First two I played for Game Pass rewards. The rest trying to clear up my harddrive. That 111GB Forza Horizon 5 has installed but is not playable yet. That's a lot of Gigabytes - the new norm I'm told for triple-A games.
Hello Neighbor: First person. Graphics cartoonish. You're a kid who sees some shady behavior in a house, presumably on your home street, hence a neighbor. You can't go much of anyplace else so you have to investigate. The guy in the house is murderous and will kill you on sight. So you try and get in the house and find out things. You can hide and distract him to survive. Eventually I got stuck trying to figure out how to reach a wrench through a narrow window to open a door to a ladder that leads to the roof. The game doesn't tell you much. I had to look up the controls to realize I could pick up things and throw them. Throwing trash can lids at the psycho-neighbor doesn't do much. Oh and there are sometimes weird, dark sequences that happen after you get killed and before you respawn. I'm not sure what that is supposed to be about. Anyway, fun for a bit. Wish I couldn've gotten that wrench though.
Costume Quest 2: Double Fine! Love their games. I've played this for a GS reward at Halloween several years in a row now. It's always to collect 200 candy. I also keep going to see how far I can get. Last year I got 9 hours into it. This time I got stuck pretty early on trying to figure out how to clear leaf piles. I think i needed a new costume with it's special ability but I couldn't find all the parts in the swamp area (the first area you time warp to). Weird, because I did it before.
Wargroove: The smallest file size on my hard drive at the moment, so it was first up. I tried to download maps or play multiplayer but the server kept crashing. I'm not sure it's active online anymore. So I started another arcade round with a different leader than last time. I strangely lost in the first battle. I guess I need to work on my strategy.
Harms Way: This is a Xbox 360 game I somehow missed long ago. I've played most of the arcade style racing games on that system. I believe this was a Games with Gold freebee recently. It seems okay. It's offroad racing with a lot of destruction and car combat. You can also man turrets on the racetrack instead of driving. I found it annoying when the roads would get periodically blocked by landslides or collapsing bridges. They really got in my way of enjoyment. I tried to get into multiplayer but it didn't seem like anyone was playing it. Might be more fun that way, but oh well.
Morrowwind: I downloaded this from Game Pass because I always wanted to try it again and see if I could get anywhere. Last time I played it was way back on original Xbox. Back then, right off the boat and out of prison, I tried to swim the ocean and wander the woods but got eaten by a fish and killed by bandits respectively. This time I tried to follow the story and made it to another town, joined the king's spies, trained a bit, and joined the fighters guild. My first mission for the guild, predictably, was to kill some rats in a trader's house. I got one with my knife but the second one killed me. Seriously? Anyway, I couldn't figure out how to use the healing ring I had equiped. I also should've known to equip my arrows as well as my bow to use it. That didn't work well in close combat, as you might guess. Still, I should've been able to kill rats with a knife pretty easily. Combat was never Morrowwind's best aspect. I should've bought a sword but I lilttle cash and wanted to be an archer anyway. I wanted to train in archery but my first four trainers couldn't help me there. I always struggle with Elder Scrolls games.
Island Saver: Downloaded this from the store, I believe it was free. It's my new obsession now. It's a first-person game with colorful cartoony graphics. It reminds me of games like Slime Rancher, deBlob, The Maw, and Journey to the Savage Planet.
Your task is to clean up islands of trash and make the animals happy again. You have a vacuum tool that can suck or blow and store water. You vacuum up all the plastic bottles and metal cans, use water to clean the plants of oily gunk, and watch the animals return and feed on the plants. When the animals feed enough they give you coins. They are actually called "bankimals" because they are all like piggy banks. You put the trash into recyling machines and coins into a bank machine.
The game also tries to teach you about money and banking. You learn about taxation, loans, foreign coin exchange and who knows what else down the line. You buy seeds, fun stuff, and upgrades for your tool on a wrist watch device which are then delivered to you by robot like a futuristic Amazon.
I am thoroughly obsessed with the game now and will play it again on Sunday.
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