Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is a hit, and it’s no surprise that players are having fun playing as one of the Emperor’s Angels, stomping and shooting through a fray of hungry Tyranids. One thing I didn’t expect was getting to see the setting of Warhammer 40K through the eyes of people unfamiliar with the universe. Things that are very status quo to me as a longtime fan of the franchise are intriguing and compelling to new players. Take, for instance, the tens of thousands of candles stacked around religious sites, or the bio-mechanical babies flying around on angel wings.
If you’re one of the players who is experiencing the Imperium as Lieutenant Titus, I have another game to recommend that really dials all the unique gothic-industrial horror of the far future up to 11. No game captures the vibes of 40K more than Darktide, a co-op horde shooter set in the Hive City of Tertium, capital of Atoma Prime.
In Darktide, you play as a Reject, a convict busted free from a penal colony and used as labor. The group is comprised of Ogryn, guardsmen veterans, zealots, and psykers. Most Reject backstories really highlight the casual cruelty of the Imperium of Man. Some of the offenses that get people jailed and sent to a penal colony are relatively understandable, like arson. Others are shockingly mundane, like giving someone a dirty look, or saying something that came across as mildly critical of the God-Emperor.
The Rejects end up becoming a necessary source of recruitment when the Moebian Sixth, a group of Imperial Guards, go rogue and succumb to the influence of the Plague God Nurgle. In Darktide, parties of four are sent as strike teams all around Tertium, assigned to achieve objectives and slowly drive the heretics out of the city.
I cannot praise developer Fatshark enough for the time it’s put into making the hive city feel authentic. Each level is lovingly realized, from the lower industrial levels of the city all the way up through the markets and habitation blocks to the noble quarters. The game is also from the perspective of mere, ordinary mortals; Titus can punch through obstacles and wade into hordes of enemies, but the Rejects are comparatively small and vulnerable.
As the cherry on top, Jesper Kyd’s soundtrack is wall-to-wall bangers, mixing classical and choral music with electronic and industrial beats. There’s nothing quite like the roar and kick of a bolter, or shooting lightning out of your fingers like Palpatine while pipe organs are going wild in the background. If you want to see the Imperium up close, up to and including lobotomized amputees built into computer equipment to serve as health stations, there’s no better way to see that world than a few rounds of Darktide.
The Xbox Game Pass Standard plan is starting today. Microsoft announced a revamp to its Game Pass subscription plans , introducing the Standard option alongside a price increase for the Ultimate tier. The Standard plan costs $15 a month, while Ultimate will run you $20 a month.
The Standard subscription tier will offer the essential features of the Game Pass program: online multiplayer gaming, access to a large library of games, and discounts on select game purchases. The big difference between Standard and Ultimate is that Standard plan members will not be able to play some blockbuster releases, such as and , on day one. The wait time on Standard varies by title, but can last up to or longer than 12 months. Ultimate plans also include membership to EA Play and access to Xbox Cloud Gaming.
Xbox has been struggling to compete with PlayStation in this console generation. That’s partially due to hardware differences: Microsoft offered to its console lineup this summer whereas Sony managed to for the announcement of its expensive new . But the Game Pass plan has also been struggling to generate continued revenue for Microsoft, with just subscribers reported in February.
The latest version of Razer’s Xbox and PC controller has six remappable inputs: four back paddles and two bumpers near the shoulder buttons. Its triggers can be toggled between analog and instant actuation. It uses Hall Effect joysticks for a drift-free experience. It has a wireless dongle, while its wired mode gets you a 1000 Hz polling rate.
A follow-up to the Xbox Adaptive Controller, the Xbox Adaptive Joystick is essentially half of a modern gamepad. Its thumbstick’s topper is meant to be easily replaceable to better fit users with limited mobility, with Xbox promising 3D printable toppers. It’s also compatible with Windows 10/11, Android, and iOS. Available early 2025.
Microsoft also requires some software to come bundled with their licenses, which is how you end up with the baffling inclusion of things like Microsoft Teams, Office 365—complete with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint—and [checks notes] … Microsoft Clipchamp … on a device that is, ostensibly, a gaming handheld. I know everyone has their preferences, but I feel pretty safe in assuming that 95 percent of the people who might be interested in the ROG Ally X aren’t interested in it for its middling video editing capabilities.
Hope on the Horizon
In late 2023, Microsoft introduced a preview of a version of its Xbox app called Compact Mode. It gives gaming handhelds running Windows a Steam Deck–like interface designed primarily for controller input, and there have already been some pretty substantial updates. Most notably, the Jump Back In feature lets players immediately launch their most recently played games.
On competing devices like the Steam Deck or the Switch, this feature is known as “just how the thing has always worked,” but it’s still a welcome addition. Even if apps like Asus’ Armoury Crate already do this. Also, at the moment, the Xbox app only lists games you purchased via Microsoft. Which means my Jump Back In consists of … Solitaire. Baby steps, I suppose.
There are rumors Microsoft might be working on a gaming handheld console, which, if true, would be great news since it means Microsoft is likely to keep optimizing Windows for the category. Simultaneously, it might be awful news for competing manufacturers if they’re not also allowed to benefit from that work.
Put more simply: If it comes down to an official Xbox gaming handheld that can run all Windows-based games with an interface comparable to the living room console versus a janky handheld with an interface glued together, it wouldn’t be hard to guess which one is more likely to succeed.
It seems unlikely it would come to that. Since Microsoft has thus far failed to compete in selling console hardware. The company has instead adopted an “Xbox everywhere” strategy. Where Nintendo and Sony sell boxes that run their games, Microsoft wants to make Xbox a platform where you can play games on every desktop, laptop, tablet, phone, and television you have.
I would argue that none of these are quite as important as getting gaming handhelds right. The Switch demonstrated just how much people want to take their games with them, and the Steam Deck showed that even some major AAA games can run well on portable hardware. If Microsoft wants Xbox to be everywhere, it might need to adopt the model Google uses for Android. Google makes and sells its own Android phone but allows competitors to build on its platform and, quite often, beat them at their own game. Google still benefits from its services running on competitors’ devices, so either way, Google comes out on top. A similar strategy could work for an Xbox handheld built on a platform of work that Microsoft shares with third parties.
Right now, Windows handhelds are struggling. Even the best options still drain more power, have jankier interfaces, and cost more than devices like the Switch or the Steam Deck. With every update that makes these devices moderately better, the impenetrable wall of Windows becomes more obvious. Until Microsoft steps up, it doesn’t seem like this status quo will change soon.
Life Is Strange: Double Exposure simultaneously serves as a welcoming return and an exciting leap forward, as fan-favorite protagonist Max Caulfield steps back into the spotlight with new friends, a fresh mystery, and reality-bending abilities. I took the game for a spin during Gamescom and the demo revealed, to my surprise, that Double Exposure may be the series’ most mechanically intriguing entry yet.
With the game set a decade after the events of the original Life Is Strange, the now-adult Max has left Arcadia Bay and works as an artist-in-residence at Caledon University in upstate Vermont. She’s formed a new friend circle in Moses, a science enthusiast, and Safi, daughter of the university’s president. Since the cataclysmic events at Arcadia Bay, of which both endings will funnel into this narrative, Max has sworn never to use her time-rewind power again. However, her new peace becomes shattered when Safi is mysteriously murdered, prompting Max to attempt to save her by winding back the clock for the first time in years. For reasons unknown, the lengthy period of inactivity has caused Max’s power to evolve, and she manages to tear through the fabric of time and space to access an alternate timeline where Safi still lives but remains in mortal danger. Thus, Double Exposure becomes a double murder mystery with players utilizing Max’s newfound Shift power to jump between timelines to discover the identity of the killer in one reality while preventing Safi’s murder in the other.
The Gamescom demo takes place shortly after Safi’s murder. I won’t spoil the narrative details, but Max must retrieve Safi’s camera from a classroom while avoiding detection by a snooping detective. While the room is locked in her current timeline, the same may not be true in the alternate reality. Keeping track of which timeline you occupy is easy thanks to an icon in the upper-left corner labeling the reality as “Living” or “Dead,” referencing Safi’s fate in that world. Using Max’s Pulse ability, another new trick that lets her detect and reveal ghostly elements from the other timeline without doing a full swap, I find a glowing weak point between realities where switching timelines becomes possible. Making the jump sees Max pull apart the current reality like she’s opening a pair of curtains to instantaneously cross over to the other side. The snappiness of this transition makes for a cool visual.
Getting my hands on Safi’s camera becomes an involved exercise in exploring the two-story room, finding clues and hitting dead ends that can only be circumvented by switching to the other timeline. Elements such as the room’s layout, the characters’ current activities and moods, and the location of important items differ in each timeline, and the crux of puzzle-solving involves figuring out how gathering information in one world answers a question in the opposite one.
What begins as a simple search for a safe spirals into using an astronomy chart to find a vital constellation referenced by Moses, then activating a projector to overlay a star chart on a classroom mural in such a manner that the orientation of the constellation reveals the hidden location of the safe’s item. Solving this single puzzle requires several timeline shifts to unravel smaller riddles that logically build toward the solution.
Upon solving this puzzle, the detective forces his way into the classroom, triggering a stealth sequence where I need to escape the room undetected. Simply sneaking past him isn’t enough; I need a loud object to create a distraction, and it can only be found in the Living reality. Since the patrolling investigator blocks certain routes in the cluttered, box-ridden room, getting past him requires a few strategic uses of Shift, as he’s not present in the Living timeline.
