Six of the Best - Xbox Game Pass

The new generation of consoles is here and currently, there are not many games for them. However, if you have the Xbox Series X or S, you have the benefit of Xbox Game Pass. Over the past few years, this has become the big selling point of having an Xbox and while I have complex feelings on the disappearance of game ownership, it's still a pretty incredible value prospect. Much like Netflix, you pay a monthly subscription fee and get unlimited access to a huge suite of games, for as long as you continue to pay your membership fees. Strangely, it also comes with a "Surprise Me" button which allows you to get randomly recommended a game. Seeing as there appears to be absolutely nothing else happening at the moment, I'm playing six random video games for your enjoyment!

Let me quickly set out the rules. I picked six games using the "Surprise Me" button and played them all for at least 15 minutes. I don't have an Xbox Series X, I have a humble little Xbox One, but it can still play most of the stuff on Game Pass. All of these games will be getting my full attention, with no skipping of cutscenes or listening to a podcast in the background. I won't be ranking them, just talking about how I felt about playing them. Also, with the recent addition of EA Play to Game Pass, I've randomly chosen one game from there too, to see what that adds to the service. I think that's all the technical stuff, so let's play some games!

1. Journey to the Savage Planet

My first game was Journey to the Savage Planet, a first person, space exploration game. It has a similar setup to Pikmin, for those who are familiar with that game, in that you're an explorer who crashes on a random planet while attempting to find new life and resources out in space. Unlike Pikmin though, this has an explicitly satirical edge and it's very clear that the corporation who have sent you out into the great abyss are completely corrupt and incompetent. Sometimes it was a little too heavy handed and obvious for me, but I'm someone who has written essays on the corrupting influence of late capitalism, so I understand that we're probably not dealing with Frederic Jameson level stuff here. Anyway, the gameplay consists of a mix of shooting things and collecting things, which the tutorial explains to you unfortunately slowly. I found the pace a little frustrating, though I can certainly see the appeal in it. In many ways, it feels a lot like the gameplay loop of No Man's Sky, though with less emphasis on exploration. I think the setup is cool, the visuals were really interesting and the potential is there but to be honest, once my fifteen minutes were done, I was done. I can't see myself playing this game again, but I'm glad to have tried it.

2. Totally Accurate Battle Simulator

I'm terrible at strategy games, but the fun of Totally Accurate Battle Simulator is that (as the title cheekily implies) it doesn't take itself very seriously. I do have a quick confession, I actually own this game on my PC, I got it as a freebie a little while back, so I knew what I was getting into. However, this was my first time playing it on a console and I can easily say... I don't recommend it at all, actually. The controls are super clunky and though I know my TV isn't the best size or quality, I found all the on-screen prompts incredibly difficult to read. Plus, just like with the PC version, the gimmick of seeing silly men wave their hands around at each other until they fall over wears off quick (as in, within my fifteen minute time limit) and then what you're left with is a strategy game where victory feels random. If you're interested, take my word that watching a YouTube video or two will be more than enough fun for you, unless you're gathering some mates around a TV for this. It does feel like Game Pass is the right place for it, because you probably won't use it past the first half hour and as a quick install and delete job, you won't be too mad at the time spent.

3. Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales

With Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales, I found myself very out of my depth. You see, I appear to be the one Gamer left who hasn't played any The Witcher game, nor have I read any of the books or seen the show. High fantasy just isn't really my jam, so I've never attempted to get into that world. I also don't really dig card battling games, aside from the exemplary Slay the Spire, also on Game Pass. As such, you may not be surprised to hear that this card battling game set in the world of The Witcher was not for me. Still, to compliment it, I really enjoy the animation style of this game, which totally sets it apart from the core games in the franchise and certainly catches the eye. That's as far as my compliments go though, because it's a mix of resource management mechanics (the bane of modern gaming as far as I'm concerned) and an incredibly overwhelming battle system that differentiates itself from other card games by being almost impenetrable. If you're into the world or you just love card games, I can see how you might love this. For me though, it just hit all the notes of things I don't enjoy in games, which is the fault of no one involved really. Outside of this blog, I would never have tried it and having now tried it, I don't think I'll jump back in.

