Legend_Au

Xbox Accessories app to remap the buttons on my Elite Series 2 controller. Recent examples include MGS2 HD, Dark Souls 3, and a couple of other games that badly need remaps which don't have an in-game option.

That's pretty much it besides the Store app (rarely) and Rewards app (even rarer).

PlayStation: Has excellent exclusive games that can only be played on that specific system.

Xbox: Doesn’t.

The only reason I bought a PS5 was for exclusives. After owning a PS5 for some time now I have grown a liking to how Sony do things after being with Xbox since Midtown Madness 3 and Brute Force. I’m glad I didn’t invest too heavily into the digital Xbox ecosystem. I will probably just continue investing in PC (Steam) and PS5 in the future if Microsoft goes down this path.

Palworld. I have already caught every Pal and have moved onto other games now. It was a lot of fun but super buggy. Buggiest early access game I’ve ever played by a fair margin.

I’ve only refunded one game in my 19 years with Xbox and it was Trials Rising Gold Edition, it was refunded even after playing it for 4 hours. I just explained that I didn’t encounter the bug until 4 hours, and they refunded it no problems at all.

The bug in question involved an abnormally long loading screen that would happen whenever I tried to replay an already completed race.

I never once paid any attention to Microsoft Rewards Quests outside of turning in unintentionally completed quests.

I've made about $20 worth of credit over the years from doing that.

Forza Motorsport above Jedi Survivor, Diablo 4 and RE4 Remake? I suppose it’s just opinion based but for me Forza Motorsport was the biggest disappointment of the entire year. Despite it’s moderate Metacritic standing, it still sits at 2.1 stars out of 5 on the Xbox store which is a testament to the disaster that was the progress reset bug.

To this day I have only played it for about 4 hours, and I had about 5 races worth of progress reset in that time. The game isn’t installed anymore after I tried it again 1 month later just to see that the bug was still happening.

I feel like this is an ‘eggshells walked on’ kind of list. But each to their own I suppose.

It was an excellent game with 'Rime' and 'Sea of Solitude' vibes that I played and finished right as it hit Game Pass. Alex Honnold would love this one.

With that said, there is no way I'm starting the game from the beginning again for the 100% as it wasn't quite good enough for that. You will likely have to replay at least 80% of the game to complete the mop up (even with chapter select) unless you went through with a guide at the start or are a master at finding hidden collectibles.

I'd give it an 8 out of 10 for what it is. It's a nice quick game that only takes about 5-6 hours to finish.

I'll be playing Ghost of Tsushima on PS5 and a I'll try play some more Limbo on XSX. I had already played 'Inside' so I figured I'd give Limbo a crack before firing up cocoon.

I tried Yakuza 0 a few years back when it hit Game Pass and I wasn’t a fan of it. I really tried to like it and gave it a 5 hour go but it just wasn’t for me. That’s the game that put me off RGG games. Given how highly rated that game was I’ve always been sceptical of the other RGG games despite their prevalent acclaim.

I like the look of Wild Hearts, so I’ll give it a go in between like 5 other games I’m currently playing. I completely forgot about the game before seeing it had joined Game Pass today.

Not Forza Motorsport as I tried playing it on launch day and lost two races worth of progress with the upgrade car infinite loading bug. I instead played Motorfest to get my racing fix as I had the ultimate edition available with Ubisoft Plus (I bought 1 month for AC Mirage).

I’ve been playing Texas Chain Saw Massacre with Game Pass. I’ve clocked up about 10 hours so far just playing as the Family. It’s not bad, but it has some fundamental flaws that will hold it back.

If you really like TCSM and live in a remote region like Australia, you’ll eventually want to use a VPN to access the US server for this game for when the player count inevitably gets so low in numbers that it will be the only way to play without timing out in the queue. It might be easier for you to do that on Steam, not to mention other benefits like choosing any name you like which can be a lot of fun in asymmetrical games or any multiplayer game for that matter.

@HonestHick Everything you mentioned here doesn’t subtract anything away from my original paragraph regarding Diablo 4. It will still have a microtransaction ridden, FOMO inducing future from my perspective. I wasn’t using the term ‘microtransaction ridden’ interchangeably with ‘P2W’.

I’m glad that you are looking forward to the seasons as I’m sure many other people are. Each to their own.

Diablo 4, 8/10. It was amazing for the first 100 hours but after that it became a real slog with glaring QOL issues. Despite this I still managed to push through and get to lvl 100 as Necro. I won’t be supporting the game any further with the inevitable microtransaction ridden, FOMO inducing future that it has.

Resident Evil 4 remake, 9/10. It was a fantastic game that I enjoyed playing through. It used to be a much harder completion than the original game at launch. The devs mitigated this by adding microtransactions later which allowed you to get the all too important upgrades for weapons earlier (Infinite Ammo Chicago Sweeper) than you otherwise would have gotten them.

Hogwarts Legacy, 9/10. As a fan of the Harry Potter movies, even seeing the first movie in cinema way back in 2001, this was everything a Harry Potter fan could have hoped for with an open world RPG based in the Wizarding World. It is held back by a huge collectathon and repetitive side questing that is on par with Assassin’s Creed games, most of which is optional to the main story.

As for the other 7 games mentioned here, I have played most of them and have mixed opinions on them, but these three games stood out above the rest for me so far this year.

