Control was just released so... obviously I beat Quantum Break on Xbox One, ha! My first impression was that this one's gonna stink but ultimately I enjoyed it quite a lot.

So, the big deal about this game was that it was "part game, part live action show", it was supposed to be some big multimedia experiment that Microsoft requested from Remedy. Well, it's all utter bullshit. Ultimately it's just far too long cutscenes that play at four points during the campaign. Really, that's all it is. And while these cutscenes may have higher production value than your typical live action stuff in video games they would make a pretty boring and shitty TV series in terms of production value and editing and, depending on the character, acting. Also, when I started playing the game and reached the first of these live action scenes it turned out that those weren't even installed yet and the default method for watching them, streaming, apparently doesn't work anymore. So I had to take a break while a 75 GB "free DLC" was being downloaded. Aaargh!

But besides that: it's for the most part just an okay game. It's a solid third-person shooter but not a great one by any means. The one thing that distinguishes it from other shooters are the powers that the game's hero, Jack Joyce, has at his disposal. So he can create a shield, teleport, freeze enemies, sprint like the Flash... as a matter of fact a lot about this game reminded me of the current Flash TV series, heh. At first the combat seemed just generic and boring to me but the game has its moments once you reach tougher opponents, especially ones with powers of their own, and you are highly encouraged to use these powers (but at least on normal difficulty most of the fights can be done without using them at all).

Ironically it's the game's narrative design that falls utterly flat. Don't get me wrong, the story and overall writing are pretty great and especially towards the end I really cared about the fates of the characters, but the game handles narrative in a pretty shitty manner. A lot of the story is told through FAR too long collectable snippets, usually emails, and it feels like it's literally NEVER the right moment to go looking for or reading those. Heck, usually I'd be doing this while an allied character was talking to me and I could only follow the dialogue through the subtitles because I got too far away from them to actually hear them and when Jack talked back to them it seemed like he was talking to himself. Seriously, it's pretty shitty and archaic and frankly even the first Max Payne had handled narrative design better than this game. Oh yeah, and often trying to get collectables was quite a pita because I would accidentally step into the next area and the game would not allow me to go back for the collectable I was actually trying to get. It's quite frustrating, really.

Finally there's the thing with the choices. One of the game's advertised features was that you could change the course of the story, both in the game and "the show". There's actually just a few collectables that will trigger a few seconds of meaningless extra footage in the cutscenes and four "junction points" in the game where you can choose one of two options which will actually affect the story. The strange thing is that it's the villain whose decisions you determine, not the hero's. It's pretty weird, really, since the story, for the most part, implies that there's no free will and if anything it's the hero, not the villain, who believes in free will. I've done only one playthrough so I'm not sure how much they affect but since the game is narrated in past-tense during an interrogation I presume that the outcome is always pretty much the same. Oh yeah, and towards the end there was a cutscene that seemed to contradict earlier events - not sure if I just happened to choose the one path the developers ignored while writing the canonical storyline or there's actually some explanation that I may or may not discover through different choices.

Anyway, what matters is that ultimately the combat was pretty fun thanks to the time powers and the story is, as can be expected from a Remedy game, pretty great. Oh yeah, and I really fell in love with the performances of Aidan Gillen and Lance Reddick, who played the two main villains here. Ultimately I enjoyed my time with this game.

Secret Agent (Apogee)

I just finished the three missions.

Overall it was pretty nice to play, except for the horrifying passages where you have to make precise jumps, and the game's playability doesn't help too much.

In any case, I'm happy to have finished this game, I wanted to finish it years ago, now it's done.

Just beat Ryse: Son of Rome on Xbox One. I was very positively surprised by this one, considering that even the Xbox version has only a metascore of 60. First off, even though the game is five years old now it still looks amazing, putting many much newer AAA games to shame. But well, that's kinda to be expected from a Crytek game.

