There are also some links within the first link that discuss indie local multiplayer games and upcoming indie games as well. Note that previous lists were not themed solely around platform games. Introduction We're all familiar with the Shovel Knight’s, A Hat in Time’s, and Celeste's of the world. These are some of the indie platform games that hit the big time. Of course, for every one of these games, there's 100 other indie games that have been glossed over, relegated to a spot in a digital store few people will ever find themselves in. I wanted to bring attention to some of these lesser known indie games once again. Platformers from Previous Lists I’m going to list the platformers that were in the previous three lists. None of them will reappear on this new list. 1-6 are from the first list, 7-11 are from the second list, and 12-14 are from the third list. They are as follows: (1.) Four Sided Fantasy, (2.) Daggerhood, (3.) Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight, (4.) Biolab Wars, (5.) Gravity Duck, (6.) Penarium, (7.) Cursed Castilla (Maldita Castilla EX), (8.) Hayfever, (9.) Duck Souls+, (10.) Cybarian: The Time-Traveling Warrior, (11.) Verlet Swing, (12.) Valfaris, (13.) Primal Light, and (14.) Tamashii. Note that both Biolab Wars and Valfaris are listed as run & guns, but they have platforming elements and are considered platformers by some people. Hayfever and Valfaris were my favorite games for their respective lists and are some of my favorite games in the genre. These 14 games listed range from puzzle platformers, precision platformers, action platformers, first person 3D platformers, Metroidvanias, run & guns, etc. There’s also Flat Heroes from my 10 local co-op recommendations list found as a link within the first post. Guacamelee is on there too, though it doesn’t qualify as an overlooked game. Details About the List All 9 games available on Steam are currently on sale. When this post is 17 hours old, the sales for these games will be over.Genre is going to be more like a short descriptor of the game for this list since these are all platformers. I’ve also included games with local co-op mixed in with solely single player games, including one built around the co-op experience for this list (before I did separate lists for single player only and games that included local co-op). I'm going to order them according to Metacritic Critic Ratings. One of the games towards the bottom has a pretty low rating (60%) that I personally disagree with, but it's only fair that you hear from more than just me. Since Steam has 9/10 of the games on the list (Switch has 8 of them, Xbox One has 6 of them, PlayStation 4 has 5 of them, and Wii U has 1 of them), I will be using the Steam Metacritic Critic Rating of each game, except for #9, where I will use the PlayStation 4 version, since that’s the only version of it available currently. I’m going to list 5 2D and 5 3D platformers for this list. For the purpose of this post, I’m just going to stick with saying “achievements” and “getting all achievements” instead of “trophies” and “platinum trophy” since Steam has 9 of the games on the list. You can basically substitute these with “trophies” and “platinum trophy” if you’re a PlayStation gamer. I will make mention of the two games on here that don’t include a platinum trophy however. Platforms will include a link to the U.S. store page of the game for each platform. Price is in U.S. dollars. 1. Levelhead
Description: Levelhead is a drag and drop maker game with a robust set of tools, cross functionality between all platforms, and cloud saves. The most obvious comparison is Super Mario Maker, and on consoles the UI and tools for creating levels are very similar (D-Pad to cycle through items, analog stick to place). However, Levelhead brings a number of elements to the table to make it way more than just a budget clone: near instant respawns upon death, a marketing department to advertise your levels, more advanced switches and logic systems, more mixing and matching between backgrounds and music, etc. Levelhead fixes a persistent problem found in nearly all maker games: many levels are simply dead in the water as soon as they’re pushed out. In Levelhead, the more levels you play, the more marketing currency you earn that can be in turn spent to push your levels to the top. It’s a kind of “play for play” scenario that cuts out the middle man, social media, and integrates it all into the game.
Description Continued: Levelhead also has some unique items that make it standout – in particular, the powerups. There are seven of these and they can really transform the platforming. The Zipper, for example, will teleport your character four tiles ahead through everything but lead blocks. The local co-op allows for up to four players to both create and play levels, including the campaign (known as “Training” in the game) that helps introduce you to the items and tools of the game. There have been a number of updates since its initial release in April 2019 and Community Spotlights on the Steam page of the game.
Completion Time: ~5 Hours
Extra Content: There are over 75,000 community levels to play, with more being added every day. This game could potentially last you hundreds of hours. Achievements are very difficult and would likely require you to make high quality levels to get them all, as some are dependent on the number of people who have played your level.
Description: It’s no surprise a group of ex-Rayman developers went on to create another fantastic platformer (not to be confused with Unruly Heroes). The main hook of Splasher are the three liquid abilities you find that influence how your character moves and jumps. Red paint will allow you to stick to surfaces and run on walls and ceilings, yellow paint will bounce you to new heights, and water can be used to undo the effects of either and rescue other splashers trapped by the paint. The game is fast paced, so knowing when to use which is as important as jumping at the right time. You’re eased into each new ability for a few stages before getting a new one so it’s never overwhelming.
Description Continued: Each level has six other splashers to rescue that each spell a letter of the word “Splash.” These act as an expanded test of your platforming abilities. There are also one to three segregated zones per level – these are single screen areas you must survive or win to rescue one of the other splashers. Making these optional zones that exist outside the regular level is a great touch because it allows the game to keep its fast paced “always be moving” approach while still allowing for greater variety in gameplay. You’ll typically either need to defeat a certain number of enemies or platform around the room to release the splasher. There’s only one boss that comes at the end of the game – the rest of the time you’ll be running, jumping, and painting.
Completion Time: ~5 Hours
Extra Content: I only rescued 2/3 of the splashers my first time around, so it will likely take a couple hours to save the rest. In addition, there’s a time trial mode that rewards you three different medals based on your time, as well as online leaderboards that measure your time against the rest of the world.
Description: This comes from many of the same people who worked on the Marble Blast series from the early 2000s. The most mainstream comparison to this game would probably be Super Monkey Ball, though unlike that game you control the marble directly here rather than the stage. Your marble can jump and user powerups, and many times you’ll have to use the momentum to overcome the obstacles in front of you. Levels are usually linear, though there are many levels that tasks you with collecting gems in a more open area. There’s a great sense of speed to the levels, and with the proper timing of a good jump this allows you to forge your own path in many levels. Since each level is timed, you’ll see that many of the top players have found a way outside the expected path to the finish. This is great for speedrunning enthusiasts, though it’s still a fun time even if you’re not looking to climb the leaderboards.
Description Continued: Medals are awarded based on your completion time of each level, and the fact that they’re pretty short makes them highly replayable. There are also trophies to find in each level that allow you to unlock more marbles. You can choose between 100+ different marbles to play as. The game leans on the easier side – frequent checkpoints, large platforms, no time-outs, etc., but you’ll likely still die a few times before finishing a level. There are a few nice quality of life features I also appreciate: you can switch music tracks on the pause screen, use either the shoulder buttons or face buttons to jump and use power-ups, hide the timer if fast moving numbers intimidate you, reset the stage with a push of a button, and rewind time in practice mode.
Completion Time: ~4 Hours
Extra Content: You can try for the platinum medal on each level, find the collectible trophy in each level, participate in the daily challenges, and try to top the leaderboards. There are also over 100 unique marbles to collect that are awarded for doing the aforementioned challenges. The Steam version also has Steam Workshop support, which allows you to create and play custom user created content.
Description: This is the sequel to the original 2D PC exclusive from 2017, with another 3D sequel currently in production. If you care at all for the story, it’s recommended you play or at least read about what happened in the first game. Spark 2 actually follows Fark, another jester. Spark 2 emulates many of the high speed moments found in 3D Sonic games, but brings a few ideas of its own. In particular, action is a bigger focus in this game, though platforming is still the priority. Enemies are easy enough to run past with a few exceptions for mini bosses at the end of some levels and the nine main bosses. In addition, enemies can also add to your score.
Description Continued: In addition to Fark’s expanded move-set in combat, he also has the ability to double jump, dash, and wall jump. The jumps give you a lot of air time, lending more leniency to the platforming, and the dash is great for building momentum. There’s quite a bit to explore in each level too – jumping off ramps in the middle of loopdeloops will sometimes result in you finding the game’s main collectible, floppy disks. Fark can also acquire four additional costumes found within the levels that offer some variation in abilities. The game offers five difficulties at the start, with it recommending the second easiest option, Normal, as the default way to play your first time through. Bosses on this difficulty are fairly easy provided you’re competent with timing when to use your shield, though I did lose once or two against a few of them.
Completion Time: ~3 Hours
Extra Content: The game measures both your time and score for each level and rewards you with a gold or platinum medal depending on your performance. Getting all the medals for each of the 14 levels and nine bosses add a few hours to the game. There’s also a Tour Mode that tests you with specific challenges, like beating the whole game with only five lives. In addition, there are 109 floppy disks to find that unlock art. I only found 18 on my first playthrough. You can also replay the game on one of the higher difficulties. The game requires you 100% complete all of this for 100% achievement attainment.
Description: Never Alone centers around an Inupiat girl and a fox and tells a story based on Inupiat folktales. The Inupiat are an Alaskan Native people. The entire game takes place in this icy climate, with the story revolving around the girl finding the source of a blizzard sweeping away her village. This is a slower paced platformer and tends to lean on the easy side of things. The game is built around the co-op experience much like Untravel Two, Putty Pals, and Biped. However Never Alone assigns a unique role to each of the two characters. Only the fox can wall jump and bring visibility to spirits (who act as platforms), while the girl can push crates and throw magical beads.
Description Continued: While the game is built around the cooperation of the two players, it can still be enjoyed in single player, with the player being able to switch between both characters when playing solo. There are a few set-piece moments I don’t see in a lot of 2D platformers that really adds to the feeling of being on a long journey far away from home. The music is also appropriately ambient and reflects the desolate wintery environments. When playing through the game you’ll come across collectibles called “cultural insights,” which are videos that tell you more about the Inupiat culture.
Completion Time: ~4 Hours (including the 1 hour Foxtales DLC bundled with the Arctic Collection)
Extra Content: You can try to collect all the cultural insights and find all the secrets. Getting all achievements will require you to do so. There is no platinum trophy for this game.
Description: Searching developer Dead Mage’s website for Children of Morta DLC updates exposed me to one of their earlier works – an action platformer reminiscent of Shinobi and Strider. Among a sea of pixel art 2D platformers, Shadow Blade stands out with its 3D characters and backgrounds. And the gameplay complements the modern work – your character has a number of moves at his disposable: wall jumps, wall slides, a downward jump attack, a dash, throw shuriken, etc. Getting in the flow of a level and being able to string all these moves together with the right timing feels really good.
Description Continued: While there are boss fights and times where you’ll be locked in a room forced to dispatch enemies, the game leans much heavier on its platforming elements. Many enemies can simply be evaded, though dispatching them can also increase your score at the end of each level. In addition, there are collectibles and a constant timer that also weighs in on your performance at the end of each level. The game is a bit easier than most 2D platformers, but getting a perfect grade is a difficult thing to achieve. Cutscenes are presented in the style of a comic book. While the story itself isn’t particularly novel, the presentation lends it a more unique flavor.
Completion Time: ~3 Hours
Extra Content: You can try for a perfect grade on each level. There is also a separate Challenge Mode that has specially designed levels that are of a greater challenge than what’s found in the main campaign with leaderboard rankings. There are two higher difficulties that can be unlocked. In addition, the Steam version has Steam Workshop integration with a level editor and custom levels to play. Getting all achievements would be very difficult. There is no platinum trophy.
Description: This is a 3D platformer that reportedly takes inspiration from both MediEvil and Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy. There’s about equal amounts of platforming and combat in this game. While the combat is relatively simple, you’re given a variety of weapons that all feel unique. The levels have a good amount of variety within them – you’ll jump between ships on a ferry ride, ride an undead horse through the sky, play a few mini games as a headless Jack, and fight a boss at the end of each of the six levels. Both the combat and platforming are relatively easy – platforms are typically large and Jack has an edge grab that helps tremendously, and smashing the many destructible objects around the levels increases your health.
Description Continued: This game takes the linear adventure approach, with a number of collectibles sprinkled throughout the levels: crow skulls, presents, and gramophones. Some areas are more open and allow you to choose the order in which you do certain tasks. The game has a decent amount of dialogue in it, which does an effective job of giving some character to Jack, his two animal companions, and the rest of the cast. The visuals and soundtrack are particularly great, especially if you’re into Halloween themed media.
Completion Time: ~4 Hours
Extra Content: There’s collectibles to back for – I got about 2/3 of the collectibles on my first playthrough – skins to unlock – which are purchased with the collectibles you find in the levels – and you get to start a second playthrough with all the weapons already unlocked at the beginning. You’ll also be able to return to any level you want via the level select menu. Getting all achievements is contingent on collecting all the crow skulls, gramophones, and outfits (presents were added in a later update and so aren’t required for 100% achievement attainment).
Description: Unbox takes heavy inspiration from Banjo Kazooie and other collectathons of the fifth generation but has levels far larger than any Nintendo 64 platformer. Fortunately your customizable character can cover huge amounts of ground very quickly via the unbox mechanic, which is basically a super jump you can use up to six times before you need replenishment via item pickups or checkpoints. Both the jump and unbox mechanic are tied to the shoulder buttons, which takes some getting used to but is ultimately one I’m in favor of, as it allows for camera control without removing your thumb from the jump or unbox buttons. The high speeds you can travel make for some great exploration, but the game is still able to disable your ability to unbox by giving you a “fragile” item, allowing for more carefully considered platforming sections.
