Topic: Game Pass Club

@LtSarge there was a pilot for a TV show back in the 90s I think.

I think this it but I'm not sure:

@ralphdibny Yeah I've heard about that, although it doesn't have the same feel or humour as the 2020 game. When I got towards the end of act 1, the game genuinely became so hilarious to watch. I almost want to only watch the cut scenes now instead of playing the actual game, lol.

@LtSarge ah I'm lookin forward to it! Should be good, hopefully I get some play time tomorrow

I only watched a few mins of that show but it kind of looks like the first season of the 90s Fantastic four series which was both rubbish and a poor imitation of the ninja turtles series before it. Getting off topic here but fantastic four had a brilliant second season when it got brought in line stylistically with its Spiderman and X men contemporaries.

Might watch the rest of it now as I feel like I might be being unfair haha

I believe I'm on act 4 now so I should be done with this game just in time for Tell Me Why on Thursday. One thing I wish they would've done differently with Battletoads is mixing the different levels a bit more instead of having the same ones right after each other. For example, the first two acts were mostly beat 'em up stages, while act 3 was mostly shmup and platforming levels. I would've liked to see a beat 'em up stage, a shmup stage and then a platforming level in that order as an example. Because act 3 doesn't have any beat 'em up stages at all since they used up all of them in the first two acts.

I'm very excited to be getting into Tell Me Why in a just a few days. I absolutely bloody adored Life is Strange 2, which easily made me feel feelings I'd never felt before playing any game or watching any show/movie. I played Before the Storm as well afterwards which, while not as good, was also a really solid offering that I had a great time with. Suffice it to say, my track record with Dontnod is pretty good and they've so far given me no reason to think that Tell Me Why will disappoint. I'm slightly more cautiously optimistic about Twin Mirror... but we'll see when that comes out. Just the fact that Tell Me Why has a long overdue transgender video game protagonist alone would've sold me, but all the things they've been saying about how they're handling it make me feel very confident that they'll do it tastefully in addition. The hype is real! I can't wait to cry!

@LtSarge I just did the shmup level "test the ship" or whatever it was called. Took me a while to beat the boss but I finally did it!

I think my favourite level so far was the donkey Kong minecart style level where you have to grind on different materials. It's cool this Dev has taken ideas from different old rare games instead of just battletoads.

Maybe this dev should have a crack at a full on platformer using either battletoads or another dormant Rare IP

@Tjuz welcome! I got tell me why downloaded and ready to go!

@Tjuz Nice man! Looking forward to reading your thoughts about it.

@ralphdibny Yeah I'm loving the variety in levels and that one where you have to grind on different materials was really clever. There are more levels like that coming up for you as well, which are really fun and unique.

I can definitely see this developer making more games in the future for Microsoft. I'd love for them to make a platformer, maybe with Banjo-Kazooie or Conker. There's actually one type of level coming up for you in Battletoads where the controls feel very similar to Donkey Kong Country. If they could make an entire game like that, I'd be all for it.

@LtSarge I had no idea there was hate for dark queen! The again, I only frequent this trio of sites for game news. Frankly she was a bit one note in the previous games I'd played which I'm sure had to do with the page of text that accompanies her picture describing her motive. She just has a lot more personality in this one. Anyway the greatest fiction has the baddies joining the goodies: Dragon Ball Z, most marvel and DC (though they tend to flip flop a bit) and uh, well I can't think of any more right now!

I haven't played conker so I don't know how it would suit but I am sure people would lose their minds (in a bad way) if we got a 2d banjo kazooie instead of a 3d one but I struggle to think of a rare property more suited to the style. I still haven't given yooka laylee and it's sequel a go, I heard the first one is like BK and the second one is like DK

@ralphdibny I remember reading about it online before the game came out. I believe her design was more mature in the first game and now they've made her younger in this one, which is why people hate her. I personally think it makes more sense for her to be younger since the banter with the Battletoads probably wouldn't have been as good if she were older. It also makes for a better group dynamic with the toads in my opinion.

They could make the game like New Super Lucky's Tale, which had both 3D and 2D levels, and that worked out wonderfully. Although Banjo-Kazooie is all about collectibles in fairly big open worlds so maybe it would be better to do like Playtonic did with Yooka-Laylee and make the levels two separate full-length games.

