March 30, 2025|

Filed under: Editorial, Featured

Passing the Buck Chapter 13: Cheers%

In “Passing the Buck: A Game Pass Study,” Wolfman Jew has bought a three month subscription to Game Pass. With only ninety-one days he can’t get back, it’s on him to try as much as he can. Every day he’ll play something, anything, even if it’s only for half an hour, and write down his thoughts. How many games will he play? How many will he finish? How many revelations will he find? And how much of his sanity will be left by April Fool’s Day?

Wow. We’re at the end. After three months of non-stop playing, we come to the final week of “Passing the Buck.” Dear lord. Before this week started, I had played fifty-one games over a period of roughly eighty days. When this one is out, that’ll be fifty-five. To be honest, it feels a bit surreal, even though it’s barely been any time in the grand scheme of things. This is still half the time it took to finish my previous weekly series, “Dispatch from the Dive” and “Pikachu in Pictures.” And yet, I’m tired and excited and ready to see this through.

Image: Source Gaming. A scary boss in Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice.

As we’ve done in previous weeks, there was a theme. After several weeks of steadily increasing the load of new games to an unsustainable amount (as though any of this was ever sustainable), I’ve cut down to just four. And like the third chapter, they’re all from Microsoft and its broader holdings. All of them important, major, and distinctly new games released within the past ten years. One of them was even sold to the public specifically as a pillar of Game Pass. These are the titles that drive the success of this service, not those delightful indie games that have enchanted me. They’re what matter to Xbox, and to be a bit inelegant, they’re often what meant to matter to Xbox fans. Of course, games like these are typically long and meandering and stuffed with content, meaning I can only beat one. Even if I was literally only playing one new game this week, that still wouldn’t be enough time for a couple of them. This is a taste test.

That being said, that’s not a bad thing, and seeing the credits isn’t the only goal a player can have. Far from it! Sure, I can try to beat that one game, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider along with it, but there are things in games that matter more than completion. Meet a memorable character. Passing a threshold that shows I’ve gotten the lay of the land. Beat a few missions. Start buying some of the games I beat and loved, especially since there are Game Pass-specific sales. On that note, see if any of those sales are for games unrelated to the project that look promising. And of course, that Minecraft project remains in the background. It’s fun through goals, which might sound completely artificial but makes sense right here. “Passing the Buck” has been this strange and frenetic experience of constantly doing things and having things I want to do. How have I dealt with that? Goals. Make a certain level of progress here, beat that game there. And so we end with a few final, disparate targets to hit. It’s this series in microcosm. Heck, one of those goals in particular feels like this series in microcosm.

Image: Source Gaming. The very classy start of Deathloop.

There’s a lot in this one. A lot of reflection and additional content, some bonus features, many images, and maybe even a final twist. Time to jump in.

What I played:

Deathloop: Mysterious man Colt is trapped on an island full of killers that resets every time he dies or the day ends. The only way to break the loop is to find and execute a coterie of eight targets in one day’s time, meaning Colt has to master a clockwork schedule, see what he can take between loops, and evade Julianna, a chatty spanner in the works who sees the loop as something to preserve and enjoy.
Fallout 4: After his wife is murdered and son abducted, a Sole Survivor leaves two centuries of cryogenic stasis to discover a Boston long wracked by nuclear devastation. This post-apocalyptic Commonwealth is filled with all manner of eccentrics, monsters, and factions, all of which the man has to contend with through shooting or speaking.
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice: In 8th Century Scandinavia, Celtic warrior Senua enters the Viking realm of Helheim to rescue the soul of her lover. She duels strange villains, solves puzzles, and desperately struggles to overcome a “curse” of voices and perception that she does not understand are symptoms of untreated and undiagnosed psychosis.
Diablo IV: One dour necromancer has come to a snowbound region devastated by the return of the sin goddess Lilith, an event marked by mass death. To stop the daughter of Hatred, this hero rifles through tombs, crypts, and wastes on a constant gameplay loop of steady RPG empowerment.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Lara’s final defense of Paititi causes mass destruction before she stops Amaru and the remainder of Trinity’s forces. After acting as a ritual sacrifice to save the city from the world-ending catastrophe she caused, she decides to stay and help the city in its reconstruction.
Minecraft:
Botany Manor: With just a few days left before the service ends, I give the game to my father to try, as he was interested in the game. However, he found the first-person perspective and gameplay challenging and struggled with the opening minutes.
PowerWash Simulator: Though I was willing to set this game aside, I try to explore one last objective: finishing the “Clean the Playground!” mission. And yet…

Sunday, March 23: started, got the Slab, killed Julliana for the first time, unlocked Shift, and completed the Lead “The Longest Day” in Deathloop, started, met Codsworth, and exited Vault 111 in Fallout 4, purchased Persona 3 Reload Digital Deluxe Edition (it was actually $16 cheaper than the base game), and started and defeated Valravn in Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice.

Today, the goal was sampling—albeit the kind of sampling that takes an entire day when you put all three games together. I’m sure I’ll dive deeper into the games as we go on, but for now, not much else I can give but impressions. Look at Deathloop, Arkane Lyon’s art deco time loop shooter. I’ve gone through a few loops today and certainly get the gist, but I can’t talk about how that part works in practice. The upgrading systems haven’t been unlocked and much of the island is still unknown, so we can’t go through these bedrock elements (other than the HUD, which I’m finding hard to discern). What I got, though, and more than anything else, was style, style in absolute abundance. The enemies wear party masks and brightly colored suits. Most buildings are resplendent in mid-century charm. Colt is just stupid enough to be charming, Julianna a strong and strange antagonist for a time loop story, and all the dialogue I’ve overheard is clever. The soundtrack is pretty good, and I expect it to get even better. Even the gunplay feels extra, thanks to excellent game feel, nice blood splatter, a great kick to every weapon, and, if I’m being fair to myself, probably a secret helping of auto-aim. Just on an aesthetic level, from its movie poster art to its fantastic shooting, this is one of the most “me” games you could make. Ironically, I only considered playing it at the end of last month. I wanted to play an Arkane Lyon game for this project, own Dishonored 1 and 2 but haven’t played them, and thought Dishonored: Death of the Outsider would be a good choice. You know, the third game in a series whose other titles I own already. Stupid, Wolfman, stupid! You had Colt and this insane scientist who time-clones herself right here!

