Feffster

@Fenbops - thanks. So I guess there isn’t much incentive for them to sign? What benefit would they gain from it vs opposing the deal?

So let’s roll this forward and assume the merger does go through….if by then Sony has refused to accept the offered 10 year deal, does that mean they are left with their trousers down and no guarantee of CoD, etc beyond current contractual obligations? If so, that would be just desserts for acting like a spoilt child.

@Tharsman - well said, and also a couple of AoE games, plus Goldeneye and likely Ghostwire Tokyo.

If that’s an empty year then I’m happy to have one every year.

Blimey I’m old, this reminded me I loved Links Golf back in the day on the original Xbox.

@CaptnDave - obviously you can change drivatar difficulty, racing line, assists, etc in the options but I’d also say experiment with the car types and find one they like the feel of. Ferraris, etc might look cool but are not always the easiest to handle, they might find a less powerful car, or a 4x4 is easier for their style.

Sudden Strike. Best game on GWG for ages.

Not completed, but 7/10 so far. Enjoying the graphics, puzzles and the nod to Bioshock.

Good but not brilliant.

…another patch today…12.37gb, downloading.

Looks superb, really looking forward to this.

Sensitivity and dead zone reset back to default and the drifting camera when stationary seems to have gone.

Something still weird about turning though - movement seems to sometimes stall for a millisecond before you move in the chosen direction.

Brief first look, but -

@grumpypotato - I agree about the camera turning, definitely something weird going on. Also the camera seems to ‘drift’ when your character is stationary which is a bit nauseating and very odd.

Graphics are good, looking forward to getting further into this but hope the controller issues don’t spoil it.

@FraserG - it would be rude not to. Best Gamepass game of 2022. The only game I 100% completed last year, but took me c14 hrs to do everything.

This should be right up my street - I loved Command and Conquer back in the day and still play skirmishes on Halo Wars 1&2 most weeks. However, I’m struggling a bit with the control system - probably just my pea brain, but I’m a long way off mastering my armies just yet.

Enjoying it so far though, I’ve dispatched the English from Scotland and am now taking them on as Joan of Arc.

Better than nothing, but still perplexed as to why the XB360 version wasn’t tweaked for release on Series consoles.

Looks spectacular, so no problem waiting a little longer.

Can’t play for another 10 days as I’m away from home…..damn, looking forward to trying this out as the N64 version consumed a lot of my life before I got old and grey!

Disappointing to hear only 30fps but the warning signs were there when the blurb mentioned “smoother” frame rate, not 60.

Maybe the tech heads can work their magic and make this a candidate for FPS boost at a later date.

I’m happy to know what’s coming, even if it’s years away - but keep the hype in check until the final 6 months before release.

@EvenStephen7 - agreed, and the current general lack of communication on GP is very odd.

Hopefully we’ll get some sort of clarity this week on new GP games but the Twitter ‘coming soon, soon’ nonsense is bordering on being childish. Do MS even have any concept of what is ‘soon’? - it’s months since they told us Goldeneye was coming to Gamepass ‘soon’.

Part of the fun of gaming (and Gamepass) is looking forward to what’s coming next. Why they are currently removing that anticipation is beyond me.

Excellent news, shaping up to be a phenomenal year for Xbox.

I’m going to be optimistic for a change, maybe 2023 will be a big year for Xbox…

Jan - Age of Empires 2
Feb - Goldeneye
March/April - Forza Motorsport
May - Redfall
June - Starfield
July/Aug - FH 5 2nd DLC
Sept - Hellblade 2
Oct - Gears collection
Nov - new Wolfenstein game
Dec - Avowed, Age of Empires 4

& while we’re in dreamland, I win the biggest ever lottery jackpot sometime around Christmas 2023.

5- Tinykin
4- AC Odyssey
3 - AC Origins
2- Deathloop
1 - GRID Legends

Tough choice though, could easily have included A Plague Tale Requiem, Inside, Mass Effect, Immortals Fenix Rising and more.

For the life of me I just can’t get excited about Ray Tracing at all - it’s like emperor’s new clothes to me. Performance mode is great though and I’ve enjoyed it so far despite the slightly ‘clunky’ controls (perhaps I’ve just played too much AC Odyssey).

Certainly no complaints for a £5.99 game!

