MaccaMUFC

Looks like a massive transformation from Xbox One version to Series X/S. I’ve not yet tried the game but I think it would really benefit from having a 2 hour trial like Deadside did, the trial proved to really popular and probably helped the game sell a lot more.

@Medic_alert There is no real gameplay to Balatro though for it to constitute as a proper video game. It’s something you could do with a pack of cards irl.

I admit the genre isn’t for me at all but just don’t understand why it’s so popular and received awards when it there are many other card games out there like it. I’ll just chalk this up as one of those weird things I’ll never understand, same as the very small minority who don’t get why GTA V is still popular and selling gang busters to this day.

I played a bit of it earlier but I honestly don’t get why it’s so popular and won many awards. IMO it’s **** and isn’t even a proper video game. Currently playing Hogwarts Legacy, now that’s a proper video game with freedom of movement, exploration, action etc what can you do in Balatro? Click on a few things on the screen? 🤷🏻‍♂️

I could understand the £20 price point (or £18 if you have GPU) if there was an expansion pass included but to only include 2 skins and a digital art book/soundtrack? Behave 😂

It’s obvious this is just a cash grab aimed at people who can’t wait an extra 5 days even though we’ve been waiting over 4 years.

I still don’t believe this will release this year, I reckon it will be delayed to next year. We still haven’t even got the second trailer, over a year after the first one.

This is great news, just hope the sacrifices are minimal and still running 1440p @60fps. Least the option is there for those that want the buttery smooth framerates.

This is good to know, least I know I won’t have to potentially fork out about £400 for a new Series X if, god forbid, mine ever broke.

Most of us will get used to 30fps in time but it’s going to be awful going from 60fps on GTA 5 to 30fps on GTA 6. But we’ll probably all be in awe once we get in the game to even care about framerates.

@Quickbeamx I’m not sure if you’re joking or not but I’ll bite. Sea of Thieves, High-Fi Rush, Pentiment, Grounded have released on PS5 last year. Doom: The Dark Ages, The Outer Worlds 2 and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle are releasing this year on PS5.

There’s many articles about MS/Xbox's intentions to bring more games to PS5 going forward now that they know how well their games sell on PS5. Also Halo: Master Chief Collection, Flight Simulator 2024, Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2, Age of Mythology, and Gears of War: Ultimate Edition are all rumoured to be coming to PS5. It doesn’t take a genius to see where MS/Xbox are going with their strategy for first party games.

If true then expect it to be announced for PS5 too. That’s fine because we all know MS/Xbox’s strategy now in regards to first party games. I’ll look forward to playing it on Game Pass, again only if it’s true.

I don’t see Microsoft announcing a next-gen Xbox console this year as I can’t see Sony announcing and releasing the PS6 anytime soon when they’ve only just released the PS5 Pro. I think we’ll hear more about the next-gen consoles sometime in 2026 with a release in 2027.

I’m prepared to pay £100+ on GTA 6 especially if it comes in ultimate edition form. I paid £90 for RDR2 Ultimate Edition day one so I’m definitely not going to think twice about paying more for GTA 6. I may even subscribe to GTA+ if the benefits are worth it for GTA 6.

I just bought Gear Club Unlimited 2 - Ultimate Edition as I fancied a cheap arcade racer and it actually looks more fun than Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown.

@Deljo Do you really believe Microsoft would like Game Pass on PlayStation? The sales of their games could be severely impacted even the majority of players subscribed to it. Must be more money to be made when selling a new game for £70 as opposed to someone just subscribing for £14.99 and they may not keep renewing after finishing a game they are interested in.

@StylesT The PS2 was my last main console until Xbox came along and that has been my main console up to the current Series X. Could you easily just exit the Xbox ecosystem just like that? What about the massive digital game library? Achievement system (if your into that), all your friends on Xbox and the incredible value of Game Pass? Those are the things that I’d find hard to just leave behind after almost 23 years of Xbox.

Saying all that I do like the idea of just having one console and the benefit of having all games, barring Nintendo games, on one system. I have no interest in PC. I’d definitely get an official Xbox handheld as well.

@OldGamer999 I’ve seen that there’s hardly any Xbox consoles in stock anywhere as well but it makes no sense if it’s intentional when they are making a next-gen Xbox console. I could understand the stock shortages if there was no plans for another Xbox console.

Come on Phil, get that check book out yet again.

I think Microsoft buying Ubisoft would be great as they are lacking IPs that are open-world third person, they usually always opt for first person but we have enough of them.

If this doesn’t have Hall effect sticks then I’m not interested. Been through enough controllers that have suffered stick drift that I’ll now never buy any controller unless it has Hall effect sticks.