Description Continued: Each of the three major worlds have four major collectibles: 200 gold tape, 10 caged zippies, 18 stamps, and 1 super stamp rewarded upon defeating the boss of the world. There is also a hub world that has just 200 gold tape to collect. The 18 stamps are the jiggies or stars of the game, and they’re primarily what you’re after to advance the game. 9 of them are hidden across the world, while the other 9 are given by NPCs upon the completion of a task: Digi will ask you to take an item from point A to point B with some platforming in between, Dash will ask you to complete three races around different areas of the map, Superbox will ask you to destroy 20 enemies in X amount of time, etc. The other collectibles simply unlock more cosmetic options for your character.
Completion Time: ~7 Hours
Extra Content: The game only requires you collect 2/3 of the stamps to beat the game. If you want to collect all the stamps, zippies, and gold tape, this could more than double your playtime, as the worlds are massive and finding all the gold tape is a daunting task, though they do make a distinct noise when you are near them once you’ve collected half of them in a level. Your friendly companion Bounce will also give you visual clues on where to find whatever collectible you might be stuck on. I was able to find all the collectibles in the first world but three gold tape with next to no issues, though Bounce helped me with the remaining three. I really have to commend the developers for their inclusion of both audio cues and visual guides built within the game to guide you to collectibles – it makes collecting every last thing a lot less tedious. The high speeds of your character allow you great traversal of the world, which also helps with collecting everything. The achievements require you to collect everything. There is no platinum trophy. In addition to the single player campaign, there are quite a few local multiplayer modes for up to four players – these include Boxing, Collect, Thief, Oddbox, and Delivery. The developers go into more detail on each mode here.
9. A Tale of Paper
Platforms:PlayStation 4, [Steam version planned for 2021]
Description: A Tale of Paper takes direct inspiration from Little Nightmares, sporting the same sideview camera angle and minimalist narrative. It’s a little less creepy, has a bit more platforming, and it has the interesting twist of transforming into a variety of different origamis on the fly: from a little alien creature, to a frog, to a ball, to a paper airplane, etc., all with the push of a button. You’ll use a combination of different origami shapes to overcome the obstacles in the area, and you’ll be accompanied by some gorgeous sceneries in the process.
Description Continued: The gameplay is pretty easy in both its platforming and puzzles, making it an easygoing, movie-esque kind of game. While the story is minimalist, it results in a satisfying conclusion, and it really feels like you’ve been through quite a journey even with the short runtime. The game evokes the feeling of being a tiny specimen in a larger-than-life world – Toy Story 2 is probably the most apt comparison I can make. Outside of Little Nightmares, I haven’t played another game quite like this.
Completion Time: ~1.5 Hours
Extra Content: I got seven of the eight origami collectibles in my first run through the game. The trophies also only offer a few extra things to do, but I’d recommend reading the list of trophies before you play the game if you want to get the relatively easy platinum trophy.
Description: While this game is definitely inspired by Sonic the Hedgehog, the pace is a lot slower - no high speed loopdeloops or anything like that. You're never going at a speed where you can't anticipate the obstacles in front of you. That said, it has a similar visual design, the same kind of ball roll, and a similar level design philosophy, along with some new ideas: turning into a ball allows you to perform a ricochet wall jump, collecting 10 diamonds (the equivalent of rings) fills your hearts from 1 to 6 depending on how many you have, and the gems you collect allow you access to Three Heart Palaces that increase your number of heart containers from 3 to 6. The Heart Palaces also challenge you with a unique speedrun level before you get the heart container increase. Power-ups also have a little extra utility, in that some must be used to access certain hidden areas where gems lie. It also incorporates a smaller Super Mario World style overworld map that allows you to sometimes take different routes.
Description Continued: There are 36 levels spread across 11 worlds, with a good amount of level variety and a sizable number of bosses. There are some cool ideas with the bosses too - like hitting a boss upwards to the top of the screen on a vertical level as he constantly tries to force himself downwards. Bosses generally can be attacked at any time, in contrast to many other pure platformers that require a boss to exhaust his moves before becoming vulnerable. This comes from the same developers as Clash Force – a Mega Man inspired action platformer – Spicy Gyro Games and Shiny Dolphin Games, but Polyroll is a significant improvement over their first game.
Completion Time: ~5 Hours
Extra Content: There are 96 gems to collect – three per 32/36 of the levels. Collecting all of them would add a few hours to the game.
Special shoutout to Levelhead which is my favorite game on the list and one of my favorite level creation games ever. Have you played any of these games? What are some other overlooked platform indie games?
Introduction We're all familiar with the Hotline Miami's, Hollow Knight's, and Celeste's of the world. These are some of the indie games that hit the big time. Of course, for every one of these games, there's 100 other indie games that have been glossed over, relegated to a spot in a digital store few people will ever find themselves in. I wanted to bring attention to some of these lesser known indie games. I'm going to order them according to Metacritic Critic Ratings. Some of the games towards the bottom have a pretty low rating that I personally disagree with, but it's only fair that you hear from more than just me. While the reviews are low for some games, this is partly due to how few reviews there are for some games. #19 on the list has a 49% for the Xbox One version of the game due to it only having two reviews, while the PlayStation 4 version has a 90% rating due to it only having one review, despite both versions being functionally the same. This high level of variance usually occurs when a game only has a few reviews. Price will include a link to the U.S. store page of the game. Price is in U.S. dollars. 1. Inertial Drift
Includes a Separate 2 Player Local Competitive/Versus Multiplayer Mode
Description: Inertial Drift's distinguishing characteristic is its employment of the right analog stick for drifting. This takes a little getting used to, but it feels great once you get the hang of it, creating some exhilarating moments when perfecting corner turns. The game has 10 unique tracks + 10 reversed tracks, 16 vehicles, and four separate story arcs. Each story arc is only a couple of hours long and features a different protagonist with a different vehicle. Since you’ll be racing on the same track a few times, there are a few gameplay variations that differ from just reaching the finish line at the end, such as racking up a certain number of points that are acquired through longer drift times and other means. There's quite a bit of dialogue between races, and in the races themselves characters will frequently dish out positive commentary on your performance in the form of text in the top left hand corner of the screen. The game's aesthetics are a fusion of anime and synthwave. I've heard many fans liken the game to the manga Initial D, though I'm unfamiliar with that series myself.
Completion Time: ~3 Hours (for 1/4 Story Arcs)
Extra Content: There are a number of different modes including a Story Mode, Challenge Mode, Grand Prix Mode, Arcade Mode, two player Split-Screen, and Online, as well as a Tutorial. Completion of challenges in Challenge Mode allows you to unlock new vehicles for the other non-Story Modes. Grand Prix Mode allows you to race using different characters/vehicles through a connected set of challenges, while Arcade Mode is for one-off races. I wouldn't recommend this game for online play as the user-base is pretty small (hence it being overlooked) and you're unlikely to find a match. Getting all the achievements is fairly difficult.
Description: This is an action platformer that emulates arcade games from the latter half of the 1980s, but it is probably most reminiscent of Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts. The creator, Locomalito, states that the soundtrack uses the true arcade sound of the YM2203 chip. The game is hard, but the checkpoints are never more than a minute or two apart, and the lives' system/continue system has no penalties outside of locking you out of achievements. This is a very boss dense game - in the ~4 hour run-time it takes to complete the game, you fight 19 bosses. The handful of weapons and items you pick up helps lend variety to the combat, and no two boss fights feel the same.
Completion Time: ~4 Hours
Extra Content: The game has two endings. Most players will get the bad ending the first time around and be locked out of the final stage (which is the longest stage in the game). You do have to play through the game again to get the good ending, but you'll likely do it in half the time. If you want to see all the major content on your first go around, I recommend looking up how to get the good ending before you play the game. If you do achieve the good ending on your first playthrough, the completion time is probably closer to six hours. As far as achievements are concerned, 100% completion is very difficult to obtain. If you like an extreme challenge, this one's for you.
Description: Valfaris acts as a continuation of Slain - the developer's previous work - but it’s not necessary to play Slain first to understand the story of Valfaris. While Slain was mostly just a slightly above average action platformer, Valfaris is one of the best run & gun games I've ever played. You play as Prince Therion who returns to his home planet of Valfaris on a quest to kill his father. It's themed around a fictional planet and has a gross alien vibe coupled with heavy metal music. The music doesn't override the other audio in the game, and it does a nice job of upping the ante when you're fighting a boss – of which there are many. You're equipped with a primary gun, a more powerful mana-based gun, a sword, and a shield that can block with mana or parry.
Description Continued: There are a number of weapons to acquire throughout the game, and the guns in particular do a great job of feeling different. You’re able to upgrade your weapons with Blood Metals. Some Blood Metals are found in plain sight, others are rewarded for defeating a tough enemy, and some are given for going off the beaten path. These upgrades typically just up the firepower but will sometimes introduce a secondary move to your weapon. There are checkpoints every two minutes or so, and most bosses will have a checkpoint just before them (only the weaker bosses come after a gauntlet of enemies). The game is a little hard at points, but overall it strikes a nice balance of feeling accomplished for overcoming the challenges without getting overly frustrating.
Completion Time: ~8 Hours
Extra Content: There are a few secrets to find throughout the game that are off the beaten path, though I was able to find 2/3 of them on my first playthrough. I found all but one weapon as well. The replayability comes from New Game+, which allows you to take all your upgraded weapons into a harder version of the game. Since the weapons all function a bit differently, this can be lots of fun. There are also some achievements that test your skills further, like finishing the game in two hours or beating the game with 10 or less deaths.
Description: This is a 3D platformer that reportedly takes inspiration from both MediEvil and Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy. There’s about equal amounts of platforming and combat in this game. While the combat is relatively simple, you’re given a variety of weapons that all feel unique. The levels have a good amount of variety within them – you’ll jump between ships on a ferry ride, ride an undead horse through the sky, play a few mini games as a headless Jack, and fight a boss at the end of each of the six levels. Both the combat and platforming are relatively easy – platforms are typically large and Jack has an edge grab that helps tremendously, and smashing the many destructible objects around the levels increases your health. This game takes the linear adventure approach, with a number of collectibles sprinkled throughout the levels: crow skulls, presents, and gramophones. Some areas are more open and allow you to choose the order in which you do certain tasks. The game has a decent amount of dialogue in it, which does an effective job of giving some character to Jack, his two animal companions, and the rest of the cast. The visuals and soundtrack are particularly great, especially if you’re into Halloween themed media.
Completion Time: ~4 Hours
Extra Content: There’s collectibles to back for – I got about 2/3 of the collectibles on my first playthrough – skins to unlock – which are purchased with the collectibles you find in the levels – and you get to start a second playthrough with all the weapons already unlocked at the beginning
Description: Pato Box follows an anthropomorphic duck boxer on an adventure through a stylistic noir comic book world. “Pato” is a Spanish word that translates to “Duck” in English (the game was developed by a Mexican studio). The boss fights are heavily inspired by Punch-Out’s gameplay, but there are levels outside of these fights to help differentiate it. Most of the levels can be selected in any order you choose and typically serve as a leadup to the boss fight. Bosses are usually introduced by a cutscene followed by some dialogue taunting Pato Box. The levels play entirely differently from the fights, but the themes of the level match those of the bosses. The levels will employ various elements of evasion, stealth, exploration, and a few time-based mini-games. The casino level, for example, will have you walk around the casino looking for chips and punching the slot machines to earn enough to pay entrance to the fight, while the food factory has you evading stompers, sawblades, and butcher knives as you work your way through the level.
Description Continued: There are variety of things to find throughout the levels: tokens for decorations in Pato Box’s room, backstory on the boss of the level and the world, and tips on how to win the upcoming fight. The fights themselves lock Pato Box in the middle of the screen, allowing you to block, juke left or right, and perform a low or high jab to the left or right. Bosses are dynamic and have a number of different phases to fight through. The game foregoes a HUD in favor of a visual representation of your health via scars on your body, which I thought was a nice touch. While the levels and bosses play pretty differently from each other, they’re weaved together by a dark and intriguing story that follows Pato Box’s quest for retribution against an evil corporation.
Completion Time: ~7 Hours
Extra Content: There’s an Arcade Mode that lets you replay boss fights and some collectibles to find in the main campaign. The achievements are very difficult, and many ask you to beat a boss without taking a single hit.
Description: Ultra Hat Dimension follows Bea through a series of rooms in a palace on a quest to undo the magical spell that has made the mythical Spluff creatures want to attack one another. There is a little bit of backstory via one sentence thoughts from Bea in between levels, but nothing major here. The gameplay revolves equipping four different types of hats and using them to evade or push Spluffs around to retrieve the key and reach the door. Each Spluff dons one of four different hats which effects their behavior towards other Spluffs and you. You will be punched one tile back by every Spluff unless you’re wearing the same hat as the Spluff. Spluffs interact with one another differently depending on what hat they’re wearing in a rock, paper, scissors kind of way – they may punch a Spluff back one space, get into a scuffle that allows you to get close to them without wearing a hat, or they may temporarily disable them in a way that allows you to access the space the Spluff consumes within eight moves. There are undo and reset buttons included that allow you to quickly rewind mistakes. There are some clever puzzles accompanied by catchy tunes and a charming pixel art aesthetic. The difficulty is about average.
