Put me in the ‘Firewatch is overrated, Outer Wild isn’t’ camp.
I liked Firewatch a lot despite my comments above. I did finish it where i’m still chewing through Outer Wilds.
It did help that i was once serenaded by an actual woman who lived in a Firetower unexpectedly while ATVing through a national forest, invited up, and given the whole history of her raising a family while living in fire towers (her husband was stationed 8 miles or so away).
Same here, and had similar issues that kept me from getting far into Outer Wilds.
Firewatch and Outer Wilds literally could not be more different from one another unless one of them was a book.
Outer Wilds is one of my favorite games of all time. Utterly brilliant design. Exemplifies self-directed discovery without any handholding. And it tells a great, surprising story too!
Everyone reading this should try out Potion Craft. It’s such an ingenuous way to design a crafting system and the shopkeep part of it is addictive fun as well.
I played the demo during one of the Steam demo fests earlier this year and I loved the look of it and thought the exploratory crafting system was ingenious… but I didn’t find it a lot of fun? I’ll definitely have to see what might have been tweaked, though.
I’ve been playing the hell out of it for the last few days. I think I’ve hit a point in the progression, though, where it feels like just too much to do to make the next crystal thing. I like the game, just not sure I like it enough to plow through all that.
I have been finding it fun, but I don’t know what has changed as I only started playing it today. It could very well be a game to play for a handful of hours then move on, but I think that is perfectly okay.
The ideas in the game might get copied to be the crafting system of an open world RPG or something, and that would be very cool.
I’ve been playing it on my Deck- I picked it up in the last sale, like a week before they announced it was coming to GP. Doh! I didn’t even know they were planning an Xbox port.
That said, I’m glad I picked it up for the mobile. As you mention, I’m finding it neat to just pick up for a bit at a time. The text on the Deck is very tiny, though.
I played all the way through Strange Horticulture on the Deck earlier this year, and so far I’m actually liking PC a fair bit more, for a game with a similar theme. I might not be to the grindy parts yet, though. SH just felt so easy- none of the puzzles or anything were much of a challenge if you were paying attention.
What’s the cheapest way to get GPU now? I remember doing a dollar Gold conversion a long time ago. I currently have a little less than one month of GPU left. Costco has $50 Gold card for 1 year and according to the MS website that converts to 4 months of GPU. So that would be $12.50 per month after the conversion, which seems like a bad deal. Is there a cheaper option?
Buy the Costco card and let your Ultimate run out. Stack more time if you want - the limit is 3 years iirc. Add your Gold to your expired account and pay the $15 to convert to Ultimate at a 1:1 rate.
Thanks for the help. Looks like if I did that it would work out to $165/36 = $4.58 per month of GPU?
Yep, sounds right to me!
What are the best Game Pass games that support cloud streaming + touch controls? Other than Pentiment.
Hrm…I really like:
- Minecraft Dungeons has a good combination of overlays (gameplay) and native touch (menus)
- As Dusk Falls is fully direct touch and works better than on a console IMO (since there’s no virtual mouse cursor)
- Donut County is a super simple fun puzzle game
- Townscaper is more of a chill toy than a “game”, but also has direct touch / no overlay
- Fortnite basically has identical controls to Android and (when it used to be available there) iOS. I don’t play the game much but was surprised at how well it played with touch when I tried it
Just joined the 6% of players who finished Norco. I wonder if the people making it their game of the year were in the 6% or the other 94%. It’s certainly a thing. A thing that I played.
Among its radical ideas is not making me watch a character walk across the screen every time I want to do something. Maybe it’ll catch on.
It’s time to say goodbye:
- the Anacrusis
- Danganronpa 1
- Nobody Saves the World
- Pupperazzi
- Windjammers 2
I liked the first hour of Dangan, so I’ll probably try to finish that, but half the dialogue seems to be useless filler. Any of the others worth playing?
Anacrusis hasn’t left early access yet, I’ve been holding off on trying it.
I love this game. I was hoping for a bigger sale, but maybe it’s time to buy it now? It’s $20 instead of $25 while it’s still on Game Pass. Since it’s a Play Anywhere title, I get both the PC version and Xbox version if I buy this one, instead of on Steam, where I would only get the PC version.
It’s definitely quirky, so I would recommend everyone try it out at least once before it leaves Game Pass. I know some here didn’t like it. The art style also is probably not for everyone but I just… man, the art style of this game just gets me in my bones. Just look at this:
Just the way the leaves are drawn, and the lamp post with the light around it, the little garden hose next to the shed. The flowers on the bush. It’s just all so storybook hand drawn art, mixed with gorgeous colors, you know? Anyway, I realize that’s not for everyone but I just find 100% gorgeous.
Nobody Saves the World is one of my favs of 2022! Definitely worth checking out before it leaves.