Image: Source Gaming. The main loading screen of Deathloop. I had good shots of the gameplay from this one, but nothing that showed off the film imagery so well.

If Deathloop is this sudden flight of fancy I’m half-wishing I had started months ago, Hellblade is here as something I “have” to play. This was another entrant in the canon of great games from 2017. Ninja Theory’s self-described “independent AAA game” was something of a miracle: a game that could comfortably stand in either pool thanks to strong graphics, an excellent lead performance from Melina Juergens, and a compelling (and, crucially, thoughtful) take on mental health. Senua, a Celtic warrior who has sent herself to the harsh world of Norse mythology to find the Helheim, has psychosis. She has visions and voices, very clear issues of perception, but because this is the 8th Century, she can only understand them as a curse to “cure.” This leads to several puzzles about trying to follow Senua’s logic, but the main consequence is not in mechanics but in tone. Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is a challenging game aesthetically. The voices in her head are constant, as are the visual imagery of lights, colors, and potentially much of what you see. The graphics are indeed strong but in a grungy, nasty way. The combat is deliberately rough and shallow, because why would you add an elaborate combo system to something that’s meant to be painful and traumatic? Going on a cursory look at a guide, I still have a ways to go in what How Long to Beat has promised is a 7.5 hour game. In all likelihood, we’ll prioritize this to make sure we finish something from this week. Fortunately, it’s not like this is going to be my only flavor of game this week, or that I’ll have to abandon everything else.

Image: Source Gaming. One of the main gameplay bits of Hellblade involves standing in a way that makes sense of or finds images. It is very clever, and very overstimulating.

As for Fallout… well, it was the one I spent the least time on and the one I’m least ready to discuss, but I should put my approach to it on the table. After ten years of discourse, I’m fully aware of many of the game’s criticisms. You know, that its RPG values are downplayed and that while you can play as a man or a woman, it’s aggressively heteronormative and clearly written for a story about a father avenging his wife and rescuing his son. In the interest of meeting the game halfway (while also making fun of it), I’ve decided to play along by creating the most 1950s man I could in about five minutes. Lyndon Fitzroy Scranton is among the whitest of white men, a man named after men of his time, a man with one of those old style mustaches who can put away his share of liquor. He looks like classic Tony Stark, though perhaps his generation would cop more to Mr. House. Maybe he even rolled a few bones back at the Lucky 38? And if you think he’s a pushover, just look at his six pack and the scar over his eye; that one was a present from the commies back at the Battle of Anchorage. Because he was obviously fighting at Anchorage. Every pre-war man in this stupid franchise served there. With Lyndon at my side and Vault 111 abandoned, I’m ready to see what future awaits me in Boston.

Monday, March 24: started and completed the Prologue in Diablo IV, recruited Dogmeat, entered Concord and Diamond City, and met Preston and Piper in Fallout 4, and defeated Surtr in Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice.

I felt dirty starting Diablo IV. The game is another online-only experience that requires an account and won’t budge for someone wanting a single player experience. I’ve been open about my distaste for joining corporate ecosystems in general, but it’s different here; it’s Blizzard. They’re one of the most notorious institutions in the gaming industry. But I bit the bullet and made an account at their famous Battle.net server, largely because I really don’t have the time or inclination to find a better choice. Halo 4, 5, or Infinite? Not a fan of that series anyway. Gears 5? Want a new flavor. Something from Blizzard that isn’t online? Is that even an option? No, and neither is anything else. Diablo IV was one of 2024’s biggest hits. It’s so big that Elon Musk openly cheats at it to try and make people like him when he isn’t stripping this country for parts or acting suspiciously like he’s on a perpetual ketamine-fueled bender. We can’t ignore that it’s also the latest installment of an influential franchise, as Diablo and Diablo II were central to the popularization of RPG elements in games that are not RPGs. If you played Shadow of the Tomb Raider and also felt annoyed by the leveling and skill trees, that’s where that came from! And this is not my first time with the series, as I own and played a few minutes of Diablo III on Switch, the port that lets you dress up as Ganondorf. Given how hard I bounced off that version, trying this newer, more popular iteration seemed like a good use of my last week.

Image: Source Gaming. Basic gameplay of Diablo, after I got my fourth skeleton.

What killed my interest in Diablo III was that it felt bland and obligatory, like gaming as product. I was a Necromancer, the class that lets you summon skeletons who do the work for you, because it seemed the most unique and the most outside my brawling, sword-swinging, “ain’t got time for magic” comfort zone. And, well, having a skeletons do the work for you feels kinda passive. Your only goal is to make the numbers go up. As a test, I’ve gone back to the Necromancer role. I named her Nebraska, as all my other Springsteen-themed names—”Long Walk Home” and three separate takes on “House of a Thousand Guitars”—were banned for having spaces, commas, numbers, or too many characters. So far, Diablo IV largely retains the core issues, but it does have some elements that make it more palatable. For one thing, having a clear and overarching villain, the sin goddess Lilith who’s on all the marketing and shows up in cutscenes, gives me a direction. For another, it’s comforting that this is entirely temporary. On Saturday night, this is dunzo. And that is helping me appreciate that Diablo has, well, stupid versions of the fun I’ve gotten from other games in this series. Like, the serenity I found in PowerWash Simulator or the sense of power and dominance I found in the Age of games? That’s here, but at their goofiest and shallowest. If I just spent a few hours indulging in that and it doesn’t supersede what I want more to do, it’s okay.

