@Banjo- I recently tried the XBLA version on my SteamDeck, and it's incredible. Basically just the Goldeneye remaster we've always wanted - very true to the source material, but with a slick coat of paint and 60fps. It's excellent, and exactly what should have been released on GamePass.
@Banjo- Agreed. lol at the idea of playing yet another generic "retro indie" as opposed to something as glorious as Super Mario World, Mario 64, or indeed Banjo Kazooie
@shoeses I'm not a Smash fan so wouldn't know how the Smash style games stack up, but on Mario Kart I agree 100%.
The only thing that comes vaguely close is Sonic and Sega all Stars Racing, and Sonic Racing Transformed. It seems most agree Team Sonic was a big step down. Why though? I can't recall exactly what it was that was nowhere near as good as the other two.
Mario Kart is just hard to beat though, everything about is perfect - the visuals, track design, handling, drifting, number of courses, weapons, etc etc.
If they reinvented the wheel and made the gameplay/structure/physics radically different, it wouldn't really be Forza Horizon would it? Might as well make a brand new game and call it something new.
If it was really grindy, it also wouldn't be Forza. Part of the fun of Forza is it is a bit more of a free for all, where can just bomb around in fast cars and do what you want, not spend hours and hours grinding in order to unlock the next car etc.
Japan would be the best location too. The combination of beautiful rural locations including Okinawa, as well as night time street racing in Tokyo, and classic touge battles on mountain passes would be hard to beat.
@KaijuKaiser Not remotely stupid. They are being pathetic and hypocritical.
Sony are first in line to snap up exclusives and handicap their competition, but when the shoe is on the other foot they start throwing their toys of the pram.
I say this as someone who absolutely loved the PS1 and PS2 and still do, but current gen Sony are making themselves quite hard to like/support.
The Switch can run very nice looking games like Mario Kart 8 and Mario Odyssey at 1080p60 and 900p60 respectively. Also a big open world game like BOTW at 900p30.
The trick is to target the hardware accordingly. Obviously if you throw a modern game at it with modern shaders and lighting setup, it's going to run like absolute ***** at about 480p tops.
The key thing is games are going to need to be developed from the ground up targeting the hardware, not just lazily ported with a few settings turned down. Even the recent Metroid Prime remaster is proof you can excellent results at 60fps no less, in the right hands. It just requires more work.
So I'm not sure it's going to hold things back exactly, as it's not as simple as making games with the Switch as there's no way it would be able to use the same current gen render pipeline and assets as an AAA Series X game.
It's more like the Switch version would need to be treated as an almost entirely different project, possibly even from a different dev team in tandem.
A bit like Forza Horizon 2 on the 360 and Xbox One.
Ryu Ga Gotoku is the best studio in the world now. Their games are just relentlessly good, so packed full of stuff, and better written and voice acted than anything else.
I'm looking forward to Ishin! Street Fighter 6 and Starfield. Oh and Forza Motorsport.
Actually looks pretty good yeah. Fight Night Champion is one of the first games I played on my Series X, and it's really good. Without a doubt the most recent good boxing game.
@Titntin I still think it plays better and has more interesting missions and levels than 99% of first person shooters today. You just have to get used to the controls.
Goldeneye has stood the test of time almost as well as Mario 64 and OOT imo.
Burnout 3 is one of the best games ever. If nothing else, just remaster that.
I do find it bemusing that they keep "remastering" or at least re-releasing Burnout Paradise, even though it's not even close to the game Burnout 3 is.
Either it's more popular than I think, or it's simply that it was developed in the HD era, therefore porting it is simply very easy compared to Burnout 3.
FPS Boost is great, being able to retroactively enhance old console games is amazing, and puts the SeriesX closer to PC territory - but with the convenience of a console.
Seeing good 360 games running at 4k60 is kind of surreal. Your example looks great, but have you seen Sonic Generations?
My favourite things about the SeriesX are the combined convenience, power, and quietness of the fans. It's a great combo.
I have a PC with an RTX3070, which is better than a SeriesX, but the difference isn't huge. The main advantage is raytracing and the ability to play almost anything at 60fps+, ie games that are capped at 30 on the xbox.
Anyway the point is, I find myself playing games on the SeriesX far more than the PC, despite the PC being more powerful.
I forgot two major points - back combatibility and quick resume. They are two huge factors that go in favour of the SeriesX over PC. Being able to play good 360 games at 4k60 is amazing, so is quick resume to swap between games within seconds.
So to answer the question it would be - Power, convenience, quietness, back compatibility, and quick resume.
@Kaloudz Absolutely yeah, it's pretty much exactly what you just said. In the case of Project Cars, it does make sense tbh. If I were in charge of EA I would probably do the same thing.
