Sounds like The Evil Within all over again. Fortunately, that one ended up with options to disable the letterboxing and, more importantly, the 30fps cap!
No love for Funko Pops, but this actually looks like it could be good. Like a crazy Lego game with a ton of franchise crossovers, and shooting mechanics which add a bit more depth to the formula.
More games (especially from OG Xbox), and FPS Boost to bring as much of the library up to 60fps as is possible! Not just so I can carry my physical discs over, either: I'm interested in buying some of these if they're made available!
This idea has a lot more merit when you consider it in the context of getting a game at a deep discount, or for free. There have definitely been times that I've thought that the devs deserved more than I paid for a game.
On the other hand, there are so many ways that this can (and surely will!) go wrong, if companies actually implement it! (See the comments above for a few examples.)
Sounds like good news so far, whatever this is- even if details are non-existent. Hopefully, they'll bring more 360 and especially OG games to current platforms! And if not, at least it shows that they're taking the matter seriously and future-proofing today's games.
@Vaako007 We've already seen that today's hardware is capable of running gorgeous games at 4K60, so it's not a matter of it being impossible- just that things have to stay within certain limitations (and be decently optimized, of course).
Personally, I don't even care about resolution. Give me 1080p60, and I'm happy. Even 480i60 was perfectly fine on the TVs of yesteryear.
60fps has been possible for as long as video games have existed. There always has been- and always will be- the possibility of pushing the graphics/features harder, and settling for a low framerate, but many of us don't want that. Just do what it takes to keep it running at 60, and if it looks like a high-end PS4 game, so be it!
@AlienigenX There will always be someone who wants more, but I'm confident that it's only a small minority who think 60fps is inadequate, and that this will remain true during the next gen!
There's a big difference between 30 and 60, but even diehard framerate snobs will admit that going into the hundreds yields diminishing returns.
Most of us just want modern games to run at the same smooth rate as Devil May Cry (2001), Golden Axe (1989), etc.! It's not an especially high standard, nor is it remotely new, so it's all the more frustrating to see today's games still fail to hit that bar.
People kept saying that nothing pushed the limits of the PS5 or Series X, and that they wanted a "truly next-gen" experience. This is it: slightly better graphics, at a sluggish framerate that crawled out of the PS1 era.
I'll take slightly enhanced PS4 graphics at 60fps, any day! This generation isn't able to handle much more than that.
@RBRTMNZ That's odd- all I found was an infographic by Nintendo, showing that 20-somethings were the largest group. (That is also apparently skewed slightly, with a noticeable spike where younger kids reported their birthdate as 2000.)
I'll have to see what else I can dig up, but thanks for the tip on it being an investor report, as that should help with the search.
@RBRTMNZ If we're thinking about the same data that produced that average age, then there are some major caveats, most notably that it was a survey of adults: countless millions of kids and teens were excluded, drastically inflating the average!
Anecdotally, I'm inclined to think there are more gamers under 18 than there are over 30, but even if my observation is wrong, the average has to be lower than 33 (35, 36, whatever they're saying it is), especially if we're tracking core/frequent gamers.
@Neither_scene Interesting, indeed. Now that I think of it, it would be a reverse of the 7th gen, when PS3 used Nvidia graphics, and Xbox 360 had AMD (I guess it was ATI at the time, but still)!
Wonder what that would do to backwards compatibility...
Backwards compatibility (along with Blu-Ray playback, to a much lesser extent) was a key factor in purchasing a One S, and the BC games I play are split between physical and digital.
I'd have jumped on a Series X already, if it wasn't so expensive ($650 in Canada), but the lack of disc drive is a dealbreaker.
@armondo36 Just want to comment on this, as you're right, but there's one frustrating caveat: Games still don't universally offer a 60fps option, as devs continue to push past the limits of even what the Series X can comfortably handle. So while I'm not a hardcore, premium user by any stretch (my screens are 1080p and lower!), I find myself needing to go with high-end, premium hardware just to get decent performance. Except it's too expensive, so I usually just skip it altogether!
PS: In a bizarre twist, games like Starfield don't even take full advantage of a 70-year-old CRT's capabilities. It's just bizarre how we're seeing higher and higher resolution targets (or at least were, until ray tracing came into play), but can't even match 20th century temporal resolution standards.
I would mention how 60fps is available in the majority of games now, but I'm still on a last-gen potato, so that doesn't apply! 😅
Besides that, there's backwards compatibility, the comfortable controllers (which are also backward and forward compatible!), the ability to play any disc from CDs to UHD Blu-Rays, and the Rewards program!
