Scrubchub

@Ricky-Spanish PLAY. IT. And don't forget Gwent, the greatest 'mini' game of all time.

I love the Witcher 3, and these look cool, but not for £75. Just not worth it for something that is handled and used as much as a controller.

This is still the best game I've ever played. It's such an epic; the opening section in White Orchard, Kiera Metz quest line, the Bloody Baron, Crookback Bog, hours spent in Novigrad, over to Skellige, the battle of Kaer Morhen, the build up to the final battle, the epilogue, Hearts of Stone, and then another 30 hours in Touissant. It's less a game, more an entire epic saga in one.

The combat is underrated - played on Death March, it's tricky but not insurmountable, just asking that you engage with the games different systems. It works really well.

The world is the best I've ever played. Completely believable and hugely detailed. The quests are brilliant, the writing and characters are brilliant, it still looks great to this day (even without the next gen update), and Gwent is the best side game ever.

Of course it's not perfect, but the sum of its parts is an incredible experience.

@Titntin the motion sickness on Indy was also a problem for me. Gutted as I was enjoying it and love the franchise as a whole but slower paced first person adventures have always done that to me.

It's really good, as good as the other two (can't be bothered to pick a favourite as they're all great).

On a side note, if a poster is clearly here just to antagonise as @PlatinumMikey is (he's actually admitted he doesn't even own an Xbox) then report them. The mods here are really good at clearing up the message boards. Which is why this site is pretty good compared to most of the internet.

@Nightcrawler71 yeah, I'm enjoying it, not bothered by the braying internet mob. Wish there was a bit more exploration but the combat is great fun.

Funny you should mention Avowed as I played it for about 10 hours and drifted away. I would have kept going if I had bought it but as it was Gamepass I didn't. Will definitely go back to it.

Dragon Age Veilguard has really caught my attention this week so going to keep plugging away at that. I know it seems like one of those games you aren't supposed to like, but I'm really enjoying it personally.

Past that, would like to get on the new Gamepass Call of Duty (I genuinely forget which one it is!) as the one released last year was great fun.

And I'll continue indulging my Balatro addiction as well on mobile.

@PJOReilly your comment about these games potentially being very off putting to start rings so true with me. I found exactly that with Lies of P. I could tell it was a well made game, but after getting to the first boss (and getting clobbered many times), I just, well, couldn't be bothered.

As good as some of these games are, they are sometimes just too much of a commitment to get through.

I'd have Nine Sols on there over a few of those in the list personally. Definitely worth an honourable mention!

Well, I like mine. Don't really care about much beyond that to be honest.

Forget the super cheap version and treat yourself to the one with the DLC. It's less like a single game then and more like an extra long saga or something. Amazing game. Best ever for me.

My favourite game ever. Really comes to life when you play it on the hardest difficulty (and I'm not one who usually likes super hard games) and you have to really engage with the different systems during combat.

I grabbed one last week on eBay. Been thinking about a second console for a while so got the Series S to complement the X. You're looking at £150 now to win an auction, give or take (for the S, obviously). Whether that is worth the saving from the £210 stated above is debatable. Actually really impressed with it. I think the S gets a bad rap sometimes - I was conditioned into thinking I would have something that looks like an Xbox 360, and in reality it looks, well, pretty much the same as the X. Of course, a Digital Foundry deep dive will uncover the differences pretty easily, but for the majority of people, it does the job required admirably.

So no need to hang around waiting for whatever rubbish my partner wants to watch on the TV to finish haha.

So, is this just the game, or are we hoping that it will be fixed in a few months, at least to a certain level? I know they're taking suggestions, but Bethesda are synonymous with a certain amount of jank.

I've gone off to play E33 but planning to go back after finishing that. But there's plenty of other games to play while this one is sorted....

What a great console that was. Great time of my life as well. Everything was great for a few years before all falling to pieces as I got older.

I wonder if this feeling really is just what every generation goes through as they yearn for their 'nostalgia' years, convinced that everything these days is so much worse than back in their day? But then I'm fairly convinced that the difference between, say, the 70s and the 90s is a much smaller difference than between 2005 and 2025.

Like, seriously, everything really is just complete ***** these days. Literally EVERYTHING. The whole world is a mess - from a geopolitical level on down. Life feels objectively worse than it was just 20 years ago and being an elderly 40 year old, I feel that I am a member of one of those very rare generations that is leaving a worse world for my children than the one that was left for me.

