Balaam_

Sounds to me like someone is eating a sandwich in the kitchen and complaining because the bedroom is the room with the comfy chair, the tv, the pc, the game console, the stereo, the nice view, the air conditioner etc.

Stop trying to bring the tv and everything else into the kitchen, and Take. The. Sandwich. Into. The. Bedroom.

I’m a little concerned about some janky animations (notably the first person whipping seems a bit off), but otherwise it looks to be shaping up into something special.

My only major concern is the extent to which that no talent fool Todd Howard is actually involved. The less he gets his grubby fingers into something, the better off it will be. I’d prefer Machine Games handle everything, while they sit Todd in a corner and hire someone to pay him condescending praise like a parent gives a child. ‘Oh yes Todd, that’s a great idea. That’s going right up on the refrigerator next to your decision to partition starfield into a thousand different areas connected by loading screens.’

@Techno92LFC My condolences.

Xbox One was like the time I went on a long hike from the top of a mountain down into a deep valley. At the very bottom I stopped and looked back longingly to the top of the mountain in the distance, remembering how great it was up there. The view was better, the air was cleaner, I was on top of the world. Down in the valley it was hot and humid, mosquitos were everywhere and it was a lousy experience. It makes you appreciate the good you had, when you may have taken it for granted at the time.

Sometimes it’s wise to take a step back and look at things from a different perspective. After following the ups and downs of the whole development situation and subsequent release of this game, I have to stop and ask a question:

How is it a comparatively tiny development studio managed to ship a working game in the middle of an actual war and get nothing but massive backlash for its issues, while Bethesda repeatedly churns out half-baked, broken, bug-filled, glitch-ridden slop on a geriatric engine that needs to be taken out back behind the barn and put out of everyone’s misery and gets showered with praise for it?

A more backward situation I cannot recall.

Normally I’d trash something this flawed with gusto. This is approaching Bethesda levels of broken, janky, unplayable mess. But with everything these guys had to work with going on in the background, I’m willing to cut them some slack. As long as it eventually gets to a playable state, that’s good enough. The core is good, let’s just refine it to a level of polish it deserves.

I like the article subtitle stating it “sounds very promising”, because it sure doesn’t look good. The visual aesthetic they settled on is atrocious, a terrible mismatch of garish Ubisoft waypoint quest markers overlaid atop some otherwise good looking environments. Perhaps the game director or whoever has the final say on the project is colorblind? That would explain such an unattractive color palette.

Real mixed bag here. Some stuff looks great, but other choices are off putting. Whoever decided on the overall color palette needs a new job. Too many garish colors that don’t blend well with the otherwise decent looking environs. It’s reminiscent of the clash between rugged earth tones associated with hunting outdoors coupled with flourescent orange camo jackets. It just screams ‘We know there are a million games just like this, but look over here, we’re trying to distinguish ourselves from the pack!’

Does this have a live service component to it? Why would concurrent player count be a relevant metric for this game? In something without any MTX or battle passes or other GaaS bloat, if I were the developers I’d be praying for sales rather than irrelevant stats.

@BIG3 You do your cooking in the kitchen. Once you bring the meal out to the table, if it’s still raw inside it’s too late. At that point you can only shame-walk it back into the kitchen, into the oven, while your guests are left wondering ‘Why wasn’t it left in there until it was done? Does this person know how to cook?’

So my options are either sit in the comfort of my plush armchair in front of a 77” 4K@120hz OLED with my controller in hand playing everything natively with zero lag, or…stream only that which I already own to a device like a phone with a tiny screen so I can muddle through it at 1080p with horrendous lag while I use the porcelain Xbox.

@OldGamer999 I’m in this boat as well, but we shouldn’t have to rely on these features like a crutch to compensate for poor development. Fancy airbags and computer assisted lane departure warning systems are not substitutes for designing a car with faulty brakes.

This needs to be good. I can deal with a few bugs here and there, so long as we’re not talking Bethesda ‘can’t play 10mins straight without encountering a game breaking bug’ levels of glitchtitude.

Airplanes are synonymous with soaring through the clouds. How ironic that when the cloud becomes the focus, Flight Simulator struggles to get off the ground worse than the Wright Brothers’ maiden voyage.

Keep them coming. Whatever is necessary for the smoothest, most enjoyable experience at launch.

“For those whose load is no longer progressing…we recommend a reboot; otherwise we advise waiting to allow the loading to proceed as normal.”

Brilliant response. They could have been doctors. ‘I advise you either take an antibiotic, or allow the virus to run its course.’

