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

Hey, at least two people will finish it. Seems about 50/50 for people giving up on it (I did) and people actually finishing it.

@KilloWertz was a pretty good turnout for people playing this month's game though!! Even if not everyone finishes it

I'm on level 2 of the Eden tower now. I cleared up 50+ prisms on the map before going into the place where you get the final ally and I was about level 22. I'm level 24 now I think. Enemies on this level are still kicking my butt though, just because they all come in at once

Also, I did some of the DLC before coming here (need to be a certain level to progress) but I got all these great gun upgrades from the DLC levels that are really useful in the main game, particularly a charge shot that can pierce armour so I don't have to find a weakspot on them chromed enemies!

@ralphdibny That is true. A decent amount of people tried it at least. Maybe next month's will be a better experience.

I still plan on playing it once or twice more, but mainly because I was really close to an achievement or two before I stopped. Hey, at least it helped with achievement points.

@KilloWertz yeah it's decent, I think I have almost 800GS out of the available 1500! Got 2 more floors of Eden tower to go and the last bit of DLC

I know the flow of the game was broken for a lot of people but their experiences have really helped me prepare for what needs to be done. I haven't found the game a slog to get through, it is a bit of an average game but I've not found it too annoying as others have. It's probably because I know what's coming though!

@ralphdibny You're partially welcome, even though my now arch enemy (kidding, kind of) Sarge did most of the work.

@KilloWertz haha, everyone who played it did really. Everyone's, tips, thoughts and experiences helped. It's the good thing about game club, just helps us all get through it with a shared experience. Feel a bit bad I left it so late to start but you know, real life and all that!

@ralphdibny Still getting it in well under the "deadline", so no big deal obviously.

Did we ever decide what next month's game will be for sure?

@KilloWertz Psychonauts is looking very likely... Here is the full votes breakdown so far

Perfect Dark - 3 and a possible (sarge, krzstf, myself, (possible klwtz))
Crysis - 2 (sarge, myself)
Quantum Break - 2 (klwtz, myself)
Mirror's Edge - 3 (sarge, mrfgls, myself)
Psychonauts - 5 (sarge, krzystf, mrfgls, klwtz, myself)
Batman Season 1 - 1 (sarge)

Psychonauts looks like a goer for next month.

I'm going to drop the games with 2 or less votes for next month's voting so it will either be Perfect Dark (and/or PD 0) or Mirrors Edge 1 (and/or 2) for August unless some other ideas gain more traction!

@ralphdibny I actually want to suggest another game for August: A Plague Tale. Seeing as how it's received a sequel that will also come out on Game Pass day one, I would love to check out what this series is all about. Not to mention that the game has been on GP for over a year now and the probability that it will leave GP soon is very high. So I think it would be a good idea to check it out sooner rather than later.

I've played ReCore previously so haven't been participating and I am on the tower too. I can't remember where I got to but it was absolutly handing me my rear on a plate. I had given up hope of finishing it but I may have another crack if I get round to it.
Been playing Crackdown 3 over the last couple of weeks and I'm really enjoying that (as I did the other 2) and collecting all the orbs is a challenge and fun/frustrating in equal measure.

@LtSarge nice one, I'll stick it up with the others for consideration!! It's another asobo game though 😅. Shouldn't be a mark against it as it looks like they also did flight simulator which is highly rated

@crippyd ahh it's annoying but I think levelling up is the best way to do it, you can fast travel out of the Eden tower and back. I found just going around doing dungeons and collecting prismatic cores seemed to level me up naturally

Level 2 of Eden tower was hardest for me in terms of combat too. I don't know why but that last arena on that level was a real struggle. It was moderately easier after that

I've been meaning to check out the crackdown games too, even though they are quite far down my priority list. I've got the first two for free off the MS store and I actually bought the third one for £3 in Argos the other day (even though it's on game pass 😅)

Just watching the credits now! Going to go and do the last few dungeons and the DLC now. I'm not going to 100% everything but I will at least try and complete it and see everything

Looking forward to Psychonauts for July as I was likely to play it at some point anyway.

