PixlBit

This was another week in Gen 2, tunes on Xbox, a new process to include current games, and I solved my rewards problem. 

Gen 2: I played a lot of old arcade games that came out before 1983 on Xbox. Maybe too many to list but I can list collections like: Atari Flashback, Midway Arcade Origins, Pac-Man Museum+, SNK 40th Anniversay, Rare Replay and Atari 50. One game that I really enjoyed was Space Invaders: Infinity Gene. It turned Space Invaders into a kind of bullet-hell shooter. Stuff is coming from every direction on screen and you just have to survive. Eventually you unlock some new weapon types that home in or rapid fire which helps a lot. There's a challenge mode and a mode that syncs your music to the gameplay. Check it out:

This mode sent me on a quest for custom background music on Xbox that's detailed next. 

Custom Music: First, in order to use that feature in SI Infinity Gene, I plugged in a USB Flash drive and tried to move music to my internal hard drive. SIIG was originally a Xbox 360 game and the current Xbox really doesn't have a music playlist app or any app really to move files to your hard drive. I looking into a free app called ADV but it made me worry about messing with my settings. Then I installed free version Spotify because I recently started using it for Music League on my phone. I synced up my account on Xbox, and now I have tons of cool music to run behind any game. It doesn't enable the feature in Infinity Gene but who cares. I was running Spotify behind all sorts of other games. It worked amazingly. 

My Process: So I wanted to mix in new games to my Gen 2 play and so now every week I start with any original Gen 2 hardware and games I have (Retron 77 and Atari carts), and then move through all the Gen 2 stuff I can find on Xbox. When I'm done with that, I play a game I own that's highest on the Metacritic list for best games on Xbox Series X/S. Right now that's Forza Horizon 5. I also add a new game on the Metacritic list I don't have every game day to my wish list. It's neat to see what's got the best reviews. Can you believe Baldur's Gate 3 is at 99 right now? 

Rewards Problem Solved (I hope): Last week I couldn't redeem rewards points because Microsoft wanted me to add a Alias to my account in the form of a phone number. Well, I have two accounts and my phone is already attached to my first account, so it won't work for two. I thought then that I was done with rewards because I had no solution for that. But then I got a message of an autoredeem in my email. Autoredeem? It's back? I looked around on Xbox and found it again (MS has take the Rewards app off the home screen recently). Apparently I don't need this extra Alias for autoredeem. So I'm back in business gathering points and playing Game Pass games for rewards. This week it was Go Mecha Ball and McPixel 3. 

Imagine turning Marble Madness (or Samus's ability to turn roll into a ball) into a overhead view arena shooter, that's Go Mecha Ball. Take a look:

McPixel is a interesting puzzle game. Multiple puzzles are strung together and you try and solve them in sequence through trial and hilarious error. Check, check, check it out:

It's some kind of weird but more fun than I expected. I can't solve the crashing plane puzzle though, darn it. 

That's a week. Oh yes, more next week for sure. I can't wait.