Having watched through the video, this is not so much a Series S porting issue, but rather poor overall optimization. If even the Series X can't do 1080p 60fps consistently, then there's a problem! (If the X already struggles, then the S will inevitably be hit that much harder.)
@Felinox Judging by the system requirement sheet for DD2 that's been circulating, they're not even building for high end PCs- as not even a 4080 can run this very well!
They're building games for the future- kind of like Crysis, but without the cutting-edge graphics.
@VoidPunk That's a great point. It's ridiculous that some re-releases are effectively "demasters", which simply take an older game and make it worse. (See also: Silent Hill HD, etc.)
Even besides those really egregious cases, I've noticed that almost every remaster and remake in existence will omit, break, or change some small (or large!) element that people like: maybe the enhanced textures look less gritty, there's new censorship, the funny/charming dialogue was redone, a fun bug was patched out, or a graphical trick was lost in translation.
Even a really good remake can never replace the original, so the original should always remain available. And it goes without saying that remasters should strive to be faithful to the original- though ideally offering optional enhancements to try to deliver the "definitive" version.
@Fiendish-Beaver The Kinect doesn't work with Series S or X. In fact, the Kinect-based games are the only ones in the Xbone's entire library that can't be played on current-gen consoles.
If a game is unavailable on modern platforms, or if it has major technical deficiencies (e.g., a 30fps cap), then I'm all for an enhanced port, or "remaster", if you will. It's a great way to get old games back into circulation, without requiring any would-be players to spend a fortune.
Remakes can be cool, too, if they polish up or reimagine an old favourite that hasn't aged well... but those old favourites are rarely the ones that get remade! More often, we seem to get modern shooters that already look and play fine: The Last of Us, CoD Modern Warfare, Dead Space, etc.
"Triple-A" gets thrown around so much that it's losing its meaning. Do they mean that it'll be premium-priced? Feature a massive open world? Or simply have an appropriate budget, high production values, and lots of care put into it? I'm hoping for the latter!
I'm struggling to see how this claim could be anything besides hyperbole. We're obviously not going to see a huge leap in subjective fidelity, considering how good today's games already look, but even on the technical side, the 6th gen (original Xbox, etc.) was a massive leap over the 5th (by what, 50-100x?), and has never been matched since.
I guess they could go, "Our new system will be 20 teraflops, and that's an 8TF increase over the Series X. There has never been an 8TF jump before!", but that's the dumbest way to look at it, as that'd only be a 67% improvement- arguably the smallest generation leap in the history of gaming.
Ridiculous claims aside, it's good to see them still taking the console market seriously- keeping the "box" in "Xbox".
@Kaloudz Unifying the timelines seems like a bizarre move to me. I assume they're going to try passing off the '90s games as taking place in the present day, which surely isn't going to hold up to scrutiny. And wasn't OG Lara canonically born in the '60s?
I preferred simply viewing the rebooted series as a whole other universe. Not to everyone's taste, but at least it doesn't involve blatant retcons. Oh, well.
PS: Enjoy the trilogy! I first played TR1 a full 20 years after its release, and still enjoyed the exploration and challenge. Definitely archaic, but you get used to it.
@Banjo- Makes sense to reuse the underlying tech, though I wouldn't want them to put in the slippery controls and "boostathon" gameplay that we've seen in the modern Sonic games. That would be a monkey's paw wish, if I've ever had one! (I do like the modern Sonic games, but they're not at all the same thing.)
Sonic Generations is about the last game to need a remaster (the vanilla PC version is still gorgeous), but this Shadow content is a real surprise. I'm intrigued!
@Banjo- A hypothetical Sonic Adventure remake and proper Sonic Adventure 3 (Heroes and especially '06 don't count) are in my top 5 dream games, for sure. And I'll probably be dreaming for a long time!
Not sure what remasters of SA1&2 would look like, though, since those already exist... they're not amazing out of the box, but I can't see anything even as ambitious as the Dreamcast restoration mods ever happening officially, as SA1 in particular is a mess. It would probably be cheaper to rebuild it from scratch than to overhaul it in any meaningful way!
@OrfeasDourvas To play the digital devil's advocate, this game was only delisted, not removed from everyone's library. Physical games get "delisted" (i.e., they disappear from store shelves) all the time, and usually much sooner than their digital counterparts. I don't favour an all-digital future either, but digital distribution is the best way to keep older games available for years or decades after release. There's a place for both.