Image: Source Gaming. Fallout 4 giving you a suit of Power Armor less than two hours in. Yeah, it now needs a battery that drains fast, but it’s such a strange bit.

Thanks to several hours of exploring the Commonwealth and slaking my wanderlust, at least when it wasn’t cowed by a small inventory limit, I now have a much better idea about Fallout 4. Which is to say, yes, this is like Fallout 3, only more colorful and with a more actively boring protagonist. There are the great radio hits, mostly, which makes it especially annoying when an autosave forces you to listen to the worst line in that awful “Civilization” song a hundred times. I’ve explored plenty of areas, found the hub of Diamond City, and met the game’s “fan favorite” character, intrepid reporter and “we have Lois Lane at home” Piper Wright. I’m trying to meet the game’s actual fan favorite, Nick Valentine: Robot Detective, but he’s quite hard to rescue. V.A.T.S. helps, but the game has become extremely hard and would probably be more malleable if I was doing side missions. But more than the post-Diamond City difficulty spike or the shocking debut of “The Wanderer” by Dion as a music choice, the thing that hit me the most is… I don’t know whether to call it “fanservice” or “generosity” or something. See, the second mission in the game, the one that introduces boring companion Preston Garvey, climaxes with you fighting a Deathclaw in a suit of Power Armor. When I came into the series in Fallout 3, it took time to learn about these series icons, let alone meet one. And they’re just here, from the start. Remember when there was a TV show that brought out the Power Armor and repeatedly undercut it as a joke? Good times, good times. On that note, I should probably try to meet John Hancock before this week is out. He’s the token Ghoul companion and like Preston is a colonial cosplayer. A zombie wearing a tricorn hat and talking about Thomas Paine or whatever? That’s objectively funny.

Tuesday, March 25: completed Shadow of the Tomb Raider, passed Odin’s trials and claimed Gramr, entered Helheim and defeated Fenrir, and completed Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, killed Wenjie et al for the first time and gained access to Residuum in Deathloop, and rescued Nick Valentine, met Paladin Danse, and became General of the Minutemen in Fallout 4.

Wow, I actually could have beaten Shadow of the Tomb Raider last week. If I had just given the game an extra hour somewhere… But what’s done is done. In the final analysis, the ending only reinforced my conclusions (at least, except for the part where Eidos Montreal and Crystal Dynamics thank the dozens and dozens of Tomb Raider fan sites for supporting them throughout the Survivor Trilogy). The gameplay is fine, with a bad final boss and some of that perfectly acceptable Triple-A adventuring. The plot threads a needle where Lara gets to be the savior and the hero but also gets to be there to actively support a community. And the customary post-credits stinger brings her back to her home, ready to be a more holistic, less exploitative sort of tomb raider. For me, the biggest surprise is that the villain’s henchman, who’s been bedeviling Lara since the previous game, dies offscreen. I was fully expecting him to take the dagger and box as a plot beat that would show Amaru / Dominguez’ plan as causing the colonial encroachment he was so desperate to solve. Though him sending goons and attack helicopters that blow up his home shows that already. Anyway, flaws and all, I’m glad I got to have the opportunity to play this. It was a nice look at a certain kind of blockbuster game, and it’s a nice change in flavor from the four games from this week.

Image: Source Gaming. The end of Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

I wasn’t expecting to play through the majority of Hellblade in one day. I decided to get through as much as I could while waiting for a call with a friend, and a few hours later and well before we were actually planning to chat, the credits started rolling. Just… done. If that sounds negative, it’s not coincidental. I largely disliked my time with the game. Part of this was purely on a sensory level. The audiovisual stimuli was triggering at every moment, and while I respect that artistically, it’s a bit of a hard sell to actively play a game that’s causing your eyes, ears, and brain to feel irritation. Short and long sessions both caused this. Outside of that, the game was constantly stuck ping-ponging from interesting puzzles to tiresome, repetitive, and overlong combat sequences. It’s a strange game and regularly feels less than the sum of its parts. For one that had interested me from afar for so long, that’s quite disappointing.

Image: Source Gaming. My favorite part of the game: these gates, which show altered realities that become real if you walk through them.

I mentioned earlier that Hellblade developer Ninja Theory sees it as an “independent AAA game.” I think that’s its weakness. Like a good indie it’s focused on presenting a singular vision, an underrepresented voice, and some interesting gameplay ideas—in this case, that Senua’s perspective can change the world as an actual puzzle solution. She walks through a gate and the level changes, or she sees runes hidden in the architecture to open a door. But like a good blockbuster it has not just killer voice acting but bland, overstretched gameplay and so great a commitment to banning UI from its world that a lot of basic mechanics go unexplained. The sensory overwhelm got so much power from the scope that it caused me physical discomfort. While this combo of big and small got it critical acclaim, the game itself doesn’t make a case for pursuing the idea. From what I’ve heard about Hellblade 2, which seems to have become less distinct in pursuit of cutting-edge graphics, that might have not changed. That’s unfortunate, since there definitely are great gaming experiences to be had by giving niche ideas much larger budgets. It could shake up the blockbuster scene a lot.

Wednesday, March 26: completed several dungeons and gained the ability to summon eight minions in Diablo IV and killed Charlie for the first time in Deathloop.