What I had not expected is that this game actually has a pretty good story. I was expecting only a basic excuse for slaughtering barbarians but there's actually genuine character development and intrigues here and some of the cutscenes were pretty intense stuff that really made me hate the bad guys and root for the hero, Marius, whose entire military career we follow. It's also a surprisingly humanist game. At first it seems like it's a simple power fantasy oozing as much testosterone as 300 and presenting the Romans as the clear good guys here but things become more interesting sooner than later. If anything I could have done without any mythical elements in the game but I also wasn't too annoyed by those. Also the soundtrack and acting were surprisingly good here.

As for the gameplay itself... well, it's not great but it's not bad either. It's a very simplistic slasher game. It's almost entirely based on two attacks and two defensive manoeuvres plus execution moves which trigger very brutal QTE sequences. Additionally you can throw pilums, if you have any, or enter "focus mode" which allows you to easily slaughter two or three guys in slow motion but that's pretty much it and the game never bothers to try anything more. How simplistic the combat is is further shown by the upgrades for your character: it's all increases of HP, focus gain and so on - no extra moves or attacks. But at least what is there looks and feels pretty great. Sadly the enemies also fail to extend the game notably and with them it's just a matter of how often you hit them with the shield or if you have to counter before you can attack. It's sad that a game which had so much potential has the complexity of the Lord of the Rings games on PS2.

But luckily melee combat is not entirely all there is to this game. Sure, it's not like God of War where there's exploration to be done and puzzles to solve but the game does a number of things to shake things up once in a while. Once in a while you can enter tortoise formation and then control a whole group of soldiers and make them block or throw pilums. And, surprisingly, there's a fair amount of sequences where you control a little ballista and "gun down" enemies en masse. It's all also pretty silly and simple stuff but again, it looks and feels awesome.

So, I actually really enjoyed the game. It's pretty short and I beat it in two sittings but I feel that it was more than worth the seven bucks that I paid for it. And if anything now I wish there were more action games in an ancient Roman setting because it's just amazing for this kind of game.

PS: I presume there's a lot of historic bullshit in this game but I really wouldn't know and don't really care in this case.

Lilly Looking Through

This is a cute little adventure game that plays similar to first two Samorost games, where you mostly just click around on stuff until something happens, there is no NPCs or inventory, it is very simple. The characters are wonderfully animated.

I knew it was a small game, first for the new developer, but I expected more. The second half of the game had some very poor and confusing color based puzzles and the worst of all the story remains unfinished, it was obviously designed to be just Episode 1 of a larger story. It has been 6 years already and no mention of a sequel. Because of all this I can't recommend it.

Brutal Legend, Sep 9 (Humble Bundle)-This was like Grand Theft Metal. I don't typically like this type of game nor heavy metal but this was just charming and fun. All of the individual minigames were pretty meh but everything together really worked for me. Jack Black was great too.

Full List

Zack and Wiki: Quest for Barbaross's Treasure (Wii)

Zack and Wiki is a puzzle game released by Capcom for the Wii about 10 years ago, you play as Zack, a wannabe legendary pirate and his trusty pal Wiki, a golden flying monkey with the power to transform objects, as they hunt down the bodyparts of the famed legendary pirate Barbaross. Based on the art style, the story, the characters and the age rating, you'd assume this would be a game for kids, but the puzzles can be devious, you can ruin some levels forcing you to restart and death forces you to spend high amounts of currency on 'lives'. Hints are also a purchasable commodity, however they are also quite expensive. The game is split into over 20 levels, each filled with puzzles that require you to use items or machines, whilst operating a wii remote in the same way you'd operate the item in real life. Several puzzles have multiple solutions, whilst others have incredibly abstract solutions. This was a pretty decent game, although frustrating, imagine a Sierra point and click with checkpoints instead of manual saves. A lot of puzzles are devious, often requiring incredibly good hindsight, or for you to fail the first time round. This was a pretty good game, however certain actions can be a struggle to perform, especially with old wii remote's whose sensors aren't what they used to be. This could make quite a good port for Switch, possibly even PC with a few tweaks to the mechanics. The game is good, with the cast and setting being a strong point, and if you love difficulty in point and clicks, you'll like this