@Gonzo_Me GOG* has been pretty good with that sort of thing, though I've rarely needed to roll back any updates. Which brings up a related point: this issue, along with the lack of ownership, isn't inherently tied to digital games in theory... but it tends to be associated with it in practice.
That is, you can own DRM-free digital games with the same permanence as physical games, but most companies don't want to let you, which leaves physical games as a way for the customer to take back some control.
*EDIT: GOG is a popular store for DRM-free PC games.
Only about 10 physical games for Xbone, but easily 100+ for older consoles. It's not that I prefer digital now, but I mainly play on PC, and don't want to get stuck with poorly-performing versions of my games.
The disc drive was a key factor in buying an X1S, and it's a crucial part of an XSX as well (which I just haven't bought yet because of its steep price).
The MCC is an amazing value, with its staggering amount of content, but I wish I could roll back to a 2019 build. It used to run beautifully for the most part, but somewhere along the line, a patch destroyed its performance on Xbox One, making it so Halo 1 and 2 have to be played with their original graphics- and even then, they can dip below 60fps. H2 even crashed after I played it for a bit with the Anniversary graphics enabled.
@clvr I was going to say to give something besides Halo 1 a try (as that one can be a slog), but it seems that you've already given the campaigns a good chance to win you over, and found that they're not for you. That's understandable and respectable.
I enjoyed the campaigns much more than you did, but I'd agree that the games' mechanics and feel hold up better than many of the level designs.
Halo is good, and I can recognize that, but it was Goldeneye that really "clicked" with me, despite my playing it similarly late!
You guys are lucky; Bing searches outright stopped registering points for me, right around the time that the cooldown started for other users. The only workaround I found is to use the Bing app on Xbox, but I don't have time for that.
I've just dropped Bing altogether, and will probably stop using Rewards entirely after I cash in my remaining 5000 points.
I wonder how extensive of an upgrade this will be, considering the Xbox 360 version was already 60fps, is on back compat, and only costs a few dollars ($3 or so, when it's on sale).
Actually, the originals all tried to do 60fps as well, but the PS2 especially struggled, and I think only the PC can run it stably enough.
So if I'm understanding this correctly, all of the bonus content (KI 1&2, behind-the-scenes stuff, soundtracks) is being permanently delisted for anyone who doesn't own it?
This is a tough decision... I was considering the Steam version, but it lacks the classic games. On the other hand, the Xbone is unbearable with its long load times.
@rustyduck Yeah, the 360 era arguably saw Xbox at its strongest, but man, that was a rough time for gaming in general, largely because the hardware wasn't suited to delivering those HD graphics that it was supposed to. I stopped buying consoles at that point.
Turns out that many of the games from back then are actually quite good on PC (or XSX), now that they don't have slideshow framerates and long loading screens!
I'm tempted to get a Series X eventually, as it looks like a great way to experience most games, but getting back into consoles is a hurdle I haven't really cleared. For now, I'm voting for the OG Xbox.
@Banjo- The HD Collection (2 and 3) was thorougly delisted, with even the Xbox 360 Marketplace version disappearing. Peace Walker is still available, though.
@OrfeasDourvas And downloading the games would be so fast that you usually wouldn't even notice that it's happening, seeing as most of them are smaller than one second of streamed video!
In all seriousness, it feels a bit weird for a nostalgic throwback to be coming out so soon after Fortnite's initial launch. On the other hand, this game has morphed into an enormous amalgamation of different elements, and I'm just sitting here on the sidelines, repeatedly baffled that xyz is being added to a supposed battle royale- so I can see why some would want the no-nonsense simplicity of the original.
@Gollum Have you seen just how bad this collection looks at times? MGS1 is literally as jagged as pixel art, but with blur on top of the jaggies.
And as a lesser issue, some of the textures in the PS2 games look like they're out of a Nintendo 64 game in the Series X version, despite looking much better on the 360... or even on a real PS2, for that matter.
I can understand shutting down the servers for a 15-year-old game that people have mostly stopped playing.
The bigger, and much less excusable, issue is when games effectively become inaccessible, like if:
The single-player is locked behind unnecessary server checks
A now-defunct online store was the only way to buy the game
Though I can also see it being frustrating (to a lesser extent) if there's no option for local multiplayer, or if the company is really aggressive towards people who are trying to recreate the servers.
