Feffster

Bought for 99p and reward points.

It is FPS boosted (to 60fps) on Series consoles.

Plays well, but be aware the resolution is pretty poor - sub 720P.

Haven’t played for a few weeks but usually yes. Forza Horizon 4 is better, but this is still a fantastic game.

I’m happy with any news however far off. I just hope they try and be honest about proposed time-lines. For projects that are miles off presumably they can narrow it down to an 18month-2 year window, for games well into development you’d hope they can narrow it down to a 12 month window and for games undergoing testing, optimising and bug squishing hopefully a 3-6 month window.

Just be honest, and don’t worry about delaying something if it isn’t up to scratch (mentioning no names…)

Good to have extra graphic options. Tried this last night, resolution appears to have been lowered in some areas but it still looks fabulous and for my preference I like the extra fps, even compared to 40 with vrr. I’ve disabled motion blur & chromatic aberration.

A couple of oddities - some characters animate at 30fps (much like the flags do in Assassins Creed Origins) and I had one major lock-up when the game froze for 4-5 seconds before correcting itself (but didn’t crash). I read there are fewer rats, but you’d still struggle to count them.

Good stuff.

@Markatron84 - Odyssey is a cracking game and Origins is excellent too. DLCs worth getting too if you like the main games. I bought the lot before they were added to GP, but don’t regret it. Valhalla hasn’t grabbed me from my initial look, …it’s still on the to-do list.

Excellent news, can’t wait to give this a try.

I’ve no sympathy for the moron that decided to launch an incomplete Redfall but every sympathy for Arcane and it’s staff who must have been pushed to release this before it was finished. I said in an earlier post that the negative feedback would hurt the staff at the studio and this proves the point.

Microsoft needs to get a better grip of its studios and value the talent it has at its disposal. Rushing out games that are half-baked just to fill a hole in its release schedule isn’t good enough.

Hopefully reaction and opinion will change as the game gets patched and (hopefully) becomes the game that the studio envisaged.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz….someone wake me up when this is over.

Dishonoured for me, great game. Enjoyed Deathloop and just started Prey (impressed so far). Still waiting on a finished version of Redfall before downloading.

Hopefully the person who decided it was a good call to release Redfall is now looking for new employment. I still can’t get my head around why they think this is acceptable to release something that is half-cooked (on many levels, not just the frame rate). The game is getting hammered, pretty much everywhere you look.

Redfall was never going to appeal to everyone but it has turned into a complete embarrassment for Xbox. If they felt another delay would be unacceptable then as suggested above why didn’t they just release a beta version and delay until Halloween? That would have given Arcane another 5-6 months to iron out the problems.

You also have to ask what impact this will have on the studio. Arcane have made some brilliant games so how are the team going to feel when they read the reviews and feedback aimed at this? It’s going to be tough for the staff to shrug off the reviews and negative feedback- especially if the team wanted the project delayed so that it could be finished/polished to their usual standard.

@Tharsman - brilliant suggestion, M$ should put you in charge.

The whole 30/60fps debacle meant it was obvious this was being pushed out the door before being complete.

I haven't downloaded and will wait for the 60fps patch (which will hopefully address the bugs, dodgy AI, pop-in and other mentioned glitches). Maybe then we'll have a decent game.

@Kaloudz - ever since the Hotwheels FH5 expansion I’ve been saying they should do a Wipeout style expansion (or full game) so I’m totally in agreement a pod racer expansion would be great 👍

I’ve uninstalled the pre-download but will happily download and play the game when the performance patch arrives. Hope those that aren’t affected by 30fps enjoy a fantastic game next week.

Presumably this runs at 30fps and they’ll patch it at a later date?

I don’t have a PS5 so nothing to compare it to, but there are definitely performance issues on Series X. VRR and 120hz still fail to save the day.

Anyway, I’m enjoying the game more than I thought I would - it’s just a shame the game hasn’t been properly optimised for X/S especially as this is a first party game and the developers have had an extra year to get it ship-shape.

If anything it further illustrates the poor management/control Microsoft has over its studios.

Looking forward to Benedict Fox. Was also looking forward to Redfall but someone put a stake through its heart - will play when it is removed.

@Banjo- well said, and fingers crossed one day it sees the light of day on Xbox.

@Banjo- I wish they’d just released the XBLA version for us to enjoy, I’d love to give it a go. In fact I’d happily pay for it as well.

I tried this lacklustre version, but I just can’t get on with it. It’s so frustrating when you know there is something much, much better that will likely never get a proper release.