While Double Exposure seems to test your noodle more than previous entries, it still heavily emphasizes managing character relationships and steering the story through dialogue choices. However, timeline hopping adds some spice to this formula. While a character may be hesitant to reveal a crucial personal secret in one timeline, their counterpart may be more forthcoming, offering information that can give Max the upper hand. Resorting to using knowledge Max technically shouldn’t possess may not go over well, though, adding a thoughtful wrinkle to conversations.
The Double Exposure Gamescom demo sold me on Shift as a fun mechanic, and I’m excited to see how the game further leverages it to tell its tale. Tack on the return of Max and I’m itching to see how this multiversal murder mystery unravels.
In a news release, Krafton said it “intends to collaborate with Xbox and ZeniMax to ensure a smooth transition and maintain continuity at Tango Gameworks, allowing the talented team to continue developing the Hi-Fi Rush IP and explore future projects.” Krafton added that it “intends to support the Tango Gameworks team to continue its commitment to innovation and delivering fresh and exciting experiences for fans.”
The move from Microsoft to Krafton will not impact Tango’s existing game catalog, which includes The Evil Within, The Evil Within 2, Ghostwire: Tokyo, and the original Hi-Fi Rush, the publisher said. Hi-Fi Rush is available on PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X.
Tango Gameworks was founded in 2010 by Shinji Mikami. The studio’s first release, The Evil Within, was a survival horror game in the vein of Mikami’s work at Capcom, where he had overseen survival horror games Resident Evil, Dino Crisis, and Resident Evil 4 as game director. Tango Gameworks became part of Xbox’s stable of studios when ZeniMax was acquired by Microsoft in 2021. Mikami left Tango in 2023.
The studio found great critical success with Hi-Fi Rush in 2023. The rhythm-action game was a surprise release through Microsoft’s Game Pass subscription, and markedly different from the dark and violent games Tango Gameworks had come to be known for.
Microsoft announced in May that it planned to close three studios under the Bethesda Softworks umbrella: Redfall developer Arkane Austin, Mighty Doom developer Alpha Dog Studios, and Tango Gameworks. A fourth studio, Roundhouse Games, had its staff reassigned to other duties.
The Battle Bus arrived in Lego Fortnite as of an August 2024 update, giving the option for limited fast travel between Bus Stations.
Our Lego Fortnite Bus Station guide will explain how to build Bus Stations and how to fast travel — and why you can’t right now.
How to build Bus Stations in Lego Fortnite
Image: Epic Games via Polygon
The Bus Stations you’ll need to summon the Battle Bus to your Lego Fortnite island are a high-level item. You’ll need to have reached the snowy Frostlands biome to build one.
You’ll need:
Those first three ingredients are easy enough to find in Frostlands biomes, but the last one — rift shards — a new and unique. Let’s talk about them.
Where to find rift shards in Lego Fortnite
Rift shards are a unique resource that you can only get by destroying Bus Stations (more on this in a second). Since they’re made out of high-level (Frostlands) materials, you’ll need an epic pickaxe(8 obsidian slabs, 5 frostpine rods) to deal any damage.
To destroy one, you’ll need to find said bus stations.
Where to find Bus Stations in Lego Fortnite
The short answer is that you find Bus Stations by exploring the world.
You’ll find one near your world’s spawn point. Beyond that, all we can say is that they seem exceedingly rare. When you’re close to one, you may hear a low pulsing sound. Better yet, you can look for the blue light on the roof (especially at night).
Why can’t I destroy Bus Stations in Lego Fortnite?
As of August 7, there’s currently a bug that makes the naturally spawned Bus Stations — the ones you have to destroy to collect rift shards — indestructible. Even in sandbox mode. You can destroy any Bus Stations you build yourself in sandbox mode, but there’s currently no solution for survival.
That means that there’s no way to gather the necessary rift shards at the moment. You can still use any Bus Station you find to fast travel to the Rebel Base, though.
We are aware that the Battle Bus may not arrive at the station. We are also looking into an issue where the Bus Stations may appear indestructible. We are actively investigating and will provide an update when we have one. pic.twitter.com/X455oIlVhQ
It’s an almost daily occurrence that gamers talk about the crushing weight of their backlog. Especially considering seasonal price cuts like the Steam Summer Sale, these ballooning libraries of games are not getting any smaller, and have caused games to miss out on some genuinely phenomenal titles.
However, the holiday season is hyped up with upcoming releases from the big three console manufacturers. As such, there are already so many titles – from indie passion projects to AAA blockbusters – that have slipped through the cracks. Through combing through the last half-year of titles, we have crafted a list of the top 15 games that you’ve already slept on in 2024.
15. Alone in the Dark
Image Source: THQ Nordic
Alone in the Dark is a franchise that – despite its unshakeable place in video game history – has struggled to find its own place in the market. Its 1992 3D horror design inspired the likes of Resident Evil. However, Alone in the Dark has been rebooted not once – in 2008 – but now twice, in its 2024 adaptation.
Despite the acting chops of Stranger Things star David Harbour, this title was panned by gamers and critics alike. As such, many gamers seemingly decided to give it a miss. Its so-so combat and slower pace were widely disliked. Beyond that, the core puzzle gameplay of the title was widely seen as the title’s saving grace. However, not even some dastardly challenges could save Alone in the Dark from the clutches of its biggest adversary – instability.
“2024’s iteration of Alone in the Dark is a full reboot of the series, loosely adapting the 1992 original … If the Resident Evil series stuck to the original’s survival horror roots during the PS3/Xbox 360 generation, this is exactly what it would look and play like.”
While the game itself was not perfect, not every game has to be a 10 out of 10 experience. However, the state in which it launched was not even remotely excusable. In the months since its May release, THQ Nordic has released multiple patches for the game. These have not only vastly improved stability but actively tackled almost every bug that plagued the game. Beyond that, features such as a photo mode and New Game+ mode have been added to the game.
What remains is a game that is no longer another botched attempt at reinvigorating a leviathan of the horror genre. Instead, players stand in the wake of a powerful statement about the long-standing quality of this quintessential IP.
With the rise of the ‘Cozy Games’ genre, the blending of rural and urban landscapes of Minami Lane is a perfectly portioned dose of serenity, especially considering its $4.99 price tag.
There are no massive narrative shifts, or overly complex systems in Minami Lane. Instead, you are tasked by an anthropomorphic Tanooki with sprucing up the eponymous street. Due to its slow pace and cutesy charm, it’s understandable that some gamers decided to miss it. Players must choose the stores and stalls that occupy the sidewalk while managing the items they sell. Beyond this, players must also decide on the ramen they serve, and the prices everything goes for.
“As a cozy gamer, I immediately put Minami Lane on my Steam Wishlist due to its Japanese-inspired art style and intricate gameplay mechanics … but this entry goes further by customizing the inventory and pricing of ramen shops, bookstores, and boba cafes.”
All of this is in the constant drive to provide the human inhabitants of Minami Lane with what they want. This is so that players can earn good grades and continue to improve the street. With an Animal Crossing-esque use of twinkling motifs and ambiance, it may be a short experience but it is a chance to stop and take a breather at a little slice of the Japanese vista you can call your own.
With the upcoming high-profile release of another two-word titled IP with Astro in its name – Astro Bot – it’s not surprising that many gamers’ minds immediately went to PlayStation’s cutesy platformer. However, those who are able to peel their eyes away from Sony’s much-hyped upcoming release will find themselves in the pixel-perfect world of Astro Pig – a title gamers shouldn’t miss.
This 2D platformer holds a cutesy yet introspective tone similar to games like Celeste. However, while such titles focus on grueling difficulty, Astro Pig is a game that doesn’t ask much more of you than just letting it naturally move forward.
“A 90’s nostalgia inspired lo-fi adventure with a relaxing atmosphere and wholesome story, paced between tiny planet platforming and puzzle-solving.”
Players are tasked with collecting keys to open up the way forward. Yet, while an increase in the challenge does exist, through new gameplay elements like portals and switches, Astro Pig never even begins to approach hair-pulling levels of frustration.
Circumnavigating the individual push-and-pull of a planetoid’s atmosphere is strikingly similar to what Super Mario Galaxy pulled off in 2007. In this respect, Astro Pig is unashamedly alike. Of course; only if Mario Galaxy was 2D, and had a chiptune lo-fi soundtrack, and the titular plumber was a spacefaring pig.
When the gaming landscape shifted from the fourth to the fifth generation, games turned from 2D experiences to polygonal affairs. It stands to reason then, that if golf enthusiasts hope to inject the sport with more creativity then all that is needed is another dimensional leap.
In that sense, 4D Golf is less of a sports title and more of a puzzle game. The game does include traditional and fictional obstacles to overcome, such as divots and moving surfaces. However, the main roadblock for golfers is navigating the fourth dimension.
“4D Golf is a mind-bending golf game unlike any other because it’s set entirely in a 4-dimensional space. Complete fun and unique golfing challenges as you gain hands-on experience of the 4th dimension and beyond!”
While it may sound overwhelming, Code Parade is well aware of its title’s steep learning curve. As such, it gives the player the ability to easily spot the hole and their own ball through keyboard prompts. As a result, things shouldn’t get too mind-meltingly complicated all at once.
Words simply won’t be able to properly explain the process of playing golf in 4D, but don’t miss out on this reality-bending sports game – especially if playing Golf With Your Friends was starting to become a little samey, then be prepared to take a leap into a new dimension.
KinnikiNeko: Super Muscle Cat is a title that – even just by looking at some key art – you’re already halfway to enjoying its unique charm. Its Sailor Moon-esque intro cinematic is cheesy enough to instill an immediate sense of bonkers enjoyment.