@johndoe89 I do think it's great that the NES games are available in Volume 1 now, and if this upcoming Vol 2 has a solid port of MGS4, then that's even better. I like to see as many old games re-released as possible, even if they are largely unchanged.
However, Konami has apparently done the absolute bare minimum here, and it's disappointing. Getting all of the 3D games (including MGS1!) running in 4K or at least 1080p should take almost no effort, as emulators have already been doing this for years. And I know that making MGS1 run at 60fps without bugs would take some work, but it still would have been a welcome upgrade, and I would have been willing to buy it again for that reason.
But instead, upgrades are almost non-existent here (with the Switch versions being downgraded from previous releases!), and so I'm concerned as to how MGS 4 will be handled. Will they just slap a 30fps cap on it, and offer it at 720p, with any PS3-specific references ripped out?
@Banjo- It really is a shame that they've done so little with their IPs for all these years (and the few games they have made are just not to my tastes).
And they did so many great games back in the day, like you said! I feel like a few of them are carried more by their graphics and/or personality than the gameplay itself (Conker, SFA, Kameo), but the gameplay in most of the games you mentioned is really good, and sometimes doesn't get the credit it deserves. Things like how DKC is fine-tuned to facilitate fast, smooth gameplay. Or how DKR has accessible controls, yet a high skill ceiling, with its ludicrously fast boosts and drifts. Or how GE and PD's flexible level design allows for smart, creative approaches to the challenges. The presentation is consistently great in these, but there's a great core there, as well!
Jet Force is great, too. The controls are admittedly a little weird on the N64, but I thought they're basically just like Call of Duty on Xbox (in the modern scheme, that is), so I'm curious as to where you ran into issues.
@Banjo- Guess Nintendo got to keep any games that included their characters, even if there were also Rare-owned characters involved. Again, speculation, of course.
As great as it would be, I highly doubt that Rare could just go ahead and release Dinosaur Planet on Xbox without Nintendo's permission. We already know that Nintendo got to keep Krystal and Tricky, and has used them in later games. Plus, if our theory is true, and Nintendo got to keep all of SFA minus most characters, then that means they own a large chunk of the code, scenarios, and music from DP, making it impossible to release without again cutting out half the content- just that it'd be the half that didn't get cut in the move to the GameCube, making it like a negative image of SFA!
@johndoe89 That's what they claim, but the screenshots and trailer clearly show that MGS1 is only in 240p. (If there was a 1080p option, I assume they'd show it off.) I suspect that this "1080p" figure refers to some upscaling nonsense, kind of like how you can have pixel art games in "4K". There's nothing remotely HD about it, aside from the final video output signal being HD, so this comes just short of a blatant lie.
This has me wondering if MGS 2 and 3 are similarly running at an internal res of just 720p, which is upscaled (i.e., enlarged and blurred) to a faux 1080p.
Comments 291
Re: Hellblade 2 Will Display With Black Bars Outside Of Ultrawide Mode
Sounds like The Evil Within all over again.
Fortunately, that one ended up with options to disable the letterboxing and, more importantly, the 30fps cap!
Re: 'Funko Fusion' Is Bringing Loads Of Licensed IP To Xbox In September 2024
No love for Funko Pops, but this actually looks like it could be good. Like a crazy Lego game with a ton of franchise crossovers, and shooting mechanics which add a bit more depth to the formula.
Re: Talking Point: What Do You Want To See From Xbox's New 'Game Preservation' Team?
More games (especially from OG Xbox), and FPS Boost to bring as much of the library up to 60fps as is possible!
Not just so I can carry my physical discs over, either: I'm interested in buying some of these if they're made available!
Re: Former Xbox Exec Likes The Idea Of 'Tipping' Developers After Beating Their Games
This idea has a lot more merit when you consider it in the context of getting a game at a deep discount, or for free. There have definitely been times that I've thought that the devs deserved more than I paid for a game.
On the other hand, there are so many ways that this can (and surely will!) go wrong, if companies actually implement it! (See the comments above for a few examples.)
Re: Xbox Establishes New Team Dedicated To 'Game Preservation And Forward Compatibility'
Sounds like good news so far, whatever this is- even if details are non-existent.
Hopefully, they'll bring more 360 and especially OG games to current platforms! And if not, at least it shows that they're taking the matter seriously and future-proofing today's games.
