Welcome to the PC Game Pass Suggestions series. Every two weeks, we look through the huge Game Pass library to find the most interesting hidden gems and big new games that are truly worth your time.
If you are new here, what is Game Pass? Think of it as “Netflix for video games.” It is a service that gives you unlimited access to hundreds of great games for one monthly fee. For a lot of gamers, us included, It’s a great way to try new types of games and find unexpected favorites without spending extra money. Speaking of which, what are the games that you should try this weekend?
The Royal Writ: Sending Your Subjects to War
The Royal Writ from Save Sloth Studios is a deckbuilder where you play as a ruler trying to defend your kingdom. Your subjects are represented by cards that can be sent into battle. When one of them reaches the enemy base, it is permanently removed from your deck for that run. Yup, it’s one of those games and it sure complicates every battle in tricky new ways where you need to decide which subjects are worth sending forward and which ones you want to keep around. Relics, different encounters and roguelike progression will make sure you’ll get different options for building your deck and dealing with what the game throws at you.
Hey, did you know that the console version got out two weeks ago?
We absolutely loved the hand-drawn art and the whole storybook vibe, as well as the cute animal characters. The darker humour also does wonders in terms of making it stand out from a lot of other deckbuilders.
There are so many things that are well done and insanely fun with the game. But, and this is a big but, the gameplay revolves around losing cards that matter and you must be willing to go willing to risk it all. For us, it was difficult sending characters that we grew fond of into a fight knowing they might not come back. It feels like a real decision and it’s such a kick in the gut whenever we lost a character we liked.
SpeedRunners 2: King of Speed: Fast, Messy and Fun
For those with speed in mind, SpeedRunners 2: King of Speed is the easy choice. The sequel from Fair Play Labs lives to let you get from one side of the level to the other before everyone else. You jump, slide, swing with your grappling hook, use power-ups and generally try to make sure the other players have a worse day than you do. it was us. We were the other players. We sucked at this game but we loved it nevertheless.
The levels have shortcuts and hazards to deal with, while weapons and power-ups can completely change a race. The game supports up to eight players online, and there is local multiplayer as well. There is also a single-player story campaign for those who don’t want to jump straight into multiplayer. We mostly jumped into the multiplayer just to give our friends a quick confidence boost, but it got to be a bit much after a while, so we switched over to the single-player for a short run, silently sulking for not being fast enough.
The colourful 2D presentation fits the game nicely, with a cast of superheroes and plenty of things happening on screen. The maps are built around speed and movement, so you are rarely standing still for long. We mean, you can, but what good will that do yah? This is the sort of game where learning a level can make a big difference, but, alas, even then, one badly timed jump can ruin everything. Then the laughing starts. You’re guessing right, dear reader, this game scarred us, ruining friendship or two along the way.
Joking aside, it’s a fun game and we had our share of fun running, being hit with something, falling behind, and then somehow catchig up again. It can get competitive very quickly, but losing can be entertaining. See how easily we lie to ourselves? Those bastards that used to be our friends will pay sooner or later.
Shelldiver: A Turtle, a Submarine and Some Jellyfish
In Shelldiver goes in the complete opposite direction. Here we play as a senior turtle who runs a small business selling jellyfish. We head underwater in a submarine, collect resources, return to the shop and use what we found to improve our equipment and business. Talk about a massive step up from the last one!
Different underwater areas have different resources, and we can break down things such as rubbish, crystal rocks and mushrooms with a laser blaster to get useful materials. Those materials can then be spent on upgrades for the submarine, tools and shop. There is also a skill tree that lets us improve things such as oxygen capacity and the size of the shop.
The different biomes, like volcanic areas and crystal-filled caves, are fun to explore but please don’t expect anything complex. It’s a chill game where the focus is on going down, finding things and slowly making our little operation better. Shelldiver gives us a small business, a submarine and a reason to keep going back underwater.
There is no need to rush through it. We make a little progress, buy an upgrade, dive again and see what we can find. If the other two games are a bit too hectic, this is the one to pick when we just want to take things at our own pace.
Three Very Different Picks
We hope you liked our three recomendations, we intentionally picked something that’s fast to download, play for a while and decide whether they have earned a place in our rotation. Wishing you a lovely weekend!
Leave a comment