Topic: Pure Xbox Game Club Double Bill - Banjo-Kazooie / Solar Ash (Apr)

So as sort of a tradition I am the first picking on the month's and I am done with it .
I finish the story yesterday and only have to come back to find a few collectibles I missed for easy 1000 points.

This is a kind of game I cannot see myself paying more than 5/10€ as it does not provide gameplay but regardless I enjoy them whenever I have the chance. The final chapter was odd and I found the last plot twist to not make much sense in terms of dates but overall I Absolutely enjoyed the game. Alex is a very good protagonist and in general all characters are well written and developed if you go your way to know them.
Fortunately I managed to get a good ending so I am not compeled to play it again for other endings.

P.s: a bummer was that the game glitched on me by the end and did not show the percentage of each choice in the final two chapters

For next month my votes go to:

Conker's and yoku's island express

@Balta666 I can totally see your point about not wanting to pay much for this kind of game. I think i paid around 30 euros for it on a sale and even though i liked the game very much i wont pay full price for it.
Even though it has a high replayability and the content that is offered is pretty good, it is a good game for gamepass or in a sale. Part 2 i got for around 12 euros or something i have yet to play part 1, waiting for a good sale on the remaster of it or if it comes to gamepass hopefully.

@FraserG oh jeez, the big leagues! I really appreciate the offer but I'm on the fence 😅. I would definitely have said yes if I wasn't already working 5 days a week and had more free time for the extra admin that more participants in the game club would add. Having said that, it would be awesome to have the thread put on the front page and for the work and the game club community to be recognised!

I suspect I may have to put this to a vote. I'll whip up some pros and cons and see what the rest of the thread thinks...

I've sent you an add and message on Xbox, just to let you know. Hope all is well with you and I will let you know the outcome of the vote! Cheers again 😃

@Lavalera @Balta666 Thanks for the kind words on the review. Definitely would like a sequel, it ticked a lot of good boxes. I did flip flop between a higher score for the highs but ultimately marked it down. 7.5 is still a good score for me.

Balta666 you hell beast, already finished again! Whereas i'm always cutting it so fine. lol. Yoku's Island Express is a brilliant little game, I wouldn't mind replaying that actually if it gets the votes.

@ralphdibny If you ever need help with admin or anything i'm sure some of us can help. Even if it's going through the thread, totalling up the votes etc. "You don't have to do it alone, we work better as a team" - Peter Quill lolololo

@ralphdibny I make @themightyant my words too. Happy to help with the admin if needed. IMO the more the merrier!

@themightyant @Balta666 cheers for the offer peeps. I was struggling to think about how sharing responsibility could work without like adding eachother on something off-forum (like Xbox or a social media) to discuss. I'm not to keen on revealing my gamertag/real name to too many people on here based on what I have heard from the experience of others. I don't mind doing it with a few people though but I wouldn't want to unfairly burden just a few people because of my own desire for privacy.

Having said that, even a vote tally assist every now and again and could be done in-thread. Feels a bit lame for me to even ask for that sort of thing. You'd sort of just think it's just like, put out one post a month to announce the game, edit that post a few times to get the tally but it seems like much more hard work than it sounds. I think it's just because I'm so busy all the time.

I don't think I make it easy for myself by doing it all on my phone either. Which means I sort of have to look at posts > edit > look at posts > edit as I can't open multiple windows. If we go ahead with the front page promotion and get a lot of extra traffic then I am thinking of changing it to spending half hour on the computer every weekend instead (despite working in IT, I don't spend a huge amount of time sitting on the computer in my free time 😅) Unfortunately PX/PS/NL are all blocked on my work internet so I can't do it there! 😅

I'll get this vote post ready now and see what the wider community thinks.

@Tothington91 @MAC26 @XBontendo @Justifier @LtSarge @Tjuz @nessisonett @crippyd @Krzzystuff @sib @Ryu_Niiyama @LeanerFasterStronger @cracked_seal @Mr-Fuggles777 @Mundaney @KilloWertz @Beagle @antifyre @Magabro @themightyant @ZeD @K1LLEGAL @Balta666 @Bmartin001 @Banjo- @R1spam @lookupmore @Dusk_Actual @Royalblues @Lavalera

Hi all,

Fraser has very kindly offered to promote our Game Club on the main site. Being the total Ent that I am (sorry, possibly obscure lord of the rings reference there), I couldn't just say yes without a lot of deliberation and a democratic vote from the community.

I have thought of a few pros and cons to this which I will list here. As always, when you cast your vote, if you can think of any additional pros and cons then please add them to your comment -even if it doesn't necessarily agree with your actual vote!

Pro extra traffic! New faces means new votes, new game suggestions and perhaps a more diverse selection. It also means more discussion with a wider range of opinions. I think we do a really good job in this thread of just doing what we want, thinking what we think and saying what we want to say without judging or being nasty to others who do those exact same things but in their own way with their own opinions.