I’m burned out on Diablo 4 after reaching lvl 72 Necromancer on XSX and have been playing Zelda Tears of the Kingdom ever since. TOTK has all the framework of breath of the wild, everything from graphics to SFX to combat, but they’ve added a bunch of features and it has been a lot of fun exploring Hyrule once more.

Plague Tale Requiem was the last game I lowered my standards down to 30fps for a new game, and I likely won’t be doing it again. I only go down to 30fps for games that I have nostalgia for now.

If this game happens to get exceptional reviews, I’ll wait for a performance mode patch before playing it.

This was my favourite game back in 2003. I still remember that year pretending to be sick in school so I could come home and play pod racer instead. This was all before I had got my first Xbox in 2004.

I’ve come back to it a few times over the years and nearly bought it when it was on sale in recent times, so I’ll be glad to pick this up for free.

I’ll never forget the tune that Watto from the junkyard was often found humming. The Junkyard upgrades and discounts is what made the game so fun and addictive for me back then.

I might give it a go later, for now I’m getting my Star Wars fix from Jedi Survivor.

I’ve always been a fan of the series, having first played Gears of War back in 2006 when the first game released. I have played every game in the series since then and don’t hold any bad memories against any except for Gears 5. The issue I had with Gears 5 is that I played it on launch day back in in September 2019 (free on Gamepass) and it was a buggy mess. Everything from game breaking bugs to progress randomly resetting and broken achievements.

I played judgement back in 2013 and don’t recall it was that bad honestly, no negative memories about it like Gears 5.

On PC, this game would get an 8 from me as I like the base building element and mods would improve the experience a lot. The poor combat, leveling system and campaign weigh it down. On Xbox I’d give it about a 5 due to the rough controller support and lack of access to mods. As far as games that are played better on mouse and keyboard go, this one is fairly high up that list.

As for the gameplay itself, what the game is lacking is settings that you can adjust at any time, just like on Medieval Dynasty, to adjust the difficulty to your liking. I understand the devs want a ‘brutal survival experience’, but this just results in a tedious slog with way too much grind and monotony. When I saw these settings at the start of Medieval Dynasty, I was appalled at the idea of adjusting any of them, just wanting to experience the game as the devs intended. After 6 hours of that game, it became all too apparent why they included those settings.

Settings I would love to see in the game would include being able to turn raids off, unlimited stamina, unlimited carry weight, carry any item through a portal, zero structure damage, no enemies or wildlife spawning within your base walls, 1000% XP gain, zero stat loss upon dying. Having access to settings like these would make the first run through much less punitive, much less of a slog.

Medieval Dynasty was an amazing game that I managed to get the full 1000 Gamerscore on and there is no way I would have spent over 100 hours building an amazing city on that game if it didn’t have settings similar to the ones mentioned previously. The devs respected the fact that the game might be overwhelmingly tedious for new players with the default settings, and they wanted players to be able to give it a proper go at their difficulty of choice.

On a final note, the deer sound like barking, whining dogs. It gets very annoying very fast. It is somewhat of a meme within the Valheim community, many players opting to turn the sound effect off with a mod.

This game feels like a solid 7/10 for me, after most of the bugs are ironed out that is. In its current state, it’s more like a 6/10. Having completed the campaign, I feel like the framework is there for this game to be a masterpiece, but it misses the target on too many fronts. No updates will ever get it there as there is too many fundamental flaws with the game.

Having said this, I would recommend this game to anyone who enjoyed games like Deus Ex, BioShock and Dishonored. It’s a solid game and I was satisfied with the 25 hours I spent on it.

4/10 - I can only speak for the game regarding its early stages, as I haven't played it since its first month back in October 2021.

The card system was a total gimmick, and it became stale very quickly. The game was far too difficult which got changed later after I had already uninstalled. It was a nightmare completing Act 4 (final act) on recruit difficulty as a solo player with randoms. It took many failed attempts to finally pull it off.

I really enjoyed the Left 4 Dead games back in the late 2000s and to say this game was a far cry to those games would be a huge understatement.

When it comes to asymmetrical games, you are doing yourself a huge injustice by playing them on console, at least that is the case with the biggest horror one, Dead by Daylight. Steam gets loads more in-game features and the ability to change your display name to whatever you want within reasonable limits. Xbox is stuck with the archaic Gamertag system.

Will probably just play this on Steam for that reason if DBD is anything to learn from.

I completed this a couple of years ago and then came back to get 100% a few months ago, I was too impatient for the ‘next’ gen upgrade and had a blast playing through it on the Series X, managing to get 2000/2000 GS.

I’m sure I’m in the minority saying this but I preferred the Heart of Stone DLC opposed to Blood & Wine. Quality over quantity and I feel Heart of Stone really delivered in this department. Blood & Wine was more forgettable for me, but still a great DLC.

Having played Fortnite last season, I can say the graphical updates aren’t that noticeable as the graphics before Unreal Engine 5.1 were very good on the Series X already.

Going from an Xbox One to the Series X was the ground-breaking improvement; the difference being absolute night and day. Goes without saying to anyone with a Series X.

Fable 2 could use a 60fps patch. It is the only game out of the original trilogy that still runs at 30fps on Xbox.

Assassin’s Creed Ezio Collection. It was great playing AC2 again in 60fps on the Series X after a 13 year hiatus from the game.