As for August, I'd vote for Mirrors Edge over Perfect Dark: I've played a bit of PD0 and didn't think much of it. Would also be up for A Plague Tale as an alternative.

@dmcc0 nice one!! I'll start the votes from zero when we switch games in July so may ask for your votes again. Just keeps things up to date if people drop off the face of the earth between now and then if you know what I mean 😅

Ok I have now finished all I'm going to do on ReCore. I had 67 prismatic cores at the end, Joules was level 32 and the robot buddies were either level 31 or 32. 19 hours 45 mins playtime total. I did most of the dungeons I could find (not 100%) except one that requires 75 prisms to enter. I've done the DLC too.

I think I thought the game was alright in the end, worth playing just to try it out. Big combination of genres and genre tropes here which I think have been mentioned. Collect-a-thon, looter shooter, 3rd person shooter, 3D platformer etc etc

Story was a bit sappy and predictable and there was a bit too much of it considering how generic it is.

Game is clearly influenced by Borderlands but with more of a focus on platforming.

Graphics were a bit rubbish (playing on One X on a rubbish old 1080p TV though as I'm away from home)

Not sure how much else there is to say about it really!

@ralphdibny You thought there was too much story? I personally thought there was too little. I mean, there's only about 20 minutes of cut-scenes in the game, lol.

And if you disregard all the side content (i.e. no progression locks), you're probably looking at a 5 hour game tops. It's definitely a heavily padded game.

I would've absolutely enjoyed it more if the developer had focused on expanding the story a lot more. Because the setting is very interesting but there is just not that much happening throughout the story. Very few events, characters and not even that much character development. After you get your companions the game pretty much makes you forget about them. Would've liked to see more touching moments between them and Joule, e.g. maybe she fell into a hole and one of the companions saved here with their ability. Maybe some settlements with more people for some variety and so on.

This game definitely had some good ideas like the combat but they weren't executed properly enough.

@LtSarge haha yeah I think it's just because what story there is is just a bit sappy, generic and lame. There's all the audio logs as well that contribute to it. Lots of "then I realised!" musings and moments regarding AI, especially from the dad's audio logs. Kai was lame, Joule herself was passable but then she'd say something really dumb and uplifting. I duno, I felt like I'd heard it all before. Like the game had no identity except being Borderlands for kids. I really dislike the gameplay of Borderlands too (the first one). I love the characters and story in Tales from the Borderlands but the proper Borderlands game was tedious.

At least the gameplay was decent enough in this, even if it was bogged down by the unnecessary RPG elements. The audio logs were audio too, so that's a plus. I hate reading tiny text logs in games 😅

@ralphdibny The only thing I didn't like about the audio logs is that some of them have that weird alien talking to you and since I prefer to play my games without subtitles, I couldn't understand what it was saying.

But yeah, it's actually interesting that you mention audio logs because the last game on Game Club (Dishonored) had absolute text logs galore. Everywhere you go there would be pieces of text to read, even during a mission which would constantly break up the pace. I mean, there was so much texts that if I had stopped and read everything, the length of the game would've easily doubled, lol. Good thing you didn't have to experience that!

@LtSarge ahh yeah, maybe that's a Bethesda thing. It's the only thing I hate about the new doom games too!

I play with subtitles (nice to have the option to look down and see what's said in case I miss something) and I don't think that alien thing (I think it's a corebot called violett or something) says anything pertinent. Occasionally you hear her refer to something called "A-OK" which is a character in the DLC anyway.

I normally don't read text logs in games because it messes my eyes up. I get after images of thin white lines on black backgrounds for ages so I don't bother. No point blinding myself for half hour just for some lore! Sometimes I think I'll go back and read them all in one go but I rarely actually do that!

@ralphdibny Psychonauts works since I never played it before. I second A Plague Tale: Innocence for August since it's getting a Series X upgrade next month. I never finished it for no good reason.

Anyone else have the game not start up from quick resume? I keep forgetting to quit after a session and it usually crashes when I try and start it up again.

Also I'm definitely down for a Plagues Tale in August