Towards the end of last week the unthinkable happened and my launch model PS4 got the dreaded Blue Light of Death. I was devastated! The timing of my lovely console to die could not have been worse and after spending about 6 hours trying to fix it, I feel to the ground – defeated.
Okay, so it OBVIOUSLY wasn’t that bad and I am hamming it up in order to make myself feel better, what actually happened was I tried to fix it, couldn’t and sent it off to be repaired and for the first time since launch, I live in a household that doesn’t have a PlayStation in!
What this has meant for me though is, instead of stopping gaming and doing the garden or finally decorating the last room of my house – I switched on my underused Xbox One and put my Gamepass to some use, downloading a huge array of games that I hadn’t gotten around to whilst I had full access to my bloated game library.
It’s actually been a wonderful break from playing the same genres I default too and given me a real appreciation for indie games which I, admittedly to my fault, haven’t been giving enough time to in recent years.
Firstly I downloaded After Party and the less I say about that game the better BUT this led me on to finally try Oxenfree and this game is an absolute masterpiece in storytelling and tension. A few times whilst playing it at night I had to switch off and play something else because I just felt uncomfortable with the events playing out in the game. I adored my experience with this and I even bought it on PS4 for when my console is returned to me, just to give the developers a bit more of my money (and go after the platinum!).
Next up I finally got around to playing Ori and the Blind Forest which is sublime. I adored the platforming elements of this which at times were nail bitingly difficult and I LOVED it. Ori is also one of the most beautiful games I have ever played with a stunning world I got lost within and spellbinding music that has infected my Spotify constantly over the past few days.
But I haven’t only been jumping onto the indie games that feature on Gamepass, I have also been running through all the Gears of War games in anticipation of finally starting my journey on Gears 4 & 5. I had forgotten exactly how much I love Gears but picking up the remastered version of the first game reminded me incredibly quickly just how much I adore the series. I ended up rattling through the first 3 games in around 3 days and started Gears 4’s campaign just the other night, before I spent way too much of my evening trying to dominate the various waves of the fan favourite horde mode.
I have also downloaded and I am excited to play an array of games that are completely different still from all of the above. I want to give Sunset Overdrive a proper go to see if it’s as good as I keep being told or not, as I currently believe from my 2 hours with the game.
I plan to smash through “A Plague Tale” this weekend as well, based solely on Respawning’s own review from Mikey. I love narrative driven games so this is keeping me quite excited.
It doesn’t even end with my Xbox either, I splashed out a little (like what £3?) in order to get the Gamepass ultimate as I wanted the remakes of Age of Empires 1 & 2 as well as the Gears Tactics (Xcom Gears? Hell yeah) as something to do when the wife wants to watch something on the TV!
All of this, so far has cost me a collective £10.99 this month and I feel that this is an absolute steal that all gamers with access to an Xbox should take full advantage of, especially whilst PlayStation plus insults us with games such as Farming Simulator as part of their subscription.
Get involved my friends, there are far worse things you can spend £10.99 on than dozens of hours of gaming joy. I don’t even know if I will bother with the PS4 going forwards, at least not until I have rattled through the games I want to play on Gamepasses ever expanding library of stellar titles.