Well, dear reader, let us give you a helping hand. Below, we pick a few of our favourites from the titles on offer in the hope of helping you find your next favourite game.

Before we start though: are you aware of the Microsoft Rewards Program? The short version is it’s a great way to get money off – or even totally free – games. Want more info? Check out our guide on how to get the most out of this essential service.

Also, don’t forget to Wishlist titles you’re interested in. This way, when they go on sale Xbox will send you a notification which is always handy.

Right, on to our picks this week:

The Callisto Protocol

The Callisto Protocol is currently 50% off.

Read Jamie’s review here

Deal ends 30th June

Xbox Store link

Blair Witch

Blair Witch is currently 75% off.

Read Jamie B’s review here

Deal ends 27th June

Xbox Store link

Lake

Lake is currently 35% off.

Jamie’s review is here

Deal ends 27th June

Xbox Store link

Tweet us to let us know if you’ve picked up any of the above titles or if you’ve got a hot recommendation!

Want to keep up to date with the latest Xt reviews, Xt opinions and Xt content? Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

The post The Best Deals on the Xbox Store This Week: 20th June 2023 appeared first on Xbox Tavern.

First though, we just want to touch on our appreciation for such events existing. Shows like WASD Live are fantastic ways to check out not only some big hitter titles ahead of release, but also games and experiences we might not have even heard of otherwise. The Game Tomb Curio section of the show offered more experimental experiences (one of which you can read about below), while the rest of the show floor mixed titles like Street Fighter 6 with Bleak Sword DX, Patch Quest, and many, many more. You can find the full list of titles here, and we’d highly encourage players to at least look up some of the more obscure titles – and get to next year’s event to discover even more! We’re very lucky at the Tavern to get our hands on a wide range of games, but WASD Live also offers us the chance to stretch our multiplatform muscles too, with games played on PC, VR, and Playstation too (again, you can read about some of these below). All in all, we came away from WASD Live having had a great day and looking forward to its return next year.

Right – onto the games. We played a decent selection of titles from the show floor, though as we were only there for one of the three days we didn’t have time to fit even half of the offerings in. Below are some of our highlights in no particular order.

Dead Island 2 – Plaion

Sharing top billing with both System Shock  and  Street Fighter 6 – and marking the first time it was playable for the public in the  UK –  Dead Island 2 was one of the few titles we had to wait in line for (though this was a respectably short queue time). In our roughly 10 minute demo, we got chance to get hands on with the combat and check out the FLESH system in action. Boiled down, this is a fancy way of calculating the damage shown on the zombies, letting us rip them apart in all manner or gruesome ways. Tavern member Graham spent a short while testing this to it’s limits, and came away impressed. In the heat of a battle it’s not immediately obviously different, though once we’re finished a quick look around the scene shows an impressive level of carnage that makes Dead Island 2 stand out.

We were given some super powered weapons to try too, with katanas, electrified gloves with daggers on them, sledgehammers, and guns. The guns predictably felt the least fun to use – to the point where we’d say they were all but useless – but smacking our way through the hordes of zombies with the melee weapons was a great laugh. Others at the Tavern have been more in favour of the previous Dead Island and Dying Light titles, though I’ve never really thought they felt fun to play. In Dead Island 2 though, I felt the melee combat was far better represented, and actually was having a blast smashing zombies faces in. We’ve got renewed hopes for this one come the end of April as a result – will the years long wait be worth it?

System Shock – Plaion

This long in development remake finally got a showing for us here, and after a roughly 15 minute demo we came far more intrigued than we’d expected.

For those unaware, the original release of System Shock back in 1994 and its sequel served as a bit of a launch pad for spiritual successors in the excellent Deus Ex and Bioshock games. Playing this remake, we can see why. It’s the former we’re most reminded of as we play, with the look and feel of exploration and combat bringing memories of Deus Ex: Invisible War. The game is packed with incidental detail and items to find, as well as a more hands off approach to objectives. We managed to get ourselves killed after finding and opening a locked pathway that threw much stronger enemies than we were ready to fight at us. We only had access to a pipe for offensive attacks in our time here, though we did pick up a few augments that buffed our health and strength too. We also filled our inventory with all manner of junk that will no doubt prove useful for selling/crafting in the full game.

It was a nice surprise to come away from our short time as intrigued as we were, but we’re going to be waiting for this Kickstarter-backed game for a while yet – the PC release has been delayed until May, with the Xbox release unknown other than it will be after that date. We’ll definitely be keeping an eye on this more closely now though.

England on Fire – Stanwixbuster

Sadly the only title from the Curio’s section we had chance to check out, this visual novel is based on the book of the same name. Having heard of neither before, we were immediately hooked thanks to its catchy artwork, but then sucked in further with some bizarre, surreal scenarios presented before us. As with other visual novels, we simply read the text and occasionally make a choice that may affect the outcome. A neat twist here though is that we can allow the text to continue even as options are presented to us – ignoring them will take the scene is one direction, while choosing something will take it in another. It’s a simple yet intriguing concept, and one we’re keen to return to thanks to the game being on itch.io and available to play right now.