Gamers interact with the anime-inspired world by playing as a blue cat. This eponymous feline can then be transformed from its cat form into that of a glistening bodybuilder. This allows for some genuinely creative platforming design as both styles of play afford varied approaches to levels that complement one another.
“Get ready to enjoy this crazy 2D platformer adventure starring KinnikuNeko! A cat with the body of a bodybuilder who will fight against a big alien army that has invaded planet Earth and captured all its inhabitants.”
Your bulging abs may be competent at prying doors open and boffing enemies. However, you’ll have to transform back into a kitten if you’re to traverse up walls or over plunging chasms. The gameplay is varied enough even just with the two playable forms, but the platforming challenges also give way to autoscrolling levels, rhythm games or even challenging a foe to an arm-wrestle.
Yet, if the anime-inspired absurdity of it all is something you’re not quite sure about, then you’re in luck. Don’t just give it a miss, gamers can play a free demo of the bonkers title that is available on its Steam page.
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown was not beloved by gamers, as many snuffed their excitement at its adherence to the series’ 2D platforming roots rather than the 3D action-platforming of more recent titles. However, as a AAA experience, it’s seldom going to be lost to time like some of the other titles on this list.
The move of the franchise back to the series’ 2D roots enamored those who played it. The problem is that not many people gave it the time of day, and decided to give it a miss. It may not have been the route many fans wished for the series.
However, its lack of commercial success is a shame, especially as it may impact publisher Ubisoft’s confidence in taking similar creative leaps in the future.
“All in all, the game is a welcomed surprise that still holds onto the original’s core fundamentals. Though it doesn’t look it, it feels like a Prince of Persia game with all of its challenges and unique powers.”
Many 3D Prince of Persia titles forgo much of the series’ puzzle-platforming core in favor of all-out action. In contrast to those third-person titles, effectively every leap in The Lost Crown requires a unique strategy. Retaining the quick loading following a failed jump or combat encounter, the time-warping origins of the series are also still intact for this soft reboot.
As such, if the franchise has ever been of interest to you, and you don’t feel comfortable venturing into the series’ past, then The Lost Crown is a great place in the series to jump into.
It’s a common turn of phrase that ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’. In the challenge to be the best of 23 other writers vying for the top spot, you’ll find out if you have what it takes.
“24 writers, and you’re one of them. Challenge yourself to become the best writer in the world. Write books, create characters, choose endings, team up with rivals, answer letters from readers, and don’t let other authors beat you!”
In Writer’s Rush, players create their own stories by selecting themes, plot devices, and target audiences from a limited selection. Gamers then rattle through the editing and marketing process to out-sell their competitors.
If you feel like writing a gritty noir mystery set in the Renaissance, then that’s doable. If you want to make it a kid’s book, go ahead. Perhaps there may be a hidden market for a 16th-century Bugsy Malone.
Lil Guardsman is a title that can be succinctly described by just four words; a cutesy Medieval Papers, Please.
Players control 12-year-old protagonist Lil who has taken over her drunkard dad’s place at the guardpost at the city’s border. The game’s silly and metanarrative comedy makes sure that while effectively all you are doing is questioning a selection of fantasy applicants day after day, you’re constantly engaged.
“Question humans, elves, goblins, cyclopes, and other fantasy creatures using your powers of deduction to determine who to admit or deny … but be careful: who you let through the castle gates will determine the kingdom’s fate.”
The hand-drawn aesthetic of the title does a lot to convey who the ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’ are. The challenge then comes in using the varied selection of tools at your disposal. You use these to assess what they are telling you and make sure you don’t miss anything.
Despite the laid-back atmosphere, you do have a limit of three questions, so you’ll have to make the best use of them before you need to give a binary yes or no answer.
Although you don’t have to balance resources to keep your family alive like in Papers, Please, there is still plenty to do in between sections of active gameplay. In your downtime, you can traverse the city’s establishments and even enjoy a few minigames on your well-earned time off.
Like Bushido Blade or Nidhogg, First Cut: Samurai Duel is a game where swords are actually as deadly as they should be.
It may, at first, seem like a weird concept to have to spell out. However, in a sea of titles where enemies can sponge multiple high-explosives to the face, it’s a necessary one. Similarly to games like For Honor, you can attack from any direction but if you and your enemy’s blades cross then your attacks are blocked.
While First Cut: Samurai Duel allows you to parry and dodge, the rest is up to you.
“A high-intensity arcade sword-fighting game where every strike is lethal. Slash, clash, parry, dodge and watch limbs fly in the atmosphere of historical feudal Japan. Choose your move carefully – the first cut is also the last.“
It may take some time to get used to the controls, especially as the game is more than happy to just throw you in the deep end. However, the result of mastering the combat is a truly unique and satisfying experience.
Despite the gore seen within the game, it is a genuinely beautiful title. First Cut: Samurai Duel shows just how expressive and emotive pixels can be in the right hands.
If it sounds like a cut above the rest, then the original game, simply named ‘First Cut’ is available free on itch.io. The full game, First Cut: Samurai Duel – can be found on its Steam Store page here.
6. Still Wakes the Deep
Image Source: The Chinese Room
Still Wakes the Deep was a big win for Microsoft. Coming from a massively popular initial reception, they were able to get this much-hyped eldrich-horror game on their Game Pass subscription service day and date with its worldwide release
The title was seen by gamers as a particularly competent title, with some genuinely spine-chilling environmental storytelling. However, Still Wakes the Deep did struggle to keep its pace moving. While players were seemingly engaged in their first run-through, the title didn’t provide much reason to return to it.
“It’s a great sign that even without the monsters, the game would still stand on its own two feet … you’ll find yourself revisiting some areas over and over again, but the gradual destruction of the Beroa means they often feel unfamiliar.”
The Lovecraftian horrors of the rig, along with the deafening isolation of the North Sea create a Bioshock-like atmosphere. Alongside the Scots tongue of many of its characters, it retains its place as one of the most engaging titles of the last half-year. However, it’s just a shame that not so many gamers have engaged with it as perhaps should have.
It appears that the 2020s are seemingly a hallmark decade ear for claymation to make a comeback. On the feature-film side of things, Aardman is back in the creative pipeline with releases like Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, and a new Wallace and Gromit film coming this year.
A similar amount of creativity and passion is on display from Slow Bros. in their claymation game, Harold Halibut. Although this project is, of course, in interactive form.
“a handmade narrative game … Harold Halibut takes place in a city-sized spaceship that left Earth 250 years ago, but is now stuck underwater on an alien world … also, that part about the game being handmade is pretty literal, as the clay-looking in-game models were actually created by hand”
The slow pace and fixed angles of Harold Halibut are akin to the very best scenes of The Grand Budapest Hotel and Fantastic Mr Fox. Light puzzles and interactivity are the name of the game, as the dense atmosphere of the title starts to unravel around the player.
After escaping a desolate Earth, humanity has crash-landed on a new planet with a choking atmosphere. Yet, after 250 years, tightly wound order starts to fall apart and show the cracks beneath.
There are too many games to count that are absolutely superb experiences that would be a shame to be missed. However, a game that mixes genres and introduces multiple playable instances of the player-character in real-time? Well, that’s definitely something to talk about.
Timemelters isn’t just a third-person defense game, an army-builder, or a time-bending experiment gone wild. It’s all of these things and more.
Set in 16th-century Scotland, where many innocent women were being rounded up and tried for the crime of supposedly being witches, Timemelters doesn’t leave its narrative behind in its dedication to its gameplay. Although, its gameplay is certainly the central focus of the experience.
“a strategy and hero defense hybrid game that allows you to unleash the power within and become a time-warping witch … rewind time and fight alongside yourself, not as an AI, but in a fully deterministic fashion. Plan out truly custom strategies and play to your own style!”
Players can create instances of themselves to distract enemies while your past itself attacks them as they run. Beyond that, players can shift genre from a third-person title. By floating above the battlefield, gamers can bring trees and elemental spirits to life to protect characters or settlements. As such, gameplay changes on a dime to be more akin to a 4X strategy title like Total War.
Considering Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II‘s development team, Ninja Theory, is a Microsoft-owned Xbox Games Studio, to call this game even remotely indie would be a lie. However, it’s seemingly nigh-on impossible that so few people have played this title when it had the opportunity to be played by millions of Game Pass users. It’s extremely disheartening that its AAA release has seemingly just moved right past a vast swathe of them.
As arguably the most graphically impressive title in the video game industry this generation, Hellblade II needs to be seen to be believed. Its slow pace and focus on character and atmosphere may not be for everyone. However, its critical and user reception has been that of admiration and adoration.
As with the first game, audio is – once again – a pivotal sense in Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II. The Furies are voices in Senua’s head, however, they constantly create shades of doubt and self-loathing in the original game. It seems that they too have even matured for the sequel; they not only provide context-dependent combat notification but apply their multi-voiced narration to almost everything Senua sees or does.
“Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II is intense, captivating, and breathtaking. From the moment I began to play, the beauty and quality of this game has enthralled me. It was difficult at times to even consider it ‘just a game’.”
Read Only Memories: Neurodiver is not just a visual novel with puzzle elements, as its genre is almost the least important aspect you can use to describe it.
It’s a visually stunning game with a cyberpunk aesthetic straight out of something like Neon Genesis: Evangelion or Ghost in the Shell. In keeping with this inspiration, many of the core themes of the cyberpunk genre are here, with conversations surrounding body modification, personal freedom, and technological evolution.
“2064: Read Only Memories looked beautiful too, but the next installment features even more detail than the first … this simultaneously gives Read Only Memories: Neurodiver a retro and modern art feel to it, making for some really unique visuals.”
