RiverGenie

Give it the "Old Yeller" treatment & try something new.

Mistakes happen that is just a part of life. You can however tell a lot about how a person or company responds to them when they occur.

What InXile are are doing is about the best way they could respond to this particular mistake. Its not the customers fault that it showed up free & they are going out of their way to ensure that the customers are not let down even so.

Well played good sirs and / or madams

(I did manage to snag a free copy so will keep an eye on this. Thank you @FraserG for the article.)

@Tasuki Story / lore wise its always totally worth playing everything in order of release if you have the time. Either way I hope you have fun if you decide to jump in.

@Tasuki I believe you have to complete main campaign on one character. Any further characters you make will then have the option to skip straight to the LoH expansion story.

Scratch that you can jump right in or at least that is what google ai says but I cant find a source link to confirm it.

Edit: When you make your character you will see a red button that say Change Campaign State. That is where you pick your start campaign (Shown in 1st 20 seconds source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dj47D2fuXs )

Everything I have seen regarding this expansion make me feel like this is Diablo 4 v2.0. We have actual skill trees instead of a twig seemingly with some build diversity, Warlock (& Paladin) new crafting, loot filters and many other things

I know we will have issues and bugs its to be expected. Too much is being changed for that not to be a thing. Still I really hope D4 sticks the landing as best it can and the servers don't melt.

Very excited to get stuck in.

I will be playing Trepang 2 eventually but I am fully focusing on the new Diablo 4 expansion this week.

I am mainly waiting for the launch of the new expansion for Diablo 4 that comes out on Tuesday.

I did play the campaign of CoD Modern Warfare. Who thought it was a good idea to make you have to download multiplayer & coop maps just so you can play a single player campaign, Sheesh 🙄. No interest in multiplayer and deleted everything as soon as I had done the campaign

The recent announcement for a new Metro game made me download Metro 2033 Redux so I expect I will put some time into that over the weekend. Will also try to put some more time into my current Oblivion Remastered run.

But really I am just passing time till Tuesday and Diablo 4.

@ZYDIO No it isn't. Its the English spelling not the American English spelling of the word, both are acceptable. We dontz feelz the needz to inzert the letter z in every wordz like it paid a sponzorzhip. 😜

While this is undeniably good news I still don't see myself returning to Ultimate. Premium is a better fit for me & how purchase / play games on Xbox these days.

Isn't releasing your content when nothing else around to compete just good business though? Find a gap and exploit it to get the best returns.

Or is everyone running away from GTA6 just lacking confidence in their products 😜

Finished up my current run of Starfield. New dlc is ok I guess but they overuse some of the new mechanics so it feels a bit repetitive game play wise. The story its quite good with some funny interactions with new companions & a lot of unflagged side quests / lore to discover.

7 / 10 (though probably lower if you are not into the game lore.)

Playing Hades 2 when I can. Its very addictive & fun but it can easily time travel you to early morning with the "just one more run then I am going to bed" thing that it does so well. Oblivion also released on Premium so I will be picking up where I left off there when I dropped Ultimate.

@ElPadre666 Yes there is a god mode. With it enabled you will get 2% resistance per failed run up to a max of 80% (as of most recent patch). You can still achieve 100% resistance "if you play your cards right" 😉

Perfect example of a "just one more run" game & then realising its 3 am. Um not that I would know, honest 😳

Old school classic which is both good and bad depending on your tolerance for old school game play & mechanics.

Still can't really grumble at free👍

I will be playing Oblivion again now its on Premium. Downloading as I type.

The Gothic series were classics of their time that I put many hours into back in the day. They didn't hold your hands at all and you were thrown in at the deep end to deal with the consequences of your actions for good or bad

There were however the very definition of euro jank RPG as well. Mods did a lot of the heavy lifting to mitigate a lot of the performance issues and game breaking bugs.

I am interested to revisit these on console but I will certainly be waiting on reviews before I decide to buy or not

I don't care either way to be honest & I will just keep buying and playing the games that look interesting to me. That is the extent of my involvement with the consoles I use.

The business side of things or the sales obsession some folks seem to have isn't part of my interest in gaming but whatever floats your boat I guess

Hades 2 for sure & The Thaumaturge sounds intriguing enough that I will give it a go eventually.

I dropped to Premium when my stacked Ultimate time ran out. Premium is a good middle ground for what it offers versus cost.

Ultimate was good for me as a new person on xbox at the start of this gen. These days though its only real value to me is day one game and that isn't worth the cost. The bigger pool of games are less significant now I have a decent collection of purchased games and the filler stuff with fornite etc is just worthless to me.