I bought Death Stranding the moment it was released on Series X. It’s the only game I bought from that list as I have no interest in the others.

I would prefer Microsoft to just come out and say there they are no longer making Xbox consoles, with the way they are going with their play anywhere Xbox strategy and Sony allowing Game Pass on their future consoles so I have the best of both worlds. It will never happen but that’s what I’d like to see.

Just goes to show how much the game needed more time for polish before releasing. I’m still waiting for a few more big patches before considering going back to where I left off.

As long as they keep making Xbox consoles I’ll buy it. If/when they stop making them then I’ll be jumping over to PlayStation but will still keep my latest Xbox console due to the massive digital game library I’ve accrued since Xbox 360.

@johnK I’m in UK too. Other than doing everything I’ve listed to earn points what else are you doing to earn 100K more? I’m really curious to know how I’ve been missing out on potentially earning 100K more points which equates to almost £85!

Total playtime: 1245 hrs (Series X)
Games played: 261
Achievements earned: 2,365
Gamerscore earned : 121,530
Top 2% for time played
Top 1% for gamerscore
Top 1% for achievements unlocked

@Th3_Highlander How have you earned that much MS reward points? I’ve only earned 65,500 and I do pretty much everything I can like daily, weekly, monthly in rewards tabs barring play a PC game for 15 minutes, bing searches, MS Edge searches and it’s daily set and activities, logging into Xbox app daily and playing Jewel. And here’s you with 100K+ more lol

The HDR on this game is terrible so I’d of thought they’d of done something about that in this update. They really need to add a picture/scene from in-game in the HDR settings so we can see the calibration. I’ve turned HDR off in Xbox settings and the game looks so much better, on default with HDR on it looks oversaturated during the day and way too dark when it’s night in-game.

I was looking up about the game’s HDR settings and how there isn’t a scene to see how it looks when changing the settings. Then I saw someone recommend to turn HDR10 off and wow what a difference it makes, game looks so much better and just goes to show how badly the HDR is implemented in this game.

@el_pieablo I know what you mean about enemies being bullet sponges, when I fought the bloodsucker in the prologue I think I went through about 2 or 3 full magazines from the AK-74 before I took it down, that’s not fun at all imo and I was playing on Rookie.

They still haven’t fixed the ‘Customize Identity’ feature, which shows the red man holding an error board. When trying to change anything the game just shuts down and dashboards you back to Xbox Home Screen, this is preventing us to make a start on Career mode and prevents us to board and leave the aircraft to walk around.

Also when in the game is anyone seeing very low res textures on buildings, landscapes etc? Don’t remember MFS 2020 looking this bad.

I’ve only just got past the prologue but my initial impression of the game was that the graphics didn’t look anywhere near as good as the gameplay videos we’ve saw before release. Those videos were obviously running off a powerful PC but still I’d of expected it to look similar on Series X quality mode.

I recently finished Shadow of Chernobyl so I know I’ll enjoy the gameplay, exploration etc.

@awp69 If playing on Series X what mode are you playing it on quality or performance? I’ve toggled between the two but don’t think quality mode looks good enough to sacrifice the extra frames.

@Dalamar73 I’m with you about that. We have enough first person games on Xbox, I would of preferred Indy to be in third person that plays a bit like the Uncharted games. Can only hope it launches in a decent state compared to others recently.

I’ve only played through the intro so far but I’ve got to say I was expecting the graphics to be much better than this after the gameplay videos that we’ve seen before release. It was obviously running on a powerful PC and certainly not representative of Series X/S.

Aviator Edition buyers, your in our thoughts 😔

It’s not right that the game has launched this way but as others have said there must be other games you can play in the meantime and also we’ve got Stalker 2 releasing at 4pm.

This is what the future of gaming looks like people, we best get used to it. Xbox and Asobo should of anticipated that the servers would buckle on release so therefor should of made preparations to avoid these issues.

@gollumb82 Stalker 2 should be fine since it’s not a game that requires a constant internet connection.

I’m pleased the download size is a lot smaller this time round despite me having a 1TB SeaGate SSD card with my Series X. Although I do expect it to increase with free world updates like we saw in MFS 2020 which almost doubled in download size if all the updates were downloaded.

It’s going to be interesting to see how the game is graphically when out exploring on the ground, surely not every location on Earth will have the same detail? I’m expecting certain landmarks to be very detailed but else where to be very flat and bland.

I’m like the majority here who’s a fan of the game. I hear people saying it’s boring, it’s just a walking simulator etc but imo there’s nothing else out there like it, it’s so unique in its own way and I absolutely love it. I only just got past the first chapter but I’m looking forward to continuing my journey through the game after playing other upcoming games like MFS 2024 and S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2, also got Black Ops 6 campaign to finish.