Read Only Memories: Neurodiver lets gamers take control of a psychic detective. In this role, players are tasked with, jumping into memories and combing through the witness’ innermost thoughts. In them, you scour for the truth hidden behind layers of mental blockage.
The cyberpunk, anime-inspired narrative throughline is engaging and has as many twists and turns along the way. While there are enigmatic antagonistic forces at play, they hardly steal the limelight as Read Only Memories: Neurodiver is a game that is as audibly and visually engaging as its genre-defining inspiration.
Point-and-clickhorror is not a niche genre, and not a style of game that ever seems to struggle with creating dark, twisted atmospheres around their slowly maligning narratives.
With a tone and theming similar to other Brothers Grimm-inspired stories, Tales From Candleforth tasks gamers with controlling Sarah. At 16 years old, Sarah is tasked with keeping the family apothecary afloat when her grandmother goes missing. As Tales From Candleforth is imagined as the starting block from which a series of macabre tales are bound, of course, things start to go awry.
“Tales from Candleforth is a collection of fairy tales that were written on top of a forbidden book many years ago to hide its content. Years later, the dark text is bleeding out and onto the pages of the tales, mixing with them and twisting the stories.”
A hauntingly catchy orchestral soundtrack and some genuinely head-scratching puzzles flesh out the gameplay and atmosphere of the title. However, in the end, the priority was clearly on atmosphere and gameplay. In this respect, Tales From Candleforth succeeds valiantly.
As Sarah slowly unravels the world around her, she ventures into the depths of the occult and comes out scarred but stronger from her ordeal.
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After a on consoles to iron out some bugs, is now properly available on and in some regions. You can dive into the free-to-play tactical shooter on the consoles if you’re in the US, Canada, Europe, Japan or Brazil. Riot plans to open up the to console players in other regions down the line.
Riot says it optimized the gameplay for consoles, which included the addition of a new Focus shooting mode that’s a bit like hipfire, but with lower sensitivity for greater precision. There won’t be any support for crossplay between PC and consoles so as to maintain competitive integrity, but you will have access to all your purchased or earned cosmetics and there will be shared progression across all platforms. Riot also notes that there will be parity between all platforms in terms of balance changes and added agents, maps, premium content and other features.
“We believe there are millions of players that would love to play Valorant, but currently can’t, and we hope to change that with bringing Valorant to consoles,” Valorant production designer Arnar Gylfason said in a statement. “We aim to provide them the joy of the Valorant experience and all it entails: a core tactical shooter gameplay focused on mastery and player expression, a team-based competitive environment where match quality and fairness comes first, our amazing ecosystem with a unique style, high-quality cosmetics and a thriving community that values personal and competitive identity.”
This is a significant step for Riot as Valorant is its first live-service game on console — the likes of League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics remain PC-only. However, the publisher plans to bring its upcoming LoL-based fighting game to PlayStation and Xbox as well.
One of the more notable missing elements from the Harry Potter prequel game Hogwarts Legacy was the high-flying sport of quidditch. Publisher Warner Bros. Games will address that exclusion later this year with Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions, a new single-player and online competitive multiplayer game based on the wizarding sport.
Developer Unbroken Games revealed the first gameplay from its Harry Potter quidditch video game this week, showing off some familiar faces, like Ron Weasley and Draco Malfoy. There’s also a glimpse of multiple arenas, including the Quidditch World Cup Stadium.
Quidditch enthusiasts will also be able to create the young wizard of their choice. Unbroken Games shows off the Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions character creator in the video above, highlighting the choices in houses, clothing, broomsticks, and more. Publisher WB Games says there are “no plans for microtransactions in the game at this time,” which hopefully means what you see is what you’ll get, forever.
Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions will be released digitally for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC (via Steam and the Epic Games Store), Xbox One, and Xbox Series X on Sept. 3. A physical deluxe edition will be available for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X on Nov. 8. A Nintendo Switch version is also coming, and will be released sometime this holiday season, WB Games says.
PlayStation Plus subscribers will get Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions (and a Firebolt Supreme Broom Skin) as part of September 2024’s downloadable games. The game will be available to keep from Sept. 3-30, if you have an active PS Plus membership of any tier.
A perfect sequel not only retains the strength of its predecessor but builds on its very foundation. In this respect, SteamWorld Heist II is an example of what can be done when the source has such potential.
Steam World Heist II’s story is more than the sum of its meticulously polished brass parts. It exists beyond the plot beats, the party characters, and the player’s exploration of the world. Thunderful’s strength has always been – through seven genre-bending titles and counting – their unalienable creative commitment and hawk-eyed attention to detail.
Thunderful’s world-building is second to none. Their latest adventure is not reliant on the series’ previous titles, however avid fans will relish every expanded detail. At the end of SteamWorld Dig 2, gamers saw the Earth explode into a fractured litany of shards. Throughout which, the crew of the first SteamWorld Heist game spend their time plundering and prospecting.
It’s on one of these shards of broken Earth that players control Captain Leeway and his crew, as they sail their submarine on the ‘Great Sea’.
The pollution of the Great Sea’s water is causing deadly ‘rust’ to spread throughout its citizens. As Leeway and his crew learn more of the origins and repercussions of the illness, they set out to find a solution. This synopsis is an excellent excuse to go on a steampunk seafaring adventure. However, it’s not what I found most endearing about SteamWorld Heist II’s narrative.
Interacting with the varied peoples of the Great Sea was always a joy. Firstly due to their Banjo-Kazooie-like garbled speech, but secondly due to the sheer amount of enjoyable dialogue they would blather. These interactions are highlighted by the intricate details of the world to create a definite lived-in experience. Details such as steambot-style ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ accentuate the absurd alternative history of the series. Beyond that, players can embark on missions to gatecrash a high-society dieselbot soiree and steal someone’s postal delivery. All in all, the world of SteamWorld Heist II feels like a genuine community and interlinked world.
Image Source: Twinfinite via Thunderful
Thunderful’s goals with SteamWorld Heist II are nothing if not ambitious, and this ambition is clear throughout the finished title. However, it can be seen at face value through the fact that players have three multi-layered gameplay elements to play with.
Most of the time you will spend with the game will be in the control of Captain Quincy Leeway. This steambot is the skittish skipper of a submarine that acts as your home away from home throughout the adventure. Submarine combat is more akin to The Legend of Zelda: Windwaker than World of Warships, but it’s still enjoyable enough. Fitting your ship with side and front-facing weaponry, you can automatically engage with enemy vessels while you focus on maneuvering. It’s not a massively intricate system, but it’s engaging enough to find some enjoyment with.
However, Leeway’s control doesn’t just extend to his manning of naval craft. He is the conduit through which players explore the waves and islands of the Great Sea. Although, apart from interacting with NPCs and partaking in some extremely light puzzle platforming, there is very little to do when controlling Leeway.
This is no doubt because combat is delegated to your rag-tag assembled crew. In mirroring the role of a captain, you navigate your crew from mission to mission. Gamers who have played the original SteamWorld Heist will find that the core of combat has not changed significantly. As the practical skill ceiling of the original was so fine-tuned, there was very little to be amended.
The 2D XCOM-style turn-based combat ditches the infuriating intricacies of its source inspiration. Gamers have expressed their frustrations about having a 0.5 percent critical hit chance take out a beloved teammate. As such, the combat of the SteamWorld Heist subseries ditches such a system.
“The missions of SteamWorld Heist II are all handmade, but with random enemy spawns and cover locations you’ll need to stay on your toes”
You move within a set amount of squares per character and aim your weapons. An easy task at first glance, but becoming an almighty task if you don’t have access to a clear line of fire. Some weapons may fire straight, while some may have a velocity and dip that you have to account for. The challenge in SteamWorld Heist II’s combat doesn’t come from RNG but from the skill of the player.
The footsoldiers of the dieselbot dictatorship are the player’s only antagonists in the first throes of the game. However, even just that one faction is varied enough to battle every step of the way. As the plot unfolds, your pool of adversaries expands. This goes so far as to introduce multiple other factions who can fight with one another, and multi-stage boss fights.
Overall, the bosses of SteamWorld Heist II are bulkier than other enemies. However, many are modular and have multiple areas to attack – from massive back-mounted cannons to protective glass cockpits. This culminates in some genuinely engaging encounters. In an almost choreographed rhythm, gamers can circle gargantuan foes to take them down through multiple smaller attacks.
Image Source: Twinfinite via Thunderful
SteamWorld Heist II is a title that is unashamedly focused on creating engaging and intricate characters. From dieselbot infantry units spouting combative one-liners in battle, to the selection of well-rounded party characters and playful NPCs dotted around the world.
Thunderful Gothenburg has managed to capture something that so many games attempt to portray, yet miss time and time again. SteamWorld Heist II makes the antics of Captain Leeway and his crew feel substantial to the world.
NPCs change the way they interact with you depending on your broad strokes progression through the plot. Beyond that, areas of certain watering holes are gatekept until you earn enough reputation. This reputation is required – through completing missions – to become welcomed by the community.
In these dives throughout the Great Sea, Leeway will bump into bots who are happy to join his ragtag group. From a crow-looking gun-for-hire and a Cyclops sniper robot with self-esteem issues, to an explosive weapon specialist heiress named Dame Judy Wrench. Beyond some unique traits, every added member of your team also allows the player to accomplish more every in-game day. As such, players will see immediate benefits with the added manpower before they have to rest up between missions.
For example, you may find that you have to choose between tackling a harder four-man mission, or two two-man missions. However, with added crewmates, you can expand to doing both on the same day. Or, perhaps, even tackling an even more demanding gauntlet.