In a wacky confluence of events, the next two days are largely booked. Late last night and after putting it off way too long, I started prepping an invitation for a virtual religious service I’m hosting in April. It was scheduled for Thursday so I could have time to refine it, but I got too energized to get ahead of the deadline and am glad I did, because it was just this morning that Nintendo announced a very obviously last minute Nintendo Direct. After so many supposed “last Direct before the Switch 2,” we’re finally getting it. I moved the invitation up to today to make my life slightly easier and played while engaging with people’s replies. Tomorrow will be even more lopsided, since I’ll want to publish our official writeup before I go to work. It’s hectic, but in a way that fits this week’s offerings. Hellblade and Tomb Raider are both done, there’s only so much I can do in Deathloop without putting the effort in to chart all eight Visionaries’ schedules, Diablo is mostly busy work, Fallout is surprisingly frustrating, and not to procrastinate further on Minecraft, but I can’t look at maps and beg people to sign up for an event where they get to listen to me shout an angry leftist sermon at them (there will also be songs, so this isn’t fully an ego trip). So since I didn’t play Diablo yesterday, it was Nebraska’s time to shine before a short but packed Deathloop session.

Image: Source Gaming. The blood cloud doesn’t really “do” much, it’s more of a passive state, but the power it gives is great.

Granted, Blizzard’s “numbers go up” factory was a comfort in such trying times. Something shallow and simple, where you’re really not supposed to be that focused on the minutiae. I know I’ve criticized the inherent design behind playing as a Necromancer, that you’re basically getting NPCs to play the game for you, but I’m having a good time with it. It’s fun when you get more undead soldiers, the power that lets you turn into a mist of plague and death is great, and it just makes the whole process easier when the feel of everything is otherwise pretty perfunctory. To be honest, I don’t think I’d have nearly as much fun with another class, so maybe in the future I will want to dust off that Diablo III cartridge and give it and the class another shot. I’m largely not caring about what I do. I’ll go into town on occasion to sell loot, and if I see an icon for a quest nearby I’ll engage with it, but this is really just me exploring as much as I can and seeing more of the map. Truth is that there was no actual goal for me here, just play what I can. If I can do more later in the week, that’d be good. And if not, that’d also be good.

Image: Source Gaming. I originally had a picture of the outside of Charlie’s lair, but then I realized that the blood is just big splotches of red. That’s awesome.

While uncovering more of the map is good advice for most games, it’s of especial importance to Deathloop, a game that’s entirely about repeatedly working through a number of levels. But despite not having an actual goal to hit by the end of the week, I still managed to kill my second Visionary (third, I guess, if we count Julianna). Wenjie Evans and her army of time-displaced clones were crazier, but Charlie Montague has a great lair. It’s a LARP funhouse with cardboard astronauts, a giant rocketship embedded in the floor, and all sorts of big colored lights and hues. You have to fight your way up to the top, though that might be less of a problem in the future if I can keep my double jump from Wenjie’s fight or the teleporter I got from Charlie. One of Deathloop’s main features is that while gear gets lost after the loop resets, you can preserve them using time… stuff, allowing you to keep tools and powers and presumably become an overpowered god. There’s all sorts of gameplay implications to such a mechanic, but I guess if I’ve got a main goal, it’s to preserve at least the powers, which might otherwise go away soon. They’re very fun. So even though I’ll be uninstalling the game in a few days and don’t expect to purchase it until it’s on a good sale, it’s paramount that they stay in the toolset.

Thursday, March 27: found the Prost Bar in Fallout 4.

I should level with all you: I had a secret goal in Fallout 4 all along. Among the many named locations throughout the Commonwealth, there’s also a number of unmarked ones that don’t act as fast travel points and exist as Easter eggs. Really adds to an open world that’s otherwise obsessively bookmarked. One of these is the Prost Bar, an inconspicuous tavern on Beacon Hill whose basement level door makes it hard to spot. I did not know its name, its location, or that it was an unmarked location, but that was my target. Because the Prost is a shockingly accurate recreation of Cheers, the bar whose show of the same name is one of the true greats of American television. Younger readers may know it as “that show Ice King loved” or “where the guy who played Carnage got his start.” I adore Cheers, so maybe I won’t meet John Hancock or discover any asinine plot twists or spend time with Nick Valentine: Humphrey Bogart Replicant, but this pilgrimage was mandatory. Call it a “Cheers%” speedrun. I formally started my search this morning and beat it after publishing our roundup on the Nintendo Direct from today. Here’s my best screenshot of the interior:

Image: Source Gaming. So that’s Sam and Diane in the back, Carla in the front, and obviously Cliff and Norm on the right. There’s also Frasier to Lyndon’s left, and a woman near him who I assume is Lilith. No Coach, Woody, or Rebecca.

Obviously, winning at Cheers% demands a lot of effort, skill, and knowledge of Fallout 4 that I do not have and never will. My five and a half hour mark would be laughed off the nonexistent leaderboards. Even if we ignore that most of that time was spent simply playing and doing quests, it also doesn’t include the multiple hours that went unrecorded due to unforeseen resistance. The vast majority of my time was spent dying to machine gun fire, Super Mutant suicide bombers, a rabid two-headed stag, and in one case myself thanks to overestimating the game’s platforming. This is a genuinely hard and punishing experience, even when you drop the difficulty down to Easy. It was often annoying, though it did give me an appreciation for the sheer number of locations around Diamond City. Plus, you might get to find yourself in shootouts scored uncomfortably well to three of America’s greatest sex songs: “Sixty Minute Man,” “Butcher Pete (Part 1),” and “Butcher Pete (Part 2).” Not “Rocket 69.” That one’s too Space Race-y, too gimmicky. And not “Tutti Fruiti” or any other song by Little Richard because those have never been used in a Fallout game even though they’re entirely period appropriate!

Image: Source Gaming. Lyndon Fitzroy Scranton, professional “guy who’d be an NPC in Fallout.”