We've sleep walked into an Orwellian dystopia.

Anyway, enjoy your Tuesdays.

I was happily playing my Wii U until the summer of 2023, at which point I went over to Switch for TotK. Perfectly happy with my Switch. Will upgrade in 2 or 3 years.

Rematch looks really good (if it's your sort of thing). Definitely need to get some Pure Xbox games on that one.

I'd not heard of Against the Storm but the first line of the synopsis (a dark fantasy city builder) has my interest well and truly piqued......

@ScalenePowers if you missed the Xbox One generation (sorry if I misread your comment) then try Ryse on Gamepass. It's an Xbox One launch game and is amongst the best looking games I've played on the Series X. Which is a bit mental really. It definitely has a touch of a 'tech demo' feel to it but the gameplay is satisfying and visceral enough to last the 4 or 5 hour run time. Perfect Gamepass title.

@Cakefish @Ricky-Spanish thanks for the suggestions I'll certainly check them out.

@Cakefish absolutely loved that game on PS4. Wasn't expecting the story to be so somber as I went in. Loved hunting giant robot crocodiles with my son. One of the few PS exclusives that I actually wish I still had access to.

Just received my Series S so I've got two TVs I can play on now and not have to wait for whatever crap my partner is watching to finish so I'm going through Gamepass to try and find a few hidden gems that I wouldn't normally play. Smaller games with shorter runtimes. Played some great games like Firewatch, As Dusk Falls, Dordogne etc through that.

Any ideas appreciated!

Well, it was always going to be good, wasn't it? Looking forward to this one.

@Vectrex the commenters on Push Square are, generally, quite mental at the best of times.

I agree with you for the most part - digital is happening and there really are more important things for which to, "Rage against the dying of the light." Some people love being angry about stuff all the time though.

Uh, that weird Balaam poster who's obsessed with physical media is going to pop when they read this.

Only fitting for such a fantastic game (though I still prefer 4)!

Wow, just made the mistake of going to Push Square to see what PS owners were saying about this. What a mental comment section - utterly toxic.

Console fan boys are eternal, apparently.

@OldGamer999 crazy, when you actually list it like that, isn't it? And that list could easily be twice as long by the end of the year. Hundreds and hundreds of pounds worth of games. Gamepass is crazy value at the moment.

Yeah, nothing to get excited about for long time Xbox players. But the multiplayer is still brilliant so the boost to that is a nice side effect.

@Ricky-Spanish rematch looks like a really good time. Looking forward to that one.

E33 for me as well. Great game. Oblivion I will return to without a doubt.

South of Midnight is on my list, and I've never actually played Far Cry 4 despite loving the 3rd game at the time so that is also on the list. And I'd love another play through of GTA5 as haven't played that since the 360.

As always, too many games, not enough time.

Get on Still Wakes the Deep if you haven't. It's only 4 hours or so and was one of the best games I played last year.

Guys - just think of al the time you could have been playing games instead of writing these ill informed (and they are ill informed, whether you will admit it or not) mini essays all morning on the exact same subject that has been written about umpteen dozen times before! Less internet, more gaming!!!

The exposure they get from the service is huge. I've played so many games on Gamepass that I ended up loving that I otherwise wouldn't have touched. And that's one of big reasons I stay subscribed. They could stop adding games today and I would still be subscribed in a couple of years, just plugging away at the existing library. And because of that, MS makes money from me, which they in turn can pay to developers to add more games.

The service is, at this point, objectively excellent. There isn't a debate. As someone up above said - they hate us cos' they ain't us! I completely understand people preferring to own games, but even if the service isn't for some particular person, they must surely admit that it is still a great service for the majority. Criticism just seems incredibly disingenuous - childish, even. There's one poster on here who I believe also posts on Pushsquare that literally insults people subscribed to Gamepass on every article linked to it. I actually took the bait and responded a couple of days ago but their post was deleted anyway. But, whatever - at the moment the service is on fire and I'm loving it.

Still bought a few games this year as well, regardless.

Definitely going to blast through CoD as that's a quick one. Would also like to play Anno 1800 but it's a bit of a time sink so that'll have to wait.