Through Leeway, the player has complete control over the classes and perks each crewmate should focus on. However, each class – of which there are six – is determined by the weapon in the character’s hands.
As such, if you wanted to utilize the Brawler trait of exploding cover, then you can’t wield a submachine gun. However, SteamWorld Heist II does lend some variety to its class system. Through completing missions you can level up a class, then switch to another and assign ‘cogs’. These cogs are a limited resource per character, yet they can be spent to keep certain traits between classes.
These traits are not the only way combat is shaped by the player. You also have access to a horde of varied items your crew can equip. These can range from a sidearm and added plates of armor, to even a handy grenade. As such, you can equip your crew differently for every style of engagement.
Image Source: Twinfinite via Thunderful
Overall, the original SteamWorld Heist’s combat was so polished that Thunderful simply had to expand it. However, one area the team has largely reimagined is the player’s movement from mission to mission. SteamWorld Heist sees you pilot your submarine in an open-world exploration of your surroundings. This is a massive change from the on-rails Mario World-esque branching paths of the original.
This open world is segmented through some Metroidvania-style natural blockades – such as strong currents pushing you back, or protruding rocks halting progression. This allows for the player to have complete freedom in what missions they wish to tackle, and when. Throughout the title, there were only a few instances of the narrative being funneled through some scripted missions at certain points.
Effectively, SteamWorld Heist II’s open-ended exploration is an extremely potent and refreshing attempt at an open world. That is until it’s not.
The biggest disappointment of SteamWorld Heist II is the game’s disparity between its first and second halves. In the player’s constant pursuit of an end to the clean water shortage plaguing the land, Leeway is constantly exploring perfectly sectioned-off areas of the map. As such, the world naturally unfolds in front of the player at an orchestrated pace.
The player’s submarine upgrades – which act much like Pokemon’s Hidden Machines – create intuitive blockades to your progress. That is until you breach the dieselbots’ sea wall and enter the suffocating expanse of SteamWorld Heist II’s northern half.
Entering the Frozen Fjords, the natural checks and balances to drip-feed the player progression are left behind. As the player can smash through rocks and speed through strong currents, an area of the map almost twice the size of the first half is made instantly available to them.
The game pinpoints certain areas to look at to progress the narrative, but the optional paralysis is undeniable. The Great Sea’s southern hemisphere acts similarly to the Great Plateau in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It readies the player before showcasing the rest of the playable world.
However, Nintendo allowed the player to progress the plot by choosing the order in which they would tackle the four Divine Beasts.
In letting go of the reins too early, the team at Thunderful strips players of all the self-confidence gained through their meticulously crafted first half. As such, players are plopped into this open world and seemingly expected to ignore the tidal wave of possible missions and instead awkwardly shuffle from narrative beat to narrative beat.
The only other option available to players is to either play Russian roulette and choose missions almost at random or to try and push through the expanse and complete some side content. This is a wholly inelegant solution, and in fact, even impacted the way I interacted with some of the final stages of the game.
I was prompted, after multiple hours in the frozen expanse, to embark on a fetch-quest throughout the whole of the oceanic map. Not an entirely original or engaging task, but one I understood. However, the game’s unfiltered overflow of content came to a boiling point when I was then tasked with completing a mission I had already succeeded in. Just so that the game could re-check the box stating that I had accomplished it.
Image Source: Twinfinite via Thunderful
Despite the seemingly scattershot nature in which Thunderful decides the genre of their latest SteamWorld games, there have been some throughlines that connect many of their titles. Of course, there is the world, with its unique blend of a steampunk-western aesthetic. However, not far behind, are the games’ orchestrated scores and recorded soundtracks.
The orchestrated score of SteamWorld Heist II does the lion’s share of the audio legwork. As such, it perfectly accentuates every narrative and gameplay beat of the title. The jaunty trumpets and strings of Douglas Holmquist’s OST chronicle your experience; from seafaring adventures to bombastic combat themes.
However, the musical highlight is certainly the returning talents of Steam Powered Giraffe. The real-life group has previously blended their unique style into the game world in the original SteamWorld Heist. The group is depicted as their ‘singing antique automaton’ personas in-game, with their original music for the game being broadcast to almost every establishment in the Great Sea.
All songs are written from an in-universe perspective, lamenting over sore bolts and creaky hinges. Their talents are even commented on by characters who listen in through their copies of the band’s discography. I will happily admit that I most likely stretched out my play time a significant amount, just so I could finish listening to a song or two.
Image Source: Twinfinite via Thunderful
The core of SteamWorld Heist II is a supremely polished title. As such, I would have absolutely no hesitance in recommending it – even to gamers who are wary of its turn-based combat. That is if the complete SteamWorld Heist II package was as finely tuned as its fundamental systems and world-building.
The combat is demanding yet fair, to a point where the difficulty ranges are varied enough to allow XCOM veterans and genre novices to plunge head-first into its systems. Beyond that, the atmosphere created by Thunderful is a masterstroke of game design and its musical accompaniment is worthy of accolades by the dozen.
Although, while the game’s narrative hums along like a well-oiled machine in the first half, screws begin to come loose. As the narrative expands exponentially in front of the player in the second half, things start to fall apart. While the core of the title is a shoo-in recommendation for any fan of the genre, the collapsing narrative structure is a genuine shame.
However, a selection of the SteamWorld games – unfortunately, apart from the original SteamWorld Heist title – are on Game Pass. As such, it could be a more sensible option to pick up another instance of this beautifully-realized world – just to make sure you’re not going to be treading water.
SteamWorld Heist II
At its base level, SteamWorld Heist II is a supremely polished title. However, while the game’s narrative hums along like a well-oiled machine in the first half, screws begin to come loose as the narrative expands exponentially in front of the player. While the core of the title is a shoo-in recommendation for any fan of the genre, the collapsing narrative structure in its second half is a genuine shame.
Pros
Core gameplay is stellar
Beautifully rendered aesthetic
Second-to-none OST and soundtrack
Varied encounters
Cons
Narrative pacing is massively front-heavy
Game world is left open far too early
Occasional audio bugs
Lack of substantial post-game content
A copy of this game was provided by the publisher for review. Reviewed on PS5, Switch, Xbox, PC.
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Microsoft shutdown the Xbox 360’s marketplace this week and nearly two decades after the console first launched it feels like the final nail in the coffin for a particular era of gaming we’ll probably never see again.
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The Xbox 360 came out a year earlier than the competition and $100 cheaper than the base PlayStation 3. It seemed to make all the right moves, using Halo, Gears of War, and Call of Duty to jump start online multiplayer into the soon-to-be dominant form of gaming, while investing it all back into indie curation, big exclusives, and marketing deal that made the console feel like the place everyone had to be.
In some ways it felt like the best of all worlds, and by the end of the generation you could pick up an Xbox 360 for just $100 and play dozens of the best games ever made. The culture was far from healthy, and some of the places making everything were a mess to work for. But it was also a fun time, and a weird one. Here’s what we’ll miss about it and why the Xbox 360 still feels so special to us.
Carolyn Petit: The first E3 I ever attended was in 2005, with the Xbox 360’s launch still some months out and I have to say, the games I saw on the show floor looked amazing. It’s hilarious to me now considering I haven’t even thought about this game in probably 15 years, but at that time, the game that blew me away the most was probably GRAW. Interestingly, though, despite my initial excitement about the console being rooted in its graphical power and my lust for next-gen spectacle, now, when I think back on what made the console so special to me, it’s not really about that aspect of it at all. What about you Alyssa?
Alyssa Mercante: I’ve told mine on Kotaku.com more than once, but I had borrowed my high school sweetheart’s original Xbox to play Halo 2 when he went away to college, but not long after that Halo 3 came out, which wasn’t backwards compat. So I went out during my free period in high school (we had an open campus for seniors, you could take your car and leave if you didn’t have class), and drove to a Target where I spent my summer job savings on a 360, Halo 3, and Xbox Live.
Ethan: I have zero recollection of the Xbox 360’s launch. What was I even doing at the time? 2005. Hmm. I was going into my senior year in high school, barely playing anything except for the occasional late-stage PS2 game—Shadow of the Colossus and Dragon Ball Z: Budokai, followed eventually by Okami and Final Fantasy XII. My only real memory of the beginning of that console cycle is my brother getting a PS3 and me having almost no interest in it. It wasn’t until my girlfriend’s roommate’s boyfriend in college got me hooked on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 that I finally picked up a super cheap used Xbox 360 arcade edition for like $150. That four years after the console launched but still somehow only the mid-way point.
Carolyn: Yeah, I don’t remember exactly when I finally got one myself—I certainly couldn’t afford one at launch, and my memories of the time around release have a lot to do with playing Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie (lol) at GameStop kiosks.
Moises Taveras: The first time I ever played an Xbox 360 also had to do with Call of Duty: MW2. It was all the rage with the kids in my middle school, but I was largely looking from the outside in as a) a PlayStation kid since my youth and b) someone who came from a family too poor to afford more than one console. But eventually, I made friends who had 360s and I remember us all cramming onto a couch in the smallest bedroom imaginable at our friend Howard’s house and playing local multiplayer matches till we lost our voices from shouting. I learned really quickly then that the 360 was synonymous with multiplayer and socializing with folks and it made me want one so bad. Little did I know I wouldn’t get a 360 till the very end of the console generation!