4. Yakuza 0

Finally, I'm going to get to pump a bit of positivity into this post. The unfortunate reality of a random choice of games is that many won't be for me, but then the great side is that sometimes, I get games that completely knock me out. Yakuza 0 is one of those games. I'd heard a bunch about the Yakuza series before, but it never seemed like it was for me. There was just too much stuff going on and too much strangeness, all in a presentation style that just didn't vibe with me. That was how I felt before playing it, but it's fair to say my preconceptions changed once I actually got into it. Suddenly, I got the appeal of this crazy world and perhaps it's just because the last few years of homogenous open world games have worn me down, but a game that felt this different immediately made a mark on me. I barely even got to play the game itself, because of how many weird cutscenes I had to get through first, but I never wanted to skip a single one of them. By the time my experience was ending, I was researching the franchise and looking for the best game to enter the franchise through (the consensus, fortunately, is this game). Of all the new games I've covered today, Yakuza 0 was the only one that I feel I'll definitely return to, because it felt unique and cheesy and just plain fun, in ways that nothing else recently has.

5. EA Sports UFC

Fighting games are not really my thing, in case you were worried I haven't used this phrase enough today. I've enjoyed a little bit of Mortal Kombat in my time, whose gory showmanship remains totally unmatched to this day, but more conventional series like Street Fighter or Tekken are just not for me. There's too much emphasis on combo learning for them to feel immediately fun, though they at least offer a little bit of catharsis for button mashers like myself. EA Sports UFC does not offer that catharsis. Instead, it sits you through an absurdly long tutorial that has 16 steps, all of which look ripped from the pages of the Karma Sutra, before unleashing you into your first fight. Perhaps I didn't pay enough attention to every step of the process, but I had my shiny bottom thoroughly handed to me instantly, as every button I pressed seemed to no longer do the thing the tutorial promised me they would. I was kicked back out to the main menu, greeted by the UFC chairman, who I felt was maybe two seconds away from telling me how I can pay £20 to watch one of his terrible UFC matches this weekend. I quit the game pretty much straight away. I have not been happier to delete a game from my console in quite some time. There's good stuff on EA Play, but something tells me their sport selection, which bulks up so much of the subscription, is not where I want to spend my time.

6. Minecraft Dungeons 

I was supposed to play Minecraft Dungeons, but it crashed on me three separate times. I've played it before and wasn't super excited to get back into it, so instead of fighting through the crashes, I decided to end this post on some positivity, by covering a game from Game Pass that I absolutely adore. That game is...

6. Minecraft Dungeons Spiritfarer

I love Spiritfarer so, so, so much. I played a demo of it on Steam earlier in the year and found its mix of stunning hand drawn animation, menial busywork and intensely powerful melodrama irresistible. Having now had a chance to play the full game, it is safe to say I still adore it. The premise is that you are Stella, a woman taking over the position of Spiritfarer from Charon. Your job is to look after a selection of animals on your boat, until they're ready to pass over to the other side. That means the game has two components, which are immaculately weaved together. First, there is the collection side, which involves you tending to your farms, doing chores on your boat and sailing to new islands to find treasure, seeds or ore. It has a satisfying kind of gameplay loop that reminded me of Stardew Valley, in that you always have "just one more thing" you need to do before you quit the game. 

The other side is the intensely human part, in which you talk to these animals, hear their trauma and get to hug them. There aren't many games that have a designated hug button, but you'll be glad for it in Spiritfarer, because you know these relationships can't last. Eventually, your passengers will ask to be taken to the other side, where they will have their final confession, say goodbye and give you one last hug before they disappear. So far, I've done this for three of my passengers and each time, the emotion hit me like a freight train. Spiritfarer is genuinely the first video game to make me cry in ten years and it feels completely earnt. It has become one of those games that I am either playing or wishing I was playing and though I probably would have bought it eventually, having it on Game Pass meant I could dive in immediately, with no question as to whether the money spent would be worth the experience.

I'm sorry, this hasn't been the greatest summary of what Game Pass has to offer. Though many of the games I've shown you haven't appealed to me, this service has housed other games that I have totally adored. To list just some, there's Minecraft, My Friend Pedro, Nier: Automata, Outer Wilds, Slay the Spire, Peggle, Skate 3, Titanfall 2, What Remains of Edith Finch and of course, Tetris Effect: Connected. As I hinted earlier, I would worry if game ownership completely disappeared, because access to these games is limited by the fact that you always need to be paying this membership and hoping that your favourite games remain on the service. However, if even one or two games from the already vast collection stand out to you, I would recommend trying Game Pass. Nier: Automata is a great example of why it works, because it's a game I might not have bought myself but that I fell in love with, completing it within a month and (without wanting to give away the end) reaching a point where I was happy to step away from the game for the foreseeable future. I don't know if Game Pass is the future of gaming, but it's an experiment I am enjoying taking part in and I'd encourage you to take part too.