Don't see me ever going back to Ultimate and will stick with Premium (until they screw that tier up as well.)

Oh no!!! anyway .... 🙄

(My message is long enough to constructively convey my thoughts on this topic. It doesn't need more words.)

They haven't changed or added anything recently that has altered how I interact with my console or games. I consider that to be a good thing.

Continuing on with my fresh play through of Starfield will take up most of my weekend. Its been fun so far though I haven't quite leveled up enough to start the new dlc but will hopefully get to it at some point over the weekend.

Project Motor Racing is available over the weekend thanks to Free Play Days. I have only given it a quick go with a controller so far and it was horrible to say the least (almost zero feedback & floaty on default setting).

I am going to set up my wheel & give it another try but yeah I can see why it was blasted on release (& I am trying it after multiple patches, sigh.)

I was all set & excited for the release of Project Motor Racing but the reviews on release painted an entirely different picture to the more positive pre-release previews so I didn't pull the trigger on buying it.

Now at least I get to take a look and make up my own mind without having to throw my money at it beforehand. Guess I get to dust off my wheel over the weekend.

@xboxjapanfan it was always going to be inspired by Japan rather than recreation as that is what Forza Horizon does.

As I have said elsewhere in FH4 they mashed the Lake District, Scotland & The Cotswolds together which is nonsense but driving through those areas in game absolutely nailed the vibe & feel of those places.

I expect FH6 to do the same they will mash various aspects of the Japanese scenery & culture together and it will make no sense if you think about it to much. They will however nail the feel & vibes of those places.

Anyone expecting otherwise is just setting themselves up to be disappointed. Not saying this at you personally I am just speaking generally is all. 🙂

Interested to see how this one lands when it releases. I don't have any plans to get it at launch as I am not really into open world racing games these days.

Still if it goes onto premium game pass or gets a good sale price before then I might be tempted.

I have been running performance mode on a series x and also running some mods that cull the amount of npcs and random junk items you see.

While I can't give solid factual numbers I personally haven't noticed any dips or frame rate issues in all the hours I have played including with the new patch.

Its been a while since I played Starfield so I am going to start fresh instead of diving straight into the new dlc on one of my existing ng++++ saves.

I can reacquaint myself with the story & lore so hopefully when I get to the Terran Armada dlc it will be a much more enjoyable experience.

(side benefit is it will also give Bethesda time to squash the inevitable bugs and / or quest blockers 😉)

Downloading update and am quite excited to dive into Starfield again. Interested to see how much impact the patch has on my play through.

I am looking forward to this update and starting a new play through. I hope the paid dlc has a bit more to it than the first one which I did find a little disappointing.

While I will be playing on my Series X i am interested to see how Starfield will do on Playstation. Hopefully they don't have too much Bethesda jank to deal with.

I will be continuing on with Borderlands 4 and my C4sh play through.

I didn't really get on with the four original characters so I never bothered to max them out & just did the story with them. I am having so much fun with C4sh that I want to keep playing even past the story part so will be grinding away to level 60 & working my way through the ultra vault hunter levels.

The Division 2 just dropped a new season so I will spend some time looking at that to see if that is worth investing my time into or not.

Given up on Crimson Desert for now as the game is just not hitting the right notes for me.

Oh hell yes its ALIVE! (um ... undead?)

Hope we start to see more of this game in the coming months and less of the radio silence.

I remember when April fools jokes were actually funny and this one plus the one highlighted yesterday just isn't.

Only one I have seen this year that made me chuckle is from Diablo 4. They replaced their world boss spawns with a giant chicken boss complete with chicken pun themed weapon drops. Its just silly enough to make me smile.

Its a good game for the gamepass but I have zero interest in it myself.

@Tomato_Goose I am at just over 11 hours and its been a struggle for me to do that. Everything feels very much like a continuous stream of solo mmo busy work quests rather than any feeling of sustained progress.

I think for now I will just step away and just come back in a month or so hopefully with some enthusiasm to dive a bit deeper into the game.

I am still struggling with Crimson Desert & its really not clicking with me at all. It looks stunning and has the best environmental detailing I have seen in any game but I am just finding the game play a bit dull.

Might be best for me to set it aside for a month or so and come back later instead of trying to force it.

@themightyant I would imagine something similar to Amazon Prime with an ad / loading screen you have to sit in for a minimum amount of time before a skip option unlocks. It would certainly kill any flow or narrative just like it does with Prime movies.

