Topic: Pure Xbox Game Club - Rise of the Tomb Raider (May)

@ralphdibny Can't you just tag people max 10 at a time over multiple posts?

That's right, I am here too.

@kyleforrester87 oi! Wot r u doing ere?! 😀

Jk, I would invite you to the tag list but it seems we are having issues...

I could do that but then the thread would literally just have 3 or 4 posts in a row of comments made up solely of tags. It would look pretty ugly and take up a lot of space and to be honest, I do wonder if this tag limit is in place because of threads like this. I don't really see other users using a tag list like the game club thread does.

@ralphdibny Yeah, would get a bit messy with a few posts one after the other but not the end of the world. I can see why it is there, if a spam account decided to create a topic advertising something and tagged like..200 people at once I am sure there would be some complaints from sensitive types coming down the admins pipeline.

@kyleforrester87 ya know it's a bit of extra admin and it might not be the prettiest but I'd be up for doing it like that if @antdickens didn't mind and could confirm the actual tag limit per post. That's of course if this limit wasn't put in place because of me 😂. _{I'm trying not to be paranoid...}

@antdickens is it not possible to add and expection for @ralphdibny or maybe added him as moderator? I think it is clear that he is trustworthy and wouldn't be "spamming" outside this topic.

@ralphdibny I’m sure it’s been like this for ages, certainly it’s not you. I have regularly not got alerts for messages I have been tagged in, back in the day when we were doing the game of the year stuff. Like I say, it’s a good way for spammers to get a message direct into someone’s inbox, and I guess you never know what that message could be. Wouldn’t be giving you mod powers, though. It’d go to your head 😜

Perhaps a limit on new accounts being able to tag more than 10 people until 100 posts of whatever, but don’t know if that’s technically viable.

Thanks mate, what was the expiry date on your bank card again? 😂 Jk

😂😀 First order of business, back to Push Square with you! Just kidding of course, love having you around

Seriously though, wouldn't mind being a mod. Especially if there is some money in it. Currently looking for a new job 👀

_{hint hint, nudge nudge}

@ralphdibny no worries. I will be waiting the payment for the good word

I know Redfall reception has been...mixed, but I want to give a huge shoutout to the lighting.

I don't know if the game is using ray-traced lighting in any way, but one thing I never noticed before is that this game actually requires you to use your flashlight in dark environments.

One thing I always hated about lighting in games is that even in so-called "dark" environments, developers will add probe lights to dimly light the scene to simulate being in the dark. Generally, these so-called "dark" scenes that supposedly require flashlights don't actually need one at all because there is still enough "light" in the scene to see the environments.

Sure one could change brightness settings to achieve darkness, but the fact is, there is still "light" when there shouldn't be any.

Redfall seems to only light a scene if light is present, otherwise there is no light. Maybe the developers just decided to not use a dim probe light system in dark areas to actually force you to use the flashlight.

I was inside a church at night and it was pitch-black inside except in places where there were light sources - either from candles, flood lights, or just simply moonlight seeping in through the windows. It was brilliantly done and really added to the tension of that location. If I wasn't using Jacob's bird ability to mark enemies, I would have had to rely solely on my flashlight to see what was inside (and it was kind of packed with vampires).

So far, I only encountered one visual bug where an enemies run animation simply stopped and the enemy "floated" to find cover. Once it found cover, all animations picked back up and it did a proper cover posture: too bad that cover also had an opening to it and I just sniped it from afar. 😁

As I am a wuss that cannot play in any type of tense/horror like environments I allways turn the brightness to the right to achieve that allways you can see even if the Dev wanted it to be pitch black

@Balta666 Yeah, that doesn't work in Redfall (I just tried).

@GamingFan4Lyf Gotta say I had a very different experience. I only played for 30 - 45 mins or so to see if it was really in as bad shape as people said but I had several issues. This included textures not loading in, AI not working properly - literally not moving for several seconds at the start of a fight after being shot and then behaving erratically - and several items just floating in mid-air. Too early to have a full view but it wasn't a good first impression.

That said I quite like the visual style, no it's not at all photorealistic, but it's got that Arkane twisted caricature look I rather like. Gave me a little more hope to play it once patched.

Back to The Last Case of Benedict Fox for me, a mixed game but one I like enough to put up with it's frustrations.

@themightyant The Last Case of Benedict Fox has been a great game. I am at the end. I am waiting for a patch to drop to fix a couple of bugs before actually finishing it - one related to BnP progress in the Mansion area being stuck at 95% (it is a bug) and one where an Achievement isn't working for finding all the Anchor points.

I want to have all the Achievements before I finish it and delete it.

@themightyant That's crazy! I haven't really noticed anything that bad. Granted, my player progress from my playtest stayed - so I didn't start a new game. And I have a strong sniper and assault rifle that I mostly 1-shot humans in the face to notice them behaving in any way.

Now, that being said, the AI is pretty basic at times. Sometimes enemies use cover, sometimes they just come out 1-by-1 like a shooting gallery. Vampires can be a little erratic with their teleporting - but nothing I can't handle. They eventually settle down to get turned to dust. 👍

@GamingFan4Lyf Benedict is a mixed bag for me. I love that it doesn't hold your hand and you have to figure out proper puzzles yourself. Notebook, ciphers and all. But it's a double edged sword and there were definitely times when I was running in circles with no idea what to do.

The combat sucks too. Frequently you get hit by one enemy and that's it, they stun lock you and can't escape and you die. Plus a lot of stuttering, and frame drops. I also had a couple of crashes, one when quick resume failed which put me back to an autosave from several hours before. Thankfully I didn't lose my save completely as I've heard other have.

But all in all I like the puzzles, the tone, the story etc. and I like it more than the issues let it down. Still got a few hours to go I feel, unless there is an upside down castle equivalent. But currently i'd give it 7/10.

P.S. I was looking for that 5% BnP and another 4% ink. Will look out for a patch, thanks for the heads up.

@kyleforrester87 do you have an Xbox now?

@ralphdibny nah, been weighing up getting one for a while now though. I’d like to dive into the back catalogue and check out some games I missed, like.. all of the Halo games lol. I just don’t have the time to commit to it right now more than anything.

I am interested in Starfield though. And honestly, if Evil Within 3 was announced and looked decent I’d probably get the system to play that. What do you know, good games do sell consoles 😂

@kyleforrester87 fair play, that was the same reason I got the One X a back in 2019 actually. Plus I got a sweet deal on it.

Then I got sucked into game pass, then MS Rewards which then led to a sweet deal on the Series X and here I am today 😅

My mate actually got a PS5 and then bought a Series S later on to supplement it. I think it would wind me up having a less powerful equivalent console though. As soon as I got the One X way back when, I immediately regretted my huge base PS4 backlog as I guess I'd prefer to play it on the more powerful hardware

@ralphdibny yeah I think I’d have to go for the big dog if I pull the trigger on an Xbox. With a developer like Bethesda making games for your system you need all the brute force under the hood you can get to smooth things along!!

@kyleforrester87 i feel like I've seen series X on sale for less than RRP at times too.

Not sure if you'd want second hand but CEX are doing them for £360, 370 and 380 for discounted, unboxed and boxed conditions respectively