The Dark Pictures: Switchback – Supermassive Games

I’m a big fan of VR, though sadly don’t get much time to use the Oculus Quest 2 gathering dust on my shelf. So when we got to WASD I booked a slot to check out the sequel to my favourite PSVR game, Until Dawn: Rush of Blood. Much as that game did for Until Dawn, Switchback takes the Dark Pictures universe and reimagines scenes and games as horror-tinged rollercoaster rides/light-gun shooters. While it’s not enough on its own to justify the £550 to pick up a PSVR2, I really enjoyed the level I played – this one based on Man of Medan. The improved hardware is naturally a big selling point, with much better fidelity and visuals on show, but the sense of speed and even leaning into the turns felt far more ‘real’ here. Dual wielding weapons, I had a blast throughout the entire shooting gallery experience. I will say I didn’t really notice any of the units higher end features (headset haptics or adaptive triggers for example) but that didn’t really matter as I was having too much fun just going along for the ride. While the PSVR2 is reportedly off to an underwhelming start, I’d really like to see VR continue to grow and even one day be playable in some form on the Xbox too.

Viewfinder – Sad Owl Studios

First person puzzle games with a twist always catch our eye at the Tavern, and Viewfinder is one such example. We initially saw the tech demo on twitter several years ago, and finally got to go hands on at the event – and came away very impressed indeed. The concept of using 2D images that then explode into three dimensional life is both mind-bending and yet easy enough to grasp in this short demo, with Sad Owl easing us in with pre-shot photos before letting us loose with the camera to take our own snaps. A handy rewind feature lets us undo any errant captures easily, and once we realise that not only does the picture expand but is granted physics too, things suddenly have the potential to become very clever/complicated later on. One example saw us needing a battery placed on top of a pillar. Snapping a picture of it, then rotating it upside down and placing it down had the battery fall down to the new earth where we were able to pick it up and take it where we needed.

We came away very keen to see more, though sadly this is a PS/PC only release for now. Here’s hoping Xbox can get in on the action soon.

Those were our top picks of the day, although we played a handful more on top of these. Shout outs go to Peaky Blinders: The King’s Ransom on Oculus Quest 2, Street Fighter 6, boxing game Undisputed, PSVR2 title C-Smash, and many more.

Again, we had a great day at WASD Live, with the Truman Brewery proving to be a fantastic replacement venue from Tavern favourite the Tobacco Docks. If you were there, let us know what you managed to play down below! Roll on WASD Live 2024!

Want to keep up to date with the latest Xt reviews, Xt opinions and Xt content? Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

The post WASD Live 2023 Round-up appeared first on Xbox Tavern.

For people that might not know you, what is a day in the life of Samuel Leigh look like at Wales Interactive, and what games have you helped produce in the past?

I didn’t set out to be a producer. Since Soul Axiom (2015) I have worked on every project that has been produced by Wales Interactive in some capacity whether that be in UI, Animation or developing and producing.

I started at Wales Interactive as an animator and that grew game by game, with more and more responsibility into the producing role that I do today. My love of storytelling and my understanding of game development has put me in my dream job without recognising it. I still treasure getting hands-on in the engine however, more of my day is spent buried in email chains, meetings, creating schedules and developing scripts but once I start talking about storytelling/gameplay and the possibilities that could be achieved, I do not shut up.

Wales Interactive have redefined the interactive live action genre over the last several years. Xbox Tavern favourite The Complex hooked us in, while titles such as Night Book, Bloodshore, and the original Five Dates sealed the deal. Do you have any thoughts on why the genre’s resurgence has been achieved now?

These are great games to play with friends and family. If you turn “Streamer Mode” on it will remove the timers and pause the choices. Now do this with caution as it does spark some lively debates.

But these are very laid-back games for entertainment, to quote Gino D’Acampo “minimum effort, maximum satisfaction”.

Ten Dates follows on from the excellent Five Dates. Were there any plans to continue with Vinnie (and fantastic wingman Callum) again as he ventured into the ‘real world’ of dating or was a clean slate always on the cards?

I love Taheen (Vinnie) and Demmy (Callum) and I think their story is far from over. The whole cast of this series has been amazing and I would happily work with any of them again.

Five Dates leant heavily into the online world of dating, thanks of course to the recent pandemic. How did you approach Ten Dates‘ return to in person dating, and how did the two titles vary in in terms of how much you could fulfil your vision for the story?

We wanted Ten Dates to still have the same charm as Five Dates. Which is why we approached Ten Dates the same way as we did Five Dates, even though they were created in completely different ways.  

Not only have you doubled the amount of dates available, but you’ve given players far more options in terms of representation in Ten Dates. Could you explain more about your process for expanding the choices available?

There wasn’t a process, this happened organically. As more characters were added and casting ensued for the roles it just assembled as representative as it is.

We absolutely fell in love with one of the potential suitors in Bash. Without going into too many spoilers, do you have a favourite date candidate? And were there any that you had to leave out of the game?

Would you ask a Mum who her favourite child is?

Yes, I had favourites when reading the script however, that all changed after the actors got hold of their characters and made them their own. I think every character has an interesting story to tell if you can sweep them off their feet.

Ten Dates is being released on Valentine’s Day, was that by design or did it just naturally fit into your ideal release window?

A bit of both, plus it just makes sense.

