giant house. Always like that. Supraland on gamepass did it too.

[The Sceneman]

Immortality looks really cool as I'm into movies and stuff. Have downloaded it, will check out soon. Put my hand in my pocket to buy Hades 

[who is ted danson?]

https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2022/09/01/gaming-everyone-everywhere/

We intend to make Activision Blizzard’s much-loved library of games – including Overwatch, Diablo and Call of Duty – available in Game Pass and to grow those gaming communities.

 

[demi]

Leaving September 15:

A Plague Tale: Innocence Console, PC
Aragami 2 Console, PC
Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling Console, PC
Craftopia (Game Preview) Console, PC
Final Fantasy XIII Console, PC
Flynn: Son of Crimson Console, PC
I Am Fish Console, PC
Lost Words: Beyond The Page Console, PC
Mighty Goose Console, PC
SkateBIRD Console, PC
The Artful Escape Console, PC

[therealdeal]

Guess who paid full price for hades today

[The Sceneman]

Guess who paid full price for hades today

LOL I bought it as well. The devs deserve the cash - wonder how many sales were made as a result from leaving gamepass

[demi]

- Fuga: Melodies of Steel on gamepass (out TODAY)
- Ni No Kuni 1 & 2 on gamepass (NNK1 out TODAY)
- Danganronpa V3 on gamepass (out TODAY)
- Assassins Creed Odyssey on gamepass (out TODAY)
- Guilty Gear Strive and BlazBlue Tag Battle on gamepass
- Deathloop on gamepass September 20

[Beezy]

Metal: Hellsinger is also up today.

I already have Strive on PS5, but I'll gladly get some achievements on this version. Glad I never bought Deathloop.

Anyone here played the Ni No Kuni games? Are they good?

[demi]

Yes they are good, very nice Ghibli art

[Svejk]

Yeah, Ni No Kuni 1 is fantastic.. Not sure about the 2nd. 

[Pissy F Benny]

I played some of the first one when it came out, it was certainly packed wih whimsy but i found it quite boring to play.

Worth a DL to see the cutscenes and shit for sure though.

[The Sceneman]

Seems like a total deluge of new titles coming in the next wee while. I'll check out Deathloop. Easy completion by the looks of it. No difficulty settings = Joe gamer blow cabbage level challenge

[Beezy]

Has anyone else tried Metal: Hellsinger yet? I haven't had much time to game lately, so I've been playing one stage a day. It's a fun, short (4-5 hrs) rhythm FPS. The achievements seem easy too.

[The Sceneman]

Metal Hellsinger looks really cool. I'll check it out

[Tycoon Padre]

Metal Hellsinger is great but the lack of budget and scope really does show in a lot of places - animatic-y cutscenes, lack of enemy variety, small and pretty uninteresting combat arenas that lock you into way too many waves. All but one of the bosses are just variants of the first one. And honestly I was kind of disappointed by the weapon variety, there aren't many and none of them are all that radically different - I feel like there must be some way they could have made an automatic weapon work, maybe starting and ending your bursts on the beat? I was done in 4 or 5 hours and even then I thought it was getting a bit stale by the end.

BUT, it is a really great concept and still a very, very impressive first effort, one that they could build on to make an absolutely killer sequel. I just hope that this is enough of a success that they can really expand on the foundation of what they have here.

[Bebpo]

Anyone play through Sable last year when it was on game pass?

Lost in Cult is putting out a really nice looking art book, but I'm not really interested in art books of games I haven't played. The reviews were kind of iffy on release so never played it. Wondering if it's worth playing now. Looking at reviews the consensus seemed to be that it looked great, but the gameplay was shallow and just driving around and the game was filled with bugs.

[Polident Hive]

Played about an hour. Gameplay loop wasn’t for me. So, imagine Shadow of the Colossus where the whole game was finding geckos to increase grip stamina. That’s what it felt like to me.

[Rufus]

Anyone play through Sable last year when it was on game pass?

Lost in Cult is putting out a really nice looking art book, but I'm not really interested in art books of games I haven't played. The reviews were kind of iffy on release so never played it. Wondering if it's worth playing now. Looking at reviews the consensus seemed to be that it looked great, but the gameplay was shallow and just driving around and the game was filled with bugs.

I ended up engrossed in it and did almost everything there was to do (collected all the masks, bike parts, clothing, saw every location, etc.) and left satisfied. However, the artstyle does work much better in screenshots*, so the artbook might be a good call even if the game doesn't grab you. It takes an hour or two to leave the tutorial area and hit the 'open road'. If it doesn't grab you then, I don't think it will.