As for Dirt? That would be horrendous if they canned Dirt. OK even if they are taking over WRC it kind of makes sense, as they would essentially be competing against themselves and simultaneously spreading themselves thin.
However even if Codies develops WRC, I can't imagine it ever being as good as the Dirt series, as ultimately they won't have as much freedom to make it as they see fit.
Also to put it simply, Dirt Rally 2 is better than every WRC game put together.
@Kaloudz Not remotely. Racing games are arguably doing better than ever, partly thanks to Forza Horizon 4 and 5 which were/are huge games.
It's more that Project Cars isn't necessary given their overall racing library of stuff that's pretty much hardcore sim like Dirt Rally, all the way too casual arcade style racers like Need For Speed. Project Cars occupied an awkward middle ground and the third one was not very well liked etc.
It's no surprise they stated they are more concentrating on open world experiences, again mainly because of Forza kind of setting the bar for open world racers and being quite so popular.
I just hope they keep the Dirt series, it's the best Rally series ever, by a country mile.
Is it backwards compatible on the SeriesX? I know it's not on the Xbox store, but it is on the 360 specific marketplace. I have no idea if it's even possible to buy stuff on the 360 store and download onto a SeriesX.
@Titntin There's no doubt that 4 is better. I prefer everything about it - the map design, the physics/handling, the plethora of animals. The world feels better, more alive, the map has a better flow to it, even the radio stations are better.
I wanted to love 5 as 4 is one of my favourite games, but man I found it pretty underwhelming overall. The spark from 4 is kind of missing.
Interestingly I played 2 and 3 recently and I actually prefer those to 5 too.
@NEStalgia Yes of course, that is true, but the point remains that insinuating a performance increase due to a few hundred more megs of RAM appears to be absolute nonsense, and misleading. As you said it's rendering a quarter of the amount of pixels anyway generally, so with the lower res textures and even lower res render textures/buffers, the RAM requirements are already significantly lower than the Series X, ie probably about 2 gigs less, tallying with the difference in RAM between the 2
Ergo - a few hundred extra megs of RAM will do absolutely nothing
Don't get me wrong, any extra available resources is still good, but much like a few hundred extra megs of RAM on the Switch won't magically make BOTW run at 60fps, or Mario Odyssey run at 1080p, the same applies here. At the most it would allow for some higher res textures or a few more assets crammed into a loaded level or pool of active assets in a streaming system etc.
It's a bit misleading to suggest this change would have any realistic boost to performance, I wouldn't want Series S owners to get the wrong idea and think existing games or even future games are now going to magically run better.
I think what the announcement was getting at by "enhanced performance" was a specific instance of memory constrained scenario, ie a scenario where the RAM use is at its limit, and in that case there's a few hundred extra megs of RAM to play with, and faster allocations.
@Titntin What possible relevance and connection could the 2d MegaDrive animation system have to later 3d entries? Was it essentially an abstract controller that was left over from the MegaDrive days?
@BrilliantBill As a matter of fact I played those 2 games recently, and yes they do stand out as having very solid voice acting by VG standards.
I'm really impressed by Mass Effect 1 actually, the overall package is definitely better than I expected. One of the games that lives up to its reputation, and expectations.
It's true voice acting is still generally horrendous even in games that are well received. I thought the voice acting and writing was pretty atrocious in Control, yet somehow everyone loved it.
The voice acting in GTA 5 is solid, and one of the reasons I love the Yakuza series is the Japanese voice acting is truly top tier for a game.
I also have a good PC, Ryzen 5800, RTX 3070, 32gb of RAM etc, and yet I also find myself playing the Series X 95% of the time.
The convenience and pick up and play factor is hard to beat, in addition to quick resume, which is one thing my PC can't offer. Given I'm generally not playing games all day, I love the convenience of being able to switch between games quickly.
Also funnily enough, the two games you mentioned are two of the games I choose to play on PC instead of SeriesX. Forza Horizon 5 and Cyberpunk. Two good examples of the PC version being a BIG upgrade. As you said the 60fps mode on Series X had incredibly distracting pop in, running it on PC at 60fps with max settings really is a much better experience. Same with Cyberpunk, 60fps with raytracing obviously looks much better than the console versions.
So while the Series X is my gaming machine of choice, the PC is still really useful for any games that aren't ideally optimised or suited to console, or indeed are capped at 30fps.
But regarding stutter, I am sensitive to it too, I love a solid 60fps, but I can't say I've noticed stutter in anything other than DX12 titles, which seems to be shader compilation issues. Most of the games I've played on my PC run at a solid 60fps just like Series X.
