Two Games Are Available Today With Xbox Game Pass (July 19)

Really confused about Ubisoft. Weren’t they supposed to have their own streaming service? But now they have split their catalogue between Gamepass and PS Extra… did I miss something?

Watch Dogs 2 is a decent game but it's another of the category of game I played to completion on PlayStation and see no need to repeat it again just because it's on Xbox.

Will look at Dusk Fall but have zero expectations it will stick as it doesn't have enough game.

On the plus side I do get to play Forza 5 Hot Wheels DLC today so not a complete bust.

As Dusk falls, I played WD2 like 5 years ago!

Think I’ll give Watch Dogs 2 a shot since it’s on PC as well. I prefer to play older games on PC where I can crank up the resolution and frame rate to look and feel good on the big screen.

@Relygon This is why i gave up PC gaming years ago. You are forever chasing better hardware to be able to play properly.

With consoles, they still look decent and the spec is the spec and that's it.

Not to mention that consoles are utterly superior when it comes to frametime.

My eyes are so sensitive to microstutter i can literally see it on every PC game i play. There is no better hardware that can fix this either. Unstable frametime is inherant on all PC's.

@Dsswoosh Oh trust me mate I know. I switched mainly to consoles late last generation because I got tired of all bloody settings tweaking.

But I love building crazy rigs so I still got a quite beefy PC hooked up to the TV. Ironically, its main use is old games that are limited to 30 fps on consoles and/or offers too low resolution for my liking.

All new games I play on XSX/PS5 because they’re generally better optimized, offers 60 fps and a resolution that’s good enough for me. And perhaps the most important aspect, it’s plug and play! I don’t have to spend hours on changing up the settings to make the game run perfectly.

@Relygon @Dsswoosh
Thank you for saying this. Ive been saying it for years but im often called out on it by 'master racers' who cant believe Id much rather play on a console unless the game needs kb mouse.
Its not like my pc is limited, im running a 10900k with 3090 ftw3 ultra, so not far from ultimate performance, but the stuttering, fiddling with settings and drivers etc, is an uneeded hassle when I simply want to sit back and play.
Its nice to know im not the only one who feels like this 😁

@Relygon Watch Dogs 2 you could crank up the settings a long time ago. It's not a particularly demanding game, unlike it's sequel. I was playing it maxed out at 4k 3 years ago.

@Titntin Yeah sure you have a 10900k and a 3090. You shouldn't be getting stutters at all on that rig unless you're playing off a hard drive. I also game on both PC and Xbox (Series X in my case). Both have their uses but I disagree on only playing on PC if the game needs keyboard and mouse. I would say it 's a lot more complicated than just the control device.

@Acurisur Yes, I’m sure. Never played it before, that’s all. The Watch Dogs series has never been under my radar.

@Acurisur
I don't know why you would choose to doubt me, I bought the rig from scan uk nearly 18 months ago for about £4K? As they ran out of stock 3090's, I got the EVGA FTW3 ultra version for no extra. I also bought an 48 inch LG C1 oled to run it through (with a 4K 32 inch side monitor). As a 57 yo man with a dev career of over 20 years, having a decent PC so I can occasionally meddle in asset creation is important to me. £4k is also not a lot of money for me. I certainly wouldn't buy that to play games, but its an option.

I suspect that like many PC stalwarts you wish to somehow invalidate my choices because I don't think like you. You can play where you like, more power to you, but I far prefer to play on console, it infinitely preferable to me and I have a series X, two PS5's and switch.

I rarely state my preferences as there's always some 'master racer' who immediately sneers and tries to invalidate my choices. They were stated here simply because for once I found other gamers who agree with me.

...and having encountered people like you before I quickly shot video of my PC back in feb last year to show another 'sniper'.
Search my user name on youtube and you can see my PC.

I hope you enjoy your games and learn to accept that others can think differently without that being a challenge to you.

Played the first episode of As Dusk Falls last night. The gameplays pretty non existent, basically an interactive comic where you watch the story play out and do the occasional qte or make the occasional choice (there’s no taking control of a characters movement in between like say a supermassive game)…but this was to be expected. Controlling the cursor is a little sluggish but the prompt area seems to be large and forgiving. It’s actually probably more suited for playing on a tablet or your phone. Would actually make an ideal switch game.
The art style I’m still not sure about but is far less distracting and nauseating I originally thought it would be. It really does help if you tell your brain it’s less of an interactive movie and more an interactive comic. And the story itself so far has been pretty gripping. I’m enjoying it.
Worth checking out.

