Elbow

There's a good few other games on sale too, not that I blame you for not including each one. This seems like a much more modest sale this week, which is probably for the best. Easier on abused wallets before.... the winter sales approach.

This is one of the... concerns I've had with specialized studios. Eat breathe and sleep Halo or Gears for so long, you're going to get sick of it. Even giving them the smallest chance to try something else even if that's a small tiny little IP of a new game inbetween endless sequels seems like such a no brainer.

So it makes sense UL would like to do more than just make zombie survival games forever, even if said type of game will always be their priority. I dunno. I personally wish 343 and Coalition had this kind of opportunity, too.

Variety is the spice of life. Also I would've loved to play whatever the hell Black Tusk (now coalition) was working on pre-Gears transformation.

@everynowandben it's moreso Bethesda screwing over other devs. It's all a pretty sore point. I loved Prey, and was so excited for Prey 2, only for Bethesda to ruin things. And then they slap the name of the IP on something completely unrelated without a care in the world.

I know, or at least am fairly certain, Arkane wasn't guilty of this incident and it was Bethesda higher ups. I plan to play it someday, I just haven't got over the annoyance of the whole situation to finally put money down on it.

@Balaam_ Same here. Raven and Beenox being freed from the COD mines gave me so much hype, then I realized it was just lip service to fuel the merger hype and nothing else.

Ah well. You know the saying; death, taxes, and CoD.

@Arkz I am. I grew up with an N64 and had easy access to most of the platformer heavy hitters, but I was still jealous of Crash, Spyro, and Croc players.

Rented a PS1 once and had Croc and the original Spider-Man Neversoft game with it. I loved Croc despite the controls not being what I expected at the time, and Spider Man BLEW MY MIND having so much voice acting and cutscenes compared to the N64 version. Point is, yes, even while sitting in the green fields of platformer utopia that was N64, I still wanted Croc! (..and Crash and Spyro naturally)

@BigRedPaper I've still not so much as given new Prey a sideways glance. Prey is the 2006 game, Prey is Tommy. Not whatever the corporate suits wants it to be.

We're trading off the online multiplayer for the rest of the improvements. I am surprised it didn't get an Xbox port, though, but I guess that would give them justification to just silently kill the MP servers for the original.

I do use the Xbox app but it's had problems for years. I made the mistake of wanting to install Halo MCC once, and for the next three years the Xbox app repeatedly tried to force install if I had the AUDACITY to uninstall, or notify me of DLC it wasnt installing for some reason. No matter what I tried the app was hellbent on ensuring that, no, you WILL have Halo installed. I dread to think of how much SSD life that shredded.

I sure hope these improvements aren't just UI related.

This game still handles and feels like a Unity demo. I have no idea what the devs have been doing with all the money from the game but I've sure not seen any go back into it.

I was REALLY excited for this game and I ended up being underwhelmed. When I realized the damage modifier basically tuned your output to 0 when you weren't skating on a wire and that that was mandatory to do anything to enemies... really soured it for me. The dialogue of some NPCs was also grating but that's minor in comparison.

@Ryne-Gaia good lord you are B U S Y. I gotta say though as a fellow fan of FF14 and Suda51, I try to replay Shadows of the Damned every Halloween too. Nice to see someone else shares that tradition!

I'll eventually get to this CoD.. my backlog is growing miles wider every time I turn around. I still need to finish CoD3, picked that up in June!

Suicide Squad already at 80% discount. WB desperate to make anything off that mess.

@Ralizah It's one of very few positive corporate world stories I can recall. Class act.

Well, I'm shocked he took any sort of pay cut. Even if it was literally worthless to him.

FYI the owner of Texas Roadhouse took a massive salary cut during covid to ensure layoffs wouldn't happen and staff wouldn't be affected. American companies can actually take care of their people, it just shows the caliber of the suits who don't even pretend to care while prancing around about their money.

@Medic_alert Context really matters here. Bethesda and ABK games staying multiplat? Sure, that's good (and I do think Starfield should be ported, as should Redfall but we know that isn't happening) 1st party games going multiplat? Not so much.