I’m making my own fun, and making your own fun is the bedrock of the Bethesda design philosophy. What makes Skyrim great is its expansiveness and deferral to you. Quests and skills only matter insofar as you make them matter, and the world is a playground. But that makes it harder to write interesting stories, and to be frank, Bethesda isn’t a writer’s studio. Fallout 3 had some good bits of comedy and storytelling, but it struggled to expand them beyond a single quest or character. Skyrim’s pleasures ebb the moment an NPC starts talking. Fallout 4 feels like the worst of both worlds. The dialogue ranges from boring and perfunctory to cloy and faux-witty. When you first meet Piper, her writing is so obnoxious—her description of the mayor of Diamond City’s “tight-fisted hands” should’ve been red penned immediately—that I was stupefied. Perhaps this is why the game goes so hard on gimmick songs from the Fifties and Sixties like “Crawl Out Through the Fallout,” “Atom Bomb Baby,” and worst of all, “Uranium Fever.” It’s also what makes the Sole Survivor protagonist so weird. He’s far more authored than other Fallout heroes, with voice acting and fewer dialogue choices, to support a more cohesive and cinematic narrative. But he’s also incredibly boring, only ever able to react with stoicism or sarcasm and always with (at least for the male Survivor) an atonal performance. When I rescued Nick Valentine: Mannequin Who Always Rings Twice, I convinced dastardly captor Skinny Malone to dump his girlfriend as part of our escape plan. That’s something RPG heroes do, make dialogue skill checks, but nothing about Lyndon Fitzroy Scranton’s performance felt convincing. Maybe if Bethesda tightened up the writing along with the character, this would work a lot better. But at the moment, the game might be best served as an avenue for your own ridiculous gimmick.

Friday, March 28: constructed a significant chunk of Johto in Minecraft, gave Botany Manor to my dad to try, and continued washing the playground in PowerWash Simulator.

My last session remaking Johto ended at Violet City. After several hours, I finished the map. Mostly, at least. There’s maybe some more things I’d like to add, maybe add Route 28 and the Ruins of Alph. Truthfully, this reconstruction of the settings from the first two Pokémon games doesn’t look great. The overall planning of this project has been misguided and half-cocked from the start, and especially once I started with the much less easily graphed Johto. Because I misunderstood where to put Mount Silver, not only is it in the wrong place but it’s in the middle of a giant and oversized stretch of land separating Johto and Kanto. Many of the routes aren’t the right length. It’s all rather ugly and massive. And the more interesting level design and architecture of Pokémon Gold & Silver meant that Johto is also much larger, which makes the map disjointed and elongated. I’m gonna have to levitate very high into the sky to give you all a good image. Not today, though. I’ll take the pictures tomorrow. Probably the last one for the chapter as a whole.

Warts and all, I am proud. I was never going to come into Minecraft and come up with something attractive or spectacular, but I did make something. Not only that, I learned; most sessions had me figure out some aspect of the game’s overall design or a quirk of the gameplay. Maybe figuring out how the Elytra item makes you fly and hover one day, or seeing how sand blocks disappear in water and sticking blocks underneath them to make a two-block beachhead. Those revelations got less frequent over time, but even today I figured out how to make controlled waterfalls! This is what I meant about goals, and how they could help you as a player or a writer. Me beating the Ender Dragon, the final boss of Survival Mode, was never on the cards, nor should it need to be. Minecraft is great because it’s what you make of it. “Accomplishment” is whatever matters to you. That’s true in any game, but that’s foregrounded here because the only artificial or narrative milestones come through Achievements (the notifications for which I turned off a few weeks ago). Even beating the Ender Dragon doesn’t end the game. Mojang has made a playground at a scale and with an openness that Bethesda could never conceive. What you want is what matters, perhaps along with what you want to make with a friend and how you can achieve these things. And for me, what I wanted was to understand the world’s most popular game. Hours later and with an ugly depiction of the world of Pokémon to show for it, I can comfortably say that I’ve done that. I’m not sure I’ll ever come back to Minecraft, but its pleasures and power are clear to see.

As for the other games… Well, Botany Manor was challenging for someone less comfortable with first-person games. I get it. The ability to move and aim together is a skill that is not easily taught. PowerWash Simulator was easier for my folks—I think its being cozy and a shooter helps a lot—but this is harder even when you add the reticle. Speaking of PowerWash, this level is too damn big. The Playground is humungous, way, way more than it should be for one player. Adding it so early in the game is nuts. And that has made me recognize that while I like PowerWash Simulator a lot and appreciated its quiet triumphs, I’m not itching to get back to it in the future. The experience is great, and there’s too much of it. Perhaps the cooperative mode or the sequel will tickle my fancy a bit more, but for now, this is a great example of a Game Pass game. Download it, have your fun, and eventually move on.

Saturday, March 29: finished the project in Minecraft and recruited Piper and Nick Valentine and completed the quest “Reunions” in Fallout 4.

The original title of this chapter was “This Is Game Pass.” It’s a Microsoft reference—to the bizarre “This Is an Xbox” advertising campaign from a few months ago, which felt like them all but admitting they don’t want to make consoles—in the discussion about the most important service in the Xbox ecosystem. What title could be better? So, naturally, it was shelved on a whim in favor of something dumb. Still, I’ll do my level best to prove that “Cheers%” is not an entirely asinine title for the “final” entry in a series. For one thing, whims drove a lot of “Passing the Buck,” so much so that you could argue that it’s half the experience. I see a game about a shark eating people, I try it. That was especially true this week, where we had four games that needed to be played even if only one could be beaten. And so we employ the other half: the goal. If something interests me, we can use a benchmark as a way of indulging that interest. Granted, “Cheers%” was about the stupidest goal I could come up with, but it also worked. I came into Fallout 4 with low expectations that were proven right. I enjoyed some things, like shooting Radroaches while listening to Nat King Cole or meeting Nick Valentine: Android Indemnity, but it was more irritating than fun. This is not a good version of either Fallout in general or Fallout by Bethesda. But as long as I could go where everybody knows my name, there was something to find, something exciting. The quests gave me caps and EXP to fuel my journey, and in the end I did make it in. I didn’t shout “NORM!,” though. The goals in Deathloop and Diablo were more nebulous, but both cases gave me a decent impression of what makes them work. Deathloop is the only one I’m interested in trying again in the future, after a good price cut, but I feel comfortable with what I learned off all four experiments.

