Lies of P capitalizes on some of the biggest disconnects (for me) in all the SoulsBorne games.
It mixes this perfect balance of challenging combat, ambiguous world, mystery in discovery with a clear, concise narrative.
It tackles challenging bosses while finding ways to help elevate the players who may not be looking for the grueling headache while still providing some pushback.
Its skill trees and weapon mechanics are beautifully done.
One of best crafted games I've ever played. Some of the most fun I've had in an action adventure game. It's such a gem
Unable to play and review this game on it's merit because its controls stop me dead in it's tracks, every time.
Played through game pass and it's crystal clear this was designed for PC and made no concessions in porting to console. The cursor is wild and it's sensitivity curve is unpredictable with 0 options to adjust in it's settings. Would love to get past its shell, but Potion Craft wont let me.
If you told me a multiplayer-focused Gundam-like Overwatch based game was coming to GamePass I would've sold my knees to get a chance to play it early. Even with those enticing descriptors that make me feel like it'd be a perfect match, it was anything but for me.
What started as a story I was eager to jump in to quickly developed in to a "turn your brain off and shoot hordes of dinos while listening to a podcast or documentary" style of game.
You take on hordes of dinos of different shapes and sizes, you take on dinos with red parts you shoot. You take on dinos with purple parts you shoot. You take on one big dino, tally your score, and do it again.
It's gameplay is a rinse and repeat of the same style with different backgrounds, upgrades translate into variants of speeds for cooldowns or power for abilities.
The thing that it does do well have better examples in it's contemporaries. I believe this game only found any audience due to the time it was released, and providing a drop of rain on the desert of GamePass
DNF.
A battlefield clone that attempts to be hyper realistic in it's gameplay, but without kill cams, communicative comms, bloated player counts and uninteresting map designs - it left me feeling a great sense of "Well.... is that it?"
Thankful I didn't spend money to learn this game is not for me.
I thought this was one of the biggest surprise hits of this year so far.
Striking balance in inspiration from games like Untitled Goose Game and Stray, this felt like the recipe I had always been waiting for.
Clocking in at around 3 hours for me (Though you can put as much or little time in as you'd like) it was a dynamite time for a weekend game. Paired perfectly with a podcast and a cat on your lap.
Hoping for a sequel, as the sky is the limit for what they can do next.
A review motivated by Kinda Funny’s revisit of this awesome game!
A first time play for me. I was in awe, jaw on the floor for most of this game. Was stunned by how impactful and deep this story would go.
If IGN still had a 20 point scale I would give an 8.5. For all this game’s triumphs there is an area of opportunity in its combat.
I actually really liked its simplicity, but would have loved to see iterative improvements throughout to story to continue to make it feel fresh.
Really a work of art.
“A life without loss is one without love”
I play the MLB games largely for their Diamond Dynasty, and probably wouldn't play at all if it wasn't on GamePass.
It feels weak in it's iteration. I couldn't catch the improvements from this year to last, but that's not a terrible thing.
It feels like the most perfect lunch ever.
It's runtime is perfect, characters are beyond charming, dialogue is /actually/ funny, and the gameplay is so addictive. It's runtime doesn't touch overstaying it's welcome and it tells an efficient and concise story.
Props to being able to adjust pixel size in the settings too.
I could play a million more games just like this. THIS is the magic of gamepass.
I once heard the Far Cry series described as "The Applebees of Video Games" and it's as true today as the day I first heard it
Ubisoft pulls out the same stops that they have for the last 3 iterations with growth in some areas, and regression in others.
I found myself being motivated to complete the game - not by the story or side characters, but for getting another chance to watch a Giancarlo cutscene.
He is the saving grace for this entire experience, and steals every moment he touches the screen. He elevates this to something more, and transforms Far Cry's template of "Bad Guy gonna do bad guy things" to something much more.
It's just a shame theres so little of him at the start. If you can manage to claw your way through those opening hours you will be rewarded.
Some of the ways that are changed from previous games were some of my favorite parts. I really enjoyed the new inventory system. There were side-villains that weren't just special bad guys, but parodies on modern political figures that had me smiling ear-to-ear.
The final moments had me griping my chair and chest, but once everything was said and done I left feeling unfulfilled and uncaring about the future of Yara.
The gunplay also feels like its about 10 years behind. Nothing feels crisp and can feel like you're fighting with your gun. After 30 minutes in the settings, I still couldn't get it right.
Some of the large set pieces that I came to expect in other games were completely missing.
Your character companions are the same "paint by numbers" caricatures that we've seen in their games before, which led me to ignoring them and their side quests altogether.