Completion Time: ~3 Hours
Extra Content: Since this is published by Ratalaika Games, getting all the achievements can be obtained after only clearing 2/3 of the levels. There are a few custom maps on the PC version of the game but no additional content on consoles.
Description: Usually with Metroidvanias, I expect a long, difficult game that's difficult to navigate. Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight is a counter to those ideas while still maintaining the exploratory nature of the sub-genre. The plot is pretty simple and doesn't feature a ton of story, but there are a few NPCs you talk to throughout your quest. The combat is also fairly simple, but the boss fights you engage in are all great. Without much weapon customization, it's stripped to the basics of dodging enemy attacks while trying to get a hit in. It makes for a game that's easy to get into and instantly start enjoying. All of the areas are visually appealing, some more than others, and each of them lasts shorter than you'd expect. The game is only around 3-5 hours, but it feels like you've played so much more in that time. Some games only really start to take off by the time this game finishes.
Completion Time: ~4 Hours
Extra Content: Getting 100% map completion should only take an hour or two of cleanup. I did miss an optional boss on my first playthrough. There are also items to discover, and the achievements give fun challenges to extend the life of the game. One cool thing I liked was that beating a boss without getting hit at all gives you a useful item. It also features New Game+, allowing you to carry over most of your items, making the game more difficult, and changing up enemy placement.
Description: The Count Lucanor’s story is very fairy tale-esque – more like a classic fairy tale as it can be pretty dark and grotesque at times. On his 10th birthday, Hans chooses to leave his mother in a quest for wealth. After some walking and conversation with NPCs you find along the way, you stumble upon a large mansion and find that the count of this mansion is looking to pass his wealth onto an heir who can prove himself worthy – “worthy” in this case being the one who can figure out the count’s name. From here, you are tasked with adventuring through the mansion and solving environmental puzzles in a nonlinear way to acquire the letters that spell the count’s name. There is a survival horror element to the game, as you are unable to attack the enemies in the mansion and instead must crawl under tables and find other ways around them. You can place candles around the mansion to light it up to help you better evade enemies, but your usage is limited (though you can find more).
Completion Time: ~4 Hours
Extra Content: There are five different endings and some puzzles/rooms you don’t even have to do. This could double your playtime – maybe even more if you don’t use a guide. You have to get all five endings and do some other miscellaneous stuff to get all achievements, but it has a relatively high completion rate.
Description: If you liked Detroit: Become Human or Until Dawn, Late Shift will be right up your alley. This game is a bit different from both those titles in that it's an FMV, with the gameplay solely consisting of the choices you make. You receive prompts at key moments in the story on what you want your character to do next, and this effects the outcome of the game. It plays more like Black Mirror's Bandersnatch, though this game came before it. The story follows an everyman who gets tangled up in London's criminal underground just as a result of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Completion Time: ~1.5 Hour Completion Time*
Extra Content: There are 180 choice points and 7 different endings. I only got 4 out of 21 of the achievements on my first playthrough. There are a number of different routes to take with the game.
10. Unbox: Newbie’s Adventure
Includes a Separate 4 Player Local Competitive/Versus Multiplayer Mode
Description: Unbox takes heavy inspiration from Banjo Kazooie and other collectathons of the fifth generation but has levels far larger than any Nintendo 64 platformer. Fortunately your customizable character can cover huge amounts of ground very quickly via the unbox mechanic, which is basically a super jump you can use up to six times before you need replenishment via item pickups or checkpoints. Both the jump and unbox mechanic are tied to the shoulder buttons, which takes some getting used to but is ultimately one I’m in favor of, as it allows for camera control without removing your thumb from the jump or unbox buttons. The high speeds you can travel make for some great exploration, but the game is still able to disable your ability to unbox by giving you a “fragile” item, allowing for more carefully considered platforming sections.
Description Continued: Each of the three major worlds have four major collectibles: 200 gold tape, 10 caged zippies, 18 stamps, and 1 super stamp rewarded upon defeating the boss of the world. There is also a hub world that has just 200 gold tape to collect. The 18 stamps are the jiggies or stars of the game, and they’re primarily what you’re after to advance the game. 9 of them are hidden across the world, while the other 9 are given by NPCs upon the completion of a task: Digi will ask you to take an item from point A to point B with some platforming in between, Dash will ask you to complete three races around different areas of the map, Superbox will ask you to destroy 20 enemies in X amount of time, etc. The other collectibles simply unlock more cosmetic options for your character.
Completion Time: ~7 Hours
Extra Content: The game only requires you collect 2/3 of the stamps to beat the game. If you want to collect all the stamps, zippies, and gold tape, this could more than double your playtime, as the worlds are massive and finding all the gold tape is a daunting task, though they do make a distinct noise when you are near them once you’ve collected half of them in a level. Your friendly companion Bounce will also give you visual clues on where to find whatever collectible you might be stuck on. I was able to find all the collectibles in the first world but three gold tape with next to no issues, though Bounce helped me with the remaining three. I really have to commend the developers for their inclusion of both audio cues and visual guides built within the game to guide you to collectibles – it makes collecting every last thing a lot less tedious. The high speeds of your character allow you great traversal of the world, which also helps with collecting everything. The achievements require you to collect everything. In addition to the single player campaign, there are quite a few local multiplayer modes for up to four players – these include Boxing, Collect, Thief, Oddbox, and Delivery. The developers go into more detail on each mode here.
Description: This is the sequel to the original 2D PC exclusive from 2017, with another 3D sequel currently in production. If you care at all for the story, it’s recommended you play or at least read about what happened in the first game. Spark 2 actually follows Fark, another jester. Spark 2 emulates many of the high speed moments found in 3D Sonic games, but brings a few ideas of its own. In particular, action is a bigger focus in this game, though platforming is still the priority. Enemies are easy enough to run past with a few exceptions for mini bosses at the end of some levels and the nine main bosses. In addition, enemies can also add to your score.
Description Continued: In addition to Fark’s expanded move-set in combat, he also has the ability to double jump, dash, and wall jump. The jumps give you a lot of air time, lending more leniency to the platforming, and the dash is great for building momentum. There’s quite a bit to explore in each level too – jumping off ramps in the middle of loopdeloops will sometimes result in you finding the game’s main collectible, floppy disks. Fark can also acquire four additional costumes found within the levels that offer some variation in abilities. The game offers five difficulties at the start, with it recommending the second easiest option, Normal, as the default way to play your first time through. Bosses on this difficulty are fairly easy provided you’re competent with timing when to use your shield, though I did lose once or two against a few of them.
Description: Remothered: Tormented Fathers feels very old school in its design philosophy - no weapons outside a few self defense items and distraction items. You go back and forth in the mansion and have to learn the layout and where things are to proceed. You have to manually select the key item from your inventory to use on triggers (but a key icon is still shown to guide you a little). The sounds in this game do a great job of evoking tension, and I appreciate that the stalkers don’t seem to teleport, so if you can get away from them, you’ve earned your freedom for awhile. This is the first game in a loosely connected trilogy. The second one - Remothered: Broken Porcelain just released last month, but I've heard it's pretty buggy at the moment and not recommended in its current state.
Completion Time: ~6 Hours
Extra Content: There are some collectibles you can go back for, but not a whole beyond that. You’ll probably get most of the achievements – if not all, except the collectibles one - on your first playthrough.
Description: The premise of the game is a fusion of side scrollers and oldschool fixed screens that teleport you to the opposite side of the screen when you pass through one side - think Pac-Man, arcade Mario Bros., or Balloon Fight. You will find obstacles in your path that are impenetrable in a typical side scroller, but can be overcome by holding a button to turn the screen into a fixed screen that allows you to pass through one side and out through the other end. This is a totally unique take on a puzzle platformer I haven't seen before, and all five worlds bring something new to the table. For example, World 2 will flip you upside down when you pass through a screen, allowing new types of challenges as a result. There's more emphasis on the puzzle elements than the platforming.
Completion Time: ~2 Hours
Extra Content: There is a New Game+, but from what I could tell from the beginning it wasn't a whole lot different. Still, there's an achievement for completing New Game+ and some other fun achievements.
Description: SINNER is a Soulslike boss rush - there are no levels and only small area before each boss to practice your moves. There are eight bosses, the first seven allowing you to fight in any order, each representing the seven deadly sins. You are equipped with everything the game has to offer from the beginning (except for the New Game+ weapon they give you), and instead of becoming more powerful, you gradually lose things with each boss you defeat, hence the “sacrifice” in the title. It’s like a reverse RPG. Each boss has a different sacrifice associated to it – one may deplete your throwing items’ usage, while another will deplete your health and stamina. Picking the best order to fight them in adds a little strategic thinking to the game, as you may be more dependent on your large health and stamina bar more than your throwing items’ usage, for example. The game is fairly difficult, so your victories over each boss feel very gratifying when they do come.
Completion Time: ~5 Hours
Extra Content: There is New Game+ that offers you an additional weapon. The achievements task you with a few things you have to pull off in battles, and getting all the achievements is pretty easy to obtain.
Description: Reportedly inspired by obscure Japanese games from the late 1980s and 1990s, Tamashii blends puzzle platforming together with an oppressive atmosphere. The introduction starts with the character being willed into existence by a godlike character that tasks him with destroying the macabre forces that have taken control of and corrupted his chambers. Your character is able to spawn three inanimate clones of himself which is the primary source for most of the platforming and some of the boss fights – you’ll use them to trigger switches and open up new paths. There’s about an even mix of puzzle solving and platforming, and there’s a whole eight bosses in this short adventure (though one is a secret) that are probably the most visually interesting moments in the game. The creatures and backgrounds are effective in selling the dark presentation of the game. The difficulty is about average – maybe slightly easier than most indie puzzle platformers. There is a sequel currently in the works.
Completion Time: ~2.5 Hours
Extra Content: There are a few obscure secrets to discover. You can also play through the chambers again with a score meter, and there are certain achievements associated with getting a good score. Getting all the achievements isn’t too difficult, but you’ll probably need a guide for some of the secrets.
Description: Verlet Swing’s aesthetic is as intriguing as its gameplay: you are tasked with grappling and swinging yourself across these vaporwave styled levels without hitting anything. The levels are all very short, but you’re likely to play many levels dozens of times before even finishing it… just to get a 1/4 rank. The ranking system is actually very cool, in that it encourages you to find alternative paths or sometimes just building up more momentum to get to the end faster. Most levels do seem to have a set path, but at the same time, with the proper grappling of the mechanics, you can forge your own, which is a game in itself.
Completion Time: ~7 Hours
Extra Content: There’s an in game challenge menu that mostly recycles a lot of the base game content – though there’s a particularly funny one that switches the perspective to third person to play as a knockoff Spiderman. You can also go back and try to get the best possible time for each level. Getting all achievement is extremely difficult.
Description: Warlock’s Tower’s puzzles are built around the movement of the player. There are numbers on the ground for the player to pick up – either 3 or 5 – and this gives the player a set number of steps before they die. Your goal in every level is to make it to an exit, and you’ll have to acquire the numbers in an order that gets you there. It is a bit easy in the beginning but eventually works up to be a challenge in the later levels as more elements are introduced: enemies, teleporters, conveyors, and even controlling two characters at once that share movement usage. The game has a very believable GameBoy aesthetic and sound effects to accompany it, and it works for this slower paced tile-based game.
Completion Time: ~6 Hours
Extra Content: This is published by Ratalaika Games, but surprisingly enough, you actually have to beat the game and find a few NPCs hidden in certain levels to get all achievements. There are optional levels in each world that don’t have any achievements attached to them, and this should add a few hours to the game.
Description: The Bunker is an FMV point & click adventure, meaning it features real actors and environments just like a live action movie. Many of the actors involved have been in high profile movies/TV shows as well, including The Hobbit, Game of Thrones, Star Wars, and Penny Dreadful. The game takes place in a fallout shelter and follows the last survivor as he tries to find a way outside following the death of his mother, after living 30+ years in the bunker. The gameplay has you solving puzzles and finding ways to proceed to the next area. The story is the focal point of the game though, and it frequently switches between the past and the present to tell its story. There’s a good juxtaposition between the lively past and the lonely present that makes you question how the protagonist ended up as the last survivor. There’s only one narrative choice to make in the game, and it comes at the very end. The game also works in handheld mode with touchscreen functionality if you'd prefer to play it that way.
Completion Time: ~2. Hour Completion Time*
Extra Content: You can replay the game and try to find all the collectibles. Most of them give more background on the story. You can trigger the ending you did not choose the first time around by simply reloading the last checkpoint, so there is no need to play through the whole game again to unlock it. Getting all the achievements is fairly easy.