Yeah sadly this seems like a just wait for it to be real rather than a haha funny "joke"

KCD 2 & CP 2077 are the only ones I played but not via gamepass as I own both. Both are well worth the big time investment you will be making if you play them to completion. If you have never played either having them via gamepass is an easy win.

Can't really say I was too excited by any of the other games. I do have Construction Simulator on my play later list but I am not in any rush to play it.

@fbnaulin You & me both. Any news regarding State of Decay 3 would be much more exciting to me personally.

Not really a fan of the Gears franchise myself but for those that are I hope it meets your expectations and you all enjoy the showcase.

Have tried both The Long Dark & RE7 on another platform & didn't get on with either of them. Don't see that changing just because I have access to them on Xbox.

Super Meat Boy 3D, maybe, but I have to be in right mood to play that sort of game so its not something I will be in any great rush to play.

@Fiendish-Beaver I just can't do button mashing for more than a couple of seconds anymore without getting pain in my hand. I can usually manage if its slower & more rhythm based but rapid taps I try to avoid.

Most games these days usually have a hold button option or a qte bypass accessibility option so its not usually an issue. Crimson Desert just doesn't do well in those type of options.

I got Crimson Desert & it didn't make a good overall first impression with me. To its credit I have had no technical issues and the environmental detailing is the best I have seen in any game.

However I am finding a lot of the game play dull and story is utter nonsense. The puzzles I have found are not difficult but completion is hampered by the controls being the way they are. (oh I had to get my nephew to complete the arm wrestling bit or I would have been hard stuck due to my difficulties doing QTE with rapid button pressing.)

I do need to put more time & have only about 7 hours so far but at the moment I am just not that excited by it.

Borderlands 4 just dropped its first story dlc that comes with a new vault hunter called C4sh. He has some interesting mechanics based around luck & playing cards. The actual story in the dlc is ok but a bit short. Still I am enjoying leveling with C4sh and will continue on with that over the weekend.

It was always going to happen & it was just a question of how long Sony would wait.

This hobby is getting to a point where I feel the prices are becoming a concern to me with regard to next gen systems (Helix & PS6.) Nothing I can do but wait & see of course but yeah not good for any consumers.

If I was in the market for the new console I would by preference go digital only more so if the price was lower. Physical media is worth nothing to me personally.

Having a detachable drive as an optional addon would seem to be the smart move to me.

I hope GCS give some details on release dates for the Stalker 2 dlc.

@Jenkinss you & me both. I have no interest in the Expanse as a franchise but I am willing to look just because of Owlcat being in the driving seat. Currently enjoying another run of Rogue Trader and can't wait for Dark Heresy too.

Nothing here for me but I hope other folks find some fun with them.

@Titntin thank you for the detailed reply I very much appreciate it.

At the moment I am thinking I will just wait a week to see what the devs do,. I mean I am not losing anything by doing so.

From what I have seen so far they have been pushing patches in response to issues so that is a good sign.

Thanks again for the response and I hope you continue to enjoy your adventure.

I play Minecraft and also enjoy Diablo like games a lot too so Dungeons was a good little mashup for me personally.

Minecraft Dungeons wasn't very demanding in terms of mechanics but it was never meant to be. It was just a simple and fun way to pass a few hours playing a game. Simple fun is still fun & nothing wrong with that.

It will be interesting to see if that same format will carry over into the second one or if they make it a little more mechanically complex.

Either way certainly interested in Minecraft Dungeons 2

@VisitingComet1 that doesn't sound promising and would probably cause some discomfort or outright pain with my hands if i did it too long.

Thanks for the reply though.

Can I ask how folks are getting on with the QTE mechanics in Crimson Desert?

I have issue with my hands which makes such things difficult even when fairly slow paced. I have seen a few stories on reddit of folks being 100% progress locked due to qte's with very rapid button pressing over a prolonged period which would be a big problem for me.

I understand it has almost zero accessability options too (??) which is how i normally resolve these issues.

There is a lot of noise going around Crimson Desert so any input from folks here would be welcome & appreciated.

Back home after a week in hospital, nothing too serious but extremely painful. So now I am at home with orders to take it easy & plenty of time on my hands. Video game therapy!

EDIT: Removed question regarding Crimson Desert moved to more appropriate article.

I am going to continue on with WH40K Rogue Trader for now but I am nearly done with it. I guess something like The Witcher 3 or KCD 2 might be an option after that if I don't want to take the risk on Crimson Desert.