@GotRedOnMe73 I played the game for several hours last night on graphics mode and honestly it runs so smooth, it targets 60fps as opposed to locked 60fps on performance mode but I never noticed any dips in frames. I do have a tv that has VRR so don’t know if that has helped or not.

Now that Death Stranding has been ported to Series X/S, DS2 it’s now a matter of “when” not “if” when it comes to an Xbox release. They’ll certainly be some timed PS5 exclusivity deal between KJP and Sony so I won’t be expecting DS2 on Xbox for at least a year if not more.

I’ve noticed quite a drop in my friends list since this update, some who have been on my list for almost a decade. What an inconvenience and pointless update for me.

@jesse_dylan Ok I think we’ve established your one of those people who expect everything for nothing and that every game should be added into Game Pass or your not interested.

Regardless of KJP’s intentions of offering 50% off it’s still considered pro-consumer when they could have easily just released it at full price at £34.99. You say you’ve got plenty of other games to play so enjoy those while we enjoy this one 👍🏻

@jesse_dylan But it didn’t release 10 years ago, it came out 5 years ago on Nov 8th 2019 so your over exaggerating how old it is. KJP didn’t have to offer the 50% off for 2 weeks but they did and most of us are grateful for that offer.

@GADG3Tx87 “They only leave Xbox out because they have the least audience”

Xbox may have the least audience compared to PlayStation and Nintendo but it’s still in the many millions, there’s still money to be made by releasing games on Xbox.

I played a bit of this on the PS5 through PS Plus Extra and I enjoyed what little I did play. I remember the environments being absolutely gorgeous and I had some fun navigating the terrain making some deliveries while trying to avoid the “Beached things” otherwise known as BTs.

I stopped playing due to other PS5 exclusives I wanted to play and finish and Death Stranding isn’t a game you can just power through in a weekend. I’m buying this for my Series X to give it a proper play through this time and I’m chuffed this is on my primary console with achievements too! £17.49 is a definitely a steal so I’ll be using some of my reward points towards this then will spend the rest when The Thing Remastered is released.

@OldGamer999 As much as I agree with you about the way Microsoft are treating us Xbox players (I’ve been with Xbox since the original too) some of us have built up a massive library of games and friends list that we can’t just simply leave behind and start anew with PlayStation. Ngl if PlayStation was my main console I’d be buying the PS5 Pro but like I said having built up a digital library of games since the Xbox 360 and the fact Game Pass is saving me a fortune by playing day one games on the service, it’s just not as simply to just leave the Xbox ecosystem and starting all over on PlayStation after all these years.

Yes! I absolutely loved this on the OG Xbox back in 2002. I’m really looking forward to this remaster, there isn’t a game out there like it with it’s unique fear/trust system where you don’t know if an NPC is a human or an alien impersonating as one. It definitely keeps you on your toes and makes you constantly watch your back around them.

@RetroMan71 I find the Arctis headsets sound too quiet and flat so I’d never buy another one again.

I still have my original Xbox Wireless headset from day one and it’s still in excellent condition and still sounds as good as when I first used it. Battery is a non issue as I usually always have the charger plugged in, same as my controller since I always sit close to the Xbox and TV. I’ll buy this new version in future if needed.

I’ll just be getting Shadow Man Remastered, it’s one of those games from my childhood back in 1999.

I’m interested in Choo-Choo Charles but I’ve heard it only takes about 40 minutes to complete and that it’s more suited for Game Pass if it ever joins the service.

@Oppyz666 I doubt it does as it says in the article, it’s a 4 player online co-op game. It’s a shame really as I really liked the look of it but having no solo campaign kills it for me.

@BowsersBuddy I bought it day one and loved every minute playing it. You can take on levels and do objectives how ever you like or just simply have fun with the destruction physics and completely flatten everything in the level. At £12.49 you really can’t go wrong, a lot of fun to be had at that price.

@Stoned_Patrol It’s a 60 minute trial but I only played one game and that was enough for me to quit and uninstall, I just didn’t think it was for me. Too many other better shooters out there imo.

I’m currently playing through the very first S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl and I’m really enjoying it. I was waiting for the Series X/S patch before buying it but wanted to play it before S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 releases. I’ll get Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat once the Series X/S patch is out for them. I’m so glad GSC Game World have brought the whole franchise over to console.

Got to be in it to win it. But I shall only be using the free entry to participate. I’ve got over 23K points but I’d rather use that towards buying a game rather than spending it all on something I will mostly likely have less than 1% chance of winning.