Absolutely. I loved the 360, easily my favourite console of that generation, I played it loads. Amazingly powerful given it came out a year before the PS3, and it had great games, great online. Just a really good console.
Then the Xbox One happened, and the TV TV TV / forced kinect thing, combined with the fact my PC was more powerful - put me right off that gen. The PS4 was better, but tbh still not good enough to make me want to buy one. That generation was weird, the hardware was underwhelming compared to even an average, affordable gaming PC, and games were becoming more and more available on PC. So I stick with PC and then Switch for that whole generation.
But now? The SeriesX is the first console that's wow'd me for a long time. Microsoft came out guns a blazin' this generation, I like everything about it. I knew I had to get one as soon as I saw it and realised what it was capable of.
The speed, the power, the immediacy, quick resume, and of course GamePass has quickly made it out of the best consoles ever imo. It's astonishingly quiet too, just a great piece of hardware.
I have a powerful PC with a GTX3070 - which is great, and select titles are obviously better on it - but I still play the SeriesX more. I love the back compatibility, I love FPS boost and the ability to retroactively enhance older games, and I love quick resume.
@BBB Agreed. Bear in mind Far Cry 3 ranks up there as possibly one of my favourite games ever, I enjoyed it from start to finish, this one, I just couldn't get into at all and stopped playing after a few hours.
I kind of wish it had been any other Far Cry added to GamePass
Super Street Fighter 4 / Ultra is the best fighting game ever made imo. Everything about it is just amazing, the pace, the precision of the moves, the range of characters and stages, the depth of the gameplay. I can understand the difficulty being offputting to fighting game newbs, but for long time fans the game is basically fighting game perfection.
I could never get into SF5, SSF4 just seemed better in every way.
It looks brilliant, but was anyone else a bit put off by the apparent immense size of it? In the quest to make bigger and bigger games it seems maybe they've gone a bit too far, this seems almost too big.
Weird complaint I know, but when they revealed the 1000 planets, plus all the skill trees and crafting etc, I thought how TF am I going to even find the time to play this, alongside work and other games
@awp69 As someone who felt all GTs since GT4 look underwhelming visually, and very clinical, I think GT7 is a big step up.
Trial Mountain and the Tokyo tracks look excellent, the lighting model is very solid, weather effects good, and definitely has a less clinical look than previous entries.
I won't be surprised if this plays a lot better than GT7 though. I love the whole style and essence and content of Gran Turismo, but the gameplay and physics? That's another matter.
Most Gran Turismo's have a very stiff, understeer heavy physics model than tbh is not very realistic.
Most of the Forza's have a more realistic, weightier physics model without the horrendous understeer that plagues GT. Better drifting as a result. Hopefully this one continues like that, just with higher fidelity.
lol at GT7 being unimpressive visually. Some scenes look better than others according to the track/time of day/weather, but at its best GT7 is a stunning game, and tbh I'm more of an Xbox fan than PS. I love my Series X.
In this trailer I have to be honest, I think a bit too much fuss was made about the raytraced self reflections, and macrodetail type of stuff. The overall essence visually was not quite as convincing as GT7 to me.
I still think Forza Horizon 4 on max settings on PC running at 4k60 is the most realistic looking driving game.
I mean, I absolutely love quick resume as it gives me functionality beyond even my PC with RTX 3070, but ultimately yes FPS Boost is the most transformative of all.
Far Cry 3 is a good example. I also love that game, but had to stop playing it on the 360 as like you said it runs at 20fps making it basically unplayable. I started playing the PC version instead and the difference was night and day, a rock solid 60fps gave the game the framerate it deserved and completely transformed the experience for the better.
So yes it is an astounding feature - retroactively improving games and turning many games from unplayable to perfectly playable.
@Tharsman They make the effort to listen to player feedback and implement a performance mode, and you find it worthy of criticism? Bit weird tbh. I wish more devs made the effort, especially fairly quickly like this. I'm sure a lot of Series S owners will be happy about it.
And no they didn't find extra horsepower, performance/quality is always about compromise.
When the dev said that, he obviously meant it was incapable of running at 60 at the visual standard they are going for.
Of course the Series S was always capable of running this (or any other game) at 60, but at what cost? The Switch with its tiny mobile APU can run The Witcher 3 at a somewhat solid 60fps amazingly, but obviously at low settings and about 360p
In this case I'm guessing it was as simple as lowering the settings and min dynamic resolution.
@Banjo- Agreed, one of the best things about the SeriesX along with quick resume. I've bought a few games purely because of FPS Boost, the most recent one being Sonic Generations.
@Banjo- Yeah I forgot to say as for me it's a given - performance is king.