@Relygon @Dsswoosh One of my biggest gripes this gen so far has been the options we’ve been getting in console games of performance or graphics. This has been pretty much adopted as standard now and we’re already steadily seeing it added to - raytracing on/off, 30fps/40fps/60fps ect… it will only get worse as the generation goes on…I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if soon we’re getting AA options, shadow quality etc.
Every time I dare mention my grievances for these options I of course get ‘choice is good’ brigade countering me. These are generally, without a fault, the same people desperate for us to move away from crossgen releases.

The whole point of a console over a pc is it’s a closed box. Hardware that can been fully optimised towards its strengths. Having a choice of knowing that something I’m playing looks better but runs worse in another setting is not much of a choice at all to me. Just optimise the game properly - just give me 60fps at the very best quality the hardware is capable. I don’t need to know what I’m missing out on. Just like I don’t need a 10fps mode where the game looks even better.
My fear is, and what I think we will end up seeing (just like we did with patches) devs will spend less time fully optimising when they can rely on offering options.

This, alongside expensive hard drives, bigger downloads, countless patches… all adds another cap to a more tantalising streaming future for me.

@Titntin I choose to doubt you because I used to work as a computer technician fixing PCs for a living. A 3090 should not be getting stutters and if it is then it's user error causing it, not the hardware. I also never mentioned where I prefer to play because I don't really have a preference. I split my time between the Xbox Series X and my gaming PC as I have Game Pass Ultimate.

@Titntin Fret not friend. I recently upgraded my rig with a fresh 3090 Ti ROG STRIX. I still play more on my consoles, oh the horror!

Albeit I can’t say I experience stutters very often. It happens but it usually comes down to crappy PC ports with garbage optimization (which is awfully common, especially day one releases). Or driver/other software issues. That’s my main gripe with PC gaming, I hate troubleshooting crashing/stutter problems when I just want to play.

Sometimes there are zero issues, I played 60 hours+ ME: Andromeda with a handful mods on without a single crash. Next I’ll boot up AC Origins and game crashes within an hour.

Oh and why would I spend a fortune on a gaming rig I don’t use extensively? I dunno. Because I can. Smh

@Relygon Thanks for your reply. Nice to see there are still some real people here

I also wouldn't say I get stutter a lot either as I barely ever play anything on my PC anymore. When I got this one I also got three years of ultimate and thought I'd play a lot of it, but the issues getting games to install and then run were a pain, of the first 7 games I installed from GP, 4 of them had issues.
Steam works much better of course, but I intended to use GP simply due to value.
On PC then I've played cyberpunk (gotta have all the RT), some Civ (def a mouse game for me), and initially I used to play forza 5 on ultimate 4k 60, as the series X version used to suffer pop in @60hz. This seems better now so I've gone back to Series X for the hotwheels DLC.

Of course, I have the skills and ability to fix and configure PCs, I worked for IBM when we first started rolling PC's out pre windows (I started 1985) and have been a games dev for 20 years once I left IBM (I actually draw an IBM pension, albeit small). But you spend that long working with PC's and you take no joy in configuring updating and fixing them, that's just work to me.
When I game, I sit in a recliner, switch a console on and game in 30 seconds knowing I'm playing a version already optimized for the hardware I'm using. I much prefer it, but rarely say so, as it invites the kind of replies you have seen.

Enjoy your gaming friend, where ever you want to.

@Titntin

I also have a good PC, Ryzen 5800, RTX 3070, 32gb of RAM etc, and yet I also find myself playing the Series X 95% of the time.

The convenience and pick up and play factor is hard to beat, in addition to quick resume, which is one thing my PC can't offer. Given I'm generally not playing games all day, I love the convenience of being able to switch between games quickly.

Also funnily enough, the two games you mentioned are two of the games I choose to play on PC instead of SeriesX. Forza Horizon 5 and Cyberpunk. Two good examples of the PC version being a BIG upgrade. As you said the 60fps mode on Series X had incredibly distracting pop in, running it on PC at 60fps with max settings really is a much better experience. Same with Cyberpunk, 60fps with raytracing obviously looks much better than the console versions.

So while the Series X is my gaming machine of choice, the PC is still really useful for any games that aren't ideally optimised or suited to console, or indeed are capped at 30fps.

But regarding stutter, I am sensitive to it too, I love a solid 60fps, but I can't say I've noticed stutter in anything other than DX12 titles, which seems to be shader compilation issues. Most of the games I've played on my PC run at a solid 60fps just like Series X.

@Raffles I also chose to play Cyberpunk and Forza Horizon 5 on PC for the reasons you mentioned, although I dabble with Forza occasionally on my Xbox Series X if I'm just doing drift zones or other non race based events. I tend to only play games on my Xbox that benefit from a large display as I have a 55 inch 4k Dolby Vision HDR tv.

Anything that has a cluttered user interface, is FPS limited at 4k or works best on keyboard and mouse I play on PC.