Xbox Game Pass (Xbox One)

Xbox Game Pass

There's no denying that gaming can be an expensive hobby. Those who game on consoles can expect to pay a fee in order to play online in addition to the often $60 price tag attached to many of the popular releases. Expenses can add up fast and with the incredible amount of games coming out each year gamers will no doubt overlook several titles due to budget constraints. This is where a service such as Game Pass can come in handy...

Xbox Game Pass originally launched on June 1, 2017 and is a monthly-charge service offering players full access to over a hundred different titles. You can download and play any of the eligible games to your heart's content so long as you retain your Game Pass membership. First-party titles published by Microsoft Game Studios will be available on Game Pass from release, making this an enticing offer for those who want to see what the Xbox One has to offer.

An Xbox Live subscription is not required in order to use Game Pass, though you will need it to access the online multiplayer games. While Microsoft will typically remove a handful of games at the end of each month, from what I've seen they typically add just as many if not more in order to keep the selection fresh.There's a wide variety of genres on offer and the only one I found lacking was sports titles. While there are a few sports games featured, there are none of the bigger sports titles from publishers like 2K and EA. It's understandable with EA since they have their own service, EA Access where you can subscribe and play their titles. 2K has become a bit too money-hungry with their sports franchises over the recent years so it's doubtful you'll see any of their newer titles featured here.

At the time of this writing the subscription rates are $9.99 per month or $119.99 yearly. If you're interested but not willing to pull the trigger at those prices, keep your eyes peeled as Microsoft will often host sales and promotions for the program, including discounted prices and a 14-day trial to see what's on offer. As is the case with subscribing to Xbox Live, Microsoft will by default enable auto-pay when you add the service so make sure to turn this off if you don't want to be automatically billed.

Xbox Game Pass is primarily focused towards the Xbox One, however you will have access to several of the "play anywhere" titles. Play anywhere titles are a selection of titles that came out on both PC and Xbox One. You can play any of these compatible titles on your PC if you have an Xbox Game pass subscription. With the immense number of games coming out these days, Xbox Game Pass is a great way to sample and experience games you might have overlooked. You're bound to find a few sleepers you didn't know about. Hopefully Microsoft carries this service over to the next console generation!

Final Verdict: Xbox Game Pass is an excellent service that gives you access to over a hundred different games on your Xbox One. A great way to give anybody an instant backlog of stuff to play.

Related Links:
Buy Xbox Game Pass - Microsoft Store
List of Game Pass Featured Titles - Xbox

Joy Ride Turbo (XBLA, 2012)

Joy Ride Turbo
Developed by BigPark
Published by Microsoft Game Studios
Released for XBLA (5/2012)
Backwards Compatible on Xbox One

Joy Ride Turbo is a digital-exclusive game released for Xbox Live Arcade in May 2012. It's a follow-up to Kinect Joy Ride, a title which received a retail release in 2010 and, as the title implies, required the Kinect to play. Developed by the same folks who did the original game, Joy Ride Turbo strips the game of all Kinect functionality and maps out everything to your game pad for a more traditional racing experience. Joy Ride Turbo features your Xbox Live avatar as the driver of your selected vehicle. There's a decent variety of unlicensed vehicles (42 total) ranging from tuners, trucks, vans and roadsters. For a 2012 XBLA release the game sports some decent graphics with lots of bright colors and a cartoony style that works well with the arcade feel to the gameplay.

Driving in Joy Ride Turbo has an arcade feel to it mixed with kart-racer style weapons and power-ups. Tracks commonly feature ramps and you can perform stunt tricks while airborne. By performing stunts and drifts, you'll build up a boost meter allowing for a burst of speed. Scattered along the tracks you'll find boxes that when smashed will grant the player a random power-up. These are pretty much your standard fare for these type of games: stuff like a massive boost, instant boost meter refill, rockets and an ice cube that slows your opponents. If you're falling behind, there's a power-up similar to Mario Kart's blue shell that homes in on the first place racer.

The driving in Joy Ride Turbo is simple but I had a tough time getting a feel for the drifting in the game. The overall challenge in the game was low enough I still managed to clear each championship so it wasn't a major issue as I made up for my poor turning by using the power-ups. Speaking of the power-ups, there were times I wondered if the game would have been better without the pick-ups and was a more traditional racing game. The randomness of the power-ups can grant you some cheap and frustrating losses. An option to turn the power-ups off would have been nice. 

Joy Ride Turbo features both single and multiplayer game modes. In single player, you can choose between championship, stunt track and time trials. Championship mode features three classes: 100 HP, 200 HP & 300 HP. Each class contains four events and each event has three races. There's a decent amount of variety between the tracks. Multiplayer is supported both online and locally with up to four-players split-screen. You'll have a hard time finding random players online but the local multiplayer can be fun if you have the controllers & friends.

Time trials allow you to race on each track and try to set the best lap time. The stunt tracks offers two different areas where you're allowed to explore and perform tricks to your heart's content. These are fun little playgrounds and make for a nice diversion from the standard racing mode, however there are also a bunch of collectibles scattered around the stunt tracks, which you're required to collect in order to unlock new vehicles which we'll go into next...

Initially in Joy Ride Turbo you'll have one vehicle available for each class. One thing I found a bit annoying with the game is the fact that you not only need to save up the in-game currency to purchase new cars, but you'll have to collect three car parts in order to unlock them first. There's a good amount of these car parts scattered around the race courses while the rest of them can be found on the stunt tracks. In total there are 126 car parts you'll have to collect if you wish to purchase all of the vehicles in the game. I typically don't mind collectibles in games, but forcing you to collect them just to be able to use the other vehicles in the game wasn't the best design choice. In addition to the car part collectibles, the stunt track courses also feature trophies to collect, which don't actually do anything other than unlock an achievement for getting all of them. Some of the trophies are quite tough to get and you'll likely never want to return to this mode by the time you've collected them all.

While Joy Ride Turbo is a bit generic as far as racing games go, it's a good arcade-style racer that can be fun to play in short bursts. Many standard features of the genre are present such as drifting, boosting and weapon pick-ups. These are well implemented for the most part and the four-player local co-op can be fun with some buddies over. There's a decent amount of content with lots of different vehicles to unlock and the stunt mode areas. At the time of this writing, Joy Ride Turbo is currently available on Game Pass and is worth a look if you want a more simple, arcade-like racing game.

The developer, BigPark, worked on a Kinect Joy Ride and Kinect Sports: Season Two before releasing Joy Ride Turbo which would be the company's final release. As Microsoft moved away from supporting the Kinect device, BigPark was shut down and consolidated into other Microsoft studios and teams.

Final Verdict: Joy Ride Turbo is a fun arcade-style racer mixing nitro, drift and stunt mechanics with kart-style weapons and power-ups. It's a bit generic but still a solid game especially when stacked up against your average Xbox Live Arcade release.

Related Links:
Buy Joy Ride Turbo - Microsoft Store
Buy Joy Ride Turbo - Xbox Marketplace
Buy Game Pass - Microsoft Store
Joy Ride Turbo - GameFAQs
BigPark - Wikipedia
Joy Ride Turbo - True Achievements
Joy Ride Turbo Achievement Guide - Xbox Achievements