Some people who don't care about framerate would think I'm crazy, but I would take 720p60 over 4k30 without a second thought
BTW Cyberpunk is another game that is needlessly prioritising resolution and struggling because of it. I played the SeriesX version for the first time recently and tbh it's still pretty bad even after this supposed great next gen update. NPCs were still popping up right in front of me with a lot going on, and the framerate is too choppy. Lowering the resolution and increasing the settings would work wonders to make it look and play much better.
It's still worlds away from the PC version. To illustrate my point about resolution, the PC version at 1080p60 with high settings and all ray tracing active looks and plays much, much better than the next gen console versions, even with DLSS (internal 720p).
At least it sounds like Rockstar realise that, given the RT performance mode.
@Banjo- and @InterceptorAlpha I couldn't agree more.
I believe in doing more per pixel, than more pixels just for the sake of it. There are countless games out there that would be SO much better at say 1080p60 with ray tracing and solid AA, rather than 4k, or even 1440p60 with improved settings. 4k just feels like a waste of resources to me, to a large extent.
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Re: Xbox Fans Call On Bethesda To Delay Redfall Until 60FPS Is Ready
@Rangers420
I agree it's mind boggling. It's akin to someone saying they can't tell the difference between 480p and 4k. The difference is that big to me.
Re: Poll: Would You Rather Have EA Play Or Ubisoft Plus Included With Xbox Game Pass?
EA Play by a country mile. Mass Effect LE and Titanfall 2 are better than everything Ubisoft has ever made, put together
Re: Microsoft Blocks Access To 'Retail Mode' Emulators On Xbox Series X|S
@Banjo- I recently tried the XBLA version on my SteamDeck, and it's incredible. Basically just the Goldeneye remaster we've always wanted - very true to the source material, but with a slick coat of paint and 60fps. It's excellent, and exactly what should have been released on GamePass.
Re: Microsoft Blocks Access To 'Retail Mode' Emulators On Xbox Series X|S
@Banjo- Agreed. lol at the idea of playing yet another generic "retro indie" as opposed to something as glorious as Super Mario World, Mario 64, or indeed Banjo Kazooie
Re: PSA: A New Free-To-Play Mario Kart Lookalike Just Released On Xbox
@shoeses I'm not a Smash fan so wouldn't know how the Smash style games stack up, but on Mario Kart I agree 100%.
The only thing that comes vaguely close is Sonic and Sega all Stars Racing, and Sonic Racing Transformed. It seems most agree Team Sonic was a big step down. Why though? I can't recall exactly what it was that was nowhere near as good as the other two.
Mario Kart is just hard to beat though, everything about is perfect - the visuals, track design, handling, drifting, number of courses, weapons, etc etc.
Re: Video: Digital Foundry Questions Whether Features Should Be Dropped On Xbox Series S
@BrilliantBill @themightyant
John is my favourite by far. Seems like a nice likeable guy, and has a true appreciation for games and the tech behind them.
And tbh, the main reason is because he's a Ridge Racer fan I loved the retrospectives he did on RR and Gran Turismo.
Re: Soapbox: I Hope Forza Horizon 6 Goes In A Different Direction For The Series
If they reinvented the wheel and made the gameplay/structure/physics radically different, it wouldn't really be Forza Horizon would it? Might as well make a brand new game and call it something new.
If it was really grindy, it also wouldn't be Forza. Part of the fun of Forza is it is a bit more of a free for all, where can just bomb around in fast cars and do what you want, not spend hours and hours grinding in order to unlock the next car etc.
Japan would be the best location too. The combination of beautiful rural locations including Okinawa, as well as night time street racing in Tokyo, and classic touge battles on mountain passes would be hard to beat.
Re: Microsoft And Sony Fail To Make Activision Blizzard Agreement At EU Court Hearing
@KaijuKaiser Not remotely stupid. They are being pathetic and hypocritical.
Sony are first in line to snap up exclusives and handicap their competition, but when the shoe is on the other foot they start throwing their toys of the pram.
I say this as someone who absolutely loved the PS1 and PS2 and still do, but current gen Sony are making themselves quite hard to like/support.
Re: Microsoft Signs Binding Contract To 'Bring Xbox Games To Nintendo Gamers'
@iplaygamesnstuff
The Switch can run very nice looking games like Mario Kart 8 and Mario Odyssey at 1080p60 and 900p60 respectively. Also a big open world game like BOTW at 900p30.
The trick is to target the hardware accordingly. Obviously if you throw a modern game at it with modern shaders and lighting setup, it's going to run like absolute ***** at about 480p tops.
The key thing is games are going to need to be developed from the ground up targeting the hardware, not just lazily ported with a few settings turned down. Even the recent Metroid Prime remaster is proof you can excellent results at 60fps no less, in the right hands. It just requires more work.