I love the back and forth in the comments, now that the shoe is on the other foot. Sony wants Kadokawa and the manga/anime/film, and FromSoftware just happens to come along with that like a cherry on top—just like a certain other company wanted King and all its mobile prowess, that happened to come part and parcel along with Call of Duty. And guess what? This deal will be just as bad for everyone.

Just like all the fools who posted here in the months leading up to the ABK buyout pontificating on all the amazing things Microsoft could do with all the IP, people are now speculating the same over on Push Square about this possible buyout. And just like the ABK situation, nothing will change. Sony won’t remove subsequent souls games/entries from other platforms (excluding those that already are exclusives). They won’t revive dormant IP. They won’t drastically change much of anything at all. It’ll be business as usual, the only difference being they now collect the checks.

TL;DR: No gains for gamers, just like the ABK situation. Unless you’re the type of person who rents their flat, leases their car and has no problem paying-to-rent instead of buying-to-own , in which case I suppose the addition of stuff to gamepass might mean something. Sony might shovel a bunch of FromSoft titles into PS+ I suppose, which again means nothing to the die hard gamer who should already own every Souls entry.

I hope this is all true. This, Stalker 2 and Indy were the only things in the pipeline that I have even the slightest bit of interest in. Well, those and good old reliable flight simulator.

I’d have nominated it instead of Shadow of the Erdtree. The dlc was a far more rich, fulfilling experience for a die hard souls veteran like myself, but…it’s a dlc. Doesn’t matter how awesome or how big, it should not be included in GotY talks. Ergo, out with Elden Ring, in with FH5. Although in all honesty Silent Hill 2 or Stellar Blade deserve that spot more.

I’ve only ever played a few of these AC games, I don’t recall which. I remember enjoying the main parts, the historical recreation stuff, but thinking that mumbo jumbo animus crap was such a stupid gaff bolted onto something that deserved better. I wish these games were only ever set in the historical past and they did away with that present day stuff feebly trying to tie it all together.

Xbox shouldn’t feel bad at all. They put in a good effort and put out some decent software. In a year filled with games like Stellar Blade, FF7 Rebirth, Helldivers 2, Astrobot, Silent Hill 2, Metaphor and Zelda Echoes of Wisdom, expecting to get nominated would be like a fan in the stands taking the field and going head to head with Ronaldo or like an American football team. Not bloody likely!

Legendary adventures @540p…🥴

Why is there no poll option for ‘I played this 5 years ago’

This is 10/10 stuff to be sure, but associating it with gamepass means less than nothing to me. I don’t pay-to-rent, I buy-to-own. Bought Spyro trilogy years ago. For the competent consumer, gamepass is a ‘dip-in-for-a-month-to-try-a-few-titles-you-aren’t-100%-sure-you’ll-like-then-dip-back-out’ vehicle.

My favorite Xbox by a colossal margin. It’s all downhill from here, folks 🫠

Yeah…I agree with @Echtzeit. This isn’t a platform per se, it’s a client/launcher. Still interesting news though!

After reading a plethora of comments posted here by people who are part of the problem and the reason why Xbox is circling the bowl at this very moment, I suddenly feel the urge to use the porcelain Xbox.

Didn’t Phil sing the praises of Redfall prior to launch as well, lauding it as the next great thing?

@JaffeGaffe Maybe if they worked for a corporation with a competent structure along with fair and reasonable leadership like Valve I’d agree with your thoughts here.

@Major_Player The wording of your comment is confusing. Who is the “they’re” and “their” in “So now they’re confirming their PlayStation exclusivity right?”

Game File is quoting Phil Spencer, and there is no confirmation of anything in the above article. If Phil speaking on behalf of Xbox is the “they’re” and “their” in your post, he neither confirmed nor denied anything. If Game File is who you’re implicating with “they’re” and “their”, Game File has nothing to with BMW. Did you confuse them with Game Science…?

I’m sure Michael Scott has a witty rejoinder at the ready for this, but if it’s good I don’t really care how long it is.

There’s a typo in the quote. It’s written as “The Xbox business has never been more healthy” when it should read ‘The Microsoft Gaming business has never been more healthy’

@Medic_alert My thoughts exactly. One X is still one of the best looking outer shells I’ve ever laid eyes on. Series X is alright, and S would be nice if it didn’t have that cheap speaker looking circular cooling vent. As for PS5, someone needs to write a modern day Greek tragedy wherein someone gouges their own eyes out after seeing it à la Oedipus. But the One X? Mwa chef’s kiss

Gee, I guess he forgot to brief so-called journalists like Jez Corden before he made this statement. People like him are still under the impression there are hard ‘do not cross’ lines as to what will stay and what will go.

