Welcome to one of the shortest Xbox All Access Adventure blog posts in this series! Throughout the last month I’ve fallen for Final Fantasy XIV in a major way, and that is not an Xbox game. As such, Xbox game entries are fewer than usual, though I’ve tried to write a bit about games I’ve not spent a huge amount of time in to make up for this.
Dabbles:
- Rocket League – I’ve played it on every other platform, why not this one, too?
Continued Adventures:
- Halo Infinite – Mostly multiplayer, doing weekly challenges and enjoying the new playlists.
- Forza Horizon 5 – Jumping in occasionally for the odd race, but this is mostly on the backburner for now.
- Star Wars Battlefront II – I finished off the first tier of every Battle Scenario for an achievement.
- Minecraft – Chilled out with friends on a Realm.
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate
Fallout 3
I’ve tried to play this game multiple times in the past, first on PS3 and then on PC. The thing is, I’m not a huge fan of the post-apocalyptic wasteland as a story setting. Give me modern civilisation as an ancient ruin any day of the week and I’m generally fascinated, but if the story is set in the dark age immediately following said apocalypse, I tend to find it miserable. It’s… downright depressing. And Fallout 3’s Capital Wasteland is the epitome of this style of world.
The thing is though, Fallout lore does intrigue me, and I do love myself a good Bethesda RPG. I didn’t fall in love with Skyrim until maybe my fifth attempt, so given that Fallout 3 is available on Game Pass at a very tasty 60fps, I figured I’d give it a shot. It’s aged better than I expected, feeling more like a stepping stone between Oblivion and Skyrim than just a direct analogue to Oblivion. I’ve gotten about as far in as I usually do – Moriarty’s inn – and I still feel the urge to continue onwards, which is a good sign. Maybe there’ll be more to tell about Fallout 3 next month.
Owned
Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania
I’ve wanted to play a Super Monkey Ball game for a while now, and that free weekend from a few months back showed me that I even enjoyed Banana Blitz, an oft-maligned entry in the series. I considered that to be a good sign that I’d like Banana Mania when it came out, and so far, my expectations have been thoroughly met! I love that the stages start to get tough by the third world (out of ten), and that there are more challenging modes to try your hand at for more achievements. I’ve also given some of the party games such as Monkey Billiards a go, and they seem like fairly good time wasters so far. I’m a big fan of the in-game shop, where you can spend points you get for completing challenges (completing a level within a certain time, with a certain amount of bananas etc) to unlock new characters, outfits and other goodies. I’m going to be rolling this monkey for some time yet!
Also the intro music is soul food.
Final Fantasy XV: Royal Edition
I know that this game is coming to Game Pass eventually, but my time trying it out on Playstation Now a few years ago has already confirmed that I enjoy this game’s premise and gameplay. And I got it for a tenner! Thanks, Christmas sales.
I’m not very far in at the moment, but I have a few first impressions to tick off before we wrap this blog post up. Firstly, I’m a big fan of the world you travel through in the game. Square Enix really took the idea of a Final Fantasy set in modern times and ran with it. This time, for example, Cid is a grizzled old man in a gas station. That being said, I do have a fair few gripes with the game, though some of them could be put down to a learning curve. There’s lots of little frustrations such as the amount of running through the wilderness you do in a game about a road trip, the needlessly vague quest markers for the Hunt system, the clunkiness of getting in and out of the Regalia when navigating the world. Then there’s nitpicks, such as the way the main characters talk over each other with lightning fast dialogue, or the fact that the game is locked to 900p30fps on Xbox Series S, making the game look like a soft and badly aliased version of a much prettier version of itself.
I expect I’ll take my time with this journey, especially since I’m yet to finish Final Fantasy XIV. It was probably a bad idea to try to juggle two Final Fantasy games at the same time, but my eyes were larger than my stomach on this one.
In Summary
That’s uh… that’s it.
For those of you who have played Final Fantasy XIV, you’ll know what I mean when I tell you I spent the bulk of my gaming time this month going from the start of Stormblood to the start of Endwalker. That’s a lot of content to cover! But sadly, none of it is relevant for this blog post.
If it helps, know that I downloaded multiple games from Game Pass for next month. These games are:
- Superliminal
- Dragon Age: Origins
- Dragon Quest Builders 2
- Elite: Dangerous
- Enter the Gungeon
- Perfect Dark
- Stardew Valley
Who knows how many of these I’ll actually play, but keep a lookout for some of them next month!
Gamerscore as of December 9th: 25,019
Gamerscore as of January 9th: 25,754
32 Bit Brain 