Popful Mail. As a Falcom game ported to the Sega CD, it feels a bit like a comedic offshoot of the Ys series. It's a side-scrolling platformer in which you switch among three characters, which is decently challenging but nothing insurmountable. Like a lot of games from its era, the most torturous thing about it isn't that you might get killed, but that you might get killed and then have to sit through some unskippable cutscenes before you can try again. It's not very long, though - I beat it in just over 5 hours.

The graphics are nothing astonishing but nicely done, and the controls are fine. I wasn't crazy about the number of blind jumps the game often asks you to make, but that seems to have been deliberate because it's part of exploring the levels and at least there are no instant death falls in the game.

Gears 5 (XB1X)

Released fully today, but of course Game Pass users get it 5 days early (along with people that pre-ordered). That actually caused one issue in hindsight, but more on that below.
Technically the game is a marvel, except that Microsoft's servers were not up to the task for the first few days. So for the first day I was getting server drop outs all over the place. Of course connection to the server is not required to play the single player campaign...except when not connected it does not count progress towards achievements and the lore collectables. So that was very annoying, though it did not stop playing the game. Yesterday the server dropouts stopped and today I played all day without any problem. But of course my lost achievement data from not playing online is still missing. But shit happens.
Other than the above- no issues or bugs at all. I could have played on PC, but my Xbox easily won out. Performance was pretty much flawless, 60fps and between 2160 down to about 1600p depending on load. It could quite possibly be the best looking game on console I've ever seen- it that good. Any other console game this gen that even approaches the fidelity here is a 30fps game, not 60. Oh yeah, this game is a showcase for HDR. Taking a screenshot on Xbox and then viewing it on my PC has me wondering if it's even the same game.

Gameplay wise it's now clearly the best of the series and the best single player shooter campaign this generation- edging out Doom 2016 and Titanfall 2 or even Metro Exodus. Doom was good, but every level looked and felt the same, whilst Gers varies things, plus I just prefer slower more tactical shooting over circle strafing jumping up and down stuff. So it's the usual Gears combat, but with some extras. Jack is now more than just a door opener, he has combat uses as well and can be upgraded. As well as the usual ruins, the game links areas with semi open world hubs that you traverse with a Skiff. I like driving to get places in games and not just using load screens. It helps the pacing in my opinion, as you have quieter down time periods between the intense action. And damn does it get intense in the end. The final sequence was actually fatiguing.

Even the story and writing was pretty decent. Though anyone that played Gears of War 4 and paid attention should be able to see where the story is going. The characters are as good as always and voiced as well as always. Unlike many developers, The Coalition seem able to work out how cutscenes should be used- mostly to flesh things out at milestones in the story, they are well done and all in engine.

I can only classify the game as a big success, but then again I'm a fan of the series- I feel no other action series achieves such a good balance between intense action, characters and technical competence. Why is now called Gears and not Gears of War? My guess is two reasons: everyone that is a fan of the series calls it Gears anyway, and second- to avoid confusion with the similarly named God of War which share the same abbreviation GoW. I'll be playing again, just like I have with most of the others in the series.

Damn, is that how it generally works on Xbox One? I remember that even GFWL achievements would get stored locally until an internet connection is available, it's similar on PS4. So you miss achievements on XBO if not logged in while fulfilling their requirements or something?

Oh lol. I had noticed that the upcoming tactical spin-off game is called Gears Tactics but I figured that it's only done there to distinguish it from the main series. I had no idea the new main entry in the series is also just called "Gears". Yeah, I also figure it may be to distinguish it from God of War. It cracked me up when I first noticed that Sony and Microsoft both have mature action game franchises that end with "of War" and are abbreviated "GoW". I guess you're also correct in that they did it since fans just call it "Gears" anyway.

