Benjamin

Somewhere, Donkey Kong and Banjo are hanging out, wondering where their sequels are. Meanwhile, Kazooie is teasing Diddy Kong.

@Cikajovazmaj I think expectations are quite high for it. It’s been a long time since the impressive announce trailer and it’s been slated as a heavy hitter by Xbox since then. But I suspect it will be much like the first game but prettier which doesn’t meet the hype train’s standards.

@shoeses Yeah they were great back then. The Maw was very sweet and ‘Splosion Man was brilliant.

I am absolutely convinced Hellblade 2 will be a big let down.

Where is Banjo-Kazooie? It's a disgrace.

An Xbox exclusive in development hell. Is anyone surprised?

It won’t feature the main theme. From those games. Better off getting the 360 versions of 2 and 3 and emulating 1.

Sounds like 2024 is a good year to upgrade from my One S to a Series console.

30fps is fine for most games.

The regular sized guy complaining about the giant’s pumpkin patch is very Fable and made me giggle. The rest of the trailer massively missed the mark. A little worrying.
When is this thing set? Why was giant Ayoade wearing modern glasses?

D. Mostly CG trailers and no real bangers.

Fable, no release date, no gameplay. Questionable direction.

I hate to say it but Hellblade’s trailer bored me.

Avowed had a bad trailer but the visuals look nice and it did show gameplay, albeit cut like a music video. (Why can’t we have 2-3 minutes of uninterrupted gameplay anymore?)

Nothing else caught my interest. Coalition’s next project and Perfect Dark still MIA which was a shame.

The ancient Persia setting is undercut by the visual style and music. Looks more like a Fortnite spin-off.

The Evil Within. I loved the second one so running through the original. If I still owned a Switch I'd be playing Zelda for sure.

MK9, a reboot, used time travel to remake MK1. Then X told an original chronological story. MK11 went back to time travel and now we have yet another do-over with the upcoming game.

NetherRealm need to tell some straightforward stories and let their world breathe.

An adult Tweeting this out is bizarre. Get a grip!

I'd be more interested in a re-invention of the series. But first they ought to close the current story for those that have enjoyed it.

For Gears 6 I'd have a dying old Marcus trying get JD and Kait back on track before he passes. A nice change of tone, Gears fans are all older now.

Then they can go wild for the third trilogy with completely new places, enemies, characters, conflicts and themes.

I thought Deathloop was a big step down from Dishonored and Prey. Is Redfall much worse than that?

@Kaloudz You sure can with AI voice generators, which might be where lots of franchises are heading. (Hopefully not...)

@Kaloudz A bad story is a bad story, and a bad campaign is a bad campaign, be it a reboot, a sequel or anything else. A reboot won't help if they can't get the fundamentals right. They might as well begin a new IP.

@TheSimulator He was with Bungie since before Halo CE and left after Destiny 1 year 1.

Some great games here but they're all still a lot more money than grabbing a disc from CEX. I was going to shoot for Black Ops 1 but may as well grab a physical version.

Yes I did and it’s mechanically one of the best third person shooters ever made.

I love the character designs in Arkane's games. Especially when they appear as portrait paintings in the environment. One of those little quirks that gives Arkane's games a unique signature.

So this is by Arkane Austin, the Prey team, meaning we might not be seeing a sequel to Prey (2017)?

The moment these deals expire Xbox will utilise the CoD franchise however they need to. Game Pass and multi-platform one year, not Game Pass and exclusive the next - if business deems it the right move.

@themcnoisy I agree with your summary of RPGs but I don't think the right reaction is to keep using an inaccurate term. How far do we extend its meaning? - Microsoft Word has essential menus! (half joking)

Some might say, this mistake is so widespread we may as well adopt it. However, language is a communicative tool, which does evolve but sometimes it evolves in the wrong direction and regresses. I think any change that erodes communication should be remedied rather than accommodated.

The term "RPG" is now so unspecific that when used in reference to a game, further information is needed to clarify what "RPG" means, making the term pretty useless.

Also, your Profile Image gif is tremendous and I salute it.

