Super Adventures with the Xbox Game Pass, Part 3

This week on Super Adventures, I'm still writing about the games I played last November when I bought a month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. I'm up to part 3 now because it turns out you can play a lot of games in one month if you really rush. You probably shouldn't write about them though, because you likely won't have played them enough to come to grips with the gameplay or get a proper impression of the content.

But I'm doing it anyway because I want to show some games off and I'm hoping someone reading these will discover something new they end up playing and loving, even if I didn't love it myself.

You can find part 1 here: Part 1.
And part 2 is here: Part 2.

The final part is coming tomorrow!

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Ape Out

Developer: Gabe Cuzzillo | Release Date: 2019 | Played on: Windows I didn't get on with Ape Out at first, mostly because every time I made it out of the first room I got my ape killed. In fact sometimes I didn't even get that far! The escaped ape you control is more resilient than the average primate but it only takes a few shots before he goes down, and when he's surrounded by three people with guns that speeds up his demise dramatically. The game's a bit of a Hotline Miami where you move with the keyboard and aim your violence with the mouse, except you don't get to pick up guns and it doesn't have music. Well okay to be fair it has a dynamic jazz percussion soundtrack, but I wasn't really into it. In fact it was kind of driving me mad (though I can't say it doesn't suit the stylish Saul Bass-inspired visuals). I started doing better when I got into the habit of grabbing human shields, either to absorb an incoming bullet, or to use as a projectile to make a bloody stain of whatever was hassling me. But you have to do the entire level in one go and your health-meter blood trail only ever gets worse with every hit you take, so an early mistake can really screw you up. It's one of those games where you can play for five minutes and it'll feel like an hour because you're constantly stressed out. The levels aren't all that huge, but on the first stage I suffered something like a dozen ape fatalities before I finally made it to the door at the end. After that though I was flying through it, making it through stage two without a single death. The trick is to ignore the title and play it smart. It's much easier to ambush someone than it is to dodge bullets when you're a slow-ass ape, but if you grab someone they'll fire a shot and maybe alert others, so you've got to pick your battles. Well, except for when the alarms are blaring and enemies are spilling out of doors, then you've just got to leg it. It didn't take long before the difficulty curve caught up with me, but by that point I was playing the game instead of just beating my head against it. There's generally finite enemies with predictable behaviour, so you if you use your brain you can make it to the exit without having ninja ape reflexes. And then immediately start the next level, because whether you win or die there's only seconds before you're back in the action. I wasn't addicted to the game in the way I was with Hotline Miami (which I somehow played long enough to get all the achievements in), but close enough I guess, seeing as I reached the end credits. The game's fun, I like it.

Rage 2

Developer: Avalanche | Release Date: 2019 | Played on: Windows You know what sucks about Rage 2? The way you can accidentally skip important messages. I got trapped in the defibrillation tutorial because I had no idea how to do it correctly, and when I checked online it turns out it's not an uncommon problem. Also I'm sure there's something about the key remap screen I'm not getting, because I can't believe it's really that bad. I gave up on it in the end and left everything on defaults after trying and failing to map my driving and walking controls to the same keys. Everything else has been pretty good so far though! It's from the 'fluorescent pink everywhere' era of post-apocalyptic shooters, like Far Cry: New Dawn, and it's a bit Mad Max except with mechs and superpowers. The movie Mad Max I mean, though possibly the game as well seeing as it's by the same developer. I'd also say that Rage 2 is a bit like Rage, except you've got places to drive to on the map this time. Plus you've got special abilities, the most important one being the ability to walk away from a boring conversation and still get to go do the next mission. Rage felt like a first person shooter made from from pieces of a failed RPG and they did not want to let any of that dialogue they had go to waste, whether you wanted to listen to it or not (no one did). Rage 2, on the other hand, feels like it's the game it wants to be, and it's happy to let you enjoy it your own way. The first game's strength was its genuine id software combat and even though this game's not by id, it still has the right feel to it I reckon. Someone on the team must have played a lot of Doom (2016), either that or they helped make it. The music sounds a bit like Doom as well now that I think about it, and I suppose a brown wasteland is a bit like Mars... I wouldn't put this on Doom's level necessarily, though I enjoyed what I played of it. Enemies can be a bit bullet-spongey (at least when you start out) but headshots and melee kills are satisfying. Vaulting up onto a roof, darting up to someone and telekinetically slamming them backwards is also satisfying. I'm not sure how long I spent playing it, but I most of that time ignoring the story and driving around to tiny outposts with arks instead, so that I might take their powers as my own (after a short tutorial). I also collected a lot of junk and I'm not sure why yet. Health pickups too, as it only regenerates up to a certain point... unless you've activated overdrive. There's a lot of things to activate and upgrade in this and I don't know if there's going to be gameplay gold at the end of that rainbow, but I'm already satisfied with the combat as it is, so I feel like the game can only grow on me. I've put it on my 'games to buy' list anyway.

