Elbow

Well this is good, Xbox has really been hurting for a win. Ending the year on a happy note!

The genuinely crazy part is that Everwild was announced as an Xbox One game... and now it might be one of the final games released on the Series consoles, as we're in the final year's for that system. Development problems are an understatement.

I've bought a lot of digital games this year. I'm talking absurd numbers. It's also at a point where I live in such a small place that I could not hold/keep more physical games with me like I could in the 360/PS3 days.

I picked up the Mega Man X bundle, No Straight Roads, and the absurdly titled "Marsupilami: Hoobadventure". There are a few other games I have my eye on, but these were the first.

Currently playing No Straight Roads on xbox! It's a rhythm combat game, a MUCH lower budget than Hi-Fi Rush but it also came out three years before Hi-Fi. The game is a bit on the shorter side and is rough around the edges but it has so much heart that it easily makes up for it. Also, the music in this game blows Hi-Fi's non-licensed music out of the water.

This game is also currently like $6 on Xbox and Steam due to the Christmas sales. If you've wanted to try another game like Hi-Fi, give this one a look! Even just take a peek at a trailer to see if you might be interested. I love this goofy little game, it oozes charm and passion.

Also, I'm playing a bit of the absurdly-titled Marsupilami: Hoobadventure. It's a very competent Donkey Kong Country Returns clone, though a bit on the easier side. Nice for low stress sessions or to chill out.

@TTgowings I still haven't seen that, but it's been showing up in my recommended feed via clips. I think I'm gonna watch it over Christmas week.

I do find it amusing that Walton Goggins has become a common name with Fallout. I remember watching Sons of Anarchy... he had quite an interesting role that he put himself wholly into. He's an impressive actor.

I am also surprised Bethesda has managed to salvage the sinking ship that was 76. Six years strong with no signs of ending, that's truly impressive after that nearly universally despised launch. I just wish that silly Battle Royale mode was still in the game... it's a dumb enough concept in a game like this to get me to play it for ages.

Even if not at a potential January event we have to hear something about Everwild and Contraband sometime this year. They've been around for ages with nothing to show for them, which is crazy to think about.

As well as likely getting a release date for South of Midnight, these are the three things I think are basically mandatory for some kind of announcement this year, even if not release dates for the first two games I mentioned.

While the implications of "everything is an Xbox" bothers me, I'm glad there are people actually seeing the good in it. There will be no surprise to hear my admittance that I have a doomer perspective, but it comes from a place of concern for Xbox, not hate.

I want this to be good. This is the one announcement in recent years that has really caught my attention, I just don't know if they tightened up the combat since the last preview. It looked, from previous footage shown, like the worst aspect of the game.

@Ricky-Spanish Judging by your confusion, you're a good guy. Unfortunately there are some people out there who take delight in such awful things. It's a real thing that I'm not going to elaborate on, but humans suck. Real bad.

@Markatron84 Well I never said the story was great.... because yeah that alone really brings the rating down a good bit

@Utena-mobile The whole thing feels like the monkey's paw curl. Xbox gets the most developers they've ever had, gearing up for an unspeakable amount of things on the way, annnnnnnnd they just spiked their console out the window onto the freeway.

@Bionic-Spencer Unrelated but BC 09 was amazing. So underrated. Great name. I've got the physical OST on my shelf.

@Utena-mobile It really does, and the most frustrating part is that we know the why's. It's really, really clear to see how it went wrong multiple times in the span of 12 months.

@Banjo- good LORD what in the world. How can they keep going with that kind of mounting debt?

@Banjo- Are Sony actually in the red? Of course Concord was a huge blow and Lego Horizon seeming... to just exist. But i havent heard that they're in panic mode. Im not doubting you either, just surprised to hear.

It's really disheartening. Sure, they're releasing a new console, but what's the point if there will be no exclusives? That's what you need to draw people in. For some reason Phil really hates that idea.

How do you plan to grow gamepass while scaring off your current player base? You can't have your cake and, um, romance it too. You have to pick a lane and commit. Sony and Nintendo know that...

I just don't know how they think they can swoop in and take Steam on when they have nothing special to offer. No exclusives, shaky track record, a smaller library, and a pretty poor PC app. There's no world where a Lethal Company releases on this handheld and takes the world by storm with Xbox's current blundering.

@DarthCvrle66 As others have stated, Sony has already done this with MLB The Show. Granted, this was apparently a demand from the license holders (port to everything and keep the license or do nothing as we take it elsewhere.)

And there may be suggestions that Sony had a similar deal with LEGO. It couldn't just be on PlayStation, hence a Switch and PC port. If Xbox comes 6 months after, we'll know there was some intentional delayed release. Though I also wouldn't be surprised if Sony played hardball and demanded Xbox be excluded. That's a hill they'd love to die on.