Carolyn: I think part of the Xbox 360’s dominance in that era can be attributed to the fact that it offered the best online experience for folks wanting to play Call of Duty, but it also did something incredible that totally won over people like me. I’m not saying I didn’t have an amazing time playing Gears of War co-op, I absolutely did, and huge credit to Microsoft for putting out a steady stream of banger exclusives that really made Xbox Live feel essential. But for me, when I think about the Xbox 360, what still gets me excited most is Xbox Live Arcade, and particularly amazing games like Pac-Man Championship Edition. Games like this took the arcade leaderboard competition of my childhood and absolutely exploded it. Suddenly I was staying up nights pouring everything I had into beating my friends’ high scores on online leaderboards for all the world to see. Man, it was incredible.
Moises: Supergiant Games’ Bastion absolutely blew my mind as far as what I thought games could be. It being a console exclusive to the 360 through XBLA broke my heart and kept me from the portfolio of what’d become my favorite studio, and then Xbox just kept pumping out indie titles like it. Honestly, my working definition of an indie game was largely informed by this era of XBLA games.
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Kenneth Shepard: The Xbox 360 was the first console launch I was really tuned into the industry for. I was full-blown sicko mode for that thing as a kid, and was counting down the days. I was a huge Rare fan at the time and Kameo and Perfect Dark Zero were a huge deal to me. But broadly, I think I fell off video games for a bit because the system just didn’t speak to my tendencies. As Moises said, the 360 became the multiplayer system and I preferred gaming in solitude, and eventually pivoted to the PS3 in the final years of that generation. But I played the Mass Effect trilogy on the 360, so I ended up keeping an old 360 in my home longer than any other system. I had to replace the household 360 more times than probably any other system my family owned.
We got a launch window system that died by the time Halo 3 came out, so we had to replace it swiftly. Then I got my own 360 for Christmas 2009, just before the launch of Mass Effect 2. That sucker lasted over a decade. It gathered dust for large swaths of the time, but since I didn’t own an Xbox One, it was the only way for me to go back to my old Mass Effect trilogy saves until the Legendary Edition came out in 2021. So while I had mostly abandoned the system by the end of the generation, the 360 is still a defining system in my life because it gave me one of the most important video game experiences of my life. I’ll always be grateful for it, even if I think the Microsoft was a trailblazer for some of the industry’s worst modern tendencies with it.
Ethan: That was the other thing that I think tipped me in the direction of the Xbox 360 besides the price and walled multiplayer gardens. As someone coming from the PS1 and PS2, it just had more of the RPGs I was craving earlier or in better condition. I came to the original Mass Effect late but it blew my mind. I got to catch up on Star Wars: The Old Republic. It was synonymous with retro and couch-coop indie games for me like Castle Crashers and Super Meat Boy. It really did just nail a lot of the same things that the PS4 did a generation later and which ultimately helped Sony to reverse the tide.
Moises: it’s so weird to think about now given Xbox’s current situation and catalog, but the 360 was where all the games were!
Carolyn: Another thing that was a big factor for me, I have to admit, is that I was totally cheevo-pilled. The Xbox 360 brought about the advent of achievements and I got extremely excited about pulling off absurd things like beating Call of Duty campaigns on Veteran to get all the achievements. I no longer put much stock in achievements or trophies, but to this day I greatly prefer the at-a-glance number that reflects your achievements compared to all the trophies of PlayStation’s system. And on top of that, the whole interface on Xbox just felt so much more inviting to me than that on Sony. I think avatars were really smart of them to introduce in that era. I loved signing on and seeing little cartoon versions of all my good friends online, playing games of their own. In comparison to that, the whole interface of the PS3 just felt cold and impersonal to me, and that console would end up gathering dust in my entertainment center.
Ethan: The Xbox 360 home screen definitely felt a lot more inviting and hit that sweet spot of clutter to chill. The controller was also very solid. Have any of you gone back and tried to hold a PS3 DualShock? It feels like you’re being pranked. I take it none of you ever had an issue with red-ringing or other hardware failures?
Photo: Mark Davis (Getty Images)
Moises: Nope! Correct me if I’m wrong but those issues got ironed out with later iterations of the console, so by the time one of my best friends let me indefinitely borrow his 360, it was smooth sailing for me.
Carolyn: I did have to send mine back for repairs once, and for a while there at least, it felt like everyone I knew who owned one was hitting the red ring. There was a period there, at least in my circle of friends, where there was real disbelief and anger that Microsoft had sold us all a product that was so prone to failure. I think it speaks to just how fond people were overall of the console—its library, its interface, its online features—that today, when you bring it up, you’re far more likely to get fond recollections than bitter complaints. It was so good that even the considerable irritations so many of us experienced with it are now just a footnote in our memories.
Ethan: My console ended up red-ringing in like, 2012? But then I read that you can just put it in the oven and bake it at a low temperature to loosen up the glue. Has worked like a charm ever since.
Carolyn: Wow, I never knew that!
Ethan: I think one of the reasons people look back so fondly on the Xbox 360 is that, in retrospect, it felt like the last time you could contain the entirety of what was going on, coming out, and being talked about in your head at any given time. It was still very intimate and physical, with midnight launches and stacks of controllers in the split-screen coop session. There was spectacle with E3 but also the feeling you alone were discovering these incredible hidden treasures on Xbox Live Arcade, which was like a return to finding the internet for the first time again.
Carolyn: I agree. And they just had so many games that became sensations for a time, from Braid to Geometry Wars. The curation was exceptional, and it was an era in which it still felt like the whole culture, or much of it at least, could still come together for a few weeks around some exciting new downloadable game.
Moises: Yeah. By comparison, when the PS4 really started to pivot to those smaller more intimate games early in its lifetime, it wasn’t that those games were lesser, but it did feel like they were being more haphazardly thrown on the platform to fill gaps between big exclusives. Meanwhile XBLA had these clearly thought out rollouts and events that made a big deal of Arcade titles. Also everything was less shitty. Xbox Live Gold was the original multiplayer subscription, and the only one for quite some time, but it at least seemed to provide value with great deals and a platform that produced rock solid multiplayer hits. It also wasn’t as expensive as anything is nowadays.
Carolyn: Before we wrap things up here, I think we can’t talk about what an amazing console the 360 was without saying a little more about its games. Are there any games y’all want to shout out as particular favorites that really helped make that library great or were emblematic of what the console was doing? When I think about the 360, I think about how the grittiness of Gears of War coexisted harmoniously alongside the whimsy of Viva Pinata, and I’ll never forget the dozens of hours my friends and I spent driving around doing challenges together in Burnout Paradise. It really did feel, more than a lot of other consoles, like it offered something for everyone, and like the people behind it thought deeply about how to bring people together to share in the experiences it offered.
And even though some of its games were also on PlayStation, at least everyone in my friend group, won over by the cheevos and online features of Xbox, always bought multiplatform games there, which perpetuated the console’s dominance in that generation. It’s a little wild to think how this generation it feels somewhat the opposite for me, like most people I know play most multiplatform games on PlayStation. Wild how the tables have turned. But yeah, any other 360 shoutouts?
Moises: I cannot separate the 360 from the stunning role it did in promoting so many smaller studios to the mainstream. I already invoked Bastion from Supergiant Games, but I can’t not shoutout Limbo and Playdead, which has now delivered two absolutely singular game experiences in a row. Oh and Shadow Complex does still own.
Ethan: Limbo was incredible. While the indie darling backlash was fair and warranted, it was really an incredible run of curation there for several years. The Dishwasher games were great, and really spoke to that sense of Newgrounds 2.0 animating the grungy vibe of XBLA. It’s also wild how much Microsoft tried to court Japanese RPG fans with Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey. For me personally, Dungeon Defenders is still an all-time great. One of the last times I was able to rope friends into playing something for hours with me on a couch.
I was trying to think of my top five favorite 360 games, exclusive or no, and couldn’t stop listing stuff. The end of that console generation was so strong, on both 360 and PS3, maybe there’s hope that the Series X/S and PS5 pick up in their final years. But with massive budgets, long development times, and so much risk-averse consolidation, I’m not hopeful.
Carolyn: Whether it picks up to some degree or not, I think it’s safe to say that there will never be an era quite like that exemplified by the 360 again. The console was just perfectly poised to take advantage of a given moment in gaming culture and technology, employing exciting new ideas like achievements to build a sense of both community and friendly competition around games in ways that its library and online service leveraged brilliantly. Also, Sneak King was great.
Ethan: Any parting thoughts since you vanished, Alyssa?
Alyssa: LMAO. The time my 360 red ringed right before I went up for senior year of college. The day before. And I went out and bought another because not having one wasn’t an option. That or the time my mother heard me cursing out misogynists in Italian?
Ethan: Was it on the $3 phone bank operator Xbox 360 headset?
Attention, gamers! It’s Amazon Prime Day, which means it’s your time to grab all the goodies. Amazon Australia has launched its longest Prime Day ever, running from July 16 to July 21. That’s six full days of unbeatable savings, exclusively for Prime Members. If you’re all about scoring amazing deals on top brands, this event is your ultimate treasure hunt. Below, find the best Amazon Prime Day gaming deals to shop right now.
Ready to level up your gaming setup? Well, now’s your chance. Whether you’re a seasoned pro or a casual adventurer, Amazon Prime Day 2024 is packed with incredible discounts. Snag that new console you’ve been eyeing, upgrade your gear, or stock up on the latest titles – all at unbeatable prices.
We’ve got the lowdown on the hottest deals across consoles, PCs, VR headsets, games, accessories, and more.
College football is back in video games for the first time in nearly a decade with the upcoming release of EA Sports College Football 25. And while the game will arrive in a week, the specific release time is a little complicated, and there’s even a sneaky way that superfans can get on the gridiron a few days early.
Here’s when College Football 25 releases in your time zone, and how you can play it a few days early.
