awp69

Yeah, The Royal Writ is up my alley. Still working though Beasts of Reincarnation and Resonance a Plague’s Tale. Resonance may be my favorite game of the year so far. Great game.

Heck between some other indie goodies like Dice a Million, I haven’t even finished the Halo remake yet. GamePass has been keeping me plenty busy. Eating good!!!

Looks promising. Put it on my wish list for a sale one day.

Fantastic game! Better than I expected and, yes, does a great job of fitting you into the larger Star Wars universe.

@Sol4ris Because those 4% might be racking up 1000s of hours of cloud gaming. The alternative to implementing something like this is to raise the price for everyone. I don’t know about you but I don’t want to pay more to subsidize the few people that are using cloud gaming the most.

I guess next time they should just say. “We’re losing millions of dollars and we need to stop the bleeding so we’re going to increase GamePass for everyone again because cloud rates are going up exponentially for every corporation. We don’t want to charge just the people who use it more because that’s going to upset people. So we’ll just raise prices across the board again. Yeah!!”

Doesn’t affect me. It’s only affecting the “whales” that are using tons of hours of cloud gaming. Just like with F2P games there are whale gamers that spend a lot more money on a game while the vast majority spend nothing. This is just the opposite situation.

Makes sense to only make it more costly for those who use the service a lot. Those who don’t, pay nothing additional.

I’d definitely rather have the few people who play 100s of hours affected than make EVERYONE pay more to subsidize those few. Most of us won’t see a change. That’s good.

I’m not sure how they could ditch the “variant” issue. The whole reason the process can work are the per disc identifiers that make them unique. If they were to start accepting discs that don’t have identifiers, it would be the Wild West and one copy of a game may get passed around to 10 people to get a “free” digital copy.

I’d love it if they could allow it but being realistic.

Will definitely have to grab Mullet Madjack at some point. The others I either own or don’t necessarily want.

Hey, I’ve been wanting L.A. Noire digitally forever but refused to pay $20 for it (Rockstar never puts it on sale lower). Got that one converted so I take that as a win!

Also got about 10 others so far….pretty slick. Just hope those other devs I mentioned hop on board.

I’ve been using it. Works great when it works. But it appears that Square Enix, Sega and Ubisoft are all not participating in the program. Those are some big players so that sucks.

Fingers crossed that those publishers join eventually.

Had this roll out to me as a “Beta” ring Insider and have tried a bunch. Works like a charm and literally takes seconds. Great program and huge win for Xbox!

All the layoffs and selling off studios sucked but I’m glad MS worked with a lot of these devs so they either got bought by someone else or are independent. When other big companies close studios, they’re usually gone forever and we never see what they were working on.

Anyway hope Undead Labs and others that were spun off are successful enough to keep doing what they’re doing. Looking forward to State of Decay 3!

They haven’t even announced all the games but September is already stacked.

Looking forward to:
Moonlighter 2
Dice a Million
Dune Awakening
Well Dweller (new game from the Crypt Custodian devs and it looks fantastic)
Minecraft Dungeons 2
RuneScape

I think it’s fantastic. Fun combat and exploration. Also an absolutely gorgeous game - maybe the best looking this gen so far.

I’d much rather play Fable than GTA. But totally understand wanting to avoid that soul sucking game, lol. Can’t wait until February!

Loving this game and it really is absolutely gorgeous to look at, even in performance mode (uncapped with a 120 hz TV). I knew it would look good but did not expect it to be one of the best games this gen graphically.

@HelloCraigo Me too! Looks like the “good” reviews are outweighing the “bad” ones. Still at 85 with 61 reviews at OpenCritic. That’s a great average!

IGN gave it a 6 so that instantly means it’ll be a 9 for me. Anyway, great review here and can’t wait to play it tomorrow!

I’m an Insider. Just don’t know if I’ll be a “selected” insider. Hoping I can check this out next week!

Both of those are promising and looking forward to checking them out!

Seems like GamePass announcements are always more of a thing at Xbox centric shows. Can’t recall a time when a big GP reveal was made at one of Geoff’s shows.

@Fiendish-Beaver Beast of Reincarnation may have gotten “middling” reviews (though a score in the mid-70s is still a “good” game). But a lot of the issues were performance related, which were fixed day one. Everyone I know has really enjoyed the game - I know I have. Microsoft also can’t know in advance how well a game is going to score but I’m sure they paid a pretty penny for a day one game from GameFreak.

But as you mention, it’s all about what you like in games. I’ve found plenty of day one games (many have been 80+ on MetaCritic) I’ve liked. If you haven’t, maybe the service isn’t for you and that’s okay.

@Fiendish-Beaver So games like Beast of Reincarnation, Halo Campaign Evolved and Resonance: A Plague’s Tale aren’t good day one releases?

There’s been good indies as well like Denshattack! Even Blood Dungeon (it’s by the makers of Nidhogg) today is supposed to be a great game.

They can’t all be AAA games but, for me at least, the service has been knocking it of the park.

@AI-Generation Yes, there are a lot of promotional items for video games in the US. That’s why I think Xbox needs to get its gear in US stores too and not just through their own sites.

@AI-Generation And the US please!

