Game Pass It Up

The Medium is an Xbox Series and PC exclusive, released by Bloober Team in early 2021. The game launched day one on Game Pass, and was met with some middling reviews. Having just got my hands on a Series X console, and considering that the series consoles took more of a cross gen approach for the launch, I was more than happy to jump into a game that was developed with the Series consoles in mind.

Earlier in 2020 Microsoft announced that EA Play was coming to Game Pass Ultimate, and along with it Respawn’s 2019 soul’s like Star Wars game. I had been waiting to grab the game when it came to Stadia, but the free addition to Game Pass was too good to pass up.

Game Pass continues to make my gaming backlog way too big. Streets of Rage 4 was day and date released on Game Pass, and I’ve been slowly making my way through the few hour long campaign. I ended up playing through on my PC.

Recently I found myself blazing through Children of Morta. If the game was a buffet, I kept going back up for more until I threw up. Children of Morta is your typical roguelike with randomly generated levels, randomized loot drops and even randomized events.

While I wasn’t holding the controller for the entirety of these playthroughs, I did get to experience the HD remaster of Shenmue I and II. These two games are an amazing window to the past, but often feel dated despite the up-rez’d graphics.

Life Is Strange: Before the Storm is a prequel to the 2015 time bending adventure hit from DONTNOD Entertainment. It was first released on August 31st 2017 and was developed by Deck Nine. While Deck Nine delivered a solid three episodes, the game largely fails to feel like more than fan service.

What Remains of Edith Finch was developed by Giant Sparrow and originally released in 2017 for the Playstation 4 and PC. The game also saw a release on Xbox One later in 2017, and came to the Switch in 2019. You play as Edith Finch, the last living member of the Finch family.

The Turing Test was released in 2016 and was developed by Bulkhead Interactive. It is a first person puzzle that takes place in a colony on Jupiter’s moon Europa. The crew has disappeared and in their place is a series of puzzles that Ava and the colony’s AI, TOM, must solve.

Quantum Break is a third person shooter from Remedy Games, and is currently available to play on game pass. I remember being hyped up by a faux Sam Lake to play as Jack Joyce and create dimensional rifts, but somehow this game never landed on my shelf.

I recently picked up an Xbox One X since my launch system was starting to look a little long in the tooth. Included was a free month of Microsoft’s Netflix of games, Game Pass. So, welcome to my new series, Game Pass it up.