Shame they couldn't make it work, but they obviously aren't skipping Xbox physical because it's funny. An alternative to this in the future might be to crowdfund the required total $ required to print the minimum amount of disc's.

Dire days for physical only.

I will say that the surprise would have been if Outer Worlds 2 WAS exclusive. It wasn't even a Microsoft game to begin with, and it released on everything to boot. Xbox continuing that is not a surprise.

"Home grown" games like Avowed are where my concern lies.

Despite the fact SS got so much wrong, this is a huge plus. Any game, good or bad, should not be lost to time or made inaccessible.

@Utena-mobile Creative does this, but unfortunately they've shackled so much of each mode into Battle Royale that they can't make each mode optional. It would be a really smart idea though, my likelihood of ever running Rocket Racing again is somewhere around hell freezing over.

I'm actually really excited about this mode. Putting the game modes in Fortnite rather than making an entirely new game can help with variety. I really get bored to tears of just playing battle royale.. and I adore the Festival mode. More variety is just a good thing, so long as it's high quality.. which unfortunately Rocket Racing was not. I really, really, really hoped it was going to be their take on Mario Kart, not just timetrial tryhards.

Plus playing as Donatello (TMNT) and sniping someone trying to plant the bomb at B site will be something I can say has happened in my life. This game just generates the dumbest meme tier fanfic at every corner and I am guilty in loving it.

@Markatron84 And that's a perfectly understandable reaction!

....Just gotta take the good with the OH GOD IT'S BAD IT'S BAD.

Hey, as painful as it is to admit, Wolfenstein 2 is not their last proper release... Youngblood should never be forgotten, @Kezelpaso !

A herculean amount of effort went into that game. Just... y'know. Not where it mattered.

Sports Illustrated??? Game reviewing?? That's perhaps even more puzzling than The Thing itself.

@dreadful Hey I've talked with people that bought an Xbox One X only to play Skate 3, or Borderlands 2 at buffed resolutions. What is weird to one person might be the only or major interest for another.

As long as he's enjoying himself, and I hope he is with that many hours put in, that's what matters.

Wow, some unexpected picks in here. Never thought I'd see Bonkers get any kind of modern release.

Which Aladdin/Lion King games are these? Because they're already available to purchase and download, both Genesis and SNES versions.

And Goof Troop! Such a great game, the music was fantastic.

I thought he went to PlayStation, I remember his infamous outburst at the server issues. Cool to see that time played, but DAMN that's a lot of hours for football.

Microsoft Solitaire Collection is your #1 game for 2024!
...Okay. That's not what I expected, I did play it a lot though. It's a very soothing game.

Total time: 1,572h | Games played: 143 | Achievements: 1,504
top 2% for time played, top 1% for Gamerscore, top 1% for achievements unlocked
Note my time is shared between my old Xbox One and my current PC.

The stupid thing is all these companies trying a free-to-play game and expecting it to IMMEDIATELY get Fortnite money. Even they had to slave away and throw multiple hail mary's to get to that level. Hell, Epic/Fortnite had to grovel out of court with PlayerUnknown/Bluehole over a breach of contract.

You need to aim low with your expectations and budget accordingly, and work towards going higher. I don't know why every company fails to understand that, except maybe Hi-Rez, though they've been nosediving hard as of late. (RIP Realm Royale)

God I remember back in 2009 I was playing Dark Sector with my friends and we'd pause after commercials to watch the Spike game awards while talking about it over party chat., then start another match. Even back then we hated it lol.

Probably Indy and/or Xbox announcing more ports to PS5.

I'd buy it. Shenmue is a janky prototype to Yakuza, but I still love the games.

@Edwirichuu lol that's not the point, thanks for ignoring it completely. They could've not released an Xbox One version if they are this incompetent at supporting it. It's on them to provide a working product if they put it up for sale on Xbox One.

More than anything, I'm surprised Batman is still selling so well. Not that it's a bad thing, not at all. It's just surprising-- who hasn't bought Arkham Knight at this point? (..Plenty, I'm sure, it's just always surprising to see!)

I've been wondering when this was going to drop. I'm going to hold off on a day 1 purchase juuuust in case this turns into another BLOOD incident, but I'm really excited for this. John Carpenter even endorsed this game back when it came out, which I think makes it canonical?

(Edit: If you're curious what "Blood Incident" means, it refers to a weird situation where Nightdive botched the release of another game they remastered. They DID fix the issues with patches, but it released as a weird mess. Summary of the incident in this youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkG29e-nE-A )

@Millionski If you think what he said is gloom and doom (it wasn't, it was some mild criticism and concern), you might faint from shock at comments in other articles where Xbox gets torn down to the bone.

@GuyinPA75 Microsoft already closed their physical disc division. They officially threw in the towel on making discs earlier this year.