So I'm not sure it's going to hold things back exactly, as it's not as simple as making games with the Switch as there's no way it would be able to use the same current gen render pipeline and assets as an AAA Series X game.
It's more like the Switch version would need to be treated as an almost entirely different project, possibly even from a different dev team in tandem.
A bit like Forza Horizon 2 on the 360 and Xbox One.
Re: Microsoft And Sony Fail To Make Activision Blizzard Agreement At EU Court Hearing
Sony have come across as surprisingly pathetic in this whole ordeal. So much so it kind of puts me off supporting them in any way from now on.
Re: Review: Like A Dragon: Ishin! - This Slick Remaster Serves Up Another Excellent Yakuza Adventure
@darkswabber I love the look of Yakuza : Like a Dragon even sans Kiryu, but it's honestly the turn based combat that turns me off, no pun intended.
Even in JRPGs that I like such as FF7 and Skies of Arcadia, I find turn based combat so unbelievably tedious.
Re: Review: Like A Dragon: Ishin! - This Slick Remaster Serves Up Another Excellent Yakuza Adventure
I absolutely love the Yakuza series, but am kind of baffled that anyone would welcome turn based combat.
The deep beat 'em up combat of the Yakuza series is kind of what defines the gameplay, and makes it so fun and addictive.
Re: Xbox Leak Reveals Ubisoft+ Will Include 60+ Games, Here's The Full List So Far
Wow, I guess I'm not Ubisoft's biggest fan. On the whole list there's only one game I like - Far Cry 3. And what a game that is, to be fair.
Re: Feature: 50 Xbox Series X|S Games To Look Forward To In 2023
Ryu Ga Gotoku is the best studio in the world now. Their games are just relentlessly good, so packed full of stuff, and better written and voice acted than anything else.
I'm looking forward to Ishin! Street Fighter 6 and Starfield. Oh and Forza Motorsport.
Re: 'Undisputed' Boxing Game Launches To 'Very Positive' Reviews, Xbox Release On The Way
Actually looks pretty good yeah. Fight Night Champion is one of the first games I played on my Series X, and it's really good. Without a doubt the most recent good boxing game.
Re: Hands On: Our First Impressions Of GoldenEye 007 On Xbox Game Pass
There is literally no reason at all this shouldn't be 60fps, as the original has an unlocked framerate and can be played at 60 emulated.
Absolutely bizarre. I was really looking forward to this, but I guess I'll just stick to playing it emulated.
Re: GoldenEye 007 Officially Arrives On Xbox Game Pass This Week
@Titntin I still think it plays better and has more interesting missions and levels than 99% of first person shooters today. You just have to get used to the controls.
Goldeneye has stood the test of time almost as well as Mario 64 and OOT imo.
Re: Burnout Developer Criterion Believes A New Entry 'Would Be Absolutely Phenomenal Now'
Burnout 3 is one of the best games ever. If nothing else, just remaster that.
I do find it bemusing that they keep "remastering" or at least re-releasing Burnout Paradise, even though it's not even close to the game Burnout 3 is.
Either it's more popular than I think, or it's simply that it was developed in the HD era, therefore porting it is simply very easy compared to Burnout 3.
Re: Soapbox: Two Years In, FPS Boost Is My Xbox 'Game' Of The Generation So Far
FPS Boost is great, being able to retroactively enhance old console games is amazing, and puts the SeriesX closer to PC territory - but with the convenience of a console.
Seeing good 360 games running at 4k60 is kind of surreal. Your example looks great, but have you seen Sonic Generations?
Re: Talking Point: What's Your Favourite Thing About Xbox Series X|S After Two Years?
My favourite things about the SeriesX are the combined convenience, power, and quietness of the fans. It's a great combo.
I have a PC with an RTX3070, which is better than a SeriesX, but the difference isn't huge. The main advantage is raytracing and the ability to play almost anything at 60fps+, ie games that are capped at 30 on the xbox.
Anyway the point is, I find myself playing games on the SeriesX far more than the PC, despite the PC being more powerful.
I forgot two major points - back combatibility and quick resume. They are two huge factors that go in favour of the SeriesX over PC. Being able to play good 360 games at 4k60 is amazing, so is quick resume to swap between games within seconds.
So to answer the question it would be - Power, convenience, quietness, back compatibility, and quick resume.
Re: EA Kills Project CARS As Part Of 'An Update To Our Racing Portfolio'
@Kaloudz Absolutely yeah, it's pretty much exactly what you just said. In the case of Project Cars, it does make sense tbh. If I were in charge of EA I would probably do the same thing.