A little more catch-all in terms of the Wales Interactive library, but how long does something like Ten Dates take to create, and could you give us a rough idea of the process behind creating the sprawling web of choices presented to players?

Ten Dates is one of the largest Interactive Live Action Games we have made to date. We have developed a writing tool which allows us to create interactive scripts visually which becomes the base code of the game. We can prototype ideas and have feedback very early on as we are technically coding the game as we write. Consequently, when we are on set filming or working with our partners what is captured lines up in the tool making the assembly of the game very efficient. This came from working with Allan Plenderleith on The Bunker and he sat with me at my desk, stacks of storyboards and hard drives full of videos sprawled over the floor. We did a lot of editing after the fact to stitch the footage he filmed together. Between this and The Complex we developed a tool to simplify this process and The Complex was the first game made using our tool with Paul Raschid the director of Five and Ten Dates.

Finally, without trying to get ahead of ourselves, do you think we might see a Fifteen Dates in the future?

I would not rule that out, it might not be Fifteen Dates but we love working on these and it is very appealing to do another one. It will be great to explore the options one day.

Want to keep up to date with the latest Xt reviews, Xt opinions and Xt content? Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

The post XT Interviews: Ten Dates’ Producer Samuel Leigh appeared first on Xbox Tavern.

It’s all well and good getting a shiny new machine, but what good is it if you’re not getting the most out of the thing? Below, we’ve added several nifty tips and tricks you might wanna check out to help enjoy your Xbox-gaming experience to the fullest.

Dynamic Backgrounds

Xbox Home Screen personalisation has been a thing for a while now – even the 360 let us pick custom backgrounds towards the end. But, times have changed and the Series consoles let us go even further with custom images, colours, and even dynamic themes! The videos above will help you navigate the menus to add some much need customisation to your machine.

Moving Notifications

There has been many a time that we’ve playing a game, happily reading the captions of a pivotal story moment or fighting for our life in a tense Battle Royale match when suddenly an achievement pops or a message from a friend appeared on the screen. This notification blocked the text we were trying to read! However, we can now move those pesky notifications to appear elsewhere on the screen Check out the video above for the details on how to do this. Now we’ll have to find another excuse as to why we keep dying during a round of Apex Legends…

Creating/Deleting Groups

Need a little help keeping your gaming on track? Create a group of your favourite games and pin them to the Home Screen. You can have multiple groups/pins for anything like games that need completing, your top apps and even one for those achievement games you need to finish.

Elite V2 Controller Customisable Light

If you have an Elite V2 controller – or are looking to pick up one of your own design from Xbox Design Labs – you can now customise the Xbox Jewel (that sleek Xbox logo on in the of the pad) from white to almost any colour you wish. You can even have a different colour for each of the three custom profiles!

Microsoft Rewards

Microsoft Rewards is the somewhat-secret cheat code for Xbox gamers to get fantastic deals on games, Xbox Live or Game Pass subs, or even third party shops, restaurants and more. By checking out the Rewards homepage and completing a handful of quick tasks each day, you’ll be surprised how fast the points rack up. Add that to the Rewards app on console, where you can earn points for gaining achievements, playing certain games at certain times, or even buying things off the store, and you can pretty easily get a large amount of points in a short amount of time. If you’re not already checking it out, you’re leaving what amounts to free money on the table – so just get to it!

Game Pass Ultimate Perks

If you have subscribed to the ‘best deal in gaming’ then you need to make sure you’re getting the most out of your sub. Game Pass Ultimate Perks are one extra, gifting players with things such as in game DLC, free trials to other services, bonus currency/XP and much more. Much like the Rewards program, this feels like a bit of a hidden extra at times, so make sure you head to your Game Pass app on the console to get what’s available!

Hopefully you found these tips and tricks useful – come back again soon as we’ll this updated with any new helpful guides we think could be of use!

Want to keep up to date with the latest Xt reviews, Xt opinions and Xt content? Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

The post Xbox Tips and Tricks You Need To Know appeared first on Xbox Tavern.

The Witcher 3 looks noticeably better in both indoor and outdoor scenes than the previous version, thanks to these new ray-tracing features. Instead of the game’s previous blocky, pixelated, and incomplete shadows, they now accurately depict their source and completely shade the way they should. In some areas, such as forests or interiors, the scene drastically changes, resulting in a darker image that only accounts for where the light actually comes from rather than the dynamic lighting solution from the previous-generation version. Kaer Morhen, in particular, looks stunning thanks to the inclusion of ray tracing (I actually restarted the game to compare the RT mode/Performance mode just to see how stunning it was!).

Hats off to CD Projekt Red for realising that the Witcher community has actually made a lot of these changes to the game already as unofficial mods and reached out to the creators to work alongside them. The Witcher 3 HD Reworked Project by HalkHoge and HD Monsters Reworked Mod by Denroth are this game’s solution for 4K textures and upgrades, and they are an absolute enhancement over the base textures if a bit subtle at times. These texture mods look best on surfaces like wood and rock rather than character models and pieces of gear, but like many upgrades here, when they are noticed, they are appreciated.

