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

@HarmanSmith Welcome welcome. Happy gaming.

@themightyant haha I think I'm dead to myself. I think I do have a cut off point where I will say I'm done with avengers...

1. Finish all single player mission chains
2. Unlock enough free premium currency to erm, unlock some erm, outfits for erm, Widow and Mighty Thor
3. Unlock enough free premium currency to "buy" the hero challenge cards for the DLC heroes which will allow me to unlock more premium currency in future should I ever return to the game for a future update

Then I'm done. I swear to Odin, then I'll be done. I hope.

On a somewhat related note, I watched Thor Four: Down by the Sea Shore again today on D+. Enjoyed it much more the second time around, wicked film! I do love me some Jane Foster/Mighty Thor!

Glad you had a good hols mate, sounds like you had a nice break from what seems to have become tabloid news for gaming. I feel like a lot of it has just gone over my head really. I just don't have the head space for more doom and gloom (well I have headspace for id Software's Doom but that's not what we are talking about here! 😅).

I'm not saying that my favourite trio (well I suppose it's a foursome now, uhh or like a trio with four sites at least) have become tabloids (I still love these sites). Just that the gaming industry seems to be producing so much tabloid level material to be reported on and like with regular news that is presented in such a way to get a rise out of and polarise its audience, it just washes over me and I simply can't care about it. My pitchfork remains firmly in the corner of my shed gathering dust. Metaphorically of course, I own neither a pitchfork nor a shed.

@HarmanSmith heya! Added to the tag list 👍

Welcome to the club!

@LtSarge wicked, have added that to the list. That Amnesia collection was a PS Plus game way back when and I never had time to play it unfortunately (3 games!). Maybe I'll pick it up if it's still on sale since I no longer have a PS Plus sub (nor a GPU sub at the moment for that matter)

One game I've been planning to play for years is that Alien Isolation actually. Should really buy it at some point I suppose as the DLC isn't included in Game Pass

@ralphdibny I don't think Alien Isolation had any meaty DLC, just some extra missions ranging around 20-30 minutes long from the looks of it. So you can probably just play the main game without worrying about missing out on much.

I've crossed the 20 hour mark with Immortals and honestly, the game is getting kinda stale now. The combat is my main issue, it just doesn't feel as exciting as the open world Assassin's Creed games. Odyssey for example had really cool powers like being able to throw your spear and teleport to enemies up to three times in a row. Or an AOE attack which blasts enemies away. The powers in immortals don't feel that satisfying to use. The hammer for example sounds awesome on paper but it doesn't pack a punch as much as I want it to. The bird and the spears are meh. It's just too bad that there aren't other powers in the game to spice up the combat. I just perform the same combo every time, which is three light attacks, one heavy attack and then I hold the heavy attack for a massive finisher. That's it. The combat is just not fun or varied anymore.

The puzzles in the game are also getting a bit samey now. Move boxes here, shoot an arrow there. I think the issue is that puzzles show up too often that they become repetitive after a while. Compare them to the ones in BotW where they were few and far between. I guess that's the advantage of having a bigger, albeit emptier world. You look forward to these things more that way.

Still enjoying the exploration and story though, but combat is a complete dud now.

I have just started Immortals, seems really good so far. Not sunk too much time in it, I am currently using it as my Rewards Daily Achievement game, so have stopped playing as soon as I have unlocked an achievement. Once I finish Command and Conquer 3 and Kanes Wrath, I will make this my primary game.

I really like the narration, some of the jokes about the gods are quite funny ( although if you don't know much about the Greek Myths, I can see them going over your head, they are definitely assuming you have a qualification in Classics). It's a breath of fresh air for Ubisoft.

EDIT:

Seen there is a horror game called Visage on Game Pass that I have heard good things about it. Might fit in with October spooky theme.

@LtSarge we have similar feelings about it , I did not played for the whole week and today I started ignoring most of the spots and focusing only on the main quests as I am getting quite bored with it.

Regardless of that I am now done with the second God and moving to a new area.

I will be on leave with no access to Xbox from the 22nd until early next month so I have about 10ish days to finish it which should be plenty as long I don't put another game ahead of it.

@Balta666 Yeah I think I'll be doing the same. Although I am starting to enjoy the combat more now that I've been upgrading the powers and implementing them more in battles. The abundance of puzzles is still a problem though and the rewards for clearing them are not worth the hassle in a lot of cases. Really wish they could've cut down on them so that they don't become repetitive over time.

I mean, I'm almost done with the second god as well with a playtime of 20 hours and I can't imagine having to do the same puzzles for another 20 hours.

@LtSarge yep, I finished the first God area around 15h (having completed almost everything in it), but I am now done with the second one at under 19h. I feel I am already ready to beat the final boss if i want as I have my light attack at maximum, have enough potions and arrows, and enough combo technics (I rely mostly on the combo that have Spears coming from the ground that stun enemies with buffs to both attack and health games after it).

Another God quest completed and unlocked the map on the 4th one. And I need a break. Got to a point where I am even skipping all dialogue.

Is there any way to bypass the mandatory Ubisoft Connect screen for Xbox Gamepass version? I cannot play this game, as the Ubisoft Connect screen comes up straight away forcing me to create a Ubisoft account. Don't Ubisoft have the foresight to include a 'B' button to cancel it altogether?

@SingleStooge you can't as far as I aware. You will have to create an account if you don't have one already.

I have finish the story last night (altough it is the first time I finish a game and no credits roll... (But I definitely finish it as I unlocked new game plus).

