got gamepass for the first time yesterday so i’m looking for recs on what’s cool.
so far i’ve grabbed:
citizen sleeper
gungrave gore
immortality
pentiment
phantom dust
doom 3 (lol)
the gunk
slayers X
i was gonna grab gears of war but it won’t let me install it outside of the C drive and it’s 50GB (and the later gears are 120+GB!!!) so uhhh lol.
i’ll prolly play those early fallout games, morrowind, and some other bunk at some point (altho as i understand it you really need to install some community mods to make those playable) but what are the cool secret gamepass gems?
SOMA is good if u haven’t played it, and similarly Amnesia: The Bunker also seemed pretty good from what I played (enough 2 know that it was asking for a level of sustained spatial & time awareness that icould not handle while high)
In terms of stuff maybe a little lower on the radar, I enjoyed what I played ( a decent amount) of “Eastern Exorcist” quite a bit, arpg in the 2d character action game sense (i.e. level up skill-tree, almost entirely linear from what i saw, etc.). Its from a Chinese dev team and the setting was interesting in sort of loosely playing with fantastical/mythological aesthetic tropes in a different way than most games seem to.
For those big giant games I recommend going over to the Cloud Gaming Tab. I ain’t got 150 Gigs for Halo!
Also on that tab? Blinx The Time Sweeper, Crimson Skies, everything Rare. See how racist Perfect Dark Zero is! See the charm and jank of Perfect Dark. See whatever the hell Kameo is!
I’d have to check what is currently on main Game Pass.
i think ReCore is way better than the reception it got at release (maybe in part due to post release updates) but the gamepass price of entry is perfect for it.
doom - i played it today! i think it controls really well on a controller so that could be fun if you want to try a new control scheme.
quake - it’s a great game. do NOT play it on a controller, however. feels like ass.
opus magnum - probably the most accessible zachtronics game. good intro to engineering puzzles.
last call bbs - if you like zachtronics engineering games / puzzle games / model building / solitaire / old computers
gunfire reborn - chinese-made run-based looter shooter. shooting is solid and the builds feel varied and fun to piece together. the meta progression can be annoying grindy.
exo one - sci-fi tiny wings. it’s weird and loose but often pretty in a 90s computer generated graphics way. leaves gamepass 7/16 so not much time left to play it
hypnospace outlaw - great game if you haven’t already played it
lonely mountains downhill - the spiritual successor to marble madness
monster train - if you want a deckbuilder like slay the spire but with weird lane-based combat and with more broken combos
sea of thieves - a legitimately good hang out game but you’ll need a couple friends to get the most out of it.
snow runner - death stranding but you’re a truck and no melodramatic cutscenes for kojima to force upon you
i must confess to having avoided zachtronics games simply for being another zach game dev lmao but i have always wanted to try opus magnum.
i own lonely mountains downhill on switch but i’d love to play it at a luxurious 60fps and would defs recommend it to others. what a sweet little object.
wait i first read this as you yourself tried to make a zachtronics-style game (where “for being” was referencing you, another zach-game dev). then i unhyphenated in my mind and thought that maybe your name was zach.
after reading it a third time i now understand it was a dig at zach gage. if this is not the correct interpretation please let me know and i will puzzle it out further.
good rec! i’m up to the second boss (yeowza, tough fight) and so far it’s been pretty cool! feels weirdly out of time what with being a very gamey game with 2015 double-A graphics.
there is some crossover between gamepass and ps+ so i’ll weigh in on a few i’ve played on there
lonely mountains downhill - lovely, lovely game. gate88’s comparison to marble madness is evocative - i personally don’t really feel they have too much to do with each other other than a vaguely similar static camera and “downhill” directionality. marble madness is very arcade and hypomanic. every second counts in a desperate race against the timer. lonely mountains is vastly more contemplative and very “home console”-oriented. exploration is a factor. no visible hud, no BGM, multiple paths with varying levels of signposting, wild speedrunning possibilities. lonely mountains honestly has a very unique vibe to it that stands on its own, in my mind
doom - i really hate this console port! controls aren’t remappable(!!!) and if i’m not mistaken you literally cannot look up and down - there’s no way to do it (edit: this was not present in '93 doom so i’m ok with it not being here. OOPS). the achievements are boring and pointless. the only redeeming bit to this port imo is the integrated mod downloader. doom is fun on a controller, but not like this - would avoid this one and play chocolate/crispy doom or your sourceport of choice
mlb the show 23 - great. only spent a short time dabbling but this series is consistently one of the better sports titles out there. pitching is really fun
oh, i had no idea they weren’t remappable because the default happened to work for me. that’s a bummer.
i have to very much disagree w/ up & down look, though. i think looking up and down makes doom worse. the levels are designed with that limitation in mind, and that weird detail gives it a unique flavor that separates it from basically every modern game. being able to focus on only one axis of rotation is freeing, especially on a controller. and the little quirks of the up & down autoaim are interesting in their own right and affect how you have to approach certain levels.
EDIT: actually in '93 doom you can’t look up and down! i’m a bozo!
i mean, if the developers didn’t want you to look up and down they should not have included it! afterward, i expect every reasonable port to at least provide the option. not doing so is unacceptable!
just to clarify. doom 1993 allows you to look up and down. the modern console port, to my knowledge, excises this possibility entirely. not cool
to clarify further - in all versions of doom, your pitch angle is ignored and bullets are automatically sent toward enemies. but not being able to look around at all is fucking stupid. the game is 3D and there’s a lot of verticality, even with the overlap limitations. the look is there for a reason! not including it is so fucking stupid
I don’t think this is true, though. I didn’t have the original game but I played it at a friend’s house a lot and I don’t remember being able to look up and down. And cursory Google searches are not affirming this assertion.