The last two significant visual improvements to The Witcher 3 come from improved water reflections and a rework of the game’s vegetation and environment. The vegetation has improved as leaves and flora both react to Geralt as he moves through it. In motion, the combination of all these graphical enhancements looks fantastic. The Witcher 3‘s ray tracing features and graphic updates make the world pop while also bringing it to a grittier place, as the new lighting effects make a darker scene at times with less emphasis on the brighter effects of the previous version.

Witcher 3’s “Performance” mode keeps most of the major enhancements of this update, including better foliage, enhanced textures, and better environment, and delivers it all at a solid 60 frames per second. The only draw backs players have to make when switching to the performance mode are losing the ray tracing enhancements, which a lot of players will happily do given just how much better The Witcher 3 feels at 60 FPS.

Making the game look pretty aside, The Witcher 3 Complete Edition does wonders for game’s quality of life to make it an even better gameplay experience. The world map is now considerably less cluttered as question marks, and boat symbols are turned off (they can be toggled back on for the masochists), the UI is now easily tweakable, allowing players only to show the minimap and quest objectives during combat. However, one of the best quality-of-life improvements included here is the instant herb looting, which might sound fairly minor as at lower difficulties you might not find yourself interacting with much of The Continents flora but given how vital potions are on Death March difficulty, not having to worry about the constant pop up box slowing the game down is a god send.

The game also includes a new way to cast signs, so instead of having to bring up the sign menu, selecting which sign you want to use with the right stick (which was a little fiddly at times) then using it now players can hold down the left trigger and press a face button that corresponds with the sign they would like to use. It takes a bit of getting used to, but the new approach to signs makes sense and keeps the action going instead of stopping and going into a menu every time players want to use a new spell.

Few people would say that the original version of The Witcher 3 was a bad-looking game that was rough to play. However, by including ray tracing and the additional performance mode, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Complete Edition has been elevated to an even greater level to what it already was, and beyond that, the smaller improvements that CD Projekt Red has added both in-house and with the community all add up to the complete edition being an absolute must play for newcomers to the series as well as hardened veterans like myself.

Want to keep up to date with the latest Xt reviews, Xt opinions and Xt content? Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

The post The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s Next Gen Update Impressions appeared first on Xbox Tavern.

Have a great Holiday period, and we’ll see you all again in the New Year.

Jamie

It’s always nice when a game comes out of nowhere to surprise me, and even better when it ends up becoming my Game of the Year – following on from the excellent Lake in 2021, this year’s surprise indie hit is Tinykin.

Regular readers or podcast listeners will know my affinity for Pikmin so Tinkykin really should have been on my radar. For whatever reason it wasn’t though, and so once I got the chance to review it I was hooked from start to finish.

As I noted in my review, it lacks true challenge – the rooms we find ourselves in are huge puzzles to solve, but all follow a fairly logical progression – but Tinykin isn’t any worse for it. If anything, the breezy nature of the puzzling means we get to soak in the charm and joy of the adventure even more. From the wonderfully unique 2D/3D art to the witty, funny writing, I don’t think there was a moment of time that I didn’t have a smile on my face while playing. Impossibly large rooms give way to sneaky shortcuts and alternate routes to make them feel more manageable, while every corner that we think may be empty is inevitably packed with easter eggs, pop culture nods, or just simply more Tinykin to use on our adventure.

It’s not the highest score I gave this year – both As Dusk Falls and The Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe scored 0.2 higher – but for the sheer joy and wonder it offered, I have to give my vote to Tinykin.

Bubba

Bubba’s GOTY isn’t an Xbox title?!?!? Hear me out on this one. It’s been a while since I had a Nintendo game that kept my attention long enough to the point where I don’t bring out my Switch only at parties. Splatoon 3 was that game for me. Taking a break from Call of Duty this year, Splatoon 3 was the perfect substitute I needed. It didn’t stress me out whether I was winning or losing. It’s all just good inking fun. What I loved the most about it was having a variety of inking weapons and tools in my arsenal while also looking as fresh as possible on the battlefield. The fanbase itself is wholesome and a blast to be a part of, and this is coming from somebody who isn’t a big fan of fandoms. Big things are coming to Splatoon 3 so if you haven’t already picked it up, you should give it a whirl.

James

2013 was nine long years ago, back then there was the delightful indie curio squatting exclusively on the PC and I wanted it bad. I didn’t have a gaming PC, so I had to make do with watching reviews, whilst patiently waiting for a hypothetical console release to come around-which unfortunately never came. This game was called The Stanley Parable.

Fast forward 9 years and hey presto! We have The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe on console, and the wait was so scrumptiously worth it. The level of wit and satire in The Stanley Parable can level the entirety of New York City in its thick and gooey self-referential charm. The stellar commentary from Kevan Brighting brings playfulness and a bamboozling array of remarks in response to Stanley’s actions.

The reason why The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe is essential and my 2022 GOTY pick, is because it’s unlike any game you’ve ever played before. It’s a game that finds guffaws in making you do the mundane, it examines the meaning or lack thereof regarding choices when playing videogames, and it presents players with a deftly constructed maze of meaningful malarkey-in that it cerebrally aims to baffle you whilst manipulating you down its unpredictable rabbit hole. 

