TA Team Picks (July 22)

Running until July 31, the Xbox Ultimate Game Sale 2023 is offering up to 90% discounts on almost 1,000 games and DLC packs across Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and PC. Included within the vast number of discounts, Microsoft has dropped the prices of 31 quick completions.

As we like to do regularly, the TrueAchievements news team has had a good rummage through the sales to find a selection of games we think are worthy of your collection. These choices are based on our personal preferences from our game libraries. Drop into the comments below the story to let us know about the games you think players should check out!

Discounts from the bargain bin

It always astounds me how excellent this game is — it could have been a low-level spin-off, but instead Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales gave us a card-battling RPG of brilliant depth and complexity. Thronebreaker sees Queen Meve faced with a Nilfgaard invasion and setting out on the sort of epic journey we’d expect from the world of The Witcher, with us responsible for managing resources, raising up our camp, overseeing and selecting our troops, entering into fantastic (and sometimes puzzling) all-out battle with all the beasties and foes we encounter, dealing with a wide array of uncertain allies and duplicitous enemies, adjusting to the changing political landscape of a land at war, and of course making many gut-wrenching, self-doubting, have-I-made-an-awful-mistake choices. As with The Witcher 3, it’s not always clear what the outcome of these choices might be, but you can be certain their consequences will rear up way down the line to trip you up just when you think you’re safe. It’s difficult to tear yourself away from this one — I think it’s more than worth it at full price, so for 70% off at just over $5/£5? Absolute bargain.

I don’t think I need to explain why you need to pick up Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2, but if you haven’t done so already, stop reading this and buy it now while it’s only $15.99 / £15.99 / €17.99. I spent hundreds of hours playing both of these games as a kid — racking up combos as Bob Burnquist, destroying my friends in HORSE, and listening to so much of each soundtrack that I memorized practically every word of every song — so when Activision announced it was remastering both games for modern platforms back in 2020, I was super excited. Thankfully, Vicarious Visions did a superb job with the remaster. Aside from the excellent visuals, Vicarious also added numerous quality-of-life upgrades from later games, online multiplayer, an enhanced level editor, better character customization, and so much more — the remaster feels both fresh and faithful to the original games. Of course, one new addition was achievements and boy, is that Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 achievement list a hard one to complete. If anything, the achievement list is probably the worst part about the remaster (sacrilege, I hear you cry), but the One Hundred achievement is quite a boring grind. Don’t let that put you off, though. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 is a beast of a remaster and one you should definitely buy now while it’s cheap.

I think I’ve mentioned Murdered Soul Suspect before, so I’ll keep this short and sweet for you. I’ve chosen it this week due to the sale chopping away 85% of its price so you can pick it up for $2.99 / £2.39 / €2.99. It’s a great price for, what I think, is a pretty great game that doesn’t overstay its welcome and is a good bit of fun. It sees us play as the spirit of a murdered detective attempting to solve his own murder by investigating numerous locations around the town of Salem, which is made all the more interesting because he can see the ghosts of others that have died. Not all of them are friendly, however, so using his supernatural abilities to elude evil spirits is needed. I loved my time playing this game, and as long as you have a guide for the missable collectibles on hand, it’s a smooth road to completion. Check it out!

If you’d prefer to save your money this week, why not check out some of the best games on Game Pass, or look towards the future and see some of the games coming to Game Pass in the future?