GeeEssEff

I picked up 007 a few days ago and tbh I’m struggling a bit to get into it. Hopefully it will all click this weekend. Aside from that it will be more FH6, some Crimson Desert and back on Marathon. I am loving the increase in third party Play Anywhere titles this year though. I have bought more on Xbox in the last 3 months than the last three years combined.

@GamingGod Same, I loved tuning into E3 especially on a console announcement year. I genuinely like Geoff Keighley and have nothing against the length of the show it’s more that it feels padded. I may be looking back with rose tinted glasses but E3 used to feel more focused.

SGF for me but I do wish they would cut down on the cheesy fluff and interviews. That show absolutely does not need to be 2 hours long.

It looks cool, I’ll be keeping an eye on this. I’m also very intrigued by what Gavin Raeburn has been cooking up with his new studio.

As someone who lives in a semi rural area which suffers at least 3 full power outages per year this is a terrifying prospect. No FH during storms for me.

@FarmDog08 I would take the 12 month thing with a rather large pinch of salt. They said the exact same thing in the June 2022 showcase. 3 of the 5 first party games were delayed, Stalker 2 took 2 years, Silksong took another 3 and we still don’t have a release date for Ark 2 in 2026.

Edit: notice I’m late to the party and @Markatron84 beat me to it!

The TMR sticks are a very welcome addition and will hopefully set the standard moving forward. Last thing you need on a handheld is stick drift. If the price isn’t too obscene I might be tempted to sell my Steamdeck for this.

There is going to be lots of soaking up the sunshine in the garden with the Steam Deck but when I am indoors I will be on FH6.

It’s a brilliant achievement from Playground, they absolutely deserve all the plaudits they are getting. Every spare minute I can find has been spent on FH6 the last few days….I cannot wait for the weekend to really get stuck in.

@Skinny-Pete Not yet. I was planning on giving it a whirl over the weekend but expect to get fully battered when I do. Have you tried it?

@Skinny-Pete Some series races would be fun. I can’t remember if they have existed in previous Horizon games or not but would definitely be a nice addition. Have a good one!

@Skinny-Pete Yeh I realised this last night. I was mainly focusing on the campaign races to unlock wrist bands but you can use the super cars in the street races which don’t give you campaign points. My mistake

@Titntin I was playing for about 45 minutes before I thought it’s ever so slightly jittery for 60fps and then I looked in the settings to find I was in quality mode…probably the smoothest quality mode I have seen in a game. Insane optimisation and I can confirm it works beautifully in performance as well.

I’d say deffo give it another shot. Apart from the legacy rewards it doesn’t give you ridiculous cars before you’re ready for them unless you get super lucky on a wheel spin. I’m a massive FH fan and this is shaping up to be my favourite so far!

@Titntin It throws the previous Forza gift cars at you early but you can’t use them for races until you have progressed quite a lot of the campaign. They are useful for getting from A to B faster and completing the danger sign/speed camera activities but progression overall is handled way better than 5 where you’re racing in Bugattis after 15 minutes.

I love it so far, it doesn’t reinvent the wheel and the dialogue is still offensively cringe but it’s such a joy to play and there’s so much to do.

I have looked in the account settings mentioned and under personalised Ads the options are to either get them tailored to you or just random ads. It literally says “You will still see ads, but they may be less relevant”…so at least in the UK it appears you can’t fully disable them just choose whether to let MS farm your data or see stuff you don’t care about.

I really want turn off the full screen popups. Earlier I logged into Xbox PC app and I had one suggesting I upgrade my FH6 pre order to the ultimate edition so I can play today. Like I have already bought the game stop with the hard sell Xbox, it comes across as desperate and needy.

I had problems with the home button registering on my Elite Series 2 within 6 months of purchase but it didn't affect games so I didn't mind all that much. The RB button completely stopping working within 2 years was the dealbreaker for me so I definitely won't be buying any more "Elite" controllers from Xbox.

I love Hitman but lukewarm on Bond. I will see how it reviews and then decide but being play anywhere would make it an Xbox purchase if I do pull the trigger

Yess glad it turned out well. Not that I had any doubts Playground would deliver but still wanted confirmation before pre ordering. Bring on Tuesday!

@Nexozi Yep I’m more than happy with the standard edition. I don’t need early access and don’t want to pay up front for mystery DLC. I’m sorry I’m really confused about the overall point you’re making here. If you’re happy paying for the upgrade then you do you it’s just not my cup of tea.

@Nexozi I mean that’s literally what I said I am doing in my first comment?

@Nexozi If it’s the only game I want to play then yep it is tough!

Paying £60 upfront and then a further £11-£17 each month I want to play a game is such a wild concept to me but fair enough if it works for some people. I will be buying the standard edition with my saved up reward points. Can’t wait.

Considering Microsoft have played their own massive part in the component crisis you would think they are better placed to make predictions on where things will be in the next 18 months but I still very much doubt they have a concrete plan in place. Even if they can account for components they can’t predict the whims of Donald.

@Jenkinss Opposite for me. I hoping for contextual unwanted ads. If I’m on my phone I’m out and about so more likely to be tempted by a McDonalds drive through but sat at home I just feel I’m more likely to make a massive £40,000 splurge on a whim which is where my Ford ads become super useful.