Daniel

I’ve picked out my top 3 games from 2022 below. Usually I’d have finished each one fully before considering it, though there is one entry I wanted to include this year despite me not *quite* having rolled credits. They are as follows:

3rd: As Dusk Falls

When I first started As Dusk Falls I found the art style a little off putting. But as I played more and the story unfolded, I found myself less worried about the art style and totally immersed in the wonderful story. I really like the fact that each choice actually makes a difference and can turn the story. By the time you finish a chapter, you can see how many story threads there are. I will play As Dusk Falls again and make different choices. 

2nd: The Callisto Protocol

The only game in my picks I haven’t completed, though I believe I’m about 2 hours away from the finale at time of writing. Dead Space was a wonder game back on the Xbox 360 and I really enjoyed my time with it. The Callisto Protocol has that same eerie feel, with all sorts of monsters jumping out giving that all important jump scare. Movement and combat can be a little sluggish but for me the story makes up for any issues in that department. I feel the price tag is a little much for a game that only lasts you ten to twelve hours though, so pick it up in a sale and enjoy the survival horror.

1st: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turles: Shredder’s Revenge

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge isn’t a Triple A masterpiece, but the enjoyment factor is through the roof. Playing TMNT brought me back to playing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game in the arcade when I was a child. I played this with my son and we had a great time defeating the Footclan. If you need a co-op game this Christmas, remember up to 4 player local and 6 players online. Best of all if you have Xbox Game Pass you get to play Turtles for “Free”.

Pete

So, it’s that time year where we joyfully look back at our year of gaming and try to decide which game we enjoyed the most and crown our own personal Game of the Year. Personally it was a hard choice, so I’ll quickly rattle off a few honourable mentions that didn’t make my number one spot but are certainly worth playing if you haven’t already:

F1 Manager 2022 – A fantastic first entry and a must play for any F1 or management sim fans out there; The Quarry – A separate entry away from the Dark Pictures series was another great game this year, the only things against it was it took a couple of chapters to get going and a single player playthrough could take 10+ hours (which sounds odd to be a negative point); South of The Circle – a great game I very much enjoyed playing, despite being different it certainly brought back happy memories of playing Firewatch the previous year; As Dusk Falls – Another Narrative story-based game makes the honourable mention list, a game with so many possible outcomes, the art style took a bit of getting used to but it’s well worth a play; The Devil in Me – Yup, a second Supermassive game makes the honourable mentions list! A superb entry capping off Season One for The Dark Pictures franchise, online multiplayer was a tad glitchy which was a shame as it ruined the immersion but playing single player was a great experience.

I guess it’s time to reveal which game took the coveted Number 1 spot for my Game of the Year. A game I reviewed back in April where I said I’d be surprised it any game manages to beat it to my number 1. F1 Manager came very close (and even scored higher in my review), but ultimately, I couldn’t look past Rise of the Third Power. A game I hadn’t even heard of until I saw it on the ‘to be reviewed’ list. And thank goodness I did! I love a good RPG; Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Final Fantasy are all beloved franchises of mine. Rise of the Third Power can now join in the conversation of great RPG’s. The soundtrack, characters, combat animations, the ‘Story mode button’ were all fantastic. At the time of writing it “only” costs £16.74, It’s well worth your time and money if you like RPGs.

Graham

For my pick it would have to be Marvel’s Midnight Suns. This game really surprised me as the graphics didn’t look top notch but still decent enough. But the interesting story, The XCOM tactical battling with cards worked well and the fact the characters were more like their comic book personalities made me happy.

Want to keep up to date with the latest Xt reviews, Xt opinions and Xt content? Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

The post Xbox Tavern’s Games of the Year 2022 appeared first on Xbox Tavern.

EGX 2021 was, in our eyes, perhaps a misguided attempt to bring things back a bit too early, lacking as it was in games of much note that either weren’t already out, or didn’t quite have the profile to get people excited to venture out in public yet. 2022’s offering seemingly took this as lesson No.1, coming packed with a handful of big hitters in Call of Duty Modern Warfare II’s multiplayer, Sonic Frontiers UK public debut, and Street Fighter 6, as well as a decent selection of Indies such as Deceive Inc. and Unspottable. Queues for the first two stretched out over a good 45 minute wait, although later on at the Friday session this reduced significantly. There were a good amount of smaller Indies here too, both older returning titles and new ones, and my only regret of the show was not spending quite as much time here as I’d have liked.

The layout was similar to last year’s event, albeit slightly larger in my recollection, with plenty to see and do outside of gaming. If anything, there was perhaps a bit too much in the way of extras, with a massive chunk of the floor taken up by shops full of gifts and booths for hardware brands to hold prize tournaments and activities. Street Fighter 6, Rocket League, and eFootball had large event areas cornered, while the likes of Lenovo had a huge booth showing off hardware and games that was all but moot thanks to the Crystal Maze-style wind booth in which punters could win prizes that took all of the attention. I’ve no issue with these types of things (hell, I even had a shot myself) but all of the aforementioned parts took over basically as much space as the actual games did. I still remember walking into my first EGX (called Eurogamer Expo back then) and being bombarded with games from start to finish. Here, while we wait for the effects of COVID to subside more, it feels more like a game themed exhibition at times.

