PixlBit

I played as much of Half-Life 2 as I care to this month. After that I tried out Pillars of Eternity and then went back to chasing rewards points, which let me to playing several other games; all this over a couple of days I call my weekend: Thursday evening and all day Friday. This will change (to what I’m not sure) next week as I switch to a M-F work schedule. So on to details.

Half-Life 2: I finished the last achievement for the main game. This was for hunting down all the secret supply caches. I used a walkthrough, switching back and forth from the game to YouTube on Xbox One. Finished with that, I went on to Episode One and discovered I’d gotten all the achievements already. Then Episode Two where I’m at 75% complete. I used a walkthrough to help me find all the grubs in one achievement but failed. There are over 300 of them across several chapters. Even with the walkthrough, I managed to miss something. I was very annoyed. I think my annoyance spilled over to the other achievements I tried and made me less than patient. I tried to chuck a helicopter’s bombs back at it with the gravity gun in one. I had to get three straight hits with no misses. After three or four tries I’d really had enough. I didn’t even try the other couple achievements I needed. I was burned out for now.

Pillars of Eternity: This is an old school, Baldur’s Gate style RPG made recently. I played it on Game Pass. I created a diminutive furry monk character. I got myself killed eventually. I think, when I play Game Pass games, I have the patience of a wolverine with a kill and assume that all games have permadeath, so I quit. I love these types of games but sometimes I feel like I have no control of what’s going on. It’s probably that it takes a little while to figure out how to access healing potions and whatnot. The menu systems in these types of RPGs are complex and not always readily discernable. I’ll play it again sometime.

Sea Salt: It seems MS Rewards are now all about Game Pass. They call them Game Pass Quests and you can get a lot of rewards points from them. So, I downloaded a bunch of games and started with the smallest, Sea Salt.
                This is an interesting game. Viewed from top down, you are the hand of a god laying waste to a coastal town. You control a swarm of creatures and sweep them across the map, killing all in your path. The villagers try to stop you with shotguns, ballista, flamethrowers and bombs. Along the way you come across altars that let you respawn some of your hoard. You gain cards for kills that give you new swarm types. I mostly went with the bug-like critters, but I also added crabs for fire resistance and various acolytes for ranged attacks. It’s a very cool game, but I eventually came to an area I had trouble getting past. Dogs really rip through your critters and some of the higher-level shotgun fighters can outrun your swarms. I really enjoyed it though.

Indivisible: This is a very anime game. It’s a 2D RPG with an active time battle system. It has simple controls but used very intelligently. You play a teenage girl out for revenge for the death of her father - typical marital arts premise. The graphics are very colorful and fun to watch. Battles occur as you run into free moving enemies on the path. Characters you have absorbed into your mind appear in battles and fight four at a time. Each uses one button and the analog stick. These are simple controls but it enables you perform quite a lot of attacks and defenses. Battles are turn-based but with a timer, so precision blocks and exact choice of attack types are a must. I had a little trouble trying to get precise blocks with four separate players attacking four enemies. Attacks are telegraphed with red lines, but it’s still tricky. With some practice I could beat this game, but I have no patience in Game Pass.

Game Pass Quests also give you special goals within certain games. I tried to get 50 kills in Master Chief Collection multiplayer, but it doesn’t count Firefight mode, so to heck with that.

Goat Simulator: I’ve been meaning to play this for a long time. The Game Pass Quest asked me to beat my own score with flappy goat, whatever that means. I played in the two towns for a good long time. I rode a bike, attached my tongue to a helicopter, launched myself with a rocket off a skyscraper, head butted people off a rooftop dance party, and flew from the spout of a sperm whale. How many silly things can you think of to do? I did a lot but even my silly mind can’t maintain that all day long.

A Plague Tale: Innocence: This is an incredibly beautiful game set in the middle ages. It reminds me a bit of The Order 1866, or Hellblade, in that you can’t interact with all that much of the gorgeous environment. The gameplay consists of a lot of stealth and some slinging of rocks. You are a kind of female David up against goliath in a lot of cases. The story is about the plagues of the middle ages, adding in a mysterious evil force that seems behind it all. There are lots and lots of rats to avoid and soldiers to sneak by and whack with a stone. You are a teen with an even younger sibling to protect, so you have to avoid fights where you can. I’m far into the game and completely absorbed by it. I’ll be trying to finish it next week before I start my next legacy game, Bioshock.