As for Dirt? That would be horrendous if they canned Dirt. OK even if they are taking over WRC it kind of makes sense, as they would essentially be competing against themselves and simultaneously spreading themselves thin.
However even if Codies develops WRC, I can't imagine it ever being as good as the Dirt series, as ultimately they won't have as much freedom to make it as they see fit.
Also to put it simply, Dirt Rally 2 is better than every WRC game put together.
Re: EA Kills Project CARS As Part Of 'An Update To Our Racing Portfolio'
@Kaloudz Not remotely. Racing games are arguably doing better than ever, partly thanks to Forza Horizon 4 and 5 which were/are huge games.
It's more that Project Cars isn't necessary given their overall racing library of stuff that's pretty much hardcore sim like Dirt Rally, all the way too casual arcade style racers like Need For Speed. Project Cars occupied an awkward middle ground and the third one was not very well liked etc.
It's no surprise they stated they are more concentrating on open world experiences, again mainly because of Forza kind of setting the bar for open world racers and being quite so popular.
I just hope they keep the Dirt series, it's the best Rally series ever, by a country mile.
Re: Modern Warfare 2's Latest Update Is Over 40 Times Larger On Xbox Than PlayStation
lol at "compression".
Yeah just your classic 70 times better compression.
Re: Five Criterion Games You Should Try Before Need For Speed Unbound
@Solidchief Agreed. Burnout 3 is the best, and the crash mode is amazing, but even Burnout Revenge is much better than Burnout Paradise.
It's nuts that EA keep persisting in re-releasing Burnout Paradise but not the vastly superior Burnout 3 and Revenge.
Re: Five Criterion Games You Should Try Before Need For Speed Unbound
Burnout 3 is one of the best games ever made.
Is it backwards compatible on the SeriesX? I know it's not on the Xbox store, but it is on the 360 specific marketplace. I have no idea if it's even possible to buy stuff on the 360 store and download onto a SeriesX.
Re: Forza Dev Confirms Horizon 4 Won't Be Delisted Anytime Soon
@Titntin There's no doubt that 4 is better. I prefer everything about it - the map design, the physics/handling, the plethora of animals. The world feels better, more alive, the map has a better flow to it, even the radio stations are better.
I wanted to love 5 as 4 is one of my favourite games, but man I found it pretty underwhelming overall. The spark from 4 is kind of missing.
Interestingly I played 2 and 3 recently and I actually prefer those to 5 too.
Re: These 12 Games Are Leaving Xbox Game Pass Today (September 30)
@Banjo- I recently played Forza Horizon 3 for the first time, and it's really good, better than I expected. I would rank it as a close second after 4.
I really like that one of the radio stations is more Burnout 3 esque too, rather than the usual electro.
Re: Bonnie Ross, The Head Of Halo, Is Leaving 343 Industries And Microsoft
I've never understood what people's problem with Bonnie Ross is. The phrase "they need to get rid of Bonnie Ross" gets parroted a lot.
But why?
Re: Xbox Series S Becomes More Powerful Thanks To New Console Update
@NEStalgia Yes of course, that is true, but the point remains that insinuating a performance increase due to a few hundred more megs of RAM appears to be absolute nonsense, and misleading. As you said it's rendering a quarter of the amount of pixels anyway generally, so with the lower res textures and even lower res render textures/buffers, the RAM requirements are already significantly lower than the Series X, ie probably about 2 gigs less, tallying with the difference in RAM between the 2
Ergo - a few hundred extra megs of RAM will do absolutely nothing
Don't get me wrong, any extra available resources is still good, but much like a few hundred extra megs of RAM on the Switch won't magically make BOTW run at 60fps, or Mario Odyssey run at 1080p, the same applies here. At the most it would allow for some higher res textures or a few more assets crammed into a loaded level or pool of active assets in a streaming system etc.
It's a bit misleading to suggest this change would have any realistic boost to performance, I wouldn't want Series S owners to get the wrong idea and think existing games or even future games are now going to magically run better.
I think what the announcement was getting at by "enhanced performance" was a specific instance of memory constrained scenario, ie a scenario where the RAM use is at its limit, and in that case there's a few hundred extra megs of RAM to play with, and faster allocations.
Re: Xbox Series S Becomes More Powerful Thanks To New Console Update
Yeah I don't think a few hundred megs of RAM is going to do much to bridge the gap with a machine that has 3 times more horsepower
Re: Video: Starfield Analysis Breaks Down Xbox Games Showcase Demo
@Titntin What possible relevance and connection could the 2d MegaDrive animation system have to later 3d entries? Was it essentially an abstract controller that was left over from the MegaDrive days?