I don’t want to get too hung up on this aspect though, as there was far more of the EGX spirit alive here this year. Again, it was great to go hands-on with Sonic Frontiers at last (separate preview thoughts to come soon), and despite the above paragraph there was more to enjoy here in general. Deceive Inc. – a multiplayer tactical espionage title in the vein of Among Us x No One Lives Forever -was a nice surprise, as was AR game Hado. Here, players strapped a few iPhones to their face and wrist and engaged in real life techno dodgeball. It was immediately playable, albeit a little disorientating, and a lot of fun – and the exact type of extra-curricular thing I love to see at events like EGX.

The Retro Zone returned with all manner of titles to make us olds feel all warm and fuzzy, packed as it was with N64’s, arcade cabinets, Dreamcast’s, and even a handful of consoles I’d never seen before! This was open in the After Dark part of the show as well as during the day, where we enjoyed a couple of beers as Graham beat us all repeatedly at Bomberman again…

The main take away for me though was just how many people – both fans and devs/PR – packed the place out. It was great seeing all the cosplayers and other industry folk milling about, as well as people from all walks of life enjoying games together. It’s great to see new games early, but being able to chat with strangers about what you’ve just played – or what you’re hoping to see – is the crux of why these events are important. EGX 2023 has already been confirmed for Oct 12-15th, and you bet your ass I’ll be there again. Let’s hope the improvement trend continues and we get some truly excellent things to play and discuss next time round.

Want to keep up to date with the latest Xt reviews, Xt opinions and Xt content? Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

The post EGX 2022 Impressions appeared first on Xbox Tavern.

To start I must say I have conflicting feelings about The Quarry. I think it’s a gripping horror adventure with many different and varied outcomes, it’s impressive how events can play out. On top of this, it’s easy to appreciate how damn hard Supermassive have worked making this game work so very well with all it has going on in it. I do also have a fondness for big cinematic adventure games where you make choices that alter the outcomes – very few frustrations come with these kinds of games and The Quarry is no exception.

Now I’ve got scratch all the niggling fleas out of my scraggly neck-long blonde hair. I don’t really know where to start, so I’ll just dive into the deep end like some of the characters do during the experience.

Firstly, I don’t know if any game has summoned such a detestable cast of idiotic teenaged morons. Seriously, I want to sucker punch these ingrates and pinch their youthful ballsacks with pliers so tight and hard you wouldn’t even want to know the aftermath. Not only do I have a hard time listening to these wisecracking and cliche-cussing nimrods, but they look hideous.

Yahtzee said it best when he described one of the female characters by saying “the stocky sexy girl character in particular looks like she’s trying to talk through a bagel that has been hot-glued to her face,” they simply look like they’ve been scuba diving below the uncanny valley sea level too far down and for too long.

Now, these characters couldn’t look any worse than Quantic Dream’s efforts in Detroit: Become Human, but considering that game shares several similarities with The Quarry – let’s just say they both wanted cinematic lusciousness at the expense of the traditional videogame playing we all, y’know, play games for.

I think one of the major problems The Quarry has is that it’s unable to make the characters interesting from the start, so you get roped into a ten hour trek through teenage hell and it becomes really hard to care about what happens to anybody. All the characters are generally stereotypes of what teenagers these days are. You got the social media obsessive, the obnoxious showoff douchebag, the alternative one and the dependable if sporty frat boy type. They could’ve put in the self-harming goth type and a nerdy bookworm type and it’d be a complete cast of angsty, insecure and smelly body odor reeking rejects and dumb plums.

I know I should be thankful that Supermassive gave us the ability to deliver disturbing deaths to each of these turnip twisters, but I’ve had to listen to them for too long to inject my serum of prolonged patience into my right bicep.

Another biting realization I’ve had is that generally The Quarry is largely the same experience structurally as their other efforts. I loved Until Dawn, but after seven years and three Dark Pictures Anthology games and now The Quarry, there’s no evolution to the formula. You enter a horror adventure with a mixture of stereotypes, survive incurring dangers, all the while you collect glimpses of possibilities, clues and evidence; you have to follow quick-time events, and a minigame where you need to hold your breath to avoid danger, oh and along the way you make decisions and proceed with actions that can cause the death of cast members and alter the endings you get.

As stated, these games must be painstaking to put together, but they are the same formulaic games we’ve been playing for years now, and they’re only getting bigger now, not better.

Generally, right now I can say that I like The Quarry but nothing about it surprises me or makes me feel differently from all these Dark Pictures games. There is ample replay value, but when you see that all it offers is multiple endings and scenes which will shift the story along-it will seem like plenty of hard work for quite sub-standard rewards. There needs to be more ambition and a change of genre to freshen things up, but what we have with The Quarry is a good game that’s just not evolving what we’ve come to know at all.

Want to keep up to date with the latest Xt reviews, Xt opinions and Xt content? Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

The post The Quarry is Good, but are Supermassive Playing it Safe? appeared first on Xbox Tavern.

Exhausted Man (Candleman Games)

Being an indie developer is not easy, being the indie developer in Exhausted Man is even harder. Limited to the same sort of movements as a cartoon worm – the main character is holed up in their apartment trying to get a release candidate of their build. The game plays like a mixture of Octodad and Unpacking. The player must set out a number of items inside the apartment each turn, then navigate their human sloth around them trying to accomplish seemingly simple tasks. The fun comes from how sluggish the character is and how ridiculous he ends up looking while you accomplish it.