Speaking of which, I also haven't played through Yooka-Laylee but I would love to play it, maybe even on Game Club if people want to since it's on Game Pass. I can definitely see the developer releasing the 2D Yooka-Laylee game on Game Pass soon as well, so I'll hold off on buying it.

@LtSarge ah well they probably hate the whole game then because all the designs are radically different. I haven't really given much thought to how old she is lol. It's just a different art design.

Similar to the difference between Teen Titans and Teen Titans Go but then again, fans of the original series hated Go with a passion haha

I just finished Battletoads and the last act didn't take that long actually compared to the previous three. I managed to beat the game in just under 4 hours, which is a good length for a game like this. It didn't overstay its welcome by repeating levels too much and the story was pretty good. The humour made it more enticing to follow. The ending seems to hint at a sequel, which is good since I'd love to see what the developer can do more with this series. Now that they've delivered a reboot and satisfied the fans of the old games, they can pretty much take the series in a different direction. So hopefully the Battletoads are here to stay and I can't wait to see what lies in their future on Series X!

I'm all set now for Tell Me Why tomorrow! I loved the first Life is Strange but haven't played any of Dontnod's other titles since then, so I'm looking forward to giving TMW a go.The story looks very interesting from what I've seen.

I try to find time for Tell Me Why on next Saturday. And I should be able to play Battletoads too. It's good if it is approximately 4 hours long, then I should be able to play and finish it too (I started Dragon Age: Origins a while back and it is taking too much my time).

I'm still stuck on the second shmup level of BT! It's difficulty actually made me get on with one of my long standing chores that I've been procrastinating over. Managed to sort out one third of a cupboard and box up some of my game consoles individually for storage 😎. Cleared three big mixed boxes into individual small boxes for the Atari 2600 jr, Snes, master system ii, PS2 and an extra box that has a mega drive 2 and a GameCube with no wires woop woop. The small boxes mean they will fit in the cupboard and give me some floor space, also managed to fit 4 stubby comic boxes in there for more floor space so I'm chuffed.

...anyway....back on to battletoads tomorrow if I don't rip what's left of my hair out

@ralphdibny Yeah the difficulty was getting to me as well in some of the levels, especially in the second shmup level that you're on right now if I recall correctly. But I love that the game retains the difficulty that it's known for from the old games. That's why I was OK with it since it's just part of the Battletoads charm to have difficult levels. They were at least never too hard to get through, you just needed to repeat them a couple of times in order to memorise the patterns.

@LtSarge I made it through the shmup levels, the one baddie I kept having trouble with is what I can only describe as the fap flinger for lack of a less crude term. That ship just keeps flinging it's goodness knows what and it shoots straight for you so if your in a tiny bulletless gap, you can be sure the fap flinger is going to get you.

Anyway, I'm now on the dark queens level and this one is straight out of the original NES battletoads. Except in that one you race a rat who has a real desire to set off a bomb. This one looks harder because of the extended fall through spiky gaps combined with the floaty turns, which are probably caused by using the stick instead of the d pad. But the original forced you to start again if you messed up so it's a bit of a toss up between the two really

Oh my god there is a parachute button 🤦🏻‍♂️, such a numpty, I was trying to free fall the thing!

@ralphdibny Haha I also thought you had to free fall during that section but luckily the game told me just in time that I had to hold down B to parachute down.

I was originally going to check out Tell Me Why for just 20-30 minutes but that quickly grew to over an hour. So far the game has been very engrossing, it definitely has that Life is Strange feel to it with the art style, the humour and so on. The two main characters are also really interesting and I think it's very cool to have a transgender as a protagonist. Moreover, the supernatural elements of this game are pretty cool as well, just like in the first Life is Strange. I can't wait to see in what other ways Dontnod incorporates them into the gameplay.

As a side note, I'm seriously finding it awesome that we can play exclusives like this day one with Game Pass. First Battletoads and now this game, I'm becoming more and more convinced that this is how I want to play games in the future.

@LtSarge ahh I didn't see the button prompt, my girlfriend just saw and pointed out the parachute picture when she walked in randomly and I was like "but there's no parachute button ): " so I tried all the buttons and found it eventually 😅

So I just found out that Dontnod is releasing one chapter of Tell Me Why every week until it's done, which means that chapter 2 will be out next week and the last chapter the week after that. I thought they were going to be released every month or something like that, but I think this is a much better structure since it will be easier to remember what has happened thus far. Anyway, I guess we'll be playing this for another two weeks in that case?