Description: Hayfever is a precision platformer that revolves around a mailman propelling himself using a number of different allergens that act as power-ups. A lot of the platforming is aerial and typically has you catching allergens mid-air to perform maneuvers in quick succession. It's not an easy game by any means, but it has oddly relaxing music to accompany the rather intense platforming. There are also letters to collect in each level to steepen the challenge and some secrets to discover too. It takes an hour or so to get used to the aerial platforming, and this is one of the few 2D platformers played better with the analog stick rather than the D-Pad. But letters that seemed unattainable to me at the beginning of the game became much simpler by the end, as I had mastered the controls and physics of the game. I’ve played a ton of 2D platformers, and this is one of my favorites.
Completion Time: ~8 Hours
Extra Content: It'll take another 8 hours or so to collect all the letters and probably about 6 hours or so to beat the Hard World, which features an additional 28 remixed levels. There are also secrets to uncover, but they don't net any in game progress and only work towards your achievement completion. Finding these secrets will probably vary more in time because they are hidden, but expect them to take a few hours to find. Just to clarify, letters are an expanded test of your platforming skills and are all in clear view of the screen, while secrets are a test of your observational skills and take a little more digging to finish. Attaining all achievements is a fair and rewarding challenge that took me about 25-30 hours to get.
Description: Cybarian has an interesting yet simple combat system that distinguishes itself from most action platformers. Instead of mashing the attack button, you have to press it once, wait two seconds for the animation to complete, press it again, wait two seconds for the animation to complete, and then press it again to complete a full combo. It sounds like something that's easy to get down quickly, but I found myself still occasionally going too quickly in the intensity of a boss fight. The game punishes you by not fulfilling the attack if you button mash. After each boss fight, you unlock a new move that will be required to fell some foes in the next stage. Conversely, you can play Hard Mode which unlocks all moves right from the get-go, but you'll have to beat all four stages without dying. "Hardcore Mode" would've been a more apt description of this difficulty setting, I feel.
Completion Time: ~1.5 Hours
Extra Content: Just like with Ultra Hat Dimension and Warlock’s Tower, this is a Ratalaika Games published game, so getting all the achievements can be achieved in under an hour. It would've been nice if they pushed you to beat Hard Mode, but you'll just have to settle for internal gratification instead.
Conclusion My top 5 on the list in order would be the following: (1.) Hayfever, (2.) Valfaris, (3.) Cursed Castilla: (Maldita Castilla EX), (4.) Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight, and (5.) Pumpkin Jack. Have you played any of these games? What are some other overlooked single player indie games? See my post below for some upcoming indie games to look out for.
Beginner's Guide to XSX/XSS, Game Pass, Storage, and More!
(January 22 Pricing fiasco: On January 22nd Xbox announced that they were going to raise the price of Xbox Live Gold by 100%. Less than 24hrs later they went back on that decision due to backlash so the *pricing will remain the same** as described below. This is a reminder that they can/will modify the pricing in the future. With that said, this post will eventually be archived so my numbers below will end up being incorrect if/when they change the pricing. Thanks and again, happy gaming!)* Welcome to the Xbox family! The next generation of consoles is coming, as are tons of questions. This post provides guides and resources that cover the basics of the current state of Xbox. If you're new to Xbox, read Xbox Live/EA Play/Game Pass first. Before you proceed, please check the FAQ tab or Info tab from XboxSeriesX for more information, guides, and helpful links.
Xbox Live/EA Play/Game Pass
Xbox Live Gold (XBL) (US $9.99 monthly): Allows online multiplayer. Free games every month through Games with Gold. Click here to join Xbox
EA Play (US $4.99 monthly): Library of older games published by EA. New games are added 6-9 months after release.
Game Pass for PC/Game Pass for Console) (US $9.99 monthly): Game subscription service providing access to over 200+ Microsoft and third-party games. First-party MS games stay forever while third-party titles are timed. Game Pass for PC includes EA Play starting in December for PC(Game Pass for console does NOT include EA play!). Xbox Live Gold (not included) is not required for Game Pass games unless it's Online multiplayer.
xCloud - Cloud game streaming service for mobile access to select Game Pass titles. Still in Beta and not available as a standalone product.
Game Pass Ultimate (GPU) (US $14.99 monthly): Includes Xbox Live Gold, EA Play (November 10th for Console), Game Pass for PC, Game Pass for Console, and xCloud in one package.
Game Pass Ultimate And XBL Conversion For $1
(This is an extremely good deal for gamers new to Xbox, existing gamers, and parents..) Microsoft has been running a promotion where you get the first month of Game Pass Ultimate for $1 (USD). But its actually much better than that. In the Terms and Conditions of the promotion, it states that it will convert all Xbox Live Gold and/or Game Pass time to Game Pass Ultimate time at a 1:1 ratio for $1 (depending on eligibility it could be $14.99). The maximum time that can be converted is 36 months. The estimated savings for the full 36 months, if you buy XBL at retail price, is $359 (USD) saved.
When will this promotion end? No date confirmed
Can I do this if I have before? Yes
Can I do this if I currently have a GPU subscription active? No, adding XBL to your account converts at a 3/1 ratio
Can I do this if I currently have a Game Pass for PC or Console subscription active? Yes
Can I do this without an Xbox? Yes
Can I buy XBL from a different region where it's cheaper? Yes, but you must use a VPN and you may experience region issues with the code redemptions
Can I do this if I am no longer eligible for the $1 promotion price? Yes, but you must make a one-time US $14.99 payment instead of $1
Note: If the total time (XBL + Game Pass time) in your account is more than 36 months, use a PC to activate the promotion. Any time over the 36 month maximum will disappear. Update: Receiving mixed reports on this so it's best to try to not exceed 36 months.
Instructions
On your Microsoft Account, turn off any existing recurring billing for Game Pass or XBL.
Purchase three 12-month Xbox Live Gold cards for your region from a retailer like Amazon, Microsoft, Costco, CDKeys, or others. Note: CDKeys is a "gray market" site that sells these cards at steep discounts. They're easy to use and reliable.
Visit redeem.microsoft.com and redeem each XBL key. For each key, turn off the recurring billing toggle before you click Submit.
Check that you have at least 36 months of time on your account (XBL time and/or Game Pass [standard] time).
Visit the Xbox Game Pass page for your region, select your region at the bottom left (only for non US residents), and click Join Now.
Click Join for $1 under Ultimate.
Follow the prompts and provide your payment information when asked.
You should see that all your Game Pass and XBL time now says upgraded to Game Pass Ultimate in your Microsoft account. Cost Breakdown:36 months of GPU at retail price would normally be $540 ($14.99 x 36 months) but with this promotion you can get it for $181 (36 months of XBL for $180 + $1 promotion (or $15 depending on eligibility)
Backwards Compatibility
The new Xbox consoles support all Xbox One titles as well as any Xbox/Xbox 360 titles that are already supported on Xbox One. You may experience improvements to load times, framerate, and resolution. Kinect and headsets with optical sound connectors are not currently supported.
Expanding Storage
The new Xbox consoles have a storage expansion slot. Currently the only supported storage for this slot is the Seagate Expansion Card. You can install games here and play them directly from the card. While pricey, cheaper third-party alternatives are inevitable down the road. You can also use an external HDD or SSD (via the USB 3.1 [gen 1] ports) to store Series X or S games that you aren't playing. You can't play these directly from the drives and need to transfer them back to supported storage (shown on IGN's Hands On video** 3:18 minute mark**) You can use an external drive to play non-enhanced backwards-compatible games from the Xbox One, Xbox 360, and Xbox. For a quick reference, see this diagram (courtesy u/beateride) and Xbox Expansion Explained for more detailed information.
Xbox All Access
https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-all-access Xbox All Access is a monthly payment option which gives you a console and two years of GPU. The Xbox Series S is $24.99 a month and the Xbox Series X is $34.99, in the U.S. All Access involves opening a line of credit with a local credit issuer through the Microsoft-authorized service provider in your area. This means a credit check that usually impacts your credit score. To see if All Access is available in your region, see the supported regions list.
Bethesda Acquistion
There is no confirmation on if Xbox will make Bethesda games exclusive. Phil Spencer said it will be on a "case-by-case basis" for console exclusivity. All Bethesda games are set to be added and launched on Game Pass.
Next-gen console buying guide - a detailed look at the next generation consoles
Hey /IndianGaming ! A new generation of gaming is nearly upon us, and for those us who aren't PC gamers, that means weighty decisions about which machine to pick as our primary gaming rig for the next six or seven years. Now that we know pretty much everything about the Xbox and PlayStation, let's compare the two to try and discern which console would offer you the best gaming experience and value. I'll do the Xbox first because the difference between the two consoles is larger than with PlayStation.
PS5 vs Xbox - Hardware
Xbox The Xbox brand has come a long way in the past seven years. The release of the Xbox One was disastrous, plagued by always online, intrusive DRM, high pricing because of Kinect, and a bunch of other silly decisions from clueless execs who were completely out of touch which what gamers wanted. But ever since MS fired Don Mattrick and replaced him with Phil Spencer as the head of the Xbox division, Phil has slowly turned things around, coming up with many new innovations in an effort to get the xbox back up to competing with the big boys. Their hardware team too went from creating a prohibitively priced but technically weak console, to the most powerful console of this generation. For next gen, they've gone with an even more ambitious vision, creating two consoles at different price points targeting different output resolutions, but hoping to achieve the same level of performance. That's quite the goal! Let's check out the specs.
Component
Xbox Series X
Xbox Series S
CPU
8 Core AMD Zen 2 @3.8Ghz/3.6GhzSMT
8 Core AMD Zen 2 @3.6Ghz/3.4SMT
GPU
AMD RDNA2 GPU 52CU's @1.825 Ghz
AMD RDNA 2 GPU 20 CU's @1.565 Ghz
GPU Power
12.15 Teraflops
4 Teraflops
RAM
10GBGDDR6@560GB's / 6GB@336GB/s
8GBGDDR6@224GB's / 2GB@56GB/s
Storage
1TB PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD w/Velocity
512GB PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD w/Velocity
I/O Throughput
2.4 GB/s Uncompressed / 4.8 GB/s Compressed
2.4 GB/s Uncompressed / 4.8 GB/s Compressed
Performance Target
4k UHD
1440p
Disc Drive
4KUHD Blu-Ray
No Disc Drive
Price
₹49,999
₹34,999
Whoo! These are quite beefy machines. The current generation of consoles were actually quite dated even for their time. Not so this time around, these consoles are high end gaming rigs, with the Series X even beating most PC's that took the Steam hardware survey. Before we go any further though, let's untangle this alphabet soup of tech specs and try and translate it into something readable(tech geeks bear with me, there's a lot of oversimplification here, I know!) SMT - Stands for Simultaneous MultiThreading. Simultaneous multithreading allows different processes to utilize the same core, allowing for greater efficiency. Basically, a CPU core that could normally only do one thing at a time now spends less time sitting idle, as it works other things while waiting for instructions to finish processing. Sometimes this means way better performance when code is specifically optimized for it, other times it doesn't really matter because code has to wait on a previous operation to finish before starting a new one. Teraflops - Short for Trillion Floating Point Operations per Second. A floating point operation is basically a standard arithmetic operation(multiplication, division etc) involving decimal numbers(floating points). So the 4 Teraflop Series S GPU, for instance, can do 4 trillion of these a second. Phew! PCiE/NVMe - Short for Peripheral Component Interconnect Express, PCIe is just a connector standard that transfers data across components. These connectors have various lanes of traffic, so the more lanes a component utilizes, the faster information will flow, like on a road or highway. NVMe(Nonvolatile Memory Express) drives use more lanes than SATA drives probably used by your computer, which means way faster speeds. It's planning a road layout and choosing to use a highway instead of a normal road to make things faster. Xbox Velocity Architecture - Fancy marketing term for a collection of technologies that aim to increase rendering and texture streaming efficiency i.e squeeze as much juice out of the hardware as possible. It incudes stuff like Sampler Feedback Streaming(tech that allows the hardware to load only the mipmaps that are necessary, reducing I/O because less data has to be sent to RAM to load a frame), improvements to DX, and of course a fast SSD(although less powerful than the one on the PS5). It also enables stuff like Quick Resume. So what does this all mean for gaming? Well, the Xbox Series X is a way more powerful machine across the board, aimed at hitting a higher performance target. It needs higher specs because it's outputting 4K images as opposed to a target of 1440p on the Series S. Microsoft says the Series S specs have been neatly scaled so the only difference between the two consoles is resolution. Don't take them at their word though, there are bound to be other small differences , resolution will just be the biggest differentiator. So that means both consoles are equipped with technologies like Raytracing, Variable Rate Shading, Sampler Feedback Streaming, all that good next-gen stuff. But wait... What the F is Ray Tracing?! Arguably the defining feature of Next-Generation graphics, Ray tracing is a radical new way to render realistic graphics on-screen. In order to understand how it works, let's think a bit about how graphics are rendered. The real world is complicated. Very complicated. Trying to recreate that in a game requires the use of various algorithms to simulate various parts of the real world, like a physics engine to handle various forces and collisions, a shadow and reflection maps to handle shadows and reflections, a light map to handle the lighting of a scene, and of course a virtual camera viewport to simulate your eyes. There are a ton of things game developers do to try and recreate the real world as accurately as possible with the processing power available to them, and you can see them if you've ever opened up a game graphics menu where it allows you to toggle certain settings, or 'tricks' on or off, that were developed to make scenes look more realistic. So where does ray tracing come in? Well, Raytracing is meant to replace 'fake' methods of rendering stuff like lighting and shadows by attempting to realistically simulate the way lighting and shadows actually work in the real world. If you've ever taken a high school physics class, you'll know that light travels in the form of rays - reflecting, refracting, getting absorbed etc ad infinitum. Ray tracing is the process by which computers attempt to simulate this in an effort to make scenes look more realistic than what can be achieved by artificial tricks. For instance, check out Raytracedminecraft Wow! Quite the quantum jump there, right? While minecraft's graphics were never technically very impressive, with raytracing everything looks so much nicer. Water actually looks like water and not blue lines, dark caves actually look dark and not just black, lava actually behaves like lava instead of looking like someone spilled some red paint on a light source, everything just looks that much more realistic. It's achieved by each pixel, both inside and outside the scene(traditional rendering methods typically only consider pixels inside the scene for lighting and shadows) casting off a ray of light, the path of which is then traced around the scene until it hits a light source or an artificial limit. This eliminates the need for manually providing lightmaps or reflection details, because those can be simulated in real time and look even better. As you can imagine, it's very computationally intensive, which is why we haven't really see it go mainstream in gaming until now. Even with the monsters that are this-gen consoles, they probably won't be able to hit their performance targets with full RT. From what we can see so far, the Xbox Series X will likely run at 4k30 with RT, and the Series S will run at 1080p30 with RT. Alright that's enough about Raytracing for now, back to the console comparison. Some quick FAQs
Is there any benefit to getting the Series X if I don't have a 4k TV? - Yes, but probably not a 15k difference. The Series X will still be processing higher resolution textures and might even give you better framerates in games, but the primary reason to get a Series X over the S if you don't have a 4k TV will probably just be to future-proof yourself in case you ever do decide to buy one in the future
Why would I need Quick Resume? - A strange question, but one I have nevertheless seen asked a fair number of times. To clarify, you don't really 'use' quick resume as you benefit from it. Just opening a game will take you right back to the state it was in when you last closed it, so you don't need to sit through loading screens, menus, or studio logos to get in the game. It also persists across cold boots.