@somnambulance This, in a nutshell is why Microsoft love subscription services. I was horrified recently to find out my Dad has being paying about £70 per year for the best part of a decade just to use Word and Outlook. They bury the one time purchase options so deep in the store pages he didn't realise he could get the whole shebang for £120. Pretty much any Microsoft created or acquired product from PowerBI to Github will have some sort of associated subscription service, usually with premium features locked behind it.

Its been so long since I turned my Series X on I can't remember if this is actually that much different. Looking forward to FH6 changing that.

Well I own a Switch because I cant play Mario, Donkey Kong and Zelda games anywhere else and I own an Xbox because I thought Bethesda games wouldn't be on PS5 after 2021. Exclusives might not sell millions of consoles but they certainly shift a reasonable amount of units.

@Skinny-Pete Nah course we ain’t enemies we just disagree on stuff sometimes.

@Skinny-Pete Well make sure you don’t have that rare. Enjoy your weekend

@Skinny-Pete lovely. Rare? Medium? Well done?

@Skinny-Pete Nah it’s not that deep just my opinion. Sorry if I’ve caused offence. Enjoy your steak dinner. ✌️

@Skinny-Pete well I’m not an Xbox shareholder so I would worry more acquisitions would result in restructures, job losses, degradation of quality and further price hikes. But on the plus side at least Ricky Spanish, sorry Globo, sorry Skinny Pete would be happy that a trillion dollar company has pointlessly acquired yet another asset they don’t need 🥳

If it ain’t broke….errr acquire it?!

@Skinny-Pete yep I’m not sure who it would be nice for exactly but you’re entitled to your opinion no matter how baseless it is. Have a great Friday!

@Skinny-Pete oh I know I’m not owed an explanation I was just interested behind the reasons because this is a comment section that breeds discussion. I just assumed there would be some underlying genius level logic behind it…my mistake. Anyway sorry if I’ve offended you, it’s not that deep, just my opinion ✌️ ✌️ ✌️ ✌️

@Skinny-Pete as always I am not offended I am just questioning your logic which was a mistake on my behalf because as usual there doesn’t seem to be any! ✌️

@Skinny-Pete ok so how does Xbox owning them benefit you as a customer, the employees of Asobo and the general quality of their work?

@Coletrain I remember it being a thing that you needed to restart on the Ally but I was hoping they had made it more of a toggle by the time they rolled it out to desktops. Ahhh well not the end of the world I will probably use it when I know I am going to be playing solidly for a few hours and turn it off for for the rest of the time. You are bang on though an option on boot up to choose between modes would be the next logical step.

Thanks for all the info!

@Coletrain Good to know thanks. One of the vids I watched earlier was making it seem like you need to restart your pc to fully switch between. How are you finding Xbox mode overall?

I’ve been pretty excited for this and looking forward to giving it a go however I was watching some videos from insiders and it looks like a faff to switch between Xbox and Desktop mode on PC. Great if you only use your PC for games but if you use it for anything else it looks like the performance gains might not be worth the trade off for ease of switching between play and work.

@Skinny-Pete If the games are already good and they already arrive on gamepass what would be the benefit of Xbox owning the IP or developer?

Standard Halo is just stale as hell and it peaked years ago. They have been recycling the same enemies, weapons and environments for 25 years. Combine MCC and Infinite as a complete package and just add maps or whatever to that then try something completely fresh with the IP like they did with Halo Wars.

@BacklogBrad If you think this is over priced with TMR, 2 track pads and gyro you must be horrified by the Elite series 2. Or worse the limited edition standard Xbox controllers, some of which have no extra features but retail at exactly the same price as the Steam controller.

@somnambulance I don’t get it either mate but some would rather hate people who are different instead of understand them. The fact that you don’t desperately look for representation in every game shows you are one of the good ones. On the plus side Eternal Life of Goldman is coming soon which offers representation for us aging gamers 😉

@somnambulance Oh it isn’t just banishers, don’t Nod has been labelled a woke studio for a while…you can imagine how they feel about life is strange. From what I can tell with banishers they don’t like that a white man is being mentored by a black woman.

@somnambulance I have googled it, searched Reddit, asked ChatGPT and scoured Don’t Nods Wikipedia. There is no evidence they were ever abusive to players….If you search “Don’t Nod Woke” though you get a slew of culture war nonsense from incels struggling to fathom a game where the protagonist isn’t a straight white male. I imagine it’s something to do with them responding to that

My points earning has dropped off significantly since GPU lapsed but I still do the bing daily nonsense. Microsoft paying me to click on some buttons a few times a day so they can track it as engagement is an excellent deal for me. I should have £60 worth of points just in time for Forza Horizon so please no nerfs before that!

@Markatron84 cheers mate. I’ve downloaded it to give it a go later!

I don’t really care about the console updates as mine hasn’t been turned on since my GPU lapsed last year. I am more interested in the much needed updates to the Xbox pc app and Xbox mode.

@Markatron84 How are you finding Pokemon Champions? I was going to download it and then saw almost unanimous negativity towards it so stuck to my Pokopia addiction.

@M20B25 Planet Coaster 1 is the better game tbh. The sequel takes away nearly as much stuff as it adds and is much glitchier so don’t regret your decision!