I just want to know what the hell Everwild IS. It's been puttering about since the Xbox One generation, that's how long we've been waiting. Dude.

@fatpunkslim Well, don't say never to their big name games getting ported... I hope they don't, but we're at such a strange point that you really can't know for certain if it will or won't happen. Phil lied about Indiana Jones, and if he was confident to state that only for it to wind up wrong months later, what else could happen?

Weird it's GOG exclusive on PC, but it hitting the older gen systems is great.

@Markatron84 Thank you, I was certain that was the case but was feeling less confident about it after I edited my post lol

I wouldn't bet on it. Sony truly hates Xbox, so unless Xbox struck some kind of insane deal where Sony exclusively benefitted from the port, I don't think they'd do it. They've already caved to porting to Nintendo, even if it's just one game, but still.

I think just as much as Xbox wants to die on the hill of "exclusives hurt everyone", Sony wants to die on the hill of "screw Xbox"

Edit: Yes I'm aware MLB The Show is a Sony game on Xbox, but correct me if I'm wrong, isn't that due to the rights negotiations demanding The Show be multiplat or they'd walk? Basically an instance where Sony had the choice to make more money or none at all.

Nothing says delicious like sour shots heated by your console. The idea makes me kind of nauseous.

Novel idea I suppose, alcoholics gaming in style. (I'm being sarcastic.)

I remember Microsoft shooting themselves in the foot with the marketing, big shock. Stapling Conker onto the E3 trailer really screwed with expectations. Still, huge shame this died. This and Dreams were both very special.

Anyone remember a Linkin Park song debuted with Project Spark's announcement? Good times.

It still surprises me how supported this game was. I really enjoy it, but it was like a quiet juggernaut in the background, not making many waves but going strong enough for, what, six years of support? That's crazy.

I'll be sad to see SOD2 fade away but here's hoping SOD3 is a proper evolution.

Actually genuinely surprised this is a good licensed game. I don't mind stealth, enjoy it actually, but it seems like it might get mind-numbingly tedious at times based on this review.

Well I'm glad they at least didn't try to downplay that fact. Bloober Team has been dire and anytime I've seen their name on anything it's been a guaranteed kiss of death. I don't even trust the reviews for the SH2 remake, that's how horrid I find their work. We'll see, though.

@Simplejohn They did say that. I guess you're not too big into reading articles on a text-only website? They quite literally link to the GameSpot article where they say it.

@ZeD You can play offline/single player, but you will always have 3 AI teammates with you. But yes, you can play without other actual people needing to join your team.

Basically yes, just trying to be as clear as I can.

A lot of repeat names in here. Not complaining, just kind of funny to constantly see Back 4 Blood on sale. It's a really good game for what it's worth, the post release updates fixed everything and really tightened it up, making it worthy of all the L4D comparisons. Is it as good as L4D? Eye of the beholder on that one, but I adore it.

@Utena-mobile I still think about that Mega Bloks game from time to time. I'm really not much of a Halo fan, super casual at best, but that looked so cool.

That 2TB is enticing, then I see the price tag and cry. I'm still running a dinosaur 512gb Xbox One S. Even double that amount of storage (my 512) won't do much nowadays.

Is Frog Detective worth playing before it leaves the service? I didn't even know it was on GP until this moment, though if it's a long game I should just wait for a sale..

I actually appreciate the "free" (with subscription) movies as I use the Movies & TV app pretty consistently. And even while I personally think even the comic is a neat idea for a perk, these still aren't that great. Better than endless F2P perks, I guess?

Can't lie, if/when they release World at War on gamepass I will go crazy. Seeing those servers full again... it'll bring a tear to my eyes.

Now just put the damn DLC on sale! Blops2 season pass goes on sale, and original MW2 dlc is given away for free. Why no others?

@Arcticpandapopz You and me both. I'm not paying full price for Dragon Age Origins DLC when I bought the complete edition of Inquisition for $4.99. I know that's kind of an odd comparison, but I know EA can and will put stuff on sale. I guarantee you it would earn them a pretty penny like FEAR 3 recently did for WB

Cool idea, until the mic picks up the sound of someone slamming a car door outside or the neighbors dog starts barking its tiny idiot head off.