Despite its light and easy nature of the game (the deliberately messy controls are relaxing rather than annoying) I couldn’t help but relate to the emotional and physical impact of trying to ship a game.

If the screenshot appeals check out their website.

Metal: Hellsinger (The Outsiders)

Doom is good, the Mick Gordon soundtrack to Doom is also good. Metal: Hellsinger is what happens if you make these two things inter-related. Rhythmically killing demons to the beat of metal, with vocals from a series of high profile singers across the subgenres of the music.

If you want to rip and tear to double kick drums then it is worth checking out Hellsinger’s website.

Ato (Little Warrior Games)

I mainly downloaded this out of sense of duty to look at all the game fest games. The screenshots do not do this game service at all. In motion this game has a wonderful sense of style with gently swaying grass, considered protagonist animations and great pace. The gameplay in the demo is equally tight with precise jumps, rolls and teleports required to traverse areas.

This is for everyone that likes metroidvanias that focus on skilled platforming and unique combat encounters.

This is single developer game and at the moment they just have a discord channel if you want to know more.

Despot’s Game (Konfa Games)

Each one of the games on this list has had an instant hook for me, easily translatable into a demo. For me, Despot’s Game was the quickest to get its hooks into me. A combination of auto-play strategy game and roguelite, the player moves from screen to screen with their army and after lining them up sets them loose on enemies. There is a lot of per-run things to figure out, when to hire more units and what weapons to give them, balance the number with available food, and picking the right perks to suit your play style. Combat is over quickly and the strategy element seems light at first but depth comes later.

Not to mention it has a wicked soundtrack and visuals that reminds me of when the Bitmap Brothers were at the height of their game

I look forward to playing the full version. For further details you can check out their website.

Want to keep up to date with the latest Xt reviews, Xt opinions and Xt content? Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

The post Games to watch from the Summer Game Fest Showcase 2022 appeared first on Xbox Tavern.

As I said, there were a lot of games at WASD, with a large focus on indie titles. We didn’t get to them all, but the majority of the ones we did showed a lot of promise indeed. Please do head over to their website to see the full line up, and if you attended the show let us know down below or on twitter! I really hope that it returns for round two next year, with an even more expansive line-up of titles to play and things to see.

We Here Here Forever – Total Mayhem Games

I’m going to start off with my favourite of the show; Total Mayhem Games’ We Were Here Forever. I’m a big fan of the previous three entries in the series, with their unique blend of asymmetrical co-op puzzles really requiring team work and communication like almost no other game. They can get tricky at times and it’s tempting to cheat, but if you can resist the urge to hop on a video call or send screenshots then the reward for successfully solving a puzzle is like no other.

Our time-limited demo saw the two of us on opposite sides of a booth using headsets to communicate. We were placed within a couple of hexagonal rooms, each with various symbols on pillars that only the other player could see. Using voice communication only, we had to line up the images to allow one or another to walk through the associated doors and enter a new hexagonal room, at which time we began the process of solving that rooms puzzle. It was – as ever – both exhilarating and frustrating as we talked over each other (thereby cancelling out any incoming chat from the other player) or waited for the other player to figure things out on their end before we could proceed. Each successful move added more and more rooms until, on my second play with Ian, we managed to get out of the original area and into an even more confusing set-up.

Twenty minutes was all we got, but it was enough to absolutely get me excited for more later this year when it comes to Xbox. With a purported runtime of 12 hours, this will be a true test of friendship, skill, and teamwork – but I can’t wait!

Silt – Spiral Circus

There’s no way to avoid the obvious comparison – Limbo. The dark, monochromatic visuals, the fairly gruesome deaths, the brooding atmosphere; it’s all here and correct. Except this time, we’re playing as a diver, seemingly trapped in a hellish underwater scenario that was almost enough to make me skip it thanks to my…aversion…to water.

I’m glad I didn’t though, as it ended up being one of my favourite games of the show. The main hook here is that we can possess the aquatic wildlife around us to solve puzzles. In this short demo I took control of a piranha, hammerhead shark, and…well, I’ll save that last one for you to discover. Using the piranha, we’re able to bite through cables that are in the way, while the hammerhead lets us smash rocks or pillars down. It’s entirely possible to ‘mis-aim’ and kill our diver, and I can only imgine later in the full game this aspect will be put to the test.

I came away very intrigued indeed after this short demo. It appears that Spiral Circus have something quite special on their hands and if they can keep up the atmosphere and clever puzzle mechanics for the full release this could end up standing alongside its inspiration quite nicely.

Trek to Yomi – Flying Wild Hog

Revealed as part of a recent Playstation State of Play, Trek To Yomi instantly catches the eye with its stunning Kurosawa-inspired black and white presentation of its Samurai adventure. I’m happy to report that the gameplay does a great job of keeping our attention once we get used to the presentation.

Played in a side on 2D manner with brief bouts of more 3D open areas to explore, in this demo we got the check out the simple but effective combat as well as the clever way Flying Wild Hog hide secrets and power-ups in plain sight.