Your opinion seems to be in line with everything I've heard about the game thus far - guess I should finally give the series a serious try (I've only beaten the original PC port of the first game thus far and I didn't actually like it much at the time...). It's also the game that has made me consider replacing my Xbox One S with a One X. 60 FPS in 4k sounds pretty darn impressive.

No it doesn't normally work like that for achievements. I believe it's a bug. Most of the achievements were, in fact working offline, stuff like reaching the end of chapters etc. What wasn't working were any achievements that required a counter to keep track of- like collect all lore collectables. Those achievements were only keeping tally when the server connection was there. Multiplayer games like this take things like leader boards very seriously, and I think some of the achievement tracking is getting messed up by that system- I doubt that it's intentional. The server drops on the other hand is just Microsoft not being prepared. I think they badly underestimated just how many people would be using Game Pass to play in the first days.

As to wether an One X would be worthwhile, I suppose it depends on usage and whether you have a 4K TV. I use mine for pretty much all modern multi platform games, plus as a 4K media streamer and 4K Blu-ray player, so it gets used every day and was worth it. It wouldn't be worth it just to play an occasional Microsoft game though. Honestly, we're so close to the next gen now that it's probably better to just wait.

I loved it as well...btw did you know they made a short CQ mod for the original Doom3? :)

Actually no, I heard there were some mods for original Doom, but not for Doom 3.
Also there is Chex Quest HD in the making, on Unreal Engine 4.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDblwrDDGc8

Blair Witch (XB1X)

Recent addition to Game Pass, day one I believe. I still think the original Blair Witch Project was a great and unique movie. The second movie was a bit rubbish, a quick cash in job. I haven't seen the 2016 movie. I can say that the game invokes the feel of the first movie quite well, the vague feeling of unease and terror...despite hardly ever really seeing anything. I rate the game easily as Bloober Teams best, better than Observer and Layers of Fear.

Unfortunately the game does have the same bad performance (at least on console) of their previous games. The first few minutes had me wondering if it was even going to be playable. But once into the main game it settled into what I'd call playable, but a bit rough. Only after finishing did I find out that the game is also on Win 10 store and part of Game Pass there as well, so I could have just played it on my PC and adjusted things to try for better performance. That's something I'm going to pay more attention to in future. Though, according to Steam reviews, the game is very buggy on PC and I had no bugs at all on Xbox. Anyway, it was playable and it did look great- especially the woods themselves, maybe not so much characters and animations.

Story was intriguing and really had me wanting to see what was going on. I got the bad ending, and I'm pretty much certain that anyone will get the bad ending on a first play unless they did some prior research and know what they are doing. I don't recommend researching first because...duh...spoilers. But to put in context, I ruined my possibility of a good ending in the first 5 minutes of starting the game- as I expect most people would also. I have started a second playthrough to see the good ending, it's going way faster with the benefit of prior knowledge.

Apart from performance issues my only other real complaint was the end sequence just dragged on a bit much- so much so that the tension and unease was replaced by tedium and boredom- same as the other 2 Bloober Team games in fact. But if you like this sort of uneasy, mind messing horror then I think it's still worth a play through.

1. 02/10 - Beyond Good & Evil
2. 03/10 - Akalabeth: World of Doom
3. 05/10 - Dex
4. 08/10 - Nox
5. 11/19 - Teenagent

I do have a 4K TV and people keep praising Gears 5 on One X so much, I'm afraid I'd feel pretty frustrated playing it on a One S. Then again, by the time I've beaten all five previous games (yeah, I really wish to also beat Judgment) we're gonna be well into the next console generation anyway, lol. Guess you're right that I should just wait for the next Xbox (presuming that it will have full downward compatibility - I'm still worried that Microsoft might push for digital only during the next gen).

And thanks for the clarification on the achievements. My internet connection is pretty wonky and while I don't usually go achievement hunting I would get frustrated if I didn't get achievements which I have earned, lol.