*Aliasing and thin black outlines really don't mix. Foliage consisting of interlocked flat alpha-textures don't blend in at all, because they gave them black outlines too. The whole map is pretty desolate, so it won't be a constant eyesore, but I don't know what they were thinking there. Shadow cascading is extremely obvious in a low-detail world; that unfortunately will stand out all the time. Damn near every modern game suffers this issue, but it's extremely obvious here. The protags animations are locked to 30 (or 24?), because film. Dumb, but I learned to look past it, literally.
Despite all this I found the visuals pleasing most of the time. Variety goes a long way.

[Bebpo]

Anyone play through Sable last year when it was on game pass?

Lost in Cult is putting out a really nice looking art book, but I'm not really interested in art books of games I haven't played. The reviews were kind of iffy on release so never played it. Wondering if it's worth playing now. Looking at reviews the consensus seemed to be that it looked great, but the gameplay was shallow and just driving around and the game was filled with bugs.

I ended up engrossed in it and did almost everything there was to do (collected all the masks, bike parts, clothing, saw every location, etc.) and left satisfied. However, the artstyle does work much better in screenshots*, so the artbook might be a good call even if the game doesn't grab you. It takes an hour or two to leave the tutorial area and hit the 'open road'. If it doesn't grab you then, I don't think it will.

*Aliasing and thin black outlines really don't mix. Foliage consisting of interlocked flat alpha-textures don't blend in at all, because they gave them black outlines too. The whole map is pretty desolate, so it won't be a constant eyesore, but I don't know what they were thinking there. Shadow cascading is extremely obvious in a low-detail world; that unfortunately will stand out all the time. Damn near every modern game suffers this issue, but it's extremely obvious here. The protags animations are locked to 30 (or 24?), because film. Dumb, but I learned to look past it, literally.
Despite all this I found the visuals pleasing most of the time. Variety goes a long way.

What kind of game would you call it? An open-world 3d platformer-lite collect-a-thon?

It's on sale for $10 on steam currently. Debating giving it a try.

[Rufus]

I'd say open-ended open-world exploration.

There is no main quest once you start your journey. You roam and engage with whatever you find interesting, whether it be an ancient ruin, a crashed space ship, or the troubles of a trade town. Most of the content is optional.

I don't actually know what causes your tribe to return since I just hoovered up everything there is to do, but once they're back, you just tell them what mask/profession you want to choose and that's it - credits. How many masks you have at that point depends on how much of the world you've seen.

Platforming is light, climbing is forgiving. There are puzzles, but I don't remember them being challenging. The only time I got stuck is when I didn't know how to continue a quest.

[therealdeal]

I don’t think I finished it but I vibed out to it an afternoon or two (Sable)

[HardcoreRetro]

Beacon Pines is a game for the achievement hunters. Pretty quick 100%.

Decent at best adventure game. Fits that Night in the Woods mold, but not as good.

[Bebpo]

Beacon Pines is a game for the achievement hunters. Pretty quick 100%.

Decent at best adventure game. Fits that Night in the Woods mold, but not as good.

The furries scare me. Why are so many games filled with furries in gaming.

[HardcoreRetro]

I imagine it's 80's and 90's kids growing up with cartoons that had anthropomorphic characters that ended up becoming game developers.

[Nintex]

Beacon Pines is a game for the achievement hunters. Pretty quick 100%.

Decent at best adventure game. Fits that Night in the Woods mold, but not as good.

The furries scare me. Why are so many games filled with furries in gaming.

Starfox Adventures

[HardcoreRetro]

Why is this new Plague Tale game only 30fps? It looks good, but not that good. (Seems it's 40 fps on a 120hz display.)

Got up to chapter 2 and went into photo mode to look at some really nicely textured watermelons. 

[The Sceneman]

Plague Tale seems good so far. Plays identical to the first game which is fine. I think the 30fps thing is to account for 300,000 rats, lol. The sound design, music and voice work are bloody top notch in this. Amicia and Hugo are so well acted.

Playing on hard mode because I am a GAMER. I complete my quests, and get shit DONE

[Bebpo]

Why is this new Plague Tale game only 30fps? It looks good, but not that good. (Seems it's 40 fps on a 120hz display.)

Got up to chapter 2 and went into photo mode to look at some really nicely textured watermelons. 

Pretty sure the first one ran at 30fps until it got ported/BC with the current generation. Was a nice looking game, but felt like the framerate was more that it was a small pub on maybe their own engine.

