PixlBit

My gaming routine is as follows: play any game needed for MS Rewards; play any game needed for Game Pass rewards; go through all the games on my hard drive from smallest file size to largest. For this last objective, I play a game for the next closest achievement, decide if I want to keep it or not, and then move on to the next game. I repeat the process weekly until, hopefully, I clear my hard drive (not likely when I keep adding new games). So here is what I did the other day. 

Peggle 2: (Out of order in my plan but this happens sometimes - social beats everything) Mark and I both played this a good long time. We competed for a high score on every level and trash-talked constantly. I played through every story level of the main game and DLC again going for all the optional objectives. I passed the halfway mark on completing them. I also attempted all the trials I'd failed the first time around. There are still some I haven't beaten. It was thoroughly enjoyable and I will run through them all again next week until it gets too frustrating.

Psychonauts: (For a Game Pass reward). I was excited to play this again. I got the rewards just for booting it but I played for a while, hoping to get totally caught up in it. Unfortunately, I do not like the platforming in this game. I find the controls a little inaccurate and the objectives confusing. I literally came to the end of one platform in the war sergeant's head and kept jumping for what I thought was the next climbable thing and kept falling into a pit. I couldn't see exactly where I was supposed to jump. After about 17 of these deaths, I just gave up, sadly. I love the story and characters in this game. I've found in general that Doublefine's game mechanics to be a little suspect. However, I am looking forward to Psychonauts 2. I can't wait for that. 

Lost Artifacts: Soulstone: I reinstalled this because I can't resist resource management. I played through the next to last area of the map, about 8 levels or so. I got mostly 3 stars on all of them. I'm fast at this by now having played 3 or 4 games in this style. 

Stern Pinball Arcade: Ripley's Believe It or Not table:  I started reading the score sheet, slowly. I figure I'll read one new objective every time I play. I learned how to do the skill shot and one of the combos. I also discovered the right high score list to get onto for the achievement. I need to beat 14 million points to get 3rd or higher. I'm so far only at 4 million after another three tries. Three is a limit I set myself unless I get close to the goal. I don't want to get too frustrated with the game. I also reinstalled Pinball FX3. I'm going to plan a way to play it in short bursts on a regular basis. Also thinking of reinstalling Pinball Arcade and Zaccaria Pinball. 

Blinx: The Time Sweeper: This just appeared on Game Pass this week. I've always been curious about this game. I may have even tried it as a demo a long time ago. It has a neat mechanic. You vacuum up objects and spit them out as weapons. They, and the gems you pick up from defeated enemies, give you the ability to alter time. You can use it to slow or pause the action around you so you can avoid moving obstacles (You can use it to rebuild broken things too but I couldn't figure out how to do that). Each level is short with a time limit. It's pretty good but the camera is a tad annoying while you navigate narrow city paths and small courtyards and I dislike time limits in games. It makes me think a little bit about Luigi's Mansion. I'd rather play Luigi's Mansion. 

Darkest Dungeon: I got so deep into this the other day. Every mission I loaded up on food. I was able to complete several dungeons but got party-wiped on one and lost an important character on another. There is rarely a battle in which you dominate and win in a turn or two. I think I had one. I healed a character of a quirk in town. I learned what dacnomania means (obsession with killing - I immediately turned to my friend and called him that as he was playing Minecraft. He was blowing up whole towns in creative mode with a metric ton of tnts. haha). Another character had the yips, so I sent him to the tavern to strengthen up with beer drinking. At one point I had to venture out with only 3 characters instead of 4 because I hadn't leveled up the wagon to bring in more adventurers. You will need replacements. I think I've discovered the flow of this game. You don't depend on one 4 person crew and live or die on them but on a whole roster of 12 or more folks. Some die, others get diseased (I cured a guy from the black plague) and others go mad or have severely debilitating bad habits (these kleptomanias are a bore). You just manage a bad situation. I'm really loving this game.