@themightyant I’d have to agree with that sentiment, but it does create a problem: A Switch 2 with nothing in the console space to directly compete against it (i.e. no Xbox handheld at/near launch) will clear the path to repeat domination out of the gate. Launching after the Switch 2 has had a whole year of a head start isn’t exactly doing them any favors.

This collection reminds me of one of those ‘learn to draw’ videos on YouTube by a professional artist. The sketch is crude and unappealing in the beginning, just a rough outline that barely resembles what it’s supposed to. But by the end, it looks remarkably polished. I only wish these were on disc for those of us who infinitely prefer to own, not rent. Oh, and good achievements instead of the horrendous, achievement-hunter-unfriendly slop they forced down our throats.

Vastly superior, much truer to the originals on PS2. Lesson to developers, Don’t mess with nostalgia.

If something as good looking as this can run fairly smoothly with minimal visual sacrifices, why are there so many horrendous series S ports? Lazy developers? Bad engines? No one can claim ‘lack of priority’ since there are a lot more S’s than X’s. It’s frustrating. The box is weak compared to its big brother, yes, but not so weak as to see the myriad of Vaseline smeared, choppy stuttery titles that plague it.

Depends on the game. If I know I’ll like it and the lore is perfect for getting lost in (i.e. your usual FromSoft game) then yes, I’ll craft that perfect character. If it’s some random game I’m not sure I’ll even like, I won’t waste the time. I’ll just rush to the gameplay to see if it’s even worth playing.

Spectacular set of games, brilliant top tier stuff. This gamepass drop means nothing to me as I’ve bought these on disc long ago so I could permanently own them, but if you somehow haven’t played these yet (what is wrong with you?) they’re absolutely worth the download.

I think we can all afford to cut them a little slack regarding that whopping file size in light of everything the studio had to go through to get this game out the door. Still, I’m hoping for a significant reduction in file size for the PlayStation version, and fingers crossed there will be a physical disc I can buy and own in perpetuity without needing to worry if it’ll be changed/patched/‘fixed’ or taken away from me.

Looks phenomenal.

@evan23 Same situation here. Loads of promise and potential that fizzled quickly, and now it’s a BC machine.

Also, the price of those proprietary storage cards is still “too damn high”. What a stupid blunder to opt for those instead of the ability to slap any old SSD in. It’s like they heard about the god awful Vita memory sticks and said ‘Hey that’s a great idea, how do we get in on that?’

Everyone’s thinking in the wrong direction (advancing technology and better looking games).

We are talking about the corporation behind the mantra ‘Great games don’t sell consoles’, the company taking their best titles and releasing them on every platform that will take them. Suppose they get something as good looking as Gears E-Day on an old Texas Instruments Ti-86 calculator? That would be the biggest technological leap I’ve ever seen, even more impressive than people getting Doom to run on old microwave displays.

Backwards compatibility. Microsoft’s BC program is second to none (at least in the console space. PC offers infinitely more scaling options, tweaks, mods etc etc etc). The performance gains in older titles, the boosts to resolution/framerates along with other little bells and whistles is to be highly praised. It is the single ray of light in this bleak and barren generation, at least for Team Green.

It truly is ironic; Nintendo and to a lesser extent even Sony are both sitting on a veritable mountain of gold in the form of prior games and IP, but do little with them outside of endless remasters and the occasional title added to NSO or PS+. Meanwhile there really aren’t all that many games from prior Xbox generations even worth revisiting, but Microsoft’s loving, slavish attention to backwards compatibility blows the other two platform holder’s feeble efforts out of the water.

@BAMozzy like Big3 mentioned, the ‘animation looking janky’ is a deliberate design decision. It’s what’s known as decimated animation, and is often used to mimic traditional stop motion animation. Probably the best implementation I’ve seen thus far is for the little marionette guy in Death Stranding 2 (I forget its name). Looks absolutely stunning.

It’s that SquareEnix delusional syndrome. ‘If our game doesn’t make One Trillion Dollars, it’s an underperforming failure.’

Of course they aren’t worried. They could literally shove it out the door running at 540p at a framerate more choppy and stuttery than Bloodborne and it would still sell tens of millions on series S alone. It cannot fail.

I didn’t know Bender was Marcus Fenix 😆 I need to pay attention to the credits more often!

Funny, it went from being ‘nothing but a boring walking simulator’ to cheers and toasts overnight.