Image: Source Gaming. So that paragraph was written in the morning. It does not account for the three hours I spent playing this stupid game because I knew it would end with me getting a picture of the main two companions. Not that is the stupidest goal of this project.

Like I said, this was a series about whims and goals. Find things that look fun, unique, or culturally valuable, and then use some sort of structure to satisfy that interest. A lot of the time, the goal was just “try to hit the credits,” which is perfectly fine and sensible. It’s not perfect, since just booking it to the end keeps you from a lot of optional content, but it did let me experience a lot of stories. Still, my mind kept wandering, and it wasn’t long before I found all sorts of targets. I came back to Chants of Sennaar to get all the Achievements, even though I don’t care about Achievements. That Minecraft project could only end with me telling myself it was enough. For Terraria, it was just trying to understand the mechanics at all. Doom Eternal took the time limit premise and zoomed in on it, and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Shadow of the Tomb Raider tested the idea in different ways. Sales made me pounce on a few games, especially now, near the end. And there were a lot of games whose optional content was worth whatever time they took from other things, from Persona 3 Reload’s Confidants to Yakuza’s management sim to the odd side quest in Indiana Jones, Avowed, and Lil Gator Game. I guess that if this was a story of me fighting against a time limit I could never overcome, it’s also a story of me fighting the time limit by repeatedly deciding and reevaluating what “mattered,” both by what I played and how I played them.

Anyway, here’s my project: a loose recreation of the map of the Kanto and Johto regions from Pokémon. My friend Rachel hung out in my room and can be seen in some of the screenshots. My last goals were three: add Route 28, the Ruins of Alph, and some various mountain ranges and forests to give at least some sense of interesting topography. There’s stuff that slipped out from under me—almost all of Cerulean Cape (which I guess I just put off until I forgot about it entirely), buildings in Fuchsia City, some details to make stretches of the forests look more neat—but looking at it from the end, it’s surprisingly comprehensive. I said what I said yesterday, so in lieu of any more discussion, here’s a short collage:

Image: Source Gaming. left to right: Johto and Kanto.

Image: Source Gaming. More of a Kanto focus. The Legendary Birds are there as glass panes.

Image: Source Gaming. Route 1, as seen from Palette Town.

Image: Source Gaming. Closeup of Johto, almost all of which really was only made yesterday. The region’s design meant that I spent a lot of today just making mountains and woods.

Image: Source Gaming. The Whirl Islands, Cianwood City, Route 47, and the Safari Zone.

Outro: Some time ago, I revealed part of my process, that everything I write (and to a lesser extent, everything I play) is meant as a teachable moment. Each piece should improve my writing, maybe giving me new skills or trying a hand at different sentence structure. Well, “Passing the Buck” is one hundred percent teachable moments.

Image: Source Gaming. Dug through old photos I grabbed for this project to use them here. Lotta memories made over the past ninety days.

I’ll get the personal stuff out of the way. “Passing the Buck” was designed as something that would always be relaxed, fun, and light on friction. I gave myself explicit rules, I figured out ways to ease the work as the weeks went on, and while I could have those smaller goals if they came up, the overarching one wasn’t specific. Just “play what I can in the time I have.” The previous series were all about hitting certain numbers or deadlines, but here, a goal of “beat one game” or “finish a chapter” only arose as a natural extension of what I was playing. These things, on the whole, helped a lot. My sleep schedule is miles better than what it was in 2022 and 2023. And they also helped my writing, as I was less likely to get caught on one hangup or issue and could try to boil things down to the essentials.

There were also hiccups, problems, and unforeseen issues. Sometimes my sleep would screw up or I’d get hung up on something I really wasn’t liking. The pieces certainly got a lot longer than I anticipated, even if I found them overall far, far easier to write than the other weekly series. Some of this stuff I could’ve planned in advance, like rules about how to use images or plans about what to play. Just having a more concrete idea of what to do with images would’ve helped a lot. Plus, there were definitely mistakes, like not regularly looking at what new games came to the service each week and not trying to have a more robust selection each week. But I’m not too hung up on these. Many were, like the goals, an output of the process and something I’d need to encounter as they happened. This was kind of experimental in nature; the constant gimmick weeks and upheavals were all ways to test and explore. At least to me, it made every week feel different in at least some way. This was good, because it meant that the goals were always changing alongside the games.

Image: Source Gaming. Ichiban Kasuga, you are a prince among men. What a spectacular protagonist for an RPG.

This process made me take a long, hard look at Game Pass and what it can give you, in a way that I couldn’t just by looking at it from afar. It’s an undeniably great service. There is true wealth here. There are perhaps fewer older games than I’d have liked, but that’s partially a broader issue of game preservation. You can experience so many genres and series and aesthetics. To be honest, though, I’m even more baffled by the economics behind it. It discourages you from making actual purchases, and the money Microsoft must pay to keep it going must be through the roof. Because of that, although it may not be the most financially sound thing, I would strongly advocate that if you are a subscriber, buy the games you really love. The indies especially. That’s the best way to support a studio.

