I am not sure how I discovered TVGC but I was actively looking for a way in which I could buy a bundle of games in one package so they could be shipped together in one package - instead of individually - which amazon tends to do. Shipping all the games together at once should save on shipping costs. Either way it worked out, the website is easy to use and I got my second set of games all in one box.
The initial set of games were good but there were some gaps in the collection that I needed to fill. For example I wanted to get the Orange Box but it was a bit expensive so I settled for Portal 2 instead - no point in getting an expensive game that I might not play immediately. OrangeBox is one of those games that people talk about alot but I would mostly be getting it for Portal. Portal 2 seems to be a good compromise since it is only $13 vs $40 for the orange box.
In this second batch of games I spread myself around abit by picking up a few in which I had mild interest. Mirror's Edge, CODAW, Batman AC. Picked up Gears 3 and Crysis 3 to cover those bases. Burnout Paradise has been ported to everything so it must be good. I chose Tekken 6 over TTT2 since I had to have at least one fighting game in the collection. I got another triple pack game - wish there were more of these types of bundles. This is quite an eclectic mixture but I do play quite a variety of games. Now that the xbox360 is technically "retro", most games are "cheaper" than when they originally released while being easy enough to achieve.
Game list
Portal 2 - $12.99 USD Dishonored - $4.99 USD Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare - $15.99 USD Tekken 6 - $17.99 USD Burnout Paradise - $15.99 USD Metal Gear Solid V Ground Zeroes - $13.99 USD Ultimate Action Triple Pack (JustCause2, TombRaider, Sleeping Dogs) - $16.99 USD Mirror's Edge - $16.99 USD Gears of War 3 - $13.99 USD Crysis 3 - $12.99 USD Batman Arkham City - $10.99 USD
Total = $153.89 USD Shipping Costs = $31.25 USD
Conclusion
The only game missing from the list is Max Payne 3 which got misplaced while I was curating the shopping cart. I will have to buy it later. Since I spent most of the 7th gen of gaming on the Nintendo Wii, which means all these games are new territory. I think this completes the list of games that I want to play on the Xbox360. I think I have searched every "best of list" I could find on the internet. Anything else is either part of a series of games, too expensive or not interesting enough for me to acquire it now. I estimate the running total of my xbox purchases to about $650. Lots of games to play, never enough time but we will see what the future holds. I have previously written about my play strategy and will also write little blog reviews on them as I play each of them. The first game I played out of this batch was Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.
The game is brutal. The environments have the vibe of shadow of the colossi on the ps2. The game world feels abandoned and lonely with minimal music. This might be the first totally "new" experience I have since I got the Xbox 360 console. Forza, Hitman, FarCRy3 are all experiences that are better but not different from ones I have had on older systems. Plus all have difficulty modes that allow you to move through without many walls to stop your progress. But in DS2 the first few enemies can literally ruin your day. I think I died 30 times before I left the first area.
I got the DS2 along with DS1 to borrow from a co-worer. I played DS1 first but found the framerate and the jank to be too bad for my liking. So I skipped DS1 and went to DS2 which luckily had better performance. I am not a purist as you may notice from my small collection of xbox games.
Progression is slow. This is definitely a patient man's game. If you try to rush through you will die many, many times. Every door and corner is a potential death trap. You have to be careful at all times because in the early game every enemy can wreck you if given the slightest chance.
The game has many subtle systems but its not complicated or overwhelming. No easy option is available. You do what you can to survive or you just give up. The game does not care either way. The game itself will make it harder the more you die. Get good or go home.
Conclusion
At just 7 hours in I can safely say the game is great. Died 200 times. I might never finish it so I don't need to write alot about it. Dark Souls 2 is a real "gamer's game". 10/10 would recommend only for the most hardcore players who like to fail and get back up many times. If you think of games as a series of tests then it is a masters degree. You will not have a good time if you only play easy games.
Just like many subscription services one has to ask themselves; "is it really worth my time or am I paying for something that is just sucking me dry?". If you compare Game Pass (GP) to Netflix you might think that games are just like movies but there are not. A game is an interactive story often 20+ full hours long - depending on how you play. The time spent is up to your involvement more than the director/writer's skills at wasting the viewer's time. Games are a directed form of "choose your own adventure". Some games can be 100 hours if you really want to dick around. Since you have to keep paying for the service in order to play the game you might as well buy the game and be done with the relationship. But it might not be that simple.
Access to a large library of games
It is true that you have alot of choice, similar to when we had game demos in the past(free) or game rentals from blockbuster(paid). I guess making a game demo became too costly for the developers so they stopped doing it - I am not really sure why they stopped. A game demo is usually smaller than the full game which is good for consoles with limited data storage and slow internet transfer speeds. Why download the full game if there is only a 50/50 chance you will buy it? Small demos seem like a win-win for everyone involved.