Re: Here's Your First Look At 16 Minutes Of Gotham Knights Gameplay
@BrilliantBill As a matter of fact I played those 2 games recently, and yes they do stand out as having very solid voice acting by VG standards.
I'm really impressed by Mass Effect 1 actually, the overall package is definitely better than I expected. One of the games that lives up to its reputation, and expectations.
Re: Here's Your First Look At 16 Minutes Of Gotham Knights Gameplay
It's true voice acting is still generally horrendous even in games that are well received. I thought the voice acting and writing was pretty atrocious in Control, yet somehow everyone loved it.
The voice acting in GTA 5 is solid, and one of the reasons I love the Yakuza series is the Japanese voice acting is truly top tier for a game.
Re: Two Games Are Available Today With Xbox Game Pass (July 19)
@Titntin
I also have a good PC, Ryzen 5800, RTX 3070, 32gb of RAM etc, and yet I also find myself playing the Series X 95% of the time.
The convenience and pick up and play factor is hard to beat, in addition to quick resume, which is one thing my PC can't offer. Given I'm generally not playing games all day, I love the convenience of being able to switch between games quickly.
Also funnily enough, the two games you mentioned are two of the games I choose to play on PC instead of SeriesX. Forza Horizon 5 and Cyberpunk. Two good examples of the PC version being a BIG upgrade. As you said the 60fps mode on Series X had incredibly distracting pop in, running it on PC at 60fps with max settings really is a much better experience. Same with Cyberpunk, 60fps with raytracing obviously looks much better than the console versions.
So while the Series X is my gaming machine of choice, the PC is still really useful for any games that aren't ideally optimised or suited to console, or indeed are capped at 30fps.
But regarding stutter, I am sensitive to it too, I love a solid 60fps, but I can't say I've noticed stutter in anything other than DX12 titles, which seems to be shader compilation issues. Most of the games I've played on my PC run at a solid 60fps just like Series X.
Re: Talking Point: Did The Series X|S Bring You Back To Xbox? If So, How Come?
Absolutely. I loved the 360, easily my favourite console of that generation, I played it loads. Amazingly powerful given it came out a year before the PS3, and it had great games, great online. Just a really good console.
Then the Xbox One happened, and the TV TV TV / forced kinect thing, combined with the fact my PC was more powerful - put me right off that gen. The PS4 was better, but tbh still not good enough to make me want to buy one. That generation was weird, the hardware was underwhelming compared to even an average, affordable gaming PC, and games were becoming more and more available on PC. So I stick with PC and then Switch for that whole generation.
But now? The SeriesX is the first console that's wow'd me for a long time. Microsoft came out guns a blazin' this generation, I like everything about it. I knew I had to get one as soon as I saw it and realised what it was capable of.
The speed, the power, the immediacy, quick resume, and of course GamePass has quickly made it out of the best consoles ever imo. It's astonishingly quiet too, just a great piece of hardware.
I have a powerful PC with a GTX3070 - which is great, and select titles are obviously better on it - but I still play the SeriesX more. I love the back compatibility, I love FPS boost and the ability to retroactively enhance older games, and I love quick resume.
Re: Far Cry 5 Is Available Today With Xbox Game Pass (July 1)
@BBB Agreed. Bear in mind Far Cry 3 ranks up there as possibly one of my favourite games ever, I enjoyed it from start to finish, this one, I just couldn't get into at all and stopped playing after a few hours.
I kind of wish it had been any other Far Cry added to GamePass
Re: Pick One: Which Of These Upcoming Game Pass Launches Are You Most Excited About?
Really surprised Plague Tale is neck and neck with Forza in the poll, didn't realise it was that popular.
Re: Xbox Wins Daytime Emmy Award For 20th Anniversary Documentary
I really enjoyed this documentary, surprisingly engaging and interesting.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (June 18-19)
@Bobobiwan
Super Street Fighter 4 / Ultra is the best fighting game ever made imo. Everything about it is just amazing, the pace, the precision of the moves, the range of characters and stages, the depth of the gameplay. I can understand the difficulty being offputting to fighting game newbs, but for long time fans the game is basically fighting game perfection.
I could never get into SF5, SSF4 just seemed better in every way.
Hopefully SF6 is good
Re: Gallery: Feast Your Eyes On These Brand-New Starfield Screenshots
It looks brilliant, but was anyone else a bit put off by the apparent immense size of it? In the quest to make bigger and bigger games it seems maybe they've gone a bit too far, this seems almost too big.
Weird complaint I know, but when they revealed the 1000 planets, plus all the skill trees and crafting etc, I thought how TF am I going to even find the time to play this, alongside work and other games
Re: Forza Motorsport Is The Most 'Technically Advanced' Racer Ever, Says Turn 10
@awp69 As someone who felt all GTs since GT4 look underwhelming visually, and very clinical, I think GT7 is a big step up.