Definitely going to smash through the CoD campaign and been interested in Dredge for ages so will play that as well (somehow feels like more of a Switch game to me though so might buy it in the sale for that instead). Doom as well of course.

Anno 1800 should get some love as well. Great game if that's your kind of thing.

@FraserG yeah, think I'll have to get this one on the go!

@themightyant was honestly going to wait to play that game for a while as too many other things on the go but it honestly just looks too good to put off.

Anyway, never really bothered with dynamic backgrounds but that looks cool.

It's really on a pretty wild run at the moment that stretches back to Stalker last year. Just big AAA after big AAA. And then lots of smaller ones like Blue Prince and Balatro. And there's a ton of slightly lesser but really worthwhile games as well such Aliens Fireteam, Metal Slug Tactics. That's just off the top of my head, there's so many more.

I don't really get the rewards program stuff but I just get a key from CD Keys and it's basically £100 a year (I'd imagine that has gone up a bit now) which is just crazy.

And there are still people who just won't accept that it's a good deal. It's an objective truth at this point.

Gotta feel a little bad for them as this looks like a belter and it's impossible to deny that its thunder has been stolen by Oblivion. I would have been all over this day one but I can't start another big game right now.

Well absolutely get around to it though. Glad that it's good.

@RZ-Atom 😂 so true. Some people really need to spend less time moaning about this hobby on the internet and more time actually playing games and enjoying it.

Welcome to the internet, I guess.

No biggie - there ALWAYS are with this type of game. It'll be enjoyable anyway and will be sorted over the next few weeks/months regardless.

@Banjo- thanks for that link. Made me laugh at the time you mentioned - that is VERY clearly much, much more than a remaster!

It's absolutely mental really. Gamepass has been stacked for months now, there's a huge JRPG in a couple of days, Doom next month, a backlog of things to get through, and then they just plonk an RPG of this size and scope just like that.

And apparently Xbox and Gamepass are on their last legs. Hasn't stopped me just buying a Series S to partner my X in the other room so I can play more when the main TV is in use! Gaming has rarely felt fuller.

Incredible that Gamepass has any detractors. It's an amazing deal; the kind of value proposition that is getting rarer and rarer in this messed up modern world.

Backlog be damned - this is getting downloaded immediately!

@Balaam_ really? You aren't a fan of digital distribution then?

Oh yes, I remember - you go on about it on pretty much every article you can possibly shoehorn the exact same opinion into the comment section.

Fewer of the insults, as well. No one is an 'idiot' for using a subscription service and you certainly aren't smarter than anyone who does.

As a few others have said, it's a good game. Not brilliant but nowhere near deserving of the sad, bandwagon jumping hate it received. And the comments about the looks of the character (including one in this very thread) are just plain...well, weird. She's a good character - basically an everyday Han Solo. Someone trying to be this cool, suave thief with a heart of gold but constantly getting in way over her head.

It's a 7/10 and you can add one on if you're a big Star Wars fan. A lot of it release issues are fixed, not just bugs but actual gameplay improvements. That should be commended.

Bit strange that progress doesn't transfer over though.

Good stuff. Hadn't played a CoD in many years before BO6 came out and really enjoyed the single player campaign (though could have done without some of the weird supernatural stuff) so this will be downloaded as soon as it's available.

@Kaloudz that's just the way the internet is these days. People do seem to spend more time moaning about their hobby online than they do enjoying it.

Keep the positivity going!

@GuyinPA75 Gamepass is not overpriced or overrated for the vast majority of people. It is a great deal for many. Horrible, childish attitude you have there as well - basically, anyone disagreeing with you is falling for hype, instead of just having a different opinion.

Welcome to the internet, I guess.

Split Second was great back in the day, definitely going to revisit it at that price. Beyond that, Robocop for a tenner sounds like a no brainer and Resi 4 for not much more than that has got to be worth a play. Lots to go for for me.

Cool, have been looking at Dredge on the switch for ages. Nice bonus that it's appeared on Gamepass.

Started The Quarry just before it left Gamepass and didn't realise it had left. Was really enjoying it too. So that's getting bought. Beyond that I'm abstaining. Got a ton of great games to plough through already and a Play Later list on Gamepass as long as my arm. Good times at the moment (for gaming anyway. Everything else in my life is a cluster****.).