For a different sort of economic issue, I would also say that if you buy into this ecosystem, you should use it. Try things. Don’t be passive. Don’t in any way play like I do, so constantly and obsessively. That’s a hellish thing to go through at times, especially since in retrospect I’ve realized that in an O. Henry-adjacent twist this made me far more plugged into the Game Pass ecosystem than I ever wanted. It also makes games outside the service less appealing or notable. Obviously, this was more extreme with me since my goal was to play Game Pass, but I definitely think that on the whole you’re less liable to try things that aren’t free. That’s a shame, since many studios won’t (or financially can’t) put their games into the service or one like it. Still, if you’re subscribing, you should use it. Get a lot out of it, especially when it comes to trying things you might not otherwise. It’s uneconomical not to, and while I don’t know if this goes into ethics, if you pay money to a giant mega-corporation like Microsoft, you should get everything you can out of it. Don’t make their job easier for them.

Image: Source Gaming. These images were meant to represent a game from each month. I wasn’t sure if there was a good one for March, but no. Age of Mythology was it.

There is one final recommendation: it’s not a bad idea to buy in short bursts, at least if you’re trying it out for the first time. And if this series comes back, I’m going to follow that rule. One month reprisals only. This was

Of course, this project was for things I’ve never played. But given the size of Game Pass—consider the number of studios and intellectual properties Microsoft now has—there are plenty of games on the service that I played long before subscribing. Several weeks ago, a friend suggested I make a list of the ones I’d recommend, and given that part of this project was meant to shine a light on games you might not be familiar with, it’s not a bad idea. I got to see new stuff, and now I can suggest old stuff. I’m going to organize it not by “best” but by severity, which games I think you need to play the most if you haven’t. I considered gearing it towards some theoretical “generic Source Gaming user,” but no matter what kinda discourse you’re on, you don’t make up a guy. It also doesn’t count games I only played for a few minutes, like Grim Fandango Remastered, Neon White, or Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts.

And, of course, this list was made this week and doesn’t count for the possibility that any of these games may leave the service in the future.

Pentiment: I literally have no idea what more I can do to get you people to buy this. It’s by the New Vegas people, it has an incredible art style and genre blend… whaddya need, a road map?
Prey: Prey is stylish, fun, scary, player driven, wildly ambitious, features Benedict Wong at his most imposing, and was criminally underplayed, so I’m putting you all on blast. It also has the GLOO Gun.
Mass Effect et al: One of the greats of gaming storytelling in both what it got right and what it got wrong, the highs, lows, comedies, dramas, and narratively reactive moments of the Mass Effect Trilogy are things that should be experienced. From what I gather, the best way to experience this would be through the Legendary Edition, a remaster of all three games that crucially retains Mass Effect 2 and 3’s must-play DLC.
Hollow Knight: I genuinely considered putting this one near the bottom since, statistically, most of you have not only played it and are desperately hoping to see its sequel at the next Nintendo Direct. But hell, it’s still Hollow Knight.
Celeste: It took me a bit to get on Celeste’s wavelength, but it’s a true accomplishment in the world of 2D platformers. Its Assist Mode provides extensive and granular options for your needs, its gameplay and game feel are top notch, and those make its ultra-hard difficulty and dramatic story all the more compelling.
Tunic: A beautiful and inscrutable rethinking of old school Zelda, Dark Souls, and more, this game uses “lock and key” puzzles to hide ones whose only solution is knowledge you must seek out and parse. Of particular note is its in-game manual, which you have to collect in pieces and translate.
Fallout: New Vegas: It’s a cliché to say that “New Vegas is the best Fallout,” but, like, at least of these 3D ones, it is. This paean to Rat Pack culture and some of the craziest stunt casting in games revolves around dynamic and incredibly reactive systems, as the dozens of quests, stories, and characters are tightly intertwined with your decisions.
Plants vs. Zombies: This tower defense classic is an incredible game, but the main reason why it demands your attention is because of preservation. PvZ is best experienced in its classic form, not its hideous free-to-play incarnation, and this is the best way to access it.
Balatro: The ultimate time waster and perhaps the most singular and well-constructed game since Tetris. Just stellar.
Psychonauts 2: This tremendous glow up from the first Psychonauts makes more interesting levels, has fantastic 3D platformer gameplay, and goes deeper into the psychic spy level design that its predecessor explored. For me, though, it’s the presentation; the graphics, voice acting, and sense of place are second to none.
Doom via Doom 1 + Doom 2: It is Doom. That’s enough.
Doom (2016): I’m gonna get the bad out of the way: it’s too long for a game with too intense and simple a gameplay loop, and it has too much dang modern game fluff. Now, with that said, this still feels absolutely incredible every single time you pull off a shot, grenade toss, and Glory Kill, and you should play it for that reason alone.
Firewatch: Firewatch takes the walking simulator formula, but it replaces much of the archaeological element of Gone Home with a role-playing element that’s intimate and player-driven. This creates a different kind of cinematic flair in games, one that’s impeccably written, acted, and animated.
Limbo: Culturally, this game’s place at the early rush of indie gaming is a must play for any modern historians. It also has one of the most stark art styles from that era, something that’s often been copied but never with such panache.
Inside: I feel like most people put Inside higher than Limbo for its more ambitious level design and narrative. They’re right, and if you haven’t played both, rectify that, but I do think that Limbo’s art direction just puts it over the edge in the “need to play” department.
Control / Control: Ultimate Edition: It might seem strange to rank this low when I declared it my Game of the Year in 2019 (it’s since been supplanted by Fire Emblem: Three Houses). But while Control is very good, it is a bit less essential—though don’t let that stop you from getting in on the psychic fun.
Resident Evil 2: An absolute favorite of mine from a pretty great year, the only reason I’m putting this lower is because it feels slightly less “essential” from a historic perspective. Still, don’t sit on this one at all; it’s truly superb survival horror.
Banjo-Kazooie: It’s a high point of 3D platformer design, and its XBLA remaster sands off at least one edge. It’s lower largely because I think some of the things here demand your attention more.
GoldenEye 007: You know what? I like the gunplay, and it and this thing as a whole have aged a lot better than people claim.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: This game is so ubiquitous that I looked through the Game Pass catalog twice for this list and didn’t notice it either time, and realistically, you’ve probably already played it. Still, Skyrim is valuable for its cultural impact, its ability to stoke wanderlust like few others, and its use as evidence that no, Bethesda just aren’t good writers.