EA Sports College Football 25 release time: When does College Football 25 release?
EA Sports College Football 25 officially comes out on Friday, July 19, on both PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. EA hasn’t made it clear what time exactly the game will be available, but this post will be updated when that information is announced.
How to play EA Sports College Football 25 early
If you pre-order the Deluxe Edition of the game, you can start your march toward the National Championship a little bit earlier. If you pre-order this version before July 18, you will be able to play the game starting on Monday, July 15, at 4 p.m. ET. Here’s when that is in your time zone:
1 p.m PDT on July 15 for the west coast of North America
4 p.m. EDT on July 15 for the east coast of North America
9 p.m. BST on July 15 for the U.K.
10 p.m. CESTon July 15 for western Europe / Paris
5 a.m. JSTon July 16 for Tokyo
The Deluxe Edition also contains several Ultimate Team goodies, like an Alma Mater Ultimate Team Pack, a Cover Athlete Ultimate Team Pack, and a Bring Glory Home Ultimate Team Uniform, as well as 4,600 College Football Points, the game’s Ultimate Team currency. The Deluxe Edition of the game costs $99.99 on both PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.
What to expect from EA Sports College Football 25
College Football 25 marks the virtual return of licensed collegiate football for the first time in a decade, and it looks like plenty has changed in that time. But just because this series has been on a break for 10 years doesn’t mean that College Football 25 is simply going to be a Madden clone. In fact, in the 20-minute gameplay video EA Sports released earlier this week, we can see plenty of unique features, like a highly upgraded option game, new animations, and a unique presentation for some of the most exciting stadiums and environments in college sports, like Penn State’s White Out games.
Along with those unique elements, the game will also feature upgraded versions of EA Sports’ classic game modes like Ultimate Team, Dynasty, and Road to Glory, which will let you take your own customized player and play out their collegiate career, from the earliest days all the way to the Heisman Trophy.
Eons ago, I worked a retail job selling gaming headsets (among other things) during the PS3 era. Even back then, I was annoyed that most headphone manufacturers had virtually identical versions of the same headset, distinguished solely by whether they were compatible with the Xbox or PlayStation. The SteelSeries Arctis Nova 5X Wireless may not be the first headset to put this particular nuisance to bed, but it’s my favorite.
The core of this particular problem comes down to how the different console manufacturers handle wireless audio. Bluetooth is the default system for wireless audio on most devices, but there’s just enough of a latency issue that gamers would notice. Especially if you play online competitive games, where split-second timing matters.
Both Microsoft and Sony have their own proprietary wireless audio systems to deal with this problem, but, surprise, they’re not interoperable. Worse yet, it’s usually too expensive to bother adding support for both into a single headset, since most gamers tend to have either one console or the other. Fortunately, the Arctis Nova 5X Wireless has a handy solution to this problem.
Enter the Dongle
The Arctis Nova 5X headset is designed for the Xbox Series X/S (as denoted by the “X” in its name), but the USB-C 2.4-GHz dongle has a small switch that lets it swap between Xbox compatibility and … everything else. You can use this headset with your PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, PC, heck even your phone just by plugging this little guy in.
Photograph: Eric Ravenscraft
This isn’t the first SteelSeries headset with this feature—my previous top gaming headset recommendation for Xbox, the Arctis Nova 7X, included the same dongle. However, it’s still uncommon for most wireless gaming headsets to support such a wide array of devices. Most often, the Xbox is the odd one on the compatibility list.
On top of this, the Arctis Nova 5X Wireless has a separate Bluetooth connection, so you can pair it with your phone or other devices to answer calls, listen to music, or put on your favorite podcast. While the 7X can play audio from both Bluetooth and 2.4 GHz at the same time, the 5X only lets you listen to one or the other, though there’s a handy button on the right ear cup to swap between them. In my experience, the handoff was nearly instant. While it won’t help you listen to music while you game, it’s incredibly useful for swapping tasks.
More Power
The Arctis Nova 7X Wireless was a solid contender for a while, but the battery life on the 5X puts it to shame. SteelSeries advertises about 60 hours of battery life on a single charge (compared to less than 40 on the 7X), though that can be cut quite short if you swap to Bluetooth mode. In my testing, I was able to get close to 40 hours of life from mixed use, which is still longer than most (though not all) gaming headsets on the market.
The headset also supports quick charging via USB-C, and it gets an impressive amount of mileage from just 15 minutes of charging. SteelSeries claims that you’ll get six hours of gameplay from such a short charging session. I put my unit on the charger and walked away long enough to make a sandwich and watch a quick episode of a show. By the time I came back, it was close to 50 percent, more than enough to get me through the rest of the day and then some.
The Arctis Nova 5X is also the first SteelSeries headset to support its new mobile companion app. I say “first” not because SteelSeries has promised to support other headsets, but because I badly hope it does. The SteelSeries GG app for PC may be a powerful tool to customize your game’s audio, but I found the companion app simpler and more enjoyable to use.
Waves the size of skyscrapers explode beneath me as I creep across a busted metal beam in the middle of the North Sea, suspended at the base of an oil rig that’s in the process of collapsing. I’m crawling swiftly but carefully, knees sliding on the wet metal and eyes locked on the platform in front of me. Don’t look down.
I look down. The cold sea is boiling just inches from my beam, white spray reaching up, threatening to pull me under miles of suffocating darkness and pressure. Fuck.
The Chinese Room
In Still Wakes the Deep, horror comes in multiple forms. Violent creatures stalk the walkways on thin, too-long limbs that burst from their bodies like snapping bungee cords. Human-sized pustules and bloody ribbons grow along the corridors, emitting a sickly cosmic glow. The ocean is an unrelenting threat, wailing beneath every step. And then there’s the Beira D oil rig itself, a massive and mazelike industrial platform supported by slender tension legs in the middle of a raging sea, groaning and tilting as it’s ripped apart from the inside. Each of these elements is deadly; each one manifests a unique brand of terror.
Still Wakes the Deep is a first-person horror game from The Chinese Room, the studio behind Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, Dear Esther and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture. The game is set in the winter of 1975 and its action is contained to the Beira D, a hulking metal maze that offers mystery, a growing familiarity and death at every turn. The rig is filled with a rich cast of characters from the British Isles, most of them Scottish. Players assume the role of Caz, an electrician on the rig whose best friend is Roy, the cook.
The Chinese Room
Still Wakes the Deep feels like a hit from the PS3 and Xbox 360 era, devoid of modern AAA bloat. It’s restrained like the original Dead Space, with a core loop that serves the narrative and vice versa. The mechanics steadily evolve without becoming repetitive or cumbersome. Its monsters are murderous but not overplayed. In Still Wakes the Deep, the horror is unrelenting but its source is constantly shifting — vicious eldritch beasts, the crumbling rig, the angry North Sea — and this diversity infuses the game with a buzzing tension until the breathtaking final scene.
The game is fully voice acted and its crew members are incredibly charming. An undercurrent of good-natured ribbing belies every interaction, and the dialogue is earnest and legitimately funny, even in life-or-death situations. This skillful sense of character development only makes the carnage more disturbing once the monsters board the Beira D.
After the oil rig drills through a mysterious substance deep in the North Sea, a giant eldritch organism takes over the structure, crunching its metal corridors and infesting the bodies of some crew members. Caz is on a mission to survive the creatures and escape the rig — and help save Roy, whose body is fading fast because he can’t get to his insulin.
The Chinese Room
Gameplay in Still Wakes the Deep is traditional first-person horror fare, executed with elegance and expertise. The action involves leaping across broken platforms, balancing on thin ledges, running down corridors, climbing ladders, swimming through claustrophobic holes and hiding from monsters in vents and lockers. There are no guns on the Beira D, and Caz has just a screwdriver to help him break open locks and unscrew metal panels, placing the focus on pure survival rather than combat. Interactive materials tend to be highlighted in yellow, so it’s never a question of what to do or where to go, but rather how to get there without falling prey to the monsters, the sea or the rig.
Each input feels perfectly precise and responsive. Climbing a ladder, for instance, requires holding RT and pressing the analog stick in the proper direction — but if Caz slips, players need to suddenly press and hold LT as well, so he can regain his grasp in a quicktime event. In these moments of sudden panic, squeezing both triggers feels like the natural thing to do. It’s deeply satisfying to clasp the gamepad as tightly as Caz is holding the rungs of the ladder, player and character completely in sync in the aftermath of a sudden scare. Still Wakes the Deep is a prime example of intuitive game design.
The Chinese Room
It’s also just a gorgeous game. I stopped short multiple times while playing Still Wakes the Deep simply to admire the crisp lines, complex lighting and photorealism of specific scenes, but every frame is dense with thoughtful and well-rendered details. The otherworldly structures littering the rig cause Caz’s vision to bubble like a melting film reel, and multicolored circles overtake the screen every time he passes too close to a pustule — it’s disorienting and eerily pretty, much like the rest of the game.
Still Wakes the Deep is an instant horror classic. It’s filled with heart-pounding terror and laugh-out-loud dialogue, and it all takes place in a setting that’s rarely explored in interactive media. Amid the sneaking, swimming, running and climbing on the Beira D, Still Wakes the Deep manages to tell a heartfelt and powerful story about relationships and sacrifice. Caz and Roy have a special friendship, but they also have family back on shore and returning to these people — alive, ideally — is a constant driving force.
The Chinese Room
Still Wakes the Deep is available now on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, and it’s included in Game Pass. It’s developed by The Chinese Room and published by Secret Mode.