Super Lucky's Tale

Developer: Playful | Release Date: 2017 | Played on: Xbox One To be honest, 3D platformers aren't really my genre. I'm not saying this to explain why I didn't like Super Lucky's Tale, I'm saying it because it might explain why I did. I don't have that catalogue of classics in my brain to compare it to, so to me it just seems alright. Though the game had me confused at first, as it starts with an intro featuring narration by the hero. I don't mean Lucky, I mean his sister, who's just come back from an adventure with a magic book. It almost feels like a mistake that I ended up playing as Lucky, as his only role in the intro is to show up at the last moment to get sucked into the book. Lucky's not without skills though, as he can double jump and basically swim through the earth like a dolphin swims through water. Plus he runs around on all fours, which is just weird when he's only wearing shoes on half of them. I didn't expect him to run into much of a challenge in this one, it didn't feel like that kind of game, but level two turned out to be a classic 2D stage full of rotating platforms with spikes on one side. The game had me worried here, as I got Lucky killed and when the level restarted I realised he'd lost all his coins. All that cash I'd earned with my diligent platforming and tunnelling, gone because of a single mistake!  I was saving that money so I could buy Lucky his foxy lederhosen from the costume shop! But it turned out that you have a separate coin count in levels and I got all my savings back afterwards! Then I turned it off because I had other games I needed to try.

Thimbleweed Park

Developer: Terrible Toybox | Release Date: 2017 | Played on: PC Thimbleweed Park is basically Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick retconning the 80s to slot in an extra pre-Monkey Island Lucasfilm adventure... inspired by a TV series that didn't air until the 90s. There's more than a bit of Twin Peaks influence here, which pretty much makes this the Deadly Premonition of point and click adventures, with a mysterious murder, a town full of weirdness, and an FBI agent on the case. Actually you control a pair of agents (who look just like Mulder and Scully, and act exactly nothing like them) in addition to a few of the locals. There's five main protagonists in total, each with their own inventory, agenda, and sometimes even their own lines, and you can switch between them at any time like in Maniac Mansion even though they're often walking the same streets. The game's got a vaguely Maniac Mansion look to it as well, but the developers haven't gone for authenticity to archaic hardware limitations at all. The graphics are much more colourful and have layers of parallax, it's fully voiced, and I'm fairly certain the music isn't midi. See, that last shot was basically 420x240 and here it's switched to 640x360; not a typical DOS resolution either way. But I didn't really notice while playing because it always looks right. The interface also feels right if you're used to classic LucasArts adventures, with the box of verbs and inventory items underneath the action, and the game follows the same rules about never letting the player die or get stuck. But it's got modern conveniences like a button to highlight all interactive items, an in-game hint line, a checklist of objectives, and the ability to run. I got a lot of use out of that last one, as there's a ton of walking around in this, especially when you're not sure what you're doing. That's probably at the top of my list of issues actually, though it'd be written down as 'too much walking and also using elevators', as there's a bit later on where you've got several floors of a hotel to visit and it pushed me right to the brink of checking a walkthrough or using a hint because I was so done with it. But I ultimately didn't need any help to finish the game, which has to be a first for me in a point and click adventure. It probably helped that I was playing on the easy mode with fewer puzzles. There's also an option to turn off in-jokes, which kind of demonstrates the game's sense of humour. I was mostly onboard with it, but there were times that the comedy really wasn't working for me, especially everything to do with the suspiciously identical characters with the verbal tics. I wanted to reach into the screen and strangle them. I still do! I hate them so much. I HATE YOU SHERIFF! HATE, HATE! Overall though I liked the game, enough to beat it even, so it gets a strong thumbs up from me. It's clearly made by veteran developers who know what they're doing, and their skill and personality shines through. The ending in particular is extremely Ron Gilbert... though you'd have to decide for yourself whether that's a good thing.

Vambrace: Cold Soul

Developer: Headup | Release Date: 2019 | Played on: Xbox One I have to be honest with you, I quit this game before I really got to the game part and I probably shouldn't have even included it. But they stole Final Fantasy's thing and called two of the main characters in the prologue Biggs and Wedge! How could I not mention that? Plus I had to let you know that the main character has a pickaxe crossbow (which should've been the name of the game instead of Vambrace. Who gives a damn about a vambrace? Pickaxe Crossbow: Cold Soul, way better title). Also I wanted to show off some of the art, because it's damn pretty at times. Trust me on this, I put one of these screenshots into Photoshop and played with the brightness and contrast until I could actually see the level art, and it looked great. It was kind of a relief to learn afterwards that the game got bad reviews, as it makes me look slightly less rubbish for losing all my patience with it during the bit where you run around town chatting to NPCs before the actual gameplay starts. There's just so much text and none of it was grabbing me. I don't necessarily mind when a game has a lot of dialogue, I just said plenty of nice things about Thimbleweed Park, but this was really dragging its feet and doing its best to remove any trace of interest I had in its story of a heroic protagonist trapped in a city cursed to suffer an endless freezing winter. I can at least reveal that it's got a turn-based RPG battle system, with all the on screen buttons in exactly different places to where they are on the controller. People say the combat is incredibly basic and dull, but I didn't get into enough fights to have much to say about it myself. I pressed the button until I won. It looks pretty much the same as this when you're walking around the frozen city ruins outside of battles, except zoomed in a bit so the characters fill the screen. You wouldn't think that'd give you room to do anything but carry on walking to the right, and that does seem to be how it works. The level is made of interconnected rooms, but even if you decided to take a north-facing exit, you'll still be walking to the right when you appear in the next room. It's apparently a roguelite, so you take your expendable team out on an expedition, they all die, you respawn in town and take another team out, and so on. Anyway I don't want to discourage anyone from playing Vambrace, because that wouldn't be fair; I really didn't play it long enough. You should find some proper reviews and let them discourage you.