Not trying to downplay the cool idea here. Just realizing how easy accidental sabotage can be with this enabled.

It's pretty simple, if flagship games get ported to competitor consoles, there is no longer trust in their own hardware and platform.

Problem is, that's already happened. Sea of Thieves was Xbox's very quiet white flag wave. It was the first "home grown" game purely built for Xbox to get booted over, with Grounded and Pentiment following. This means that any of Xbox's "first party" games are all likely to, and probably will, be ported over.

I dont mind Bethesda and Acti games still being released on other platforms, they SHOULD. First party releases are a very slippery slope however. And they've already started sliding down it.

I dont want to sound completely doom and gloom, I still play on Xbox. I just really don't think this is going to get better.

Honestly I hope this is a wakeup call for WB. Being stingy with games that aren't Lego or DC doesn't mean jack if no one buys them. You don't have to devalue your games like Ubisoft does mere days after release to see the potential in discounts.

I remember trying this and being annoyed by the weird control scheme. I didn't get too far but I should try again. I really don't know why it bothered me so much.

@Bigmanfan Indeed! Here is a video where the director of the game speaks on prototyping using UE. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0oGNrfVCEE

But of course you can check other areas for sources, or even boot the game up to get that ol' UE logo.

The pessimist in me says the rebranding was done purely to get past the rancid stench that the name 343 carried. I'll hold off on any claims until seeing a proper game, but I sure hope this isn't just a desperate Hail Mary toss.

@Branovices Hi-Fi Rush was done on Unreal. Fortnite is basically UE's flagship game now and it's a very cartoony game. It's up to the devs, but looking at just these samples shows it can be done. So long as devs don't lean into the default textures that come with UE..

@HarmanSmith TSA feels like a funky low budget game, which is fair since it is. As cool as it is it's also a very drab game where you go from poorly-textured boxy rooms to fight in other poorly-textured boxy rooms for 8 hours.

Outright Games as the publisher really was all that needed to be said. Shame, especially with this surprisingly interesting concept.

@HarmanSmith Not wholly related to the subject of this thread but I need to properly finish Killer7 soon. I replay No More Heroes pretty frequently but am slacking on Killer7, and even the second Silver Case.

I'm still annoyed that some major games aren't part of it.

Master Chief Collection, Minecraft Dungeons — why are these not part of it? Even if you want to make the argument for MCC, okay, but why not Minecraft Dungeons? Or Legends? There's cross-progression so they obviously thought it out, but it's... just not there?

If Phil wants more games in Play Anywhere, he should start by actually putting all of his games in it.

(And I'm a huge fan of play anywhere, I love it. I'm just frustrated by these choices. I have made some purchases on Xbox over Steam SOLELY for Play Anywhere, and even double dipped on certain games like Back 4 Blood.)

@Fiendish-Beaver Hell monkeys aren't ready!

It's crazy that Shadows and Lollipop Chainsaw both got remasters within a month of each other. Both were made by Grasshopper.

@Markatron84 This makes perfect sense since I randomly dropped in a fictional character against an actual good point you were making, but still

NOOOOOOOO

Sony hasn't proven the power of the base PS5. Xbox, also, has not proven the power of the Series X. A pro upgrade is INSANE. I guess the PS5Pro makes certain games look less blurry on pausing? Something? Sure that's kind of neat, but not for that price tag. Or any price tag.

Microsoft was smart not to do this. I think they know that, too. This has been the silliest console generation.

@TheSimulator Unfortunately its not as easy as snapping your fingers to get a working console port. Knowing Microsoft, they probably want a console port for ALL current systems at the same time. Of course an Xbox port first would be nice, but they hardly give a damn at this point. They couldn't even give Indiana Jones a quiet six month window of exclusivity, having to giddily reveal its coming to PS5 well before the launch of the Xbox version.

@Markatron84 I'll take that bet, I think Hermes (Futurama) could pull it off.

@GuyinPA75 Christ. I thought the carbon reduction was at least a nice gesture, but that is completely insane. All that power just to have lobotimized AI fueling workworkworkworkwork.

We're circling the drain one Bing search at a time!