The Abyssal Woods from Elden Ring’s DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree, is a land of horrors and madness. Frenzied Flame followers inhabit the woods and nightmarish creatures skulk about. It can be quite tricky to reach as you’ll need to do a bit of exploration, but should you find its entrance, you’ll be warned to turn back whence you came.
Should you heed their warnings and retreat? Or should you continue on face the madness? Read on to find out how to get to the Abyssal Woods in Elden Ring.
How to get to the Abyssal Woods in Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree
To find the Abyssal Woods, you’ll first need to reach the Ruins of Unte, which is hidden behind an illusionary wall in the Shadow Keep.
Graphic: Johnny Yu | Source images: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco via Jeffrey Parkin
Starting from the Storehouse, First Floor Site of Grace, head down the elevator behind you, which will lead you back towards the main gate of the Shadow Keep.
Defeat or run past the Fire Knight, and turn to the left towards the golden boats. On the left side of the path, you’ll find a ladder leading down to a lower level of the Shadow Keep. Climb down the ladder and walk into the waterfall to reveal a hidden space.
Graphic: Johnny Yu | Source images: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco via Johnny Yu
Go down the ladder ahead of you and follow the path to find a room with the “Domain of Dragons” painting. On the southwestern wall, you’ll spot two torches and a seemingly ordinary wall between them. Hit the space between the two torches to reveal an illusionary wall.
Image: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco via Johnny Yu
Follow the path to find a stone coffin that will take you to the Castle Watering Hole Site of Grace.
From the Castle Watering Hole Site of Grace, head southeast to find a pathway along the rockface, which has the Recluses’ River Upstream Site of Grace. Follow the path and jump over the gaps until you can cross over to the path on your right.
Graphic: Johnny Yu | Source images: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco
Continue along the path and drop off the southern end to find the Recluses’ River Downstream Site of Grace. Look over the eastern edge of the cliff to find gravestones that lead to the bottom of the waterfall. Hop your way to the bottom and head southeast to find another set of gravestones at the edge of the cliff.
Graphic: Johnny Yu | Source images: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco
Make your way to the bottom of the cliff and cut through the woods to the east to find the entrance to the Darklight Catacombs. Progress through the Darklight Catacombs and defeat Jori, Elder Inquisitor to make it to the Abyssal Woods.
Since Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass service went live in 2017, achievement hunters have flocked to it with the promise of new games, big and small, to mine for Gamerscore. From AAA day-one Xbox Game Studios titles to indie and licensed games, Game Pass has allowed all gamers to play more games than ever before. But what are the easiest games on Xbox Game Pass to 100%?
Easiest Xbox Game Pass Games to 100% Complete
Those in the community who seek out any chance to increase their Gamerscore through easy-to-collect achievements seek out the best games to 100% on Game Pass. From former Xbox Live Arcade titles to exploit-heavy modern titles, some gamers will play anything if it means netting more Gamerscore on their profile!
While using game guides will no doubt help to get the most economical completion of the games on Xbox Game Pass, we’ve compiled this list of the best titles to play if that’s your goal.
Along with calculating the number of achievements given, we’ve also looked at how long it takes to complete these titles, so you can get the most bang for your buck with these Game Pass titles!
5. Open Roads
Image Source: Annapurna Interactive
Gamerscore available: 1,000G
Achievement amount: 16
Estimated playtime: Three hours
After the overwhelming success of Gone Home on PC and then through its multiple console adaptations, many were extremely excited about Steve Gaynor’s next video game venture.
As such in 2024, beyond multiple lurid accusations, Open Roads was eventually bestowed on the gaming public by a Gaynor-free development team. Despite its stunning visual presentation and star-studded voice-acting cast, in our Open Roads review for PlayStation 5, we bemoaned how:
“I finished the story and platinumed the game in less than three hours, and the majority of that time was spent slowly wandering around three houses and picking up items.”
As such, it’s a real shame to see such a stellar title be brought down by a short run-time and simplistic puzzle-solving mechanics. Only taking three hours to complete, Open Roads is home to 16 achievements, which amount to the standard 1,000 Gamerscore.
While these may be shortcomings of the retail release of the title, and from a development standpoint, achievement hunters are sure to flock to the title now that it’s available for free on Xbox’s Game Pass service.
Isn’t that what they say; that one man’s trash is another man’s easy 1,000G?
4. Venba
Image Source: Visai Games Inc.
Gamerscore available: 1,000G
Achievement amount: 15
Estimated playtime: Two hours
Long before it came to Game Pass, and even before it officially launched, Twinfinite have been fans of the homely indie cooking of Venba. After our first taste of the title, we were already keen to see even more from Visai Games’ heartfelt tale of found home and pride of heritage.
As such, it brings me great joy to be able to play my own small part in inviting more gamers to experience Venba. Even if it may be for the easy 1,000G after only a (conservative estimate) of two hours playing, the 15 achievements you gain for completing Venba may be the easiest achievements to earn on this list.
“Players will … get the chance to bond with the family and have daily conversations that can prove challenging during certain events. With this story, you’ll become immersed in a cook’s life and maintain relationships with your loved ones.”
Although Venba may not be a children’s game, or a narrative-focused ‘walking simulator’, the title has never been about difficulty – in fact, the opposite. Venba is all about welcoming the player in, and the achievement-hunting aspect runs parallel to that as well.
You may well accidentally trigger all of Venba’s 15 achievements without having to so much as glance at a guide.
Overall, I completely understand that the easy-to-grab 1,000G might be the reason you come to Venba. However, I’m sure that the cozy atmosphere and welcoming aromas you find in this low-stakes cooking game might be why you stay – long after you’ve found all of its secrets!
3. McPixel 3
Image Source: Devolver Digital
Gamerscore available: 1,000G
Achievement amount: 93
Estimated playtime: Eight and a half hours
The allure of Xbox Game Pass – besides the day-one Xbox Game Studios titles and the occasional ‘Perk’ – has always been the players’ ability to pick up smaller titles they wouldn’t have otherwise dropped their hard-earned cash on. McPixel 3 is one such game.
Published by Devolver Digital, this tongue-in-cheek Warioware-esque title bestows a ridiculous 93 achievements on the player! While they’re still only worth the typical 1,000 Gamerscore, this 2022 tongue-in-cheek sequel is a short, creative video game that consistently adapts to keep things fresh for the player.
“For every solution, you will be rewarded with coins … You can use them to unlock new levels! Also, everyone loves coins, right? They’re shiny and golden and spinning! No reason not to have some more!”
100% completion can mean a lot of different things to different people – although, whatever your criteria, to do so with McPixel 3 is no hard task. Especially with a guide on hand.
However, if the amount of achievements is important to you – rather than getting a 1,000G increase from a few stretched-thin points between barely-double-figures achievements – then this eight-and-a-half-hour micro-puzzle retro romp will definitely be worth your time!
2. Escape Academy
Image Source: iam8bit, Inc.
Gamerscore available: 1,500G
Achievement amount: 40
Estimated playtime: Five and a half hours
It’s not often, when looking for the best ways to wring out a game for Gamerscore, that you find a title with such a novel concept as Escape Academy. The escape-room puzzle game/visual novel has enthralled gamers since its release in 2022. So much so that it’s seen multiple patches and updates to stabilize and enhance the experience for its players.
While Microsoft does place a 1,000 Gamerscore ceiling on titles, they do allow for games to add appropriate Gamerscore-providing achievements to DLC. In providing the free Tournament of Puzzles DLC to all players, Coin Crew games have managed to increase the obtainable Gamerscore from the standard 1,000G to 1,500G!
Alongside a truckload of new challenges to complete, this free update elevates an already sought-after title for achievement hunters to a must-play!
Even though the game can be 100% completed with a single player (provided you have two controllers and good muscle memory), Escape Academy is much more accessible in multiplayer.
In our review of the game, we detailed this fact, before the Tournament of Puzzles update and the allure of all that Gamerscore. As such, we can imagine it’ll be a much easier sell now if you weren’t able to compel anyone to play with you back then!
“That is not to say you cannot have fun if you are playing solo, but the presence of a co-op partner does elevate things to a certain extent. Then again, it all depends on how competent your partner is”
So, if you’re hunting for the base 100%, and that shiny 1,000G, then you definitely won’t be disappointed. However, if the added challenge – or most likely the extra 500G – tempts you, then give these Escape Academy challenges your best shot. So, grab a friend – or a second controller – and get to playing!
1. My Friend Peppa Pig
Image Source: Outright Games Ltd.
Gamerscore available: 1,000G
Achievement amount: 11
Estimated playtime: One and a half hours
Licensed games are a mainstay of the video game industry. Not because they’re integral to the platform’s success like branching narratives and interactive storytelling, but because companies will always be out to make a quick buck!
My Friend Peppa Pig is a game whose target audience – children aged four to six years old – will adore it. However, the most enjoyment adult gamers will find from this cartoon property tie-in is its easy-to-grab 1,000 Gamerscore. Only taking as long as your average wash/dry cycle, completing Petoons Studio’s 2D sidescroller is every achievement hunter’s dream.
“Have a fun-filled adventure by becoming Peppa Pig’s new friend … It’s just like being in an episode of the TV show, where all your favorite characters are excited to meet you. From the Beach to the Museum and even Potato City, every playtime is a new experience with your friend Peppa Pig.”
Originally released in 2021, then added to the Game Pass service in July of 2022, that 1,000G you can nab is linked to only 11 achievements.
Overall, the gameplay isn’t remotely complex, and the narrative is only a shade more complicated than the brightest white. However, the target audience is sure to find a lot to love with My Friend Peppa Pig – and when you’re grabbing 90G every eight minutes, you’ll be sure to love it too!
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