Yooka-Laylee

Developer: Playtonic | Release Date: 2017 | Played on: Xbox One This one seems a bit like those old Rare games on the N64 like Banjo-Kazooie and Conker's Bad Fur Day and that's exactly what they were going for, so mission accomplished I guess! You've got to go around big open levels full of challenges, collecting quills and butterflies and magical book pages. Though weirdly they never seemed to be in the places I had to work hardest to get to. Hang on, this is an N64 style 3D platformer where you play as an anthropomorphic animal who goes into different worlds via a magical book... how did this and Super Lucky's Tale end up with the same plot? It gets weirder, as both games came out in 2017 and they were both made by a developer with 'Play' in its name. Anyway the reason I wanted to show this game off is because there's a snake wearing pants and that made me smile. In fact he's even called Trouser Snake, and... oh hang on, I get it. Yeah this was definitely made by ex-Rare employees. Really though I'd rather be playing Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair... which isn't on Game Pass right now as far as I'm aware. Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair (PC) Impossible Lair takes a step back in time and homages Donkey Kong Country instead of Donkey Kong 64. Except without the limited lives, so you can bash your head against a section of level for as long as you'd like. It's a bit hard to see in a still screenshot but in motion it looks fantastic, and it plays fantastic, and you can switch each level to a different mode (like water to ice) to go back in and play it differently. Plus there's equippable tonics to adjust gameplay, and a 3D adventure overworld, and... etc.! Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair (PC) To be honest I only meant to put Impossible Lair on for 5 minutes to get a quick screenshot and accidentally played it for two hours straight. Afterwards I put it back on to check something and I think I'm about halfway through now; it'd be fair to say that the 2D game's done a better job of catching my interest. I'm not looking forward to tackling the eponymous Impossible Lair though. You can take it on at any time, but the point of the game is to even the odds so that it's not too difficult, and apparently the best you can do is it get it down to 'bastard hard'. Seems a bit unfair that. Sorry, I wish I had more to say about the original Yooka-Laylee but I've already forgotten everything I did in the game. I'm sure a Banjo-Kazooie fan would find parts of it fun and nostalgic, but like I mentioned it's never been my genre.

CONCLUSION

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I've written about another six games and now I feel compelled to decide which were my top three. Well Ape Out and Thimbleweed Park seem like obvious candidates, seeing as I completed both of them but maybe Vambrace: Cold Soul has started to grow on me... No, no I don't think it has. I can't really judge Super Lucky's Tale or Yooka-Laylee because I barely played them so, my top three is:

1. Ape Out
2. Rage 2
3. Thimbleweed Park

Honestly, after ten minutes of Ape Out I was ready to quit and move onto something less terrible. After half an hour I started to see the appeal, and after a couple more hours I'd finished and was replaying the post-game bonus level over and over trying to get more than a quarter of the way through. I feel like I can judge my interest in a game by how eager I am to keep playing after losing a life, and I had to be talked into quitting Ape Out. The other two games I expected to like from the start, seeing as one's an open world first person shooter and the other's by the guy who did Monkey Island, but it was nice to be proven right. I'm putting Rage 2 just a little ahead of Thimbleweed though, because it didn't frustrate me as much.

I feel like I should point out that all the games here have gotten good Metacritic and Steam scores, but they haven't actually this time. Only Thimbleweed Park and Ape Out have made it to the 80s, and Super Lucky's Tale and Vambrace: Cold Soul are way down around the 60s, due to Lucky's simplicity and lack of originality, and Vambrace's bad story and gameplay. Plus Rage 2's taken a real hammering in its user scores due to bugs, a bland open world and a mediocre story. Perhaps I just didn't play it long enough to reach the bit where it gets boring and breaks.

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Thanks for reading! Come back tomorrow for the final set of games, then come back next week for an actual full-length post about one game that you may or may not care about.

Though before you go, you should leave a comment. I covered six games this time, so that means it's six times more likely you'll have something to say about one of them. That's how maths works, right? You could also have a guess at what one or more of the next games is going to be (there's seven of them!)