What are the PC equivalents to the Xbox Series X specs? - The Series X GPU lies somewhere between the RTX 2080 Super and the RTX 2080 ti as far as raw performance is concerned. As for the CPU, the closest PC equivalent would probably be the AMD Ryzen 7 3700x, or a less than an Intel i7 9700k.
PS5 Arguably the more highly anticipated console, the PS5 succeeds the PS4, which absolutely crushed the Xbox One this generation in terms of sales and games. Fueled by phenomenal exclusives like God of War, Spiderman, Bloodborne, TLOU2 etc, the PS4 juggernaut's got quite a bit of momentum going into this generation. Sadly as we all know, it hit a bit of a legal hiccup coming to India so it'll be delayed. We also don't know as much about it as we do the Xbox because Sony hasn't actually sent out any units to Influencers/Reviewers yet, so all we have to go on are the specs, demos, and teardowns that Sony themselves have provided. This generation, Sony's offering two variants of the PS5, but in contrast to Microsoft's strategy, both their consoles are equally powerful and offer basically the same gaming experience, the only difference being that one plays discs while the other doesn't. The price difference between the two consoles is also 10k as opposed to 15k with the Xbox. Because the consoles share identical specs, I won't be comparing them with each other. Instead, let's compare them to the Xboxes. Here's the same table again, except with PS5 in the middle this time.
Component
Xbox Series X
PlayStation 5
Xbox Series S
CPU
8 Core AMD Zen 2 @3.8Ghz/3.6GhzSMT
8 Core AMD Zen 2 CPU varfreq* upto 3.5GhzSMT
8 Core AMD Zen 2 @3.6Ghz/3.4SMT
GPU
AMD RDNA2 GPU 52CU's @1.825 Ghz
AMD RDNA 2 GPU 36CUs varfreq upto 2.23Ghz
AMD RDNA 2 GPU 20 CU's @1.565 Ghz
GPU Power
12.15 Teraflops
10.3 Teraflops
4 Teraflops
RAM
10GBGDDR6@560GB's / 6GB@336GB/s
16GB GDDR6 RAM @ 448GB/s
8GBGDDR6@224GB's / 2GB@56GB/s
Storage
1TB PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD w/Velocity
Custom 825GB SSD
512GB PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD w/Velocity
I/O Throughput
2.4 GB/s Uncompressed / 4.8 GB/s Compressed
5.5GBs Uncompressed / 8-9 GB/s Compressed
2.4 GB/s Uncompressed / 4.8 GB/s Compressed
Performance Target
4k UHD
4k UHD
1440p
Disc Drive
4KUHD Blu-Ray
Optional Disc Drive
No Disc Drive
Price
₹49,999
₹39,999/₹49,999
₹34,999
*varfreq = variable frequency On paper, the Xbox Series X is the most powerful console, then the PlayStations, with the Series S coming in at a distant third. The Series X has a slightly faster CPU, a significantly faster GPU, and slightly faster RAM than the PS5. Meanwhile, the PS5 has the edge in I/O throughput, which is about twice as fast as that on the Series X when it comes to raw numbers. What do these numbers actually mean for games? Well, we just don't know yet, because multiplats have yet to be benchmarked on the PS5. Sony seems to be playing their cards close to the vest, and haven't given their hardware to any reviewers to try. It's a safe guess to say that games will probably look slightly better on the Series X with maybe slightly better performance, but the difference is unlikely to be significant and probably won't matter to most casual gamers. Meanwhile, the difference in I/O throughput could mean that the PS5 will possibly load worlds and start up games faster than the Series X. It will probably be most noticeable in exclusive first party titles that are coded to specifically take advantage of the SSD. Let's discuss hardware value by price. When it comes to price, the best value hardware wise is clearly the PS5 DE. For merely 5k more than the Series S you're getting 3-4x the processing power. If you have a 4k TV at home, it's probably not worth considering the Series S, just the PS5 and the Series X. Maybe when the Series S is more reasonably priced in India according to the $1 = ₹100 rule it could be a contender, but as of now, it's my personal opinion that the Series S is just not good value in India for those who have a 4K TV at home and the budget to afford one. But of course there's more to a system than just hardware. Now that we've drawn up some specs comparisons, let's get down to the software side.
PS5 vs Xbox- Software
For most gamers, this will be the real meat of the comparison. The power differences between the PS5 and the Xbox Series X are probably not significant enough on their own to decide a purchase, so for most casual gamers, software is what will decide it. Xbox By far the biggest difference software side on the Xbox is Xbox Game Pass. Love or hate Xbox, you can't deny that Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is quite simply the best value in gaming right now. Following this guide from the subreddit , you can get 3 years of it for as low as ₹7500. In case you've been living under a rock, here's what you get with Xbox Game Pass.
Xbox Live Gold (Multiplayer and Games with Gold)
Access to a growing and rotating library of ~350 games(as part of PC+Console. Console only - ~250 Games)
Perks - This can sometimes include cool stuff like the presently included 3 months of Discord Nitro, but so far for the most part I've not found it to be of too much use unless you play a lot of free to play games like World of Tanks or Warframe.
xCloud - Not really relevant in India right now, but if you go the 3 years of gamepass route it might be a nice bonus down the line. It's possible to access xCloud right now with a VPN, but it's not a great experience.
EA Play - Game Pass will also soon include access to EA Play, the basic tier of their subscription service, including very popular games like FIFA, Battlefield, Sims, etc. It also includes trials of the latest EA games.
A 20% Discount on buying the games included in Game Pass, if you decide to buy them to keep.
It's also worth noting that all future Xbox Games Studios games will land on Xbox Game Pass Day 1, which is a really good value considering that Xbox now has 23 studios making games. While most of them are a ways off, it looks like a good lineup, especially if you're into RPG's. Game Pass is pretty much the USP of the Xbox right now. For gamers on limited budgets, it's just tremendous value. For ₹700 per month(It's regionally priced too!), you get to play way more games and have much more fun with your console than you could have had without the service. For many, this could possibly be the decider. The second big difference, of course, is in the exclusives. Here's what the upcoming Xbox exclusive lineup looks like -
Halo Infinite
Microsoft Flight Simulator
Senua's Saga - Hellblade 2
Avowed
Fable
Everwild
Forza Motorsport
Starfield
The Elder Scrolls VI
It's also worth noting that all these games will still go on PC Game Pass Day 1. If you have a PC capable of running these games when they come out, then missing out on Xbox games shouldn't really be an issue or a deciding factor. The third big difference is in backwards compatibility. The Series X and S will be compatible with every single Xbox One game, a lot of the most popular Xbox 360 games, and some of the most popular OG Xbox games. Here's the full list of 607 supported titles. It's great if you're already invested in the platform or are nostalgic for old titles like Burnout Revenge, Red Dead Redemption, Black Ops 2, Fallout New Vegas, etc. Probably won't be a big thing for most people, but for those it will help, it can make a purchase. there's also a bunch of conveniences like quick resume and play anywhere. Quick Resume works like a save state where the console just loads back to where you last were when you quit the game instead of starting the game afresh. It works with multiple games at a time and persists even if you pull the plug on the Xbox. Play Anywhere works with some titles where your saves carry over from Xbox to PC. Nice to have, but not anything major. Finally, an important note - unlike the PS5, even Free to Play games need a subscription to play online. So yeah, you can't play stuff like Fortnite or Warzone without a live gold or game pass ultimate subscription. If you spend a lot of time playing F2P games and can't afford game pass, this is a significant downside that might even be a dealbreaker, depending on how much time you spend playing F2P and how broke you are. Quick FAQ's Will future Bethesda Games be Xbox exclusive? - We still don't have definitive confirmation on whether future Bethesda titles will be exclusive, but it's highly likely that they will be, considering that Minecraft excluded, no other Microsoft first party studio currently develops games for other platforms. Phil Spencer also recently went on record to say that they're not worried about losing out on PS sales. Keep in mind that games like DOOM, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, will sell many Xboxes if they go exclusive. So while we can't claim anything definitively either way, don't buy a PS5 expecting to play these games for sure. What's the best deal on Game Pass? - Currently it's the 3 year gold conversion deal. It probably won't last forever, so don't pass up the opportunity. Follow the guide linked above. Are PC and Console Game Pass the same? - No. They are similar services but have different libraries. While all Xbox Games Studios games will release Day 1 on both platforms, major third party titles like Red Dead Redemption 2 are not likely to hit PC game pass. PS5 Software wise, the biggest reason to buy the PS5 are for its exclusives. So far, PS4 exclusives blow Microsoft's out of the water. God of War, Ghost of Tsushima, Spider-Man, The Last of Us, Horizon Zero Dawn, Bloodborne, time and again Sony has proven that they have some of the best studios out there. The PS5 will certainly have some spectacular games. Here's what the upcoming PS5 exclusive lineup looks like -
Spider-Man : Miles Morales(Launch)
Demon's Souls (Launch)
God of War - Ragnarok
Ratchet and Clank : A Rift Apart
Gran Turismo 7
Sackboy - A Big Adventure
Godfall
Final Fantasy 16 (timed)
Deathloop, Ghostwire(timed)
The majority of these games will most likely only be playable on PlayStation i.e they won't be coming to PC, so that's another thing to keep in mind when deciding which system to buy. They'll all mostly be phenomenal games, Sony titles usually are, especially first party ones. On the downside, great games can be quite expensive. As you've heard, Sony has confirmed that all PS5 first party exclusives will be 4999 going forward(no regional pricing). So if you care about playing Ratchet and Clank/God of WaGran Turismo at launch, be ready to shell out the cash. Personally I don't believe 5k for a single player game is worth it in India, but of course it depends on your personal finances. To alleviate this somewhat we have PS Now and the PS Plus collection, Sony's answer to Game Pass. The PS Plus collection includes a lot of popular PS4 exclusives and some third party titles like Arkham Knight and Fallout 4. It's a really good deal if you're jumping into the PS ecosystem for the first time, but those who already own PS5's will probably already have played most of the games on there and will only benefit once they grow the service. Sony also a bunch of conveniences in the UI like activites, which let you jump right into a certain part of the game. It's also rumored to have some sort of quick resume, but nothing's been confirmed in that regard yet. As for Backwards Compatibility, Sony has confirmed that the PS5 will be BC with nearly all PS4 titles, but PS1,2,and 3 games will be left to history. Regrettable, but probably not a dealbreaker for most people. So on the Sony side, we have some killer exclusives but not as much value with highly priced games and no game pass.
Verdict
So, for the most important question, which one do you get? Well, even after 21,000 words I won't really pretend to have an answer. There are too many variables to consider. How invested you are in a particular ecosystem, your personal financial situation, the type of games you like, etc. That said, I have some broad recommendations -
If you have already have a 4k TV and have/plan to buy online - The PS5 DE is the way to go. The asinine pricing of the Series S in India makes this particular situation an easy call in my opinion. Yeah games will be expensive, but if you have the budget to buy a 4k TV maybe you can afford it. If not, you could always wait and pick up the games later when they go on sale. Kind of a bummer, but you'd still be playing on better hardware and actually putting your 4k TV to good use, instead of wasting its potential on the Series S. Maybe this will change if the Series S ever comes down in price, but for now this is the easiest reco to make.