Con extra traffic... I think anecdotally, it's been said that the overall atmosphere of the comment sections is quite different to the forums. It can be more reactionary, more social media-like and can paint otherwise normal people in a poor light when their opinion becomes distilled down to a single comment. I don't have the power to ban unsavoury types and I'm not sure I would even want that power within the context of this community effort.

Pro it's just awesome. We are being recognised for doing something that we love doing. It might be a bit soppy to say but I am actually really proud of this thread and everybody's contribution to it even if it might not seem like a remarkable thing when we are actually doing it. I love the chats, both on topic and off topic. I love the wide range of differing opinions that people have and that it's OK to have those differing opinions. It feels like an atmosphere and community spirit that has been sadly and slowly disappearing in other areas both on and offline in recent years.

Con more work for me 😅. I don't necessarily mind it but I have thought of a few ways that I could automate my role in this thread or just make it easier on myself. My administrative-style posts might become a bit less personal, they may have less pomp and circumstance surrounding the wording. The HLTB stats might get lost and I guess also, as it's happened before, my posts may be a bit later or earlier than the first day of the month. If we decide to go ahead with the promotion then I will see what I can and can't keep up with as the months go by... Of course, we might not get any new takers and our little bubble might stay exactly as it is 😅

Ok so now is your chance to vote. Should be easier to do with only two options. Either:

Yes! - Open the floodgates, let everyone in! This utopic game club is for everyone to enjoy!

Or

No! - Stay back I say! I won't hesitate to use this!

@ralphdibny I have pretty much voted before so it is a YES!.

Indeed we can have some nasty comments once in a while but the ignore button exists for a reason and I think this can help the club and purexbox to get some more movement.

I agree with the guys above. Lets try it and see if it works out. There are enough offers to help if needed

@ralphdibny I agree with the comments above, let's try it. Initially for a month and if there's too many negative or helpfully comments then we can scale it back a bit. Also willing to give a helping hand if needed. I vote Yes

My votes for next month are Dead Space and Mass Effect 1 LE. Trek to Yomi looks interesting but I want to see what the review are before I vote on it.

@themightyant great review also. The fridge thing I completely missed that at the end! Great article by Eurogamer too on it

@ralphdibny I haven't participated for a while because I let my GP sub lapse, so not sure if my vote counts anymore, but I do still read the thread to see others thoughts on the games - and I'd join in if I happen to own the game. Always interested to read opinions on the chosen game is so I'd vote Yes.

@ralphdibny I'm tentatively a Yes! Open the floodgates... but don't want to add to your workload. I also like the mini-community we have here, but feel gaming is about inclusivity, more the merrier, hopefully.

I had a few ideas that may help alleviate your workload, just spitballing so feel free to shoot them down.

Would it help if Pure Xbox created a poll each month to vote for next months game? Potentially in the post they mentioned. @FraserG would that be possible in theory? This would auto tally the votes, potentially with the caveat "add the game you want in the comments if not listed". @ralphdibny would that help or hinder?

Also are there other ways WE can help e.g. are there specific tasks that are hard or tedious like tracking who wants to be on the at list or what games are mentioned for next month, or HLTB stats. I'm sure we could find a way to do this without sharing IRL deets, which I agree is a bad idea. The fact you manage all this on phone is well... quite barmy!

I realise some of that may be relinquishing some control which you may want to do, but if there's anything we can do to help let us know, it isn't an empty offer.

Lastly you should be proud of getting us all in line every month and creating a mini-community here that it almost always positive and a place to come together celebrate our shared passion. As Ali G said to Buzz Aldrin. "Big up yourself."

@themightyant Yeah, that's definitely possible if you want to do it that way, but again keep in mind that opening up the poll to everyone who reads the website means you might get some people just clicking buttons without actually having any intention of getting involved, and essentially skewing the vote.

My original idea was just to do a simple article every month detailing the game that's been picked and how to get involved if you're interested (linking to the forum), and maybe providing one or two sample quotes from the previous month so people can get an idea of the kind of discussion that takes place.

@FraserG I'll be honest I didn't even think of that. We would probably be playing Hannah Montana next, chalk it up as a terrible idea!

Thanks for the support.

@themightyant I think @FraserG has summarised my thoughts on that too. I imagine users may not even come through to the forum itself and just say what they think of the game in the article comments 😅

Didn't there used to be a way for users to create polls in threads? I'm sure I've seen it before on maybe NL but it was a long time ago. I could be completely wrong though.

Cheers for the extra thoughts though MightyAnt. I reckon the tallying is probably the most tedious bit because it involved trawling through comments, remembering what's been said, editing the post again and again. Like I say, I do make it hard for myself by doing it on my phone and from memory 😅. Even a handwritten list would probably make that job easier for me

Haha is there even a Hannah Montana game on Xbox

@dmcc0 your definitely still part of this! I haven't played one of the games in ages myself either!

I'd even take votes from some of the mythical and unseen users in the tag list to be honest.

Don't pretend you haven't 1000 Gamerscored this classic
https://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/hannah-montana-the-m...

I'd be more than happy to go through and tally them all each month if it helps, updating the count from time to time. On PC with trusty Notepad wouldn't take me long at all, you could then do the reveal at the right time.