It is an ok game that I cannot being myself to like that much. I will say something that you have heard before from many. I tend to not play Ubisoft open world games (played a bit of AC and AC 2 back in the day, 5/6h of odyssey until got bored and probably that is it as I never played FarCry or the other with hacking) and this one altough on a smaller scale it has similar issues that they build their world's with quantity over quality and everything in the long run feels samey and dull.
I almost bought it last year when a physical copy was 60% off on switch and I am happy I did not.

Then there's no hope, for you. lol

I felt they 100% deliberately made some of those unlocks RIDICULOUSLY grindy to try and promote the end game, it's impossible to do the above without getting pretty deep into it. Rarely has a game felt so stingy. I disliked that part of it so much it made me like the main game even less. But i'm glad you and some of the other good folks here have enjoyed it far more than I did.

Not seen Thor Four yet but will soon, I can't keep up, may need to retire and become a full time media player!

Agreed on the tabloid journalism of gaming here and elsewhere, I think it's primarily because it has become a 24/7 news cycle powered by clicks and engagement so they feel they HAVE to make a post and speculate about even the smallest little whiff of a leak. Jeff Grubb farts and it's news, it's quite sad really. We have announcements, of announcements of announcements, often spoiling any sense of surprise in doing so.

Worse, as you said, it's deliberately tribalistic to incite and divide in order to gain clicks and engagement. And i'm part of the problem to be honest. I take the bait all too often, like a moth to flame, and should really duck out, but it's hard.

That aside I've actually been enjoying some of the more delayed gaming news formats recently e.g. I still subscribe to EDGE magazine, This week in Videogames by SkillUp, and the HitPoints newsletter by Nathan Brown (formerly Editor of EDGE). The common thread is that they are all allowed time to breathe, are far better written, only concentrate on the bigger news, and with the benefit of time can have their finger on the pulse a little better than the kneejerk first to press tabloid equivalents.

P.S. Not going to get round to Immortals this month, but I do want to play it and will add my thoughts later... Hopefully this year if I can get to after Genshin 3.0, Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Immortality and before God of War: R... OK next year it is then.

Happy gaming.

I love appreciating people and things that aren't appreciated as much because they are compared with others. In this case, Immortals Fenyx Rising is becoming one of the games of the cross-generation for me, just like State of Decay 2 or Final Fantasy XV. The latter has no current gen version but it's one of my most played games on Xbox One X.

Hey guys. I tried Immortals, was very hyped about it, and for the most part, I liked it, but I have one problem with it. And I know it's probably just me, but here it is: it drives me nuts having so many things to do and not being able to do them because you lack X ability or Y upgrade. I normally like to do as most optional stuff as possible before jumping to the main story. But I can't do that here.
I know I should just change my mindset and way of playing it since it's obviously not meant to be played how I want to, buy my question is:

Is there some specific part of the story when I will be able to do all the side suff? Or at least most of it? Because if that's the case I could just continue the story until I reach that part, do all the side stuff I want and then continue the story whenever I want.
Thanks in advance, people!

@Lup I totally understand what you mean, that is how i like to play a game normally as well. This game is designed a bit differently. For certain vaults or puzzles you need certain god powers, which sometimes you have to unlock in other zones that are basically deeper in the story. So the game basically expects you to leave those puzzles until you unlocked those godly powers. One thing though,to acquire the godly powers you need Coins of Charon which you can only get by doing Myth challenges. So you still have to do some side stuff when unlocking the powers to do the locked puzzles/vaults

One good thing is that the game tells you when you can't complete something and even tells you to leave an area where enemies are too strong. @Lup, climb the big statue in Valley of Eternal Spring if you haven't already and complete the side quests that appear on the map in order to upgrade the godly powers, weapons, life and stamina. Get inside the vaults, too.

@Lavalera
That sounds like trouble haha. I guess I'll have to change my mindset after all. It's a little a difficult after so many years of playing the same way but I'll do it.
I need to get back to Yakuza too. Geez, so many games.

@Banjo- I think I actually did that, the problem is I found a lot of vaults I couldn't do for lack of X godly power. I'll just advance a bit more with the main story I guess.

Thanks guys!

@Lup That's one of the criticisms I brought up a while back about this game. You can't have an open world game that's about exploration if you're restricted by your powers. It's in this case that the Assassin's Creed and Breath of the Wild formulas clash with each other and end up worsening the experience as a whole. There's no amount of excuses you can make up in order to defend this (like the game telling you what powers you need in an area), this shouldn't happen in the game at all. It's that simple. If you're going to make a clone of BotW, then do it right!

@LtSarge

I have no idea how Breath of the Wild plays to be honest. I was never a fan of Zelda and not really a Nintendo guy.
But in the last few AC games (I have to play Valhalla yet) the only restriction you have is your level, and normally whole regions are divided by level so you can't do all the activities but you normally have a few regions you can tackle. I don't have a problem with that to be honest. You level up fairly quickly so it's not a problem. There's no "skills" you need to complete X side activity and if you want the extra challenge you can go to areas that are a few levels higher than your own. I always felt a lot of freedom.
I don't know if the restriction comes from the Zelda inspiration or not, but... Yeah, it's not my favorite part of the game, that's for sure.

@Lup You'll be alright once you progress the story a bit, meet and help the first god (goddess) and complete some of the available objectives and side quests in Valley of Eternal Spring. Give the game some time and I think that you'll enjoy it.

I didn't get stuck, I guess I was lucky. There was a vault that told me I needed a certain godly power to open a chest and, in the beginning, while exploring a far away area in Clashing Rocks, I was told that the enemies are too strong, so I teleported myself back.