I know I’m in the minority but I found it terrible. Performance has improved following the patches (it was abysmal before them) but try as I might I just can’t get any enjoyment from this game.

I wanted to like it, so much so that I installed, uninstalled and then reinstalled to give it another go - but to me the gameplay is just bland. Needless to say it’s been uninstalled again. No harm in trying on Gamepass though, and clearly there are plenty of people who do like it.

@themightyant - thanks 👍

Smashing game, great addition to Gamepass

@Cyberpsycho - thanks, I thought it had all gone a bit quiet.

No thanks, I’m happy with GPU - but it may suit some.

Btw, does anyone know happened to Ubisoft +? It must be 12 months since Ubisoft and Microsoft said it was coming to Xbox “soon”.

@BAMozzy - to be clear, I’m not here for an argument - simply to express my opinion.

However, I think you’ve missed my point, or maybe I haven’t made it clearly enough.

In summary -

I get GWG ‘free’ as I subscribe to GPU.
I see it as a bonus and I’m not stressed about what’s on it or not.
However, I do think this year’s offerings have been generally ‘poor’ (with some exceptions as I said above).
That’s my opinion which is subjective, but also that of lots of others (hence the large number of E & F votes).
I’m not bothered about the financial value of the games offered.
The value of a game to me is whether I like it or not, it isn’t based upon its financial cost. Hence I’m indifferent on whether there should be AAA games included, but if there are then I’m happy to accept them.
I don’t agree with your assessment of remakes of these older games - Powerslave/Exhumed is one of the best remakes of a classic game ever made - certainly not “ some old 20+ yr old game dug up from the grave of history, ported to modern hardware as cheaply as possible” as you state above.
As I said above, I’m not suggesting that GWG should just be about older games or remakes. Again, I’m quite happy to see newer or indie titles included….with the proviso that they are good ones, that raise the standard of GWG which is currently generally poor.
I appreciate that opinions on games are subjective, but using something like metacritic to assess whether a game is generally well received isn’t a bad start point.

I’m happy to stand by my original post - GWG needs to improve or be killed off.

This is my last post on the subject but go ahead and have the final word. In the meantime I’m off to play Portal 2 - one of this year’s better offerings on GWG.

@BAMozzy - I would just like to see an overall improvement in the quality in the games offered with GWG (compared to those offered in 2022). No, I don’t expect AAA titles to be included, but obviously wouldn’t turn them away if they were.

My examples are subjective & happen to be older games/remakes but I’d be more than happy to see newer & indie titles too, just so long as they raise the standard.

The general opinion shown by the poll above is that currently GWG simply isn’t good enough & I completely agree.

@BAMozzy - fair point, and my suggestions are subjective but I still think that there must be a raft of games out there that would be “cheap” for Microsoft to license that would be higher quality than most of the offerings on GWG this past 12 months.

If GWG offerings were generally and consistently of a high standard this thread and discussion wouldn’t exist.

As I said above, GWG needs to improve or be killed off. I’m not bothered either way, but in its current state it is pretty irrelevant.

A few decent offerings (Portal 2, Hue and Radiant Silvergun) but not enough and mostly a huge disappointment.

GWG needs to improve or be killed off. I still think it has a place, if only they’d look at adding some golden oldies like Powerslave, Shadowman, Strangers Wrath or Toy Soldiers HD. There must be scores of above average games that M$ could hoover up and add for very small beer.

@EliJapan - I haven’t voted as I couldn’t see Tinykin on the list. I think it deserves some love, cracking little game.

Most of my time seems to have been taken up with older games which obviously aren’t on the list - but from this year Tinykin followed by Deathloop for me.

Performance is night and day after the patch, it was a total mess on Series X before it. Surely there was a way for Microsoft and the Publisher to better coordinate the launch to coincide with the day 1 patch, even if it meant delaying the GP release by a few hours.

Microsoft need to get ahead of this in future - imagine the damage if something similar happens around Starfield or Redfall

At the moment 4/10 is generous in the extreme…..but…..9.92gb patch now available and maybe this will save the day. I was looking forward to this game and more than willing to give it another try if the patch fixes the abysmal performance on Series X

Downloading now, fingers crossed….