A paid demo service
Many advocates say that the GP is a good way to test out games that you have never played before and would never get to play - most likely because there are no demos or rental services or ways to borrow physical games - because you never buy games. So who is really to blame for this? GP is actually worse than game demos because instead of downloading a small version of the game you need to download the full game in order to test it out. With the current file size of modern video games you are looking at a huge download which may take some time depending on how fast your internet is and also how fast xbox lets you download the game (yes its limited). So there is this lag time between finding something you are interested in and actually getting to play it. A GP game can range in size from 20gb to 150 gb in size so you could be waiting a little while before you get to play something new.
I just like new games
Games are not like movies. It usually takes about an hour or 2 before a game gets really interesting and before you get full access to its features. Movies tend to front load themselves to try to catch your interest in the first 10 minutes - plus movies are shorter than games. Even multi-episode mini series are shorter than most games. There are even game trailers you can watch - for free - that allow you to get a taste of what a game is like before you actually play it. Some people get game recommendations from friends but at that point they could just lend you the game if they already bought it. There are game reviews, podcasts, and many ways to find interesting games, GP is probably the worst and most time consuming way. it might even be a trap for unsuspecting gamers. Unless gaming is your only hobby
Hidden limits
If internet speed and file size is not an issue (which you will never know until you are in the thick of it) there are other things that limit what you can actually do on GP. Storage is another major concern If you like huge, graphically intense games like COD or MW you are looking at a 150gb download per game to save on the console's limited data storage of 512 gb. You could delete each game after you test it out or spend extra for additional data storage. So there are only so many GP games you can have on console at any one time, you can swap between them but never share them with other friends or family. No multi-tv, multi kids, multi-room setup. Let's say in the best scenario you download 6 GP games; you need to slowly search through the list, pick them, you wait for them to download, you play each for a couple hours. By the time you actually get around to trying something else the month of GP would have already expired and you only played 6 games. It is like having an "all you can eat buffet" but you only have one mouth. A full supermarket but small shopping carts. Of course this is all part of the FOMO. Xbox knows that you can only do so much in one month. Having access to 420 games at one time only seems good on paper. You are fighting a losing battle Let's say you find a game you like, but then it rotates off the service - what do you do then? You have limited time to play it! So either you buy it or take the risk that it doesn't get delisted and replaced with something random or another old xb360 game.
The FOMO trap
So here is the kicker; you have access to all these games but you cannot play them all - not even 10%. At most you can probably play 10 in a month - but you still get that fever rush because your brain is fooled into thinking you can actually play all of them. You blame yourself for not spending enough time to find the needle in the haystack. It's not totally your fault, because the haystack itself is shifting around slowly in order to mess with your brain - every month there is a new thing, a new day one drop that you must play. It is a similar situation with mobile gaming; there are a mountain of choices but all of them are basically different ways to waste your time. Look out, your month of GP is nearing its end. What do you do? You spent half the month browsing the game list, looking at thumbnails and adjusting filters. Maybe next month you will find that one interesting game or 2 or 3. The cycle repeats.
Conclusion
If you want to put yourself into that kind of situation where you are trapped in a fomo cycle then go right ahead - misery loves company. It's often a case where you are not the one trapped but someone else has unknowingly recommended you into a trap - such is the case with these services. Someone might go in thinking they only going to test out a few games and quit but then flash forward 10 years later you are still paying for a service that you are either not using or keep active just in case something pops up that you "might" like. FOMO = Fear of missing out
I was playing Assassin's Creed 2 but my Xbox350E started acting up again - shutting down everytime it tried to read the disc drive. So I popped in a new disc and gave the power supply a few quick taps and it stayed on. I think something is wrong with the power supply - I need to buy a new one at some point.
HitmanA is good. The graphical style is nice and the UI has more buttons that I remember from the PS2 versions. I haven't played them in years so my memory of them might be a bit foggy. I loved HM:BloodMoney and this feels pretty close except with quicktime CQC events. I am playing the game on easy as I mentioned in my overall xbox360 game play strategy. Easy mode makes you a tank but you miss out on the ingame challenges so I will replay each stage on normal after I beat them on easy.
What can I say about Hitman:AB? It is the bomb. The large crowds, cinematic set pieces, shadow filled rooms, the lights, the sound, the chaos when things go sideways, everything really gets turned up compared to the limitations of HM:BM on the PS2. Currently on level 3 but I am fully enjoying this game. So much so that I switched the difficulty to Normal so that I can take advantage of the optional in game challenges in each level. The controls are initially a bit confusing but all the elements are there for a great time. I have replayed the stages a few times and I love that when things go south you can still shoot, salvage or soft reset the level.
I had heard complaints about the more controlled "movie like" nature of this game in comparison to the previous entries but I do not mind it at all. The segmented sections allow for setups that were not possible in the older games. Setups which are like mini-puzzles in a bigger level.
One thing that is annoying is how the xbox achievement pops up at key moments during the game play taking you out of the game. Sometimes the popup even overlaps and you do not get to read the description text before another one appears. Maybe this is just an xbox thing. I eventually turned off xbox notifications of in the system settings - I do not miss them at all.
Conclusion
This is a 9/10 game. Nice and neat. Loads quickly, restarts are quick. Play hitman for the doors and corners. Normal mode is fine. If you love slow paced stealth games this should definitely be in your collection.
