So, Microsoft Rewards is a way to earn gift cards and coupons for the MS Store through doing Bing searches and Xbox activities. It's one of those things that with a small headstart, could pay for GamePass indefinitely if you did most of the activities/spent 5 min per day doing. One of my friends bought his ($500) Xbox Series X using Rewards Points earned over 14 months. In early January, an event started that gave you 3 weeks to earn up to 10000 Gamerscore for that many Rewards ($10-12 value). That's what drove my selection of games for the Xbox Series S this month. The target is general Gamerscore and can be earned through free trials, GamePass games, or anything you already own that would count as new achievements during this period.
Playable dioramas in The Gardens Between. In this dialogue-less game, you control two friends who are reliving memories before one of them moves out of town. The mechanics are that you two move forward and backward at the same time, while certain switches allow you to move time back and forth as well as you make progress through fallen obstacles and light puzzles. It was a quick, mostly-painless 3 hours or so to complete almost 800 Gamerscore.
Next was Fractured Minds, a really minimal puzzle game that is something of a mental illness PSA. Thankfully it was less than an hour to get through the whole thing. The game was developed by a 17-year old girl and won a bunch of rewards, but I just didn't connect to it at all.
Planet Coaster is a theme park sim where I got 340 G for downloading someone's custom track that simply achieves really high speeds and drops and climbs. I might go back to the theme park part, but I feel like Cities: Skylines would scratch my building/managing sim itch better.
One Leaves was a free download that was barely a game. The visuals were terrible, the music was bad, but it was 45 minutes to 800G so I'm not complaining. The game starts you off with 4 friends and you're supposed to race your way through a maze and get out first. There's a ward and lots of cadavers, and the game presents itself as a horror game but it's really just an anti-smoking PSA. It could have gone for being educational instead of simply trying to shock players.
Now for some titles with a little more spirit: I saw that a game called Sea Salt was leaving GamePass soon, so downloaded it and gave it a try. So, you're some cultist magician going up against (I think) The Pope and other religious heads. The mechanic is that you control a bunch of minions who feed on villagers and militia. I slept through the story and gave it about 2 hours before checking out with my 200G.
My Friend Pedro is a game I never would have played, as I totally judge books by their cover, and the cover of this game has a pencil, a gun and a banana. The plot is stupid as hell, with a banana that's controlling your player's mind. Luckily all that dumb talking is quickly skipped over for a Max Payne / John Wick / John Woo movie experience. The game has two levels that are themed as wacky as the banana thing, but is otherwise pretty damn fun, running and gunning to get combos while jumping and swingning and...skateboarding! 3 very fun hours/all levels in one sit-down session to 620 G.
One game I'm glad to have played was Carrion. The whole point of this game is that you're a violent tentacled horrific biomass that slides in and through buildings, eating, killing and evolving scientists and military folk as you look to escape. The same tentacles that kill by frantically jiggling back and forth to thrash victims are the same ones that flip switches and reach through vents. The roadblocks are usually pretty simple and can be overcome by backtracking a few screens for some upgraded ability or thread elimination. It doesn't give anything away to tell you they put the setting as Seattle. We'd house something like that here no problem! 5 hours to 800G, and the last 3 out of 12 levels are a challenge, though the overall difficulty is low-medium.
Speaking of weird, creepy aliens, I'm also playing Stranger Things 3. The 80s synth soundtrack is there on this isometric action adventure game where you bat (Mike), slingshot (Lucas) and spray (Dustin) rats and bad men. The objectives are related to the show, of course, so in one of them, you find parts for Dustin's radio tower. In another, you run an errand for Mike's (hot) mom; she needs cosmetics from the mall to meet up with Billy. Billy, of course, extorts you and says you can't get back into the pool without bringing him a soft pretzel. Anyway, considering this is my favorite season of one of my favorite shows ever, this is a slam dunk. The 2 hours I've spent with it have been easy, entertaining, fun and the gameplay isn't too involved. The race to 10000 Gamerscore will likely be over before I beat this game, but I'm enjoying it a lot so far, so I'll probably finish it. Is anyone else doing the Gamescore Challenge? What did you pick? What would you pick?
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