So far so-so for me but despite the average graphics, performance, story and gameplay I’m still interested to explore more - so there must be something in there to like and I’m interested to see how the character/skills/abilities develop.

No thank you. I like plenty of Ubisoft games but have already bought them or will wait until they are on sale.

Microsoft and Bethesda have turned this whole thing into a sh*t show. Of course they should have delayed the game (instead of yesterday’s announcement) but how can they now?….and if they do they will now face the wrath of everyone who can’t see the difference between 30 and 60 (or doesn’t care). What a mess.

If the 60fps patch was likely to be a ‘quick fix’ you’d have to assume they would simply have delayed a few weeks, so the smart money says it won’t be sorted in a hurry.

What a complete and utter embarrassment.

…checks date….but it’s not April 1st

WTF, absolute joke. What on earth is going on?! 30fps unplayable nowadays for me, especially in FPS, action or racing games.

I’m finding the controls less of an issue than I did with Atomic Heart, but…..again….performance is a real issue on Series X.

I really don’t understand how a first party game can be released in this state, especially one year after it came out on PS5. What’s been happening over the past year? Why hasn’t it been optimised and polished to within an inch of its life for the Xbox release?

@Hexamex-Tex - I was wondering if it was just me. What a mess, performance mode dropping frames all over the place on Series X. The other modes seem to be no better.

How can this be the state of the game a year after it was released on PS5? Did no one test it?!…

I’ve never used this but after the dismal version of Goldeneye that they chose to release I recently started looking at how to get the XBLA version to run on Series X. Sadly I never got around to giving it a go and it looks like that avenue is now closed off. Don’t get me wrong, I’d more than happily pay for a ‘legal’ release of that game, but I can’t see that ever happening.

Yep, Task#1 not tracking for me either…

@Stocksy - I’m glad it’s not just me mate! Series X has got me back into gaming and over the last 2 years there’s hardly been a week when I haven’t played FH4 and/or 5. I especially love the changing seasons in FH4 and the way the weather can change dramatically over the course of a single race. I haven’t ‘finished’ either, and doubt I’ll ever get there. Off topic, but GRID Legends is also worth a look if you are into your racers - cheesy storyline aside, there’s some fantastic racing when you ramp up the difficulty.

Good review. From some of the comments I can’t help think that we are completely spoilt these days - I remember spending umpteen hours marvelling at Sega Rally on Saturn and being amazed that those 3D visuals had made their way from the arcade into my living room. And 4 courses too! (if you unlocked the bonus course)

Nowadays people moan because this 20gig expansion can be ‘finished’ in a day - that’s over two dozen race routes that can be played in rally or race mode and numerous other challenges. All with variable weather, times of day and destructible scenery rendered in 4K at a rock solid 60fps.

I think it’s got to the point where users are almost ‘immune’ to what they are looking at, with ridiculously high expectations. I’m so glad I can still enjoy and appreciate where gaming has come to from those early days of a few dodgy pixels being loaded (sometime, but not always) from a dodgy tape recorder onto my Atari 400 😃

Can’t complain, cost me all of £3.49 and February’s reward points. Graphics are superb, much less pop-up/in than Mexico. Not keen on the new music or the navigator, but both can be muted.

Great getting the Hours of Darkness DLC for free, just finished the Far Cry 5 campaign this week so perfect timing.

I gave up about 5 hours in - erratic frame rate and every other time I went to play there was yet another huge update.

Did the patches finally fix the performance? (Series X) If they did then I could be tempted to try again.

@grumpypotato - many thanks.

Excellent. Small patch downloaded (less than half a gig) and everything looks instantly sharper. No need to muck about with fps boost options as this now runs at 60fps. Gen 9 aware so it runs fine from external storage. If only all patches downloaded this quickly and made instant improvements (I’m looking at you Atomic Heart!)

Question - article says this applies to the base game and all expansions. What does this include exactly?…the season pass includes 3 stories AND Far Cry 3 Classic Edition. Does FC3 classic also get an upgrade?

And does anyone know if the improvements also apply to Far Cry New Dawn?…

Good news but just hope they make it Gen9 Aware rather than a full Gen9 release - otherwise it’ll eat into that valuable X/S storage.

I used to love Mario Kart and Diddy Kong Racing back in the N64 days. Wish Rare would put something together for Series X/S - there must be plenty of characters they can include from Sea of Thieves, Banjo, etc.

@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.