If you don't own a 4k TV and are strapped for cash(maybe you lost your job during rona), get the Series S. The Series S gets a lot of flak from hardcore gamers but IMO it is still a great gaming machine. for those upgrading from the Xbox One/One S/PS4/PS4 Slim it will still be a huge upgrade. Don't get carried away by 4k Marketing. 1440p gaming still looks great, and if the Series S can keep its promises of 1440p 60fps or even 1080p w/ Raytracing, games will look gorgeous and play great. Game Pass is also phenomenal value, and you get to play way more games for cheaper than on the PS4.
If neither of these statements are close to your use case, don't consider the Series S or the PS5 DE. The PS5 DE might be a tempting buy for those who own discless collections and want to save money, but that would be a mistake. You're probably going to be playing on this console for at least 5-6 years, and are going to buy many games in that time. With PS5 games priced as highly as they are, you're almost certainly going to make up the difference and more buying expensive non-regionally priced games. The PS5 might cost more, but buying physical will save you a ton of money over digital purchases.
XSX vs PS5 is kind of a toss-up. XSX is compact and more powerful and is overall better value with Game Pass, but doesn't have many next-gen games to play at launch(most Xbox heavy hitters are landing much later). Meanwhile the PS5 has Demon's Souls and Miles Morales which comes with Spider Man Remastered. Personally I would go with an XSX in this situation because it's better value and will probably have more exclusives down the line(I don't mind waiting), but if you're eager to get on the next-gen hype train as soon as possible or are already invested in the PS ecosystem/you just love PS games that much, the PS5 is also a pretty good purchase. Definitely the hardest call to make.
If you are much into WRPGS, go with Xbox. Microsoft has a solid lock on western RPG's this generation, with titles like Fable, Avowed, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, and Starfield. Given that Sony doesn't really make these sorts of games themselves and there aren't that many big WRPG devs left(CDPR and BioWare are pretty much the only ones I think?), you're better off going with Xbox if you're a fan of these sorts of games.
Closing Thoughts
Phew! This write-up turned out to be a lot longer than I had initially expected. It was quite a bit of work writing it, and I did quite a bit of research to ensure that it's as accurate as possible. I'm still human so I've probably made some mistakes still, so please feel free to correct me if you spot an error. And of course, these are ultimately just my thoughts on the matter as someone who owns and plays on both consoles right now, as well as PC, and will probably end up getting both new consoles down the line. I've tried to keep this as unbiased as possible, but if you feel I've misrepresented something or left something out, do weigh in in the comments and help other people out. Tl;Dr - Consoles good, console war bad.
Copyright And Trademark makes me think i am in a cage. I fucking hate myself and this world. (long text)
I first would like to sincerly apologize if i sound rude at any point of this post. For context. I am a person born with ADHD, Autism, I like drawing things, writing things, using imaginations to my fullest, or rather, i used to like drawing things and making art and things. My skill level is.... I would say a rookie? Maybe below rookie. (That is debatable) And so back then, before i really knew what copyright and trademark was really all about, i went absolute ham on just getting ideas after ideas out of my head for things, Fan Fiction, Tracing a drawing and so on. But now that i have grown, i have become more and more self-aware and self-conscious. (And thus past things that i have done has hit a mental toll on me). And when it comes to copyrighted materials. It has all went downhill. For example. About a year ago, i was really back into Pokemon. I bought pretty much all games (from gen 1 to the latest switch game). And i was so fascinated by the whole "You, the person, YOU are the main-character of the game". But due to the limited narrative and such, i wanted to explore and put out my own ideas. And so i started writing my own fanfic, started to get into drawing art (Which i was really terrible at prior to this, but as time went on, i started getting better at it. I even made my very own comic). But, the thoughts eventually hit me, "I don't own Pokemon. I am not Nintendo or Game Freak. And therefor. I should probably stop and never speak about my own ideas and imaginations about this particular IP to anyone or to myself" And i even googled up to see whether or not i am allowed to do these kind of things. But there were too many different answers, so i assumed the worst. (And note that, i made fanfic and drawing as a mean of exploring the narrative of the said IP in more depth, so i didn't want to make anything commercial anyway in good faith) And so it felt like i had already gotten a Cease and Desist from Nintendo but mentally even though i haven't even published or even posted anything on the internet. And so i stopped making anything that was related to Pokemon. But it soon hit me later. "But, if i am not allowed to make anything related to Pokemon, though i am not making a single penny of it, should i even be allowed to like Pokemon at all? Because if i like the games, the show, etc, then that will likely spark ideas and my own imagination about it and i probably want to share that idea to friends or family. But since i am not allowed to do that, i should not like Pokemon at all". And due to that, i stopped liking Pokemon completely because what i interpret is that we consumers who give in and observe to others expressive idea are not allowed to express our own interpretations and ideas of the others idea. (My general basic knowledge of copyright and trademark is that; You can't just upload a DVD movie to Youtube. And i often am on the moral side and i agree with that rule. Or that, you can't just make a drawing of a mouse character with 2 round ears and cartoony eyes and red shorts and call it mickey mouse and claim you are the creator of the character and then attempt to sell it. Otherwise there would be a billion versions of mickey mouse on the internet already. I can sorta understand that rule, but.....) But this is just the beginning, it is just the tip of the iceberg. It goes downhill from here. And so i moved on from Pokemon to Minecraft. Everybody loves Minecraft, right? I certainly do, And so i started playing Minecraft (I have a strong nostalgic value with Minecraft.) And so i wanted to "Make a world that would perfectly summerize my past and things that i liked." And i went absolute crazy with it, it was fun as heck. (It is over 1-2 GB on MCPE, Minecraft Pocket Edition/Switch/Phone). I made pixel art of Mario, Pokemon, Sonic. I maybe even went a little bit over the edge with merging my map with maps that others has created. Like, a island with a theme. Like, Mario Island, Skyrim Island, etc. But, I may have breached copyright/EULA Contract by using the Template Worlds that are found on the Marketplace with the IP and merged it with my world, but i credited whoever made the map/island inside my own world. And i wasn't really thinking about that i breached EULA in that particularly way, all i was thinking about was that, "It would be so frickin awesome to have multiple worlds connected to one world and travelling to each one without having to go to the main menu, and i could build new things on the said islands". Yeah. I thought it was the smartest idea. Why exiting the game and scrolling through just to access the world when i can just Merge everything together so it becomes easier accessible for me just by going in-game. And i wasn't even thinking about publishing the world either. I just wanted to have fun. I even went as far as to build my own Apartment 1:1 just because i thought it was fun. I even built my local groceries store so i could show people and amaze them by the silliness of going to a building that's based off IRL but is in minecraft, or that i could at 5 seconds, travel from a Mario-themed island to Halo-Themed island. And i often mentioned to people that i didn't create those islands But then. Minecraft implemented or did a "Moderators are now better than before". And i watched a Youtube Video explaining what i can and can't do and what the consequences could be. And that got me legitimately scared. But people claim that Moderators are only for online multiplayer servers. But.. Whenever i start my singleplayer world and invite a friend through Xbox service. My world technically becomes multiplayer. And as for the possible consequences, if a Moderator decides that. "Yeah, you have breached Marketplace contract by merging worlds from marketplace with your own, you will now be permanently banned" then not only will i not be able to play online anymore, but due to the conduct and terms of use of minecraft being heavily tied to Xbox and Microsoft, if i get banned in minecraft, then according to Microsofts Terms of use and Conduct, my microsoft account would be suspended. Thus, Hotmail, Onedrive, everything else would be gone for me in the blink of an eye. And that is when i said "Alright, i'll never play Minecraft ever again, because trying to achieve dreams in the game that may be affiliated with others Ip is not allowed" So Minecraft essentially became a past thing that i would never bring up to people. Alright. If i can't use Minecraft without being in the risk of losing everything, then i'll just use stuff in real life because that can't be "illegal to use due to copyright". Like, Beyblades, for example. The ideas of spinning tops is such a generic thing that i should not be in trouble. And i used to LOVE Beyblades as a kid and i always used to carry around a special beyblade wherever i went because it was so important to me. (It holds so many memories that it would take over 800 A4 pages full of text just to retell everything). And so i got happy again i thought. I bought Beyblades off Ebay, even went as far as to join Beyblade Subreddit and post amazing discoveries and my purchases of beyblades and see what everyone else thought of the beyblades i got. I felt like "It can't get better than this" But it did get a lot better because i then had the splendid idea of writing a document about this one special beyblade i have and tell all the adventures and fun i had in the past with it. And i wrote so far about 20 pages full of texts and of course images for various contexts. Like, what did a Beyblade Launcher look like? And why things didn't work or why things happened and i felt like i had to put images on my document to explain what was going on and why things happened. (Makes sense right? Essentially, imagine describing a topic to someone who has never heard of that topic.) I thought it was brilliant. And of course, in my mind i kept thinking "Even if i shouldn't be using images because it isn't mine, i can as easily describe the images with words" So it was like a Failsafe in case i would be starting to doubt myself. And then i later saw the potential of the document and started to think that i should maybe publish it. Commercial or non-commercial. It would be awesome to share my story of my life and past. (And i certainly was writing everything i could remember from my past with beyblades and how i overcome various difficult situations). But, the exact same thought i had when i was into Pokemon came right back to me. I don't own Beyblade. I am not Hasbro or Takara Tomy (Japanese toy manufacturer, etc), so i am not allowed to make ANYTHING out of it even though if it would be for personal use and even if it were not profitable. But then i thought "Alright, maybe it is time for Plan B. I should try to obtain permission!" So i searched up for the Creator of Metal Fight Beyblade. And i got a hold of his twitter and sent him a message asking if i could get permission to just make a document about my life and beyblades and perhaps just sharing it to friends. The answer i got was neither a Yes or No.... but more or less closer to a No. As the Manga Author of Metal Fight Beyblade apparently doesn't have permission himself to make anything regarding Beyblades, I must contact the Beyblade Corporation, WBBA, or Takara Tomy. And then i thought "Alright, i give up. There is no chance in hell that is gonna work out. I don't think corporations gives any answers to any individuals like me who are classified as a nobody" And thus, i should cease all activity of writing and imagining, even cease all writing of my own real life. And soon everything started to crumble and spiral down into a pit of dispair. A majority of my life contains Copyrighted/Trademarked materials. And so.... Have i sold my soul to every corporation that i have laid my human-senses on? Am i not even allowed to make a dairybook? And you might be thinking "Try to contact a lawyer". Yeah. Show me where and how. I would really like to know. And especially in the time of Corona? Yeah. I don't think it will work. But it eventually got worse. As i was watching a video on youtube, i couldn't help but notice certain parts of various videos were blurred out. Particularly, someone was wearing white shoes and i was unsure what that kind of shoes was. But i soon saw in the comments about someone mentioning Nike. And that is where it hit me even more. "So.... i am technically not even allowed to wear branded clothing? So i need to pay a fee to wear clothing that i have already purchased? But how much would that fee be? Certainly i alone can't pay that, and even if i could, would Nike even answer my mail about permission at all? Very unlikely" And so i thought to change all clothes i had at home to empty shirts, empty pants. Like, there is not a single logo, branding, number, letter, nothing. Just plain old coloured shirt. And so ok. If i can't use any of others IP to at least tell my past, then i'll sure as hell am gonna make my own thing then. Because, during my time with this Special Beyblade i had, i wanted to make my own "Creature" of it. The thought process was that i wanted to make my own Monster that would appear out of the beyblade, like in the show. And so i designed a Dragon-Serpent with wings all on my own, all was my own original design. Though it wasn't immediately obvious to people that it was inspired by Beyblade so i had to keep mentioning the fact that in the show, there are monsters that come out of the beyblades whenever there are a battle going on. But i soon saw the importance of this creature i designed and i stopped associating my own creation with Beyblades. Alright! I finally got something that is mine and mine alone. I wanna make something that can replace that special beyblade i have so i no longer feel in the dangerous zone of copyright/trademark stuff. And then i had the brilliant idea! A Custom Made Coin!! Yes! I could order a custom coin with my own design! Splendid! And the coin could be double sided, so like, there are engravings and art on both sides. One with my dragon-creature and the other side would be a slight reminiscence of the Beyblade that my dragon was based off. Because there is nothing in the law that says i can't use inspirations right? I mean, a Hexagon in the middle and some spikey things around it wouldn't imply that it is necessarily a Beyblade but rather that it would remind me about it. And so with my knowledge of drawing and making art, i started to draw my own (Or making a technical mock-up of it) through GIMP. And i had the envision of how it would look like. Something in the similar fashion to one of those Military Challenge-Coins. And so i designed it with text, art and how i think it could look like. I did google up what Challenge Coins typically looked like so i had an idea of what it could be like. And i did like what most Challenge Coins are designed; A big circle with gold text around it and a engraved art in the middle. Though my design may or may not be too comlpex, but i don't know how printing on coins work anyway, so i kept going along with it. I put some text, i learned through some tutorials on youtube on how to bend text around a circle. And yeah, i thought it was neat. But then i started to feel a little bit unease when i was making the back-side of the coin. I made a Big Hexagon in the middle with some spikes, but since the Hexagon thing was empty, i thought "I should maybe make a Insignia that would represent my Dragon?" And so i went on for hours upon hours, i didn't want it to be simple, yet i didn't want it to be super complex and not obvious that the insignia is