Several “insiders” including the usually reliable Nate the Hate have said that there will be a Gamescom reveal of an Xbox IP sequel that no one would expect is coming. So definitely looking forward to what that may be. I’m thinking that that would be part of Opening Night.

@FraserG They posted an update saying they are going to put more up and they’d ship in February.

https://x.com/gearsofwar/status/2090582771924353379?s=46

Microsoft needs to take this off of GamePass immediately. And replace it with…Mortal Shell II!

Seriously though, I tried it and it’s a shame because the gameplay and atmosphere are pretty promising. But, nope, they shouldn’t have used AI. Developers should see that using generative AI is causing more and more blowback on other games. How could they not think they wouldn’t get called out for it?

Resonance and Blood Dungeon in addition to Beasts of Reincarnation in the first half are all I need!

Vapor World also looks promising. Odd to see a Metroidvania in a “game preview” but I definitely will be trying it.

Disagree that August was a lousy month for Ultimate members. We already got Beast of Reincarnation ($70 day one game), highly anticipated Resonance: A Plague’s Tale Legacy ($60 day one game) is coming and they haven’t even announced the second group of games so how can you judge the entire month yet? I’ve had a blast with Beast of Reincarnation so far.

I love these kind of games and it seems like those who like it really like it. So I’m probably going to pick this up anyway with the low price point.

@FraserG Good point on the disc to digital fix down the line.

@FraserG Can’t remember what game it was but there was another situation exactly like this where they said physical wouldn’t work on Xbox. There was an outcry and believe the dev and Xbox figured out how to make it work and reversed the decision.

Or am I just dreaming that up?

Either way, it’s stupid. There definitely should be a way to make it work on Xbox. You’re still having to prove you own the game by putting in the disc.

I wish I had picked it up when it had a preorder discount. But it’s on my wishlist!

Might play some more e-Day. Even though some aren’t happy with the new controls, I’m still really digging it. Can’t wait for the campaign!!!

I love this game but have been holding off on playing it more in hopes of some optimization patches. Fingers crossed!

Looking forward to this!

@ILuvGames Might have to give it another shot. Loved it when it first came out but it’s been years since I’ve played it.

Didn’t know Overwatch was doing that well nowadays.

Have this on PS5 and it’s a blast. (But wouldn’t be my GoTY)

As I mentioned elsewhere, this is sadly just the way gaming development works these days. Ramp up staffing during development/ramp down after release. This unfortunately isn’t just a Microsoft problem. It’s an industry problem.

Really digging it so far. I’m not a big fan of extraction shooters but do enjoy a good hack n slash. They’ve made this far more accessible than any extraction game I’ve played so far. I was worried the combat would be soulslike, but it’s not, thank goodness. Enemies are fun and not too difficult. You might run into some PvP players that will put up a good fight but, at least currently, it’s not filled with over experienced players who will kill you off in seconds.

Yes, you lose most of your items if you die, but there’s still a steady progression and items you get outside of exploration that help. It’s really surprised me in a good way!

Played Monsters Are Coming! on PC GamePass and thought it was good fun. Glad to see it launching on Xbox!

@FraserG I mean those two alone are day one $60–70 games so I expect that those killed a lot of their budget for this month.

@Sol-idsnake GamePass isn’t just first party games. And while they may not be your cup of tea, Beast of Reincarnation (from Pokémon devs GameFreak) and Resonance, the latest in the acclaimed Plague’s Tale series, are two of the biggest games coming out in August.

But we all have different tastes. Nothing wrong with cancelling GamePass if it isn’t meeting your expectations.

@dreadful If a highly anticipated game from GameFreak and the newest Plague Tale game are a fall off in quality, I hope GamePass continues to fall!

Heretic and Hexen are out on GamePass early. Can’t wait for Beasts of Reincarnation comes out though!!!

I have to say Halo but Denshattack! is a close second. Fantastic game that I hope isn’t getting overlooked due to the bigger names. Mistfall Hunter is good fun too.

Add in gems like Ascend to Zero and Hell is Us and it was a great month for GamePass IMO.

Just to clarify. The micro transactions in this game are all for cosmetics. There’s no need to spend a dime on it. That’s why there’s a price on it (if you don’t have GamePass). They don’t push it in your face either. There’s “premium” multiplayer games that are far worse. Heck, CoD is much worse and is a $70 game.

Can’t speak to the beta but I haven’t experienced any major bugs and servers seem stable (for me). Anyway, I’m having fun with it and think it’s well worth a try. That’s one of the benefits of GP.

Played last night and didn’t have any issues. I really liked it so far . Blending hack n slash with an extraction shooter mentality works very well.

Will definitely play a few runs here and there between …. Halo, of course. 😀

Oh and you can play single player or with groups of three. Solo is definitely possible for those that want to play it that way. I will be.

Won’t be my GoTY but that’s probably an impossible feat for a remake/remastered. But it is fantastic. Everything I had hoped for (aside from multiplayer). Looks phenomenal, plays wonderfully with just the modern tweaks it needed and the new missions are great. Easy 9/10.

Still a lot of games to come but Forza Horizon 6, Crimson Desert and Resident Evil Requiem are vying for GoTY so far. Denshattack! also pretty high up there!