Image: Source Gaming. The iconic V.A.T.S. mechanic of the 3D Fallout games, which make shooting a lot easier and vaguely closer to RPG standards.

Fallout 3: Speaking of, did you like Fallout 4 and wish it was less actively annoying or so blatant with its fanservice? Here you go, and consider checking out that fun Point Lookout DLC in the future.
Stardew Valley: To be honest, I’ve never been a big Stardew fan, but no one can deny its importance to the life simulator genre. It’s also another game that’s overtly player directed, which is always a plus in my book.
Dragon Age: Origins: This game is difficult, actively hostile at points, and at least tries to look uncompromising as a standard of Western RPGs. It will hurt you, but if you get on its wavelength, there’s plenty to appreciate and love.
Vampire Survivors: For a game that has openly dined out on the work of other games, genres, and franchises (and has since been cannibalized by other games), there’s something comfortingly singular about Vampire Survivors. It’s the goofiest version of a gaming dopamine hit, and yet I liked it so much that I bought that amazing Castlevania crossover DLC at the end of last year.
Donut County: I’ve fitfully tried and failed to write an article about this wonderful and super short gem for years just so I could publish something that called it a “Regular Show simulator.” Well… there it is.
Dead Space (2008): I feel unsure of whether to recommend this one more than its remake, largely on whether you should see the original first. But honestly, if you’ve got time for one, the remake is a more holistic experience that preserves and accentuates its best ideas.
Carrion: In the genre of “reverse horror games” where you play as the predator, this one eschews the grandeur of Batman or the multiplayer fun of Dead by Daylight for gnarly pixelated body horror. My favorite bit might be how you have to find ways to grow and shrink to solve puzzles, leading to gameplay about eating and impersonating people.
Unpacking: I suppose it wouldn’t be right to end the series without calling one more game the “comfort food” of its genre. Well, this is a pretty excellent take on the cozy game ideal, from its mixture of story and gameplay to its friendly aesthetics.
Psychonauts: Psychonauts is a regularly and at times extremely frustrating game, and it wears the marks of a studio struggling with an entirely new kind of game. But it’s also truly imaginative as a 3D platformer, so if you want to play all the way to the final level and then skip Meat Circus, I won’t blame you for a moment.
Wolfenstein: The New Order: Here’s another “game of the year” from that list of mine that has slipped in the rankings (and also to a Nintendo game, Mario Kart 8). But times have changed, my perspective has changed with them, and I can now see it as a fun and at times charmingly risible B-game that also had the fortune to be in a less packed year.
Banjo-Tooie: I vastly preferred this one as a kid to the first game and rose my eyebrow at Nintendo Power having the gall to call Majora’s Mask Game of the Year. As an adult, it’s hard to see past the annoying characters, the terrible mini-games, or the near religious obsession with bloat and size.
Crysis 2: I’ll be honest; I do not remember anything about this game. Maybe it was set in New York City, you probably turn invisible like in the first one… I think I see a compound bow?
Sea of Stars: I feel crazy for, well, hating this game—its Chrono Trigger gameplay and sprite art are very good—but man, those characters are bad. Still better than Andromeda, so my personal dislike shouldn’t be the final metric.
Mass Effect: Andromeda: Have you ever wanted to coax your best friend into playing an awful game as a joke, and then it turns out to be so bad that she bounces off it twice before getting to the really bad stuff? I’ve, uh, heard this does the job really well.

Long list, isn’t it? I play a lot of games. I try to, anyway; it’s fun, it’s interesting, and it makes me a better and more thoughtful critic. But looking at this, I’m also realizing that one appealing thing about this series was that it let me write about games I don’t normally write about. We’re a Nintendo-focused site, and my critical work tends to focus on a particular kind of kinesthetic, tactile experience. This let me write about games I normally don’t write about. Just look at this week. This is the first time I’ve gotten to write about Fallout on Source Gaming, and that’s a series for which I have a deep love and esteem. All those jokes about Lyndon Fitzroy Scranton and the bad writing was a way for me to celebrate this opportunity. The value of a piece to just let you have fun cannot be understated. This is also the genesis of the “Adaptation Fixation” podcast and the Kingdom Hearts and Pokémon weekly series. We’re a site that focuses on Nintendo games, I focus on gameplay mechanics over everything else, and I’m always going to relish an opportunity to do something different. “Passing the Buck” accomplished that with aplomb, and that’s the biggest reason why I’d like to revive it at some point in the future.

On the note of games, here’s the few I most wish I had gotten to play: Ni No Kuni, Another Crab’s Treasure, Quantum Break, and especially The Case of the Golden Idol. I learned that the ladder was in the service too late to add it. And there’s not enough time for…

Oh, right. This comes out on the 30th of a month with thirty-one days. I actually have today and tomorrow before my subscription ends! Well, I told you I was wringing as much out of these ninety-one days as I possibly could, and I’m gonna hold Microsoft and myself to that. So I’m excited to reveal that there’s in fact one final, dramatic conclusion to “Passing the Buck.” Assuming this finale goes okay, I’ll see you in April.

Read all of “Passing the Buck” here!