It's clear that Far Cry is running out of room on the runway and needs to do more than the small iterative work on their series. The foundation is more than showing and their fresh coats of paint have begun to crack. It's a really good time, but if you've played the last 3 Far Crys, then you've also played this.
Really enjoyed my time with this RPG with old bones, new appliances and a new coat of paint.
The ways it's able to lean on what made the RPGs of old amazing, while adding new gadgets to make this feel like something that could have never been done before.
I didn't connect with the story towards the end as much as I did towards the start, though I did play this while I worked and couldn't devote my FULL attention which I know has somethign to do with it.
An amazing time, and maybe the most fun I've had using Game Pass Cloud. It's well worth your time. Thanks to Barrett at KF for the recc!
I was so young when I played the original that coming back to it so much later felt like a brand new experience!
Thanks to Gamepass I was able to test out the original in contrast to the remake, and boy did they do some work.
Everything feels so intuitive and clear despite the old bones of this remodeled house.
Everything clicked except for the story. They wanted my buy in for the cast and crew surrounding Isaac and I just didn't. Their hooks never made their way to me, and as a result the endgame felt like a collection of "ooohs" and "ahhhhs" rather than something I actually cared about.
Had a great time playing it, hopeful that they conquer it's sequel next.
It took me an abnormally long time to sink my teeth into this game. Hard to tell if it was by the game's design or my own life's distractions.
I hate to preface any review of any media by "You just have to get through the first part" but for me that could not have been more true.
Once I reached the 2nd act, the mechanics opened up, the story tore at my heart, and I was fully invested.
A beautiful, masterpiece of a game. I cannot wait to see what comes next.
A love letter to the handheld RPG games of the 2000's that comes with a lot of their baggage.
Soccer Story is a really cute, relaxing game that gives the same relaxing, Sunday evening vibes that a lot of games in it's similar vein provide.
Walking throughout the map, and playing with the games' systems and puzzles were by far the best part of this for me. The way it introduces soccer matches also really worked for me at the start.
The game quickly devolves into a rinse and repeat cycle of the same tasks you had in the town before, with very few notable exceptions. The structure stays the same, and puzzles are either mind numbingly easy, or too obtuse to grasp without a guide.
The soccer matches became easy once you found the way to dump the ball to score every goal from the full field away. By the halfway mark this became an obligation to finish instead of a treat.
Love the base that's here, but would extremely benefit from a tune up on future iterations.
I wish I could review games without a rating, because I didn't finish this, I won't finish it, and it's not fair to anyone if I assign a number to this.
Asymmetrical mulitplayer games are not for me. I recognize that Dead By Daylight is probably the best to do it, and all I see here are the same concepts in a different coat.
The best chef in the world could cook an amazing lobster. That doesn't change that I don't like seafood.
Nothing popped out at me, and the multitude of menus made it hard to find an easy point to sink my teeth in.
Hoping that everyone who's sick of DBD finds Heaven in TXCSM, but it's more of a purgatory for me
Really enjoyed the gameplay and playstyle. At some points the story suggestions become obtuse, some puzzles are mind-bendingly confusing or dull, and the endgame ramps up HARD. Really enjoyed my time with it. It's amazing how well they did on their first iteration.
[CAMPAIGN REVIEW]
With the sum of all it's parts, to me this is the best version of what we've seen a Halo game could be.
I'm really at a loss for words. What can I say about this game that wouldn't be reductive? Hyperbolic? Exaggerative?
Carrying the weight of this franchise's successes and failures, Infinite does an amazing job at setting the stage for what's left to come, while cleaning the table of the food that was undercooked.
The gameplay is perfect. The graphics blew me away (I'm playing a year and a half after release) The story and characters took a while to cook, but when it all came to a boil it hit me perfectly.
The only dissapointment I have in this amazing package is the lack of diversity and grand setpieces in the combat/endgame scenarios that Halo is known for. The spectacle was relatively low, and that's not something that I associate with this franchise. Even though it left me crying in the last scene, I was left wanting more. More boom, more bang, more "Holy S***". I wanted to kill baddies in more than the confined Sci Fi walls that was offered.
All in all, this game is remarkable. It does an incredible job of putting away some of the fumbles of past, and setting the stage for something really incredible.
One of the easiest tricks for me to fall in love with a game is to tell a story without speech.
SOMERVILLE enamored and intrigued me until it didn’t. It’s party tricks ran old, and a game so focused on its story became more abstract and passive in it’s landing than I prefer. It’s biggest strength is it’s runtime of roughly 2 hours.
It’s a pillar of art direction and intensity, but this house doesn’t have a foundation to stand on to leave a lasting impression