Combat is a slow, tense affair. Each enemy type has a certain attack pattern that we need to learn so as to be able to parry and counter attack effectively. In this demo there were about four types, each offering up just enough difference to make it a challenge to come out of a battle totally unscathed. We can block attacks at the cost of being stunned, but parrying is the way forward. Time it just right and we can counter attack quickly; one or two hits are enough to take out all but the biggest of enemies – and us. Go into battle sloppily and we end up on the wrong end of a sword very quickly indeed. Despite not being so great at it on my first try, I really ended up liking this more methodical pace to combat. Encounters might feature several enemies but we only have to worry about one attacking at a time, a new one entering the fray as we dispatch each fighter.

Outside of combat we’re free to roam around small areas seeing what we can find. One early example was in the first village; here, we could quite happily run along to the next area, but stopping to search each of the houses along the way yielded extra combat scenarios as well as health and stamina upgrades and even new moves. One – the double backslash attack – felt too overpowered in the demo (it was almost an instant win button) but on the whole these added to our arsenal quite nicely, rewarding those who take time to search.

Although brief, this demo has only increased my anticipation for Trek to Yomi, which just so happens to release on Game Pass in about a months time!

Souls-likes ahoy – multiple

I’m not a Souls fan at all, although I can see why they have such appeal. For me, the grim dark and obtuse nature of the games doesn’t equate to fun times. I do enjoy a good challenge though, and luckily there were a few titles at WASD that took that aspect of the Souls games and imbued them with stylistic choices more up my street.

We had The Last Oricru from Koch Media. Trading out the medieval settings for a more Knights of the Round Table approach, The Last Oricru was a pretty enjoyable, albeit very tough, title. Combat is slow and heavy, and even the basic grunts could really do some damage, but for me it was easier to read and react here than in FROMsoft’s output. We played in co-op and found it to be a good laugh, with a lot to see and do even in this short demo. Out later this year, we will be keeping an eye on this one for sure.

Next up was Thymesia from Team17. Far more in line with the Souls aesthetic, this title has heavy plague doctor and medieval fantasy vibes. Once again, combat is a bitch to play with enemies able to really put up a fight at every turn. Whittling down their life bar turns a portion of the damage green. Go for a few seconds without attacking and they regain the green portion of the health bar. To stop this, we need to use a secondary attack to knock this part of the life bar down. All while dodging and weaving trying not to get hit. I didn’t get very far here, but despite that I came away interested to see more at a later date.

The final one was The Last Hero of Nostalgia from Curve Digital. This one was my favourite by far; its mix of hard combat, a unique art style meshing 1-bit graphics with fancy modern visuals, and some Stanley Parable-esque commentary made it one of the stand out games of the show. Again, the demo was short, but I went through it several times and found it just as engaging each time. It’s hard to really grasp the story at events like these but there were several moments that gave me a good chuckle,  and of the three mentioned here is the only one I will 100% commit to checking out when it releases ‘sometime in 2022’.

There were a tonne more games that we got to play over the two days we attended that I don’t have time to mention fully here; John Wick Hex from Bithell Games surprised me with how clever and fun it was; WW1 Izonzo looks to expand on the excellent WW1 Tannenberg to bring large scale warfare to the mountains of Italy; WWE 2K22 was reviewed highly by our man Varno and we can see why now. We had a great time playing it here; Bullion: Curse of the Cut-Throat Cattle shows potential as a fun little party game; Cursed to Golf mixes golf mechanics and puzzle-based levels with humour to make an interesting combination.

Looking at the list of titles that were at WASD there were plenty more we would have liked to check out! Though I must make one more honourable mention:

Golf Gang is sadly destined for a PC-only release (for now), but it was an absolute blast to play. Think mini-golf but with all players playing simultaneously and the ability to knock each other off the level as well as add in modifiers such as low gravity or explosive collisions… Lazy Monday Games had one of the most popular booths there thanks to hosting regular 8-player tournaments that saw all sorts of hilarity ensue. As with the best party games, at times it was unfair, while at others luck would be on our side and allow us to skip ahead to victory. But it was never anything less than great fun to play. As I say, sadly not Xbox related but if you fancy checking it out for yourself there will be an open beta on Steam soon. If you’ve a passable PC then you should absolutely check it out with a few friends.

All in all, WASD was a welcome return to in-person gaming events. After being let down by EGX last year, and the news there would be no EGX Rezzed this year, I’m very happy to have been able to attend the inaugural WASD. It was packed with fun games, very friendly people, and the use of the Tobacco Docks is always a win in my books. My only real nit-pick is that there was a far slimmer line-up here than at previous Rezzed events, in particular relating to the more odd-ball experiences and 4-player battle games. While there was the Curios section, there was nothing along the lines of the home-made Pub Games machine, the game that used a coloured strip of LED’s to provide a taxing platformer, or the ever-popular Gang Beasts for us to check out. I do hope the event returns next year and, having been proven a success this year, is able to attract even more weird and wonderful games for players to check out.

Want to keep up to date with the latest Xt reviews, Xt opinions and Xt content? Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

The post WASD – A Great New Indie Showcase appeared first on Xbox Tavern.