Trial Mountain and the Tokyo tracks look excellent, the lighting model is very solid, weather effects good, and definitely has a less clinical look than previous entries.
Re: Forza Motorsport Is The Most 'Technically Advanced' Racer Ever, Says Turn 10
I won't be surprised if this plays a lot better than GT7 though. I love the whole style and essence and content of Gran Turismo, but the gameplay and physics? That's another matter.
Most Gran Turismo's have a very stiff, understeer heavy physics model than tbh is not very realistic.
Most of the Forza's have a more realistic, weightier physics model without the horrendous understeer that plagues GT. Better drifting as a result. Hopefully this one continues like that, just with higher fidelity.
Re: Forza Motorsport Is The Most 'Technically Advanced' Racer Ever, Says Turn 10
lol at GT7 being unimpressive visually. Some scenes look better than others according to the track/time of day/weather, but at its best GT7 is a stunning game, and tbh I'm more of an Xbox fan than PS. I love my Series X.
In this trailer I have to be honest, I think a bit too much fuss was made about the raytraced self reflections, and macrodetail type of stuff. The overall essence visually was not quite as convincing as GT7 to me.
I still think Forza Horizon 4 on max settings on PC running at 4k60 is the most realistic looking driving game.
Re: 46% Of US PlayStation Owners Interested In Xbox Game Pass Due To Activision Deal, Says Poll
It's probably more like 99%, with only 46% admitting it
Re: Soapbox: FPS Boost Is The Most Underrated Xbox Series X|S Feature
Agreed 100%.
I mean, I absolutely love quick resume as it gives me functionality beyond even my PC with RTX 3070, but ultimately yes FPS Boost is the most transformative of all.
Far Cry 3 is a good example. I also love that game, but had to stop playing it on the 360 as like you said it runs at 20fps making it basically unplayable. I started playing the PC version instead and the difference was night and day, a rock solid 60fps gave the game the framerate it deserved and completely transformed the experience for the better.
So yes it is an astounding feature - retroactively improving games and turning many games from unplayable to perfectly playable.
Re: Xbox Adds Automatic Downloads To Energy Saver Mode On Series X|S
Superb. The background downloads were the only reason I ever used the standby mode.
Re: Dying Light 2 Patch Adds 60FPS For Xbox Series S, New Mode For Series X
@Tharsman They make the effort to listen to player feedback and implement a performance mode, and you find it worthy of criticism? Bit weird tbh. I wish more devs made the effort, especially fairly quickly like this. I'm sure a lot of Series S owners will be happy about it.
And no they didn't find extra horsepower, performance/quality is always about compromise.
When the dev said that, he obviously meant it was incapable of running at 60 at the visual standard they are going for.
Of course the Series S was always capable of running this (or any other game) at 60, but at what cost? The Switch with its tiny mobile APU can run The Witcher 3 at a somewhat solid 60fps amazingly, but obviously at low settings and about 360p
In this case I'm guessing it was as simple as lowering the settings and min dynamic resolution.
Re: Rockstar Details GTAV On Next-Gen, Including 3 Performance Modes
@Banjo- Agreed, one of the best things about the SeriesX along with quick resume. I've bought a few games purely because of FPS Boost, the most recent one being Sonic Generations.
Re: Rockstar Details GTAV On Next-Gen, Including 3 Performance Modes
@Banjo- Yeah I forgot to say as for me it's a given - performance is king.
Some people who don't care about framerate would think I'm crazy, but I would take 720p60 over 4k30 without a second thought
BTW Cyberpunk is another game that is needlessly prioritising resolution and struggling because of it. I played the SeriesX version for the first time recently and tbh it's still pretty bad even after this supposed great next gen update. NPCs were still popping up right in front of me with a lot going on, and the framerate is too choppy. Lowering the resolution and increasing the settings would work wonders to make it look and play much better.
It's still worlds away from the PC version. To illustrate my point about resolution, the PC version at 1080p60 with high settings and all ray tracing active looks and plays much, much better than the next gen console versions, even with DLSS (internal 720p).
At least it sounds like Rockstar realise that, given the RT performance mode.
Re: Rockstar Details GTAV On Next-Gen, Including 3 Performance Modes
@Banjo- and @InterceptorAlpha I couldn't agree more.
I believe in doing more per pixel, than more pixels just for the sake of it. There are countless games out there that would be SO much better at say 1080p60 with ray tracing and solid AA, rather than 4k, or even 1440p60 with improved settings. 4k just feels like a waste of resources to me, to a large extent.
But people are obsessed with it, so it be