… December 14 Patch Notes
・General crash and proress blocker fixes, including bad respawn in Douglas Mission and Jetpack tutorial.
・Improved PC performance across various hardware configurations.
・Improved performance across Xbox One, and Xbox Series platforms.
・Improved UI text and button readability.
・Localization fixes for incorrect/missing translations, subtitle timing, and overall readability.
・Fixed combat music playing at inappropriate times and music getting stuck during Krubis and Douglas missions.
・Fixed Blorto's menu to display player's warp crystal count accurately and adding a single-purchase limit to Warp Discs
・Fixed commercials starting before the previous video completes.
・Fixed subtitles from remaining on screen after leaving the area or concluding conversations
・Improved recommended default video quality settings detection on PC

I’ve tried 120hz and also experimented to see if turning VRR off might help (?!) but performance is still no better. On my Series X it seems to run at 30fps (or sometimes worse) but with occasional jumps to 60fps which creates a nauseating effect for me.

I hope it gets patched to run at a steady 60fps as I’d like to give this a second chance.

@Dreamcaster9999 - that’s interesting. I’m playing on Series X

Early days but that 3/10 might actually be on the generous side! I was looking forward to this but initial impressions are that it is a mess. I’ve been searching the menus for a performance option but there doesn’t seem to be one - what we’re left with is a wildly inconsistent frame rate and juddery graphics that the motion blur fails miserably to conceal. The chatter is pretty annoying but at least the frequency of that can be reduced or turned off completely.

Completely unimpressed so far.

@BBB - it’s completely new to me, I’m looking forward to getting stuck in over the hols. Just awaiting the upgrade which looks excellent.

I’d wager most of these will be on sale again before the end of the year. I did snaffle The Witcher 3 though, it would have been rude not to.

Good list, Dishonoured 2 and RDR2 are crying out for 60fps. As FPS boost doesn’t work for Dishonoured 2 then a remaster/series upgrade would be welcome- come on Arcane, you can do it!

Quantum Break could do with a fps boost too.

Harsh, their error so I think morally they should stomach the cost. If I walk into Tesco and they have a nice bottle of red marked up for a £1 then I expect them to honour the price, error or not.

I wonder how many people this affected, it was taken down pretty sharpish in any event so it can’t have been a big dent for a company with $69bn burning a hole.

I snaffled The Witcher 3 - only £1.99 thanks to £5 rewards voucher. New game to me, looking forward to getting stuck in after the upgrade.

@DreemWeever - yep, that would be nice 👍

Looking forward to The Witcher 3 series X/S update and High on Life.

I’m like a broken record - but any two from these, please:
Powerslave: Exhumed
Shadowman
Oddworld Strangers Wrath
Omno

Tinykin made me smile

From a purely selfish perspective, I hope the deal goes through. I’ve been avoiding Activision Blizzard titles in the hope that they become available on Gamepass.

I went straight from XB360 to Series X (didn’t really do any gaming for years, so didn’t have an Xbox One or PS4) so I’ve got a LOT of Call of Duty to catch up on. Fingers crossed it goes through next year.

As AC Valhalla is on the list then I suppose Odyssey, Origins and Immortals Fenix Rising should be on there too? All have RPG elements and all decent games too.

@Tharsman - no sarcasm intended. And I’d advise against your suggestion of “warm water in the toaster”!? Lol.

The point I’m making is that a setting to limit the console’s performance so that it only does “half a job” is daft. If I wanted a lower performing machine than my Series X then I’d opt for a Series S (or an Xbox One).

If people want to save energy then there are a million and one other ways which make far for sense than limiting frame-rates on high end consoles.

Absolutely ludicrous. What next? - a washing machine that doesn’t quite make your clothes clean?, a toaster that ‘nearly’ toasts your bread?, a kettle that makes water warm but doesn’t boil water? Ridiculous- I’ve bought the most powerful console on the planet to play the best games at the highest resolution and frame rates. Don’t try and ‘dumb down’ the Xbox experience.

Standby energy saving mode makes sense, but don’t restrict performance while I’m using the device.

For those trying to reduce their use of energy there are far more sensible ways to reduce power consumption than this virtue signalling nonsense.

@Green-Bandit - I agree 100%

Good list. Personally I’d also add - Tinykin, Hellblade, Forza Horizon 4&5, Halo Wars (both), Master Chief Collection, Halo Infinite, GRID Legends & Dishonoured