@GuyinPA75 While I did mean curse words and unflattering terms to refer to them, I know what you mean. Though I don't think it's that bad, I do know for every critical person there are people who think anything but positivity shouldn't be allowed. I think there needs to be some middle ground for both.

Despite not being that big a fan of survival games, I love this game to bits. I just wish they'd actually support the Xbox One version. It's absolutely unplayable.

And before you comment, they knowingly sold it to Xbox One owners at the start of this year and have hardly done anything to improve it. I own it on Steam, but that doesn't let them get away with a truly terrible console port.

Still, that said I'm looking forward to this update. Time to get the fuzzy menaces back to work on the factory lines!

Typically, I want large corporations to... well I can't say my true thoughts here or I'll get my comment removed/perhaps timed out from commenting. But my opinion is not very positive when they're rabbling at each other for money.

You have to download the Xbox app from Google Play so I already side with Google 's argument on this one. If the Xbox app was exclusively sideloaded, then I could see Xbox's argument.

What's wrong, Xbox? Does everything being an Xbox suddenly not look so rosy and shiny?

I bought lots of FF games, Kingdom Hearts collectio, and Crisis Core on Xbox just to support the Xbox getting those versions. I have a much more powerful PC but I put my money where my mouth is...

Right now I'm playing XIII, the remaster/remake of the original comic book FPS. Its... okay. It would've been better to just release the original version as a BC title instead. The original is still stunning, while this.. is competent.

I'm also playing No Straight Roads: Encore Edition (basically just the original game with improvements and extras). It's a 3rd person combat game about hijacking EDM concerts and bringing rock music back to the world. If you've played Hi-Fi Rush and enjoyed it, give this a look. NSR came out 4 years before Hi-Fi Rush was even a thing, and its awesome. The soundtrack is FANTASTIC.

Like seriously, if you liked HiFi at all, at least give NSR's trailer a watch. It's part Psychonauts, part Jet Set Radio, part angel soul.

I was really excited for these when it was first announced. I foolishly thought Microsoft might DO something with them, like in the 360 era. Not even close.

And then I was looking at what Nintendo was doing at the time with the Miis (the 3DS was still around at that point) and hoping Xbox was going to compete with that, and wow... my expectations were way too high for the absolute nothingness Xbox had planned with them.

@WildConcept6 Interesting! I was under the impression Sony had a lock on Spider Man in video games, seeing even how in the ill fated Avengers game he was a PlayStation exclusive. I thought that might somehow tie in to any release for the IP, which wouldn't surprise me if it would let them block Xbox bringing back old Acti games, considering Sony's giant hateboner for Xbox.

@shoeses You're right on WoS and EoT. I loved Web, Spidey's combat flow felt so good. That whole game was just an injection of everything I want out of a Spider Man game. Great combat, heavy doses of Venom, and insane replay value for the alternate endings.

My rant aside, I wholly agree. Especially with Reshelled being an odd amalgamation of new and old, bringing the 03 cast into things. It was stupid fun.

There's been so much smoke around these games that the fire has to be somewhere close. With Hasbro even saying they'd like to get the Transformers games out and available again.

I dont know how the Sony deal works. Would that impact older games like Shattered Dimensions getting a re-release, or could they get away with just having the original versions re-added to storefronts?

Still, I hope this paves a way for older TMNT games to return to storefronts. Turtles in Time Reshelled, while flawed, was still fun. And I need Mutants in Manhattan.

... I'll even take Out of the Shadows. Getting a bit desperate there but I hate that all these games were lost to time due to licensing.

(PS: Xbox you own both Bethesda and Acti, why is Wolfenstein 09 still MIA??)

Not bad. Seems to be a little smoother than the Bethesda jank I'm used to with a first to third person camera toggle. Need to get my hands on it to get a proper idea, but this is reassuring for a quick look.

@clnabhan It's also a bit of a forward thinking thing. Obviously right now it's just optional to use the ability to stream your library, and I hope it stays as just an optional choice... but Xbox directly stated years ago that their real competitor was Stadia. It got memory holed because of how fast Stadia imploded, but thinking forward to this future of "every screen is an Xbox", where it's streaming only, will it be a future where Xbox no longer makes hardware and stops supporting the old consoles? Where your digital library and content is only accessible via streaming, which is locked behind paying for GPU/a stream only tier?

The concern comes because this is something that has to be asked now, before it's too late. It might not happen 5 years from now, maybe 10, 11, or 12 years. But the concern is that theres a very clear goal they're aiming for, or could be, in how every screen is an Xbox and every users library is another way to generate monthly revenue. Pay to access what you've already purchased.

@Trmn8r This is a very fair point. And I still use Movies & TV. Downloading is still an option though, even when obvious caveats. It's still there, so I hope that will be a thing for games too.

I know I'm sounding giga-doomer just spouting the worst case scenario, it comes from a place of concern, not hate.