refrencing my dragon, but also totally does. I went for hours and even days for making up different designs. And then. I was amazed by the amazing discovery. I drew like a U... or like a upside-down omega sign Ω. And then i drew a upside-down triangle ▼ and i slowly moved the triangle towards the center of that Omega Sign and then i noticed... It Looked like a dragon! WOW! Whaaa?! This is so cool! Omg! I am so happy now! I worked on it a bit further with 2 horns on the side because my dragon had it. And i was very very proud of it..... Only for it all to be crushed by realisation and reality. I started to feel like i maybe had seen the symbol i just created somewhere... Oh right! It looks very similar to Skyrim. And i mean the Dragon-Symbol that appears on Words-Wall in the Skyrim Game. I even went to look for comparison side by side and....... Well.... Let's just say that my happiness was a false sense of security. I thought i had done something incredible that i could feel proud of, but only for it all to be taken away by reality and facts. And so i broke down mentally about it. But after a day or so, i started to experiment and try a different route with designing insignia. So i made what someone pointed out, a Sigil that represented my dragon. And my friends even pointed out that it looked even better than the dragon-insignia i had previously made. So! alright! I'm back on track! Great! Now i should finish the rest of the coin design. I wanted to include various symbols of other things, like, things that i like. Video Gaming, Stars, Horoscope, Infinity. And it would all have a meaning to me. Like, a symbol of controller, it would be that i love gaming. Or that i think Stars are bright and nice. And my Horoscope is Leo. And Infinity for Infinite Possibilities. But.... It was then i started to think deeply again... "Are these symbols copyrighted? Can i really use these symbols?" And so i googled up and got a Question-Answer on Quora "Is Fonts/Emojis copyrighted?" And..... Yes..... They are copyrighted...... And i went everywhere on google to search up if i could use the fonts that came with Windows for Commercial use (In my head, Commercial use = Printing it on a custom coin for personal use) So i wanted to make sure if i could use.... And.... at first sight i found that Microsoft lets user do whatever they want with the included fonts..... BUT.....then when i scrolled down, i found that the fonts can't be modified. But then wait a second. If i use an eraser in like GIMP to edit the letter, like changing colour for example or to make room for more things, doesn't that qualify as modification? There are neither questions or answers on the internet for that and i started to be doubtful...... Can't i really use Fonts at all? Am i not allowed to even write? What about all these fonts that can be purchased? Well. The prices aren't cheap. So.... That means. Microsoft has given me a false sense of security again. Ok, but what about Public Domain? That should leave me out of trouble completely, right? That's what Public Domain stand for, "Right to use without limit". But boy was i wrong. Public Domain has a lot of strings attached to it to a point where i am not even sure if it is free at all. And all questions i have about these things, i don't exactly have a lawyer as a neighbor. And i started to break down mentally again. And it went more downhill. Like. What's next? Am i no longer allowed to use my eyes any more to see any copyrighted material? Am i no longer allowed to even mention anything? What about the apartment i live in? The architecture is probably copyrighted on a floor plan or something. So am i no longer allowed to have a home? But what about my life? Am i not allowed to live any more as majority of my life is copyrighted? Is it prohibited for me to live? And...... That is where i think i can't handle it anymore. And i am sure people are gonna say "Well, that is how the world works". Alright, if that is how the world works, then i don't think i should be alive. And i probably should commit suicide. like i said, i live in a apartment, i live on the second floor of the apartment and i am sure that my head first to the ground from that height would either A.) Kill me, or B.) injure me serverly to a point of almost not return but still keeping me alive. My interpretation about copyright and trademark has gone from a sensible standpoint of justice that makes sense to a dictator-like perspective. And since there is nothing that there can be done about it. I don't think i am fit to live in this world. Your argument may be "This stuff only applies to commercial intentions, like, you can't use someone's else work to make money". I will remind you that people have had art taken down, videos taken down, fangames, fanfics taken down and they didn't make a SINGLE CENT. (And that is what i only have heard, heck, there could be thousands of things taken down but have gone unoticed) And you might say that "Most companies don't take things down because it wil hurt the fanbase or their reputation, or they only take it down if it gets popular". Well. Just like a tiger. It might appear as friendly and calm, but it can at ANY point bite you and you'd be finished, and it doesn't have to give a reason to why. And you might be using Fair Use as an aurgument. Well. Tell me this then. What exaclty constitues as Fair Use? Let me remind you. Parodies, Reviews, Criticism, Journalism, Educational purposes are within Fair Use. Anything outside that? Anything you make that have SLIGHT connection to someone's IP = Derivative work. And even if Fair Use would be in my favor for whatever reason. If i got a Cease and Desist, do you honestly think i would be able to do anything about it even if it is Fair use? No. Unless i myself have a corporation that makes millions so i can get lawyers, i am nothing. I am a nobody, i am a stepping ground for others. I am nothing but a souless corpse that will do anything for others in the eyes of corporations. And maybe your argument is "Well, Why don't you just fucking read their license if you can use it". Trying to read license documents is like trying to read a completely different language. And trying to contact anything to get permission at all is almost impossible by today standard. I, who am a nobody would not get a respond at all from a corporation or even an individual for that matter And to clear things up. I am neither a youtuber or a streamer and i don't plan to become one either. But.... With all these crap that has happened to other people. I am sure as heck that i would be no exception to this. I would be treated exactly like all others. I have started to interpret that Copyright And Trademark is to silence freedom of imagination. And as other things, you might even say "Well, be original, make your own unique things, why steal others stuff for your own benefit?".....First of all. I am never in the intention of stealing or using without permission for financial gain. But i want to make a fantasy story and share it with friends or maybe family, i want to make something. Facebook it or whatever. But, no i cant. And that also implies i should invest in EVERYTHING and make EVERYTHING on my own from ground up. I would have to start making my very own clothes, making my own video games from ground up. No, scratch that, i would have to make my very own computer from ground up and then make my own coding language from ground up. Like. And if that is not all. My whole life has been nothing but a fucking mess. Bullies. Failures. Mistakes. I can't live with it. And if things couldn't get any worse. If we say i do make my own things. Who's there to stop anyone from taking what i have done and then using it against me as if they had made it? Because i am not well educated within copyright, i am basically fucked as hell. And trying to fully educate myself within copyright is easier said than done. For that i would need a high level degree of english grammar and reading. But since i don't have that. I am a fucked up fuck. THIS WORLD IS JUST SO FUCKED UP THAT I HATE IT WITH EVERY SENSE OF MY FIBER AND WORD. I FUCKING HATE EVERY COMPANY THAT HAS EXISTED TO MANKIND. I JUST WANT TO BE FUCKING HAPPY. BUT BEING HAPPY HAS A FUCKING PRICE APPARENTLY. I AM LEGIT GETTING DONE WITH THIS GODFORSAKEN PLANET. I HATE MY FUCKING LIFE.
Price is not the only way to grow Xbox GamePass #Xbox #XboxLiveGold #GamePassUltimate
**** UPDATE ****
If you read the original article, the changes in price are no longer happening. Also as part of this reverse of course, they are making the Free to Play games (part of my proposal for Xbox Live Silver) available without a subscription. They could still do more of the changes I mentioned (and slightly increase the price) but it is all about setting expectations and reasonable features that will be free. from the article:
"...we have decided not to change Xbox Live Gold pricing. We’re turning this moment into an opportunity to bring Xbox Live more in line with how we see the player at the center of their experience. For free-to-play games, you will no longer need an Xbox Live Gold membership to play those games on Xbox."
With the recent announced rise in prices, Xbox preverbally stepped on a rake for Friday. While I understand the move to push more GamePass Ultimate memberships, you can do more by adjusting features and fostering good will to encourage promotion to GamePass and GamePass Ultimate. [References]
So here's the deal, we all felt for a long time that the move was pushing toward GamePass since they removed the 12 month subscription from the stores (though you can still find them many places like BestBuy, Target, Walmart, GameStop & Amazon). But you can see that instead of taking the route of adjusting the features, they just changed the price. Rightly people are outraged and flabbergasted they would do this in the pandemic but there were other options they could have approached it with.
What was changed?
Starting next month it was announced that the following changes for Xbox Live Gold are going into effect (it has been noted that if your subscription does not lapse you are not affected; i.e. auto-renew)
Price of a 1-month Gold membership is increasing $1 USD; 1-month for $10.99
Price of a 3-month Gold membership is increasing $5 USD; 3-months for $29.99
Price of a 6-month Gold membership is increasing to $59.99 USD
Without a yearly pricing the minimum will become about $120 USD for the year. Now Xbox Live Gold does not include anything other than the discounts and bonus games each month when compared to GamePass Ultimate (as of now is about $15 USD per month with other options). So with that there is a reason to upgrade however the right options is even more important.
Exchange text and voice messages with other Xbox Live users.
Join a gaming community.
For Xbox Live Gold these features are added to the above
Access to online multiplayer.
Discounts on digital titles at Deals with Gold.
Quicker access to demos and betas.
Free games at Games With Gold.
GamePass is separate from the above and allows the following
About 100 or more games available for download and play
A 10% discount on any game in GamePass
All Microsoft 1st Party games available Day 1
All Microsoft 1st Party games are planned to be listed forever
Additional Deals unavailable at other tiers
GamePass for PC is also separate and does the above for PC games GamePass Ultimate is a combination of all four plus the following
Xcloud game streaming service
EA Play
Additions Deals unavailable at other tiers
So how could it be better?
The biggest issue to me is that things have not been shifted to reflect the new services and opportunities. While price adjustments are to be expected with time, the shift of features to better align with consumer expectations and requirements has not been taken into account. Now some changes will get some backlash but I think if the prices were balanced it would make much more sense to go this route instead of just raising prices. What that here is my thinking on what a realignment could look like. Note that my proposed changes are bold and italicized. For Xbox Live Silver you have the following features
Enjoy music, sports, and premiere entertainment apps.
Exchange text and voice messages with other Xbox Live users (no parties)
Join a gaming community (only, not create).
Play Free multiplayer games online
In game chat/voice available (again no parties)
Sharing limited to Xbox & Twitter (download available)
Download and export to OneDrive available
Support for Online Game Saves
Local network console streaming to a PC
For Xbox Live Gold these features are added to the above
Access to all online multiplayer.
Discounts on digital titles at Deals with Gold.
Quicker access to demos and betas.
Free games at Games With Gold.
Preview upcoming games.
Access beta versions of games.
Parties of 15 or less
Ability to create communities
Sharing to other platforms fully unlocked (Discord, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter included)
Advanced Game Studio Editor and OneDrive/DropBox/Google Drive/YouTube publishing
Remote Console Streaming Unlocked for PC and Mobile (not Xcloud)
GamePass is separate from the above and allows the following
About 100 or more games available for download and play
A 10% discount on any game in GamePass
All Microsoft 1st Party games available Day 1
All Microsoft 1st Party games are planned to be listed forever
Additional Deals unavailable at other tiers
Allow online play for games in GamePass (only game chat if at Silver level)
GamePass for PC is also separate and does the above for PC games GamePass Ultimate is a combination of all four plus the following
Xcloud game streaming service fully unlocked
EA Play
Additions Deals unavailable at other tiers (Disney Plus, Hulu, ESPN, etc)
So the main thrust is not just a price change but a realignment of features to provide higher value. The key point is to shift some of the pain points of needing to pay for Xbox Gold while providing some value to the service. The main difference is opening of multiplayer while limiting the capabilities with that to just in-game communication. That way the use of parties becomes a major plus to the service. Also console streaming being new to Xbox One consoles and newer, could be available at this Live Gold service and higher. In terms of price, I could see an increase of each subscription price while being less than GamePass Ultimate. So like instead of $60 for 6 months, make it $40 or $45. Then the price for a year becomes a little more than before while still being a decent deal. Free multiplayer games won't require the service at all, which is a big plus for gamers. As long as the combination of GamePass for Xbox, PC, and Xbox Live Gold combined becomes more than the GamePass Ultimate then you have a winning strategy. I think in the end with some innovation and reshuffling of the features you can get to a point where people see the value of Ultimate while Gold is still there for those who want it or can't afford the full Ultimate package.
Overview of 20 Local Multiplayer Games for Xbox One
Details About the List Keep in mind these are not my top 20 local multiplayer games for the Xbox One – some were selected simply because I found the concept unique like Biped, others because they didn’t get enough attention like Wand Wars, while others are all time favorites like Salt and Sanctuary. With Type, you will see either PvE, PvP, or both. PvE is for story/campaign modes – games with a beginning an end, otherwise known as “co-op.” PvP is player versus player and refers to versus/competitive multiplayer modes. Think of PvE as games like Rayman Legends, where you journey and work together, and PvP as Mortal Kombat 11, where you square off and try to beat the other player. While this list is specifically tailored for the Xbox One, I’m still going to make mention if there’s a better version of a certain game on another platform, so those reading who might own a Switch, PlayStation 4, or competent laptop know the best platform to get the game for should they choose to purchase one of them. This list is in no particular order other than having the PvP games at the top. 1. Crawl
Description: Crawl proves there are great game concepts yet to be explored even today. Crawl is a 3v1 game - one player controls the human, while the other three control monsters. Whomever kills the human then switches roles. The goal is to become the human, level up to at least level 10, and then defeat the boss to win. You collect gold the more damage you do to a player, which can in turn be used to buy weapons and other items. The demonic narration that plays at the start of each match is also wonderfully voice acted, as is the macabre atmosphere in general.
