November is shaping up to be a quieter month for Xbox Game Pass than October, but some solid titles are still hitting Microsoft’s game subscription service. This week, the three recent additions I’m recommending all have one thing in common: You don’t play as humans in them. If you want to let out some steam and relax this weekend, become a dragon, goat, or turnip and cause some mayhem in these games.
Following in the footsteps of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and two StarCraft games, Spyro Reignited Trilogy is the latest Activision Blizzard title to finally make its way to Xbox Game Pass. Developed by the now independent Toys for Bob, this is a remake collection of the first three games in the Spyro series: Spyro the Dragon, Sypro 2: Ripto’s Rage!, and Spyro: Year of the Dragon. Those were excellent innovative 3D platforms on PS1 and faithfully re-created by Toys for Bob with vibrant new visuals for the Reignited Trilogy. Spyro has yet to get a new current-gen game like Crash Bandicoot, so check this out if you want to show Xbox and Activision that there’s demand for more.
Spyro Reignited Trilogy is available across PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Cloud Gaming with Game Pass Ultimate. It’s also on PS4 and Nintendo Switch.
Funny games that let players mess around in large sandboxes with ridiculous physics are common nowadays, but the original Goat Simulator was a precursor to all of them. Goat Simulator lets players loose to destroy or mess with everything in their path as a goat. While players earn points and complete objectives as they do that, Goat Simulator is all about dumb fun. That attitude helped it go viral on platforms like YouTube when it first came out in 2014. Coffee Stain remastered Goat Simulator this year, and while this intentionally rough-looking and somewhat glitchy game doesn’t exactly benefit from the typical remaster treatment, it’s at least nice to have all of the original’s DLC, which crosses over with the likes of Payday and DayZ, available as part of one package.
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers can check out Goat Simulator: Remastered on PC or Xbox Series X/S. It’s also available on PS5.
One of 2024’s first notable releases was Turnip Boy Robs a Bank, a roguelike where players shoot and rob their way through a bank over and over again as a surprisingly violent turnip working for the mafia. As ridiculous as that premise is, Turnip Boy Robs a Bank actually has some hilarious writing and an entertaining story. Its gameplay isn’t too shabby either, as this is an enjoyable top-down twin-stick shooter with plenty of powerful weapons. Previously just available in the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate tier, Turnip Boy Robs a Bank is now available to Xbox Game Pass Standard subscribers as part of their game catalog. If you haven’t played it yet, that gives Standard subscribers an excuse to finally check out this game.
Turnip Boy Robs a Bank is now available to Xbox Game Pass standard subscribers on PC and Xbox One. The game is also on Nintendo Switch.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.