Starfield, Hollow Knight 2 and Stalker 2 is crazy.

ODST for me. My favourite atmosphere in campaign plus firefight and all of Halo 3's multiplayer. Perfection.

@BrilliantBill Staten wrote Halo 2 but the story was pulled apart as levels were cut during development. The original ending to Halo 2 was one of many things cut, it was supposed to be a big reveal.

Staten went away and wrote the book Contact Harvest which hinted at this big reveal. Halo 3 didn't feature Halo 2's scrapped ending but did hint at the same reveal.

However, Halo 3's marketing and everything 343i onwards, took things in a different direction which nullified Staten's ideas and retconned the hints left in Halo 1, 2, 3 and Contact Harvest.

He then created the world and plot of Destiny before it was also ripped apart and repurposed by Jason Jones' decision to make Destiny non-linear from the get go.

So I don't imagine the passion is there anymore.

*The reveal concerns the Forerunners and if anyone wants to know more you can search for Halo 2's original storyboards to see it. Staten has confirmed this since in an interview with IGN.

Looking at his involvement with Halo, I think he may be done with Halo creatively. He was a writer but his story was scrapped during difficult development and then retconned by others. That must have been a big blow. He departed and wrote a book with full creative control and then led ODST with full creative control. That may have been his closure with the franchise, returning to Halo now is returning to a fiction at odds with the one he wrote. So it's likely that joining Infinite was only business.

Or, he will return when Microsoft have figured out what the heck to do with Halo and have studios on board.

Whenever DLC is mentioned prior to a base game's release, I feel a little overwhelmed by the sheer amount of impending content and choice. No joke. Puts me off playing the game. Anyone else?

So what form will this expansion take? FromSoft usually create a brand new area that's warped to from the main game. But as ER is open-world, will they shoot for something different this time?

@Kaloudz They are definitely expansion packs rather than dlc.

@BrilliantBill I really liked the first game's focus on one small scale mission, the backdrop being this larger than life world with a mystery at its core. Gears 2 dropped that for a bigger scale, but my main beef with Ortega is the handling of the Locust origin story and the melodramatic character work. The first game, for all the chainsaws and curb stomps, is understated in some ways whereas the sequels were much more bombastic.

TL:DR
I prefer Gears when its Saving Private Ryan rather than Aliens.

@Sam_TSM Me too but I don't think you play downloaded GamePass games offline. Not much more of a step.

@Sam_TSM What if you could just use the tv. All you need is a controller and the subscription?

I recently tried XCloud on a whim and haven't used my Xbox One since, currently playing Halo 5 and Pentiment via cloud. I'm contemplating playing PS5 exclusives this way without needing the PS5. I'm shocked.

@BrilliantBill I've been saying it since 2008!

Ortega ruined the tone and story of the franchise.

Add Rare Replay to Switch you monsters.

Will it get accolades from Press or nominations at the Game Awards or will it be the elephant in the room all year? Talk about the silent majority...

I watched the first episode and its just as revealing as the Halo 2 making of (which everyone should go watch). Refreshing to see a warts and all behind the scenes.

I voted for PGR because it’s my favourite racing series. I like Hit and Run but it needs a full remake whereas PGR still holds up perfectly.

@BrilliantBill They are both friendly fantasy. Most fantasy settings are violent and more akin to gritty sci-fi stories e.g. Political divisions among factions and creatures, rather than stories of heroes and villains.

The similarity to Fable is the main interest I have in getting it.

Xbox already has plenty at its disposal to compete with Sony.
It also has the jump on every other company regarding game subscription services. This deal will ensure Xbox dominates.

If Microsoft comes into possession of these major franchises they will mismanage and doom all of them, as they've done for every franchise they own bar Forza.

@Wheatly You can get a physical copy for £2.50.

What's the tone of the writing like in this game? Is it tongue in cheek or humour filled? Been playing Fable 3 recently. Any comedic similarity?

Dead Space is definitely a "third-person action game with a spooky setting" and not a "proper survival horror game".

Inventory management is not important and you are regularly well equipped for combat, even on harder difficulties.

Bollocks to that