Description: The Switch version includes all DLC, whereas it must be bought separately on the other platforms. This game is clearly inspired by Bomberman, but I'd say it's more fun than any of them. There are more ways to kill players, and it's much faster paced since you can repeatedly attack with your weapon. There are a ton of maps, weapons, and modes, and bots fill in the gaps if you don't have enough players. A sequel is due to release in 2021.
Description: Ultimate Chicken Horse has you placing hazards between you and the goal to thwart other players' efforts to make it to the end. Each player must quickly choose a hazard at the beginning of each session - this in itself is a rush because you miss out if another player gets to it first. You want to "build" the level in a way that is best suited to your abilities while making it difficult for the other players. On top of the 15+ maps, you can make your own. On top of local multiplayer, It has online play, and even local multiplayer online play (so you can bring two or three players on the same system online to play with other players).
Description: The Switch and Steam versions offer additional maps, modes, characters, items, and the campaign can be played in local co-op. Wand Wars is fast paced magic dodgeball on broomsticks. To further explain, you have a magic ball you hit back and forth between players. The ball becomes bigger and faster the more it's hit. If it hits you without you grabbing it, you die. That's the default mode - the other ones differ a bit, but this is probably the one you'll spend most of your time playing. There are items, stage hazards, and a secondary move to spice up the gameplay.
Description: Nidhogg 1 is also recommended. Nidhogg 2 is different from your standard 2D Fighter. Your characters are purely aesthetic and have no unique abilities of their own - it's about what weapon they are wielding at the time. Once you kill a player, you must try to run to the end of your side of the level. The other player will then try to kill you and then run to the end of their side of the level. There's a constant tug of war at play. There's also online multiplayer.
Description: The Switch version is an updated version of the game with better graphics and more flair. In Screencheat all players are invisible. You must watch other players' screens to know where they are in the map. The maps are color coded to make it easier. There's a wide variety of crazy weapons, and you are given your pick of the litter at the start of every map. Bots are available to fill in the gaps, and there's also online multiplayer.
Description: Killer Queen Black is a 4v4 team-based action game. On each side, one player controls the queen, while the other three control the workers. There are three different methods of victory - Economy, Military, or Snail, and you'll have to coordinate with your team on which route you want to take. On top of local multiplayer, It has online play, and even local multiplayer online play (so you can bring two, three, or four players on the same system online to play with other players).
Description: This is a Super Smash Bros. clone through and through, and while it doesn't have as many options as its inspiration, it's still a good amount of fun, especially for those who don't own a Nintendo console. The characters all control fluidly, and the maps offer a good variety of. The game has a cool modding scene on the Steam version with Steam Workshop. The game also features online play.
Description: Swap Quest is a unique blend of RPG elements and tile swapping gameplay. The levels are all divided into a grid of square blocks with paths on them that you’ll use to change the direction of your character. The screen is always scrolling, so timeliness is important. There are enemies, bosses, and a world map. You’ll also amass jewels and try to find a collectible item on your way to the end of each level. There are also a few single screen mini games that help keep the gameplay fresh.
Co-op Qualities: The screen scrolls automatically, so there’s no screen hogging here. If one player dies, the other one is still able to assist in death with swapping tiles.
Description: Never Alone centers around an Inupiat girl and a fox and tells a story based on Inupiat folktales. The game assigns a unique role to each of the two characters. Only the fox can wall jump and bring visibility to spirits (who act as platforms), while the girl can push crates and throw magical beads. There are a few set-piece moments I don’t see in a lot of 2D platformers that really adds to the feeling of being on a long journey far away from home. The music is also appropriately ambient and reflects the desolate wintery environments.
Co-op Qualities: This game is actually designed around the co-op experience. That said, it still works in single player since you can switch between characters on the fly.
Description: In Biped each player controls the legs of a cutesy robot using the analog sticks. Outside of the menus, there are no buttons employed. This makes it easier for inexperienced gamers to still play and have a good time because they'll always have their thumbs resting in the same spot and won't get confused by having to constantly swap buttons. That said, I played with a friend who is an experienced gamer, and we both had a great time with it. The gameplay generally revolves around using the legs of your robots to overcome timing, precious, and endurance based obstacles in coordination with your partner. The game consistently delivers fresh new puzzles for the two players to solve together.
Co-op Qualities: This game is actually designed around the co-op experience. That said, it still works in single player since you can switch between characters on the fly.
Description: Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 emulates the style of an NES Castlevania game, specifically Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse, which featured multiple playable characters. Each character has their own base weapon plus a subweapon with a usage limit. You’ll find subweapons throughout the level by attacking the lanterns. What’s also fun is finding out which character works best against a boss. Every character can attack and kill a boss – there is no specific moveset required, so it’s more about how you want to approach it. You can swap characters on the fly with the shoulder buttons, so as long as the other player isn’t using one of them.
Co-op Qualities: You can use each other as platforms to reach otherwise inaccessible platforms. Being able to play as characters that are functionally different opens up new strategies. In one instance, my friend defended me from flying Medusa heads as the swordsman while I picked off higher up enemies with the sniper. There are many instances like this throughout the game.
Description: Hyper Light Drifter has some really tight combat on top of its beautiful world and extensive lore. It's cryptic in both its story and gameplay elements, but it's not hard to figure out if given some time. I like the range of upgrades and infusion of long range and close range combat. Some games like to spread them out to create classes, but I like the variety in combat encounters it presents. If you can't understand the story, I'd recommend watching this video after you've beaten the game, or now if you don't care about spoilers and just want to hear a cool story told.
Co-op Qualities: Most of the action takes place on screens that are locked in place as you fight enemies. This works perfectly with the local co-op. Outside of these rooms, the screen does move around, but it is manageable. I also like being able to drop trade items we gather in the dungeon together and deciding who gets what.
Description: This is a Mexican themed Metroidvania. And while there are other indie local co-op Metroidvanias, they are usually limited to 2 players, while Guacamelee is 4. I really hadn't played a game with a Mexican theme before, and while it didn't excite me too much at first, it really grew on me. The games allow you to switch between the living world and the dead world. There's also extensive post-game content that more than doubles the life-span of the game.
Co-op Qualities: The games are truly excellent and I'd say they're more fun in co-op than single player just by the nature of being able to play with someone else. Combat sequences are fine in co-op, and even many platforming sections are too. However, as the game goes on, the platforming becomes more complex, and it becomes easier for players to simply off themselves and let one player tackle the platforming sections. That said, some of these complex platforming sections are scroll locked to a fixed screen, as are many combat sequences, which poses less problems. For comparison's sake, I'd say the Guacamelee games work better in local co-op than the new New Super Mario Bros., Donkey Country, and Rayman games due to the scroll locked sections and emphasis on combat.
Description: Salt and Sanctuary takes heavy inspiration from the Souls series, but also has quite a bit more platforming and many Metroidvania elements (new abilities that allow you to access previously inaccessible areas). This is a vast game with about 25+ hours worth of content. There are many different classes and weapons, so replayability is also high. The game is ominious with its story, but the lore is very interesting and worth reading up on. Actually enabling co-op is also ominious, so I recommend watching this video to find out how to do it.
Co-op Qualities: The game is slower paced compared to something like Guacamelee so screen hogging isn’t a huge issue here. The whole game is playable in local co-op outside the initial tutorial. You can also enable PvP consuming an item.
Description: This is racing game with a 1990s arcade aesthetic. There are 119 race tracks, and the adventure can be played entirely in local co-op. The race tracks take place all over the world, from Africa to Europe to South America, etc. Even after beating the game, you can still go back and try to get a Platinum medal on every race. The soundtrack is also great, and I've given it a number of plays on Spotify. I'm listening to it now, now that I've linked it actually.
Co-op Qualities: This game is split screen, unlike all the other games on this list which are shared screen. The game counts the highest placed player in a race. So if Player 1 comes in third and Player 2 comes in first, it will count Player 2's achievement over Player 1.
Description: The easiest way to describe Death Road to Canada is Oregon Trail + real time action sequences interspersed in the gameplay. You make choices and grow character traits via randomly generated story elements in the form of menus. You are forced to make choices - do you want to go to a gas station or a grocery store? Do you want to recruit a new member to your party and spend resources on them, or forego them and have a more difficult time in action sequences? The real time gameplay focuses on killing zombies, buying and selling things at markets, and scavenging for supplies. There are a lot of deeper elements to the game, and I'd highly recommend the Wiki for this game.
Co-op Qualities: You start with two characters and can have up to four. Any character not used by a player is controlled by the AI. It's better to have more players than AI because they make smarter choices and are less likely to lose characters if they're familiar with video games. However, entering and exiting doors and also being on opposite sides of the screen can result in some deaths. So in some ways the co-op works better than the single player, and in other ways it's worse.
Description: This is a fast-paced, spell-slinging real-time action game. There are over 150 spells to equip, plus charms and robes to collect to really build your character. Trying to make it to the end of the gauntlet each time becomes very addictive once you get into it. I also love the fact that it encourages replays, as there are 12 dark type spells that can only be collected by beating the gauntlet each time. There's also a versus mode that allows you equip any spells you have and fight against each other.
Co-op Qualities: Most of the action takes place on screens that are locked in place as you fight enemies. This works perfectly with the local co-op. Outside of these rooms, the screen does move around, but it is manageable. I also like being able to drop trade items we gather in the dungeon together and deciding who gets what.
Description: Blending a noir-style film with some classical run and gun gameplay proves to be a great mix. The first game takes place in the 1920s, and the sequel the 1940s. The first one is more focused on the action, while the sequel really expands the character's move-set to perform some useful maneuvers in battle. There's a lot more jumping and dodging in the sequel generally. Both games have some pretty cool boss battles as well, but the sequel does better in this regard with its expanded movement options. The first one also has a local versus mode that doesn't make a return in the sequel.
Co-op Qualities: The screen does scroll, but the characters don't move that fast, like they would in a 2D platformer. I never had a problem with any tug of war with the screen. The second one does have more movement, but the screen is also more zoomed out to accommodate.
Description: This is a dodgeball game with a 1970s aesthetic, though it plays a bit differently to standard dodgeball. The co-op adventure has quite a few cut-scenes and some cool boss fights. It is a bit on the short side, but the missions are unique and not simply the versus mode with NPCs. There are a few different modes for versus play.
Co-op Qualities: Everything operates on one fixed screen, and the story actually follows two characters, so it seems the co-op was a priority. Though the experience works just as well in single player.
Hope this helps with finding some new local multiplayer games to play. Edit: More Detailed Write-ups I did more detailed write-ups for three local co-op games released in 2020: Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2, Biped, and Huntdown. The first two have shorter write-ups in this post, but Huntdown is not included (if I expand the list to 25, I'll add a shorter write-up of Huntdown).
can you play online multiplayer without xbox live gold video
Xbox Live Gold is going away and playing online multiplayer will be free. They will not force you into Ultimate to play online. — grubbsnax is back (@JeffGrubb) July 31, 2020 Online play will be extremely limited with no Xbox Live Gold membership: For the most part, an Xbox Live Gold subscription is required to play games online on Xbox 360 and Xbox One. My Live subscription expired on February 24th. This is the first time in years I've let it run out without renewing in any way. Since then I have played Halo 5, Fifa 16 and a multitude of other online multiplayer games with absolutely no issues. Xbox Live Gold is no longer going up in price. Additionally, Xbox Live Gold will no longer be required to play free-to-play games online, such as Fortnite. Favorite Answer. nope, the main difference is, with a Silver Membership, you can download stuff, talk to people, and watch all the fine videos they throw up there and what not, but you need a Gold... No you need Gold (live membership) plain and simple. Now and again they will have free play weekends. What that means is that they (live) will pick a game at random (say for example Gears Of War or Call Of Duty) and from say Thursday - Monday make... You can play local multiplayer in a split screen on the same console though. EDIT: Reading Comprehension FTW! :P. You. Can't. Play. Online. Without. Gold. "No online play is possible without Live... How to Play on Xbox Live for Free. This wikiHow teaches you how to obtain a temporary Xbox LIVE subscription for free. You can do this by earning 7000 points through Microsoft Rewards, by signing up for a free trial with a new gamertag, or... No, You Don't Need to Pay for Xbox Live on Windows 10 Microsoft confirms an Xbox Live Gold subscription is not required to play games online using the new Xbox app for Windows 10. Xbox Live Gold is only needed to play multiplayer games online. Games that have split-screen multiplayer/co-op player can be played on the Xbox without Xbox Live Gold. Any MMO game such as Destiny, Neverwinter, Warframe, ect., as well as battle royal games like PUBG and Fortnite you will need Xbox Live Gold.
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How to play online without xbox live gold - YouTube
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