[HardcoreRetro]

I'm waiting for a Digital Foundry video. They should be able to figure it out.

[Sho Nuff]

Plague Tale tech is fucking insane. I remember playing the first one on Game Pass on a vanilla Xbone and it looked incredible. New game looks utterly nuts butts, they are using POM (parallax occlusion mapping) on a ton of stuff which just gobbles up performance. Hella Quixel Megascans all over the place, A+++ environment art

[The Sceneman]

Yeah the game looks absolutely stunning, I'm only up to Chapter 4 but and I've already been through some amazing and memorable set pieces. I love the sound design and acting too. Amicia is a great protagonist.

Also been getting my weeb on with Persona 5 

Man I love Gamepass

[The Sceneman]

Oh and one kinda crappy design decision in Plague Tale is that Hard Mode doesn't spawn enough breakable knives to open all the chests for an achievement - so you're locked out of it if you're playing on hard! Had to drop to easy mode! There's no cheevo for hard made but I would've preferred the challenge. Oh well

[Beezy]

https://twitter.com/Wario64/status/1592518313011052545

[The Sceneman]

Oh and one kinda crappy design decision in Plague Tale is that Hard Mode doesn't spawn enough breakable knives to open all the chests for an achievement - so you're locked out of it if you're playing on hard! Had to drop to easy mode! There's no cheevo for hard made but I would've preferred the challenge. Oh well

It turns out that it's just the first secret chest that has this issue. So have bumped difficulty back to hard. Hard is not hard once you get some powers and upgrades. The crossbow is OP, just kill all the bad guys lol. Still picking away at the game because I'm mostly playing Persona 5 and its very very good. Plague Tale is so dour and unfunky compared to Persona

[demi]

Signalis rules

[Bebpo]

Signalis rules

Yeah. Great game.

[Himu]

Got an Xbox series X and this is the most impressive console I've ever owned. 😳

[MMaRsu]

Whats impressive about it?

[Himu]

FAST, Game Pass, backwards compat for games I've owned for DECADES, slim yet heavy package, incredible controller, fully BC with previous system, FPS boost;etc.

[demi]

Welcome to the family, took you long enough

Just gonna link this BC wiki if you arent fully aware what games you can play on it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_backward-compatible_games_for_Xbox_One_and_Series_X/S

[Himu]

Quick resume holy shit

[The Sceneman]

Yeah Series X is a monster, fast AF and best library ever due to all the BC. Best console I've ever owned by a wide margin

Surprise release straight after reveal of the the new Tango Gameworks game. Very awesome, Gamepass GOAT

Got my install lined up

[Bebpo]

Looks great.

[Himu]

Post your gamer tags and I'll ad y'all

[Polident Hive]

Hi-Fi Rush is pretty cool. First thought was, whomever made this must’ve watched Baby Driver a lot. Actually looked it up. It’s the guy who did Evil Within 2. People say it’s good and much better than the first.

Playing on normal and it’s forgiving with timing. Thankful for that. Never have an issue with rhythm games but these blends? Crypt of Necrodancer or the Hellslinger FPS. Shit at them. I beat Necrodancer with the cheat character.

[Himu]

Bruh. I cannot believe this is from a game I bought for my ORIGINAL XBOX back in 2005. I can't believe it. And it RUNS IT?!?! OFF OF MY DISC?!





I did awful against the boss Its been a while.

[therealdeal]

Hi-Fi Rush is pretty cool. First thought was, whomever made this must’ve watched Baby Driver a lot. Actually looked it up. It’s the guy who did Evil Within 2. People say it’s good and much better than the first.

Playing on normal and it’s forgiving with timing. Thankful for that. Never have an issue with rhythm games but these blends? Crypt of Necrodancer or the Hellslinger FPS. Shit at them. I beat Necrodancer with the cheat character.

Hard isn't really that hard either, I think it's how the game was meant to be played, great game so far

[MMaRsu]

Post your gamer tags and I'll ad y'all

MMaRsu NL

[demi]

Bruh. I cannot believe this is from a game I bought for my ORIGINAL XBOX back in 2005. I can't believe it. And it RUNS IT?!?! OFF OF MY DISC?!



(Image removed from quote.)

I did awful against the boss Its been a while.

It doesn't run off the disc, the disc is a key which lets you play a digital download pretty much

Each 360 + OG game are literally a "virtual machine" that spins up in its own little emulator with I assume its own unique settings for each game

https://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfoundry-2017-xbox-one-x-back-compat-how-does-it-actually-work