Re: Xbox Series X|S Versions Of Hellblade 2 Confirmed To Run At 30FPS
@Vaako007 We've already seen that today's hardware is capable of running gorgeous games at 4K60, so it's not a matter of it being impossible- just that things have to stay within certain limitations (and be decently optimized, of course).
Personally, I don't even care about resolution. Give me 1080p60, and I'm happy. Even 480i60 was perfectly fine on the TVs of yesteryear.
60fps has been possible for as long as video games have existed. There always has been- and always will be- the possibility of pushing the graphics/features harder, and settling for a low framerate, but many of us don't want that. Just do what it takes to keep it running at 60, and if it looks like a high-end PS4 game, so be it!
Re: Xbox Series X|S Versions Of Hellblade 2 Confirmed To Run At 30FPS
@AlienigenX There will always be someone who wants more, but I'm confident that it's only a small minority who think 60fps is inadequate, and that this will remain true during the next gen!
There's a big difference between 30 and 60, but even diehard framerate snobs will admit that going into the hundreds yields diminishing returns.
Most of us just want modern games to run at the same smooth rate as Devil May Cry (2001), Golden Axe (1989), etc.! It's not an especially high standard, nor is it remotely new, so it's all the more frustrating to see today's games still fail to hit that bar.
Re: Xbox Series X|S Versions Of Hellblade 2 Confirmed To Run At 30FPS
People kept saying that nothing pushed the limits of the PS5 or Series X, and that they wanted a "truly next-gen" experience. This is it: slightly better graphics, at a sluggish framerate that crawled out of the PS1 era.
I'll take slightly enhanced PS4 graphics at 60fps, any day! This generation isn't able to handle much more than that.
Re: Xbox & PlayStation's Most-Played Games In 2023 Were Averaging Seven Years Old
@RBRTMNZ That's odd- all I found was an infographic by Nintendo, showing that 20-somethings were the largest group. (That is also apparently skewed slightly, with a noticeable spike where younger kids reported their birthdate as 2000.)
I'll have to see what else I can dig up, but thanks for the tip on it being an investor report, as that should help with the search.
Re: Xbox & PlayStation's Most-Played Games In 2023 Were Averaging Seven Years Old
@RBRTMNZ If we're thinking about the same data that produced that average age, then there are some major caveats, most notably that it was a survey of adults: countless millions of kids and teens were excluded, drastically inflating the average!
Anecdotally, I'm inclined to think there are more gamers under 18 than there are over 30, but even if my observation is wrong, the average has to be lower than 33 (35, 36, whatever they're saying it is), especially if we're tracking core/frequent gamers.
Re: 'NVIDIA Buys Xbox' Begins Trending As April Fools' Day Jokes Run Wild
@Neither_scene Interesting, indeed. Now that I think of it, it would be a reverse of the 7th gen, when PS3 used Nvidia graphics, and Xbox 360 had AMD (I guess it was ATI at the time, but still)!
Wonder what that would do to backwards compatibility...
Re: Talking Point: Would You Be Interested In Microsoft's White Xbox Series X Revision?
Backwards compatibility (along with Blu-Ray playback, to a much lesser extent) was a key factor in purchasing a One S, and the BC games I play are split between physical and digital.
I'd have jumped on a Series X already, if it wasn't so expensive ($650 in Canada), but the lack of disc drive is a dealbreaker.
Re: Rumour: Resident Evil 9 Could Go Open World Thanks To Dragon's Dogma 2
Some of the comments above have me thinking that an open-world RE could maybe actually work! Maybe.
But who in their right mind would look at DD2 and say, "we want to build our game on this tech"?
Re: 'Squirrel With A Gun' Is One Of The Weirdest Xbox Games We've Seen In A While
All right! Finally, the Conker sequel we've been waiting for!
Re: With A 'PS5 Pro' Now Rumoured For 2024, Where Does That Leave Xbox?
@armondo36 Just want to comment on this, as you're right, but there's one frustrating caveat:
Games still don't universally offer a 60fps option, as devs continue to push past the limits of even what the Series X can comfortably handle. So while I'm not a hardcore, premium user by any stretch (my screens are 1080p and lower!), I find myself needing to go with high-end, premium hardware just to get decent performance. Except it's too expensive, so I usually just skip it altogether!
PS: In a bizarre twist, games like Starfield don't even take full advantage of a 70-year-old CRT's capabilities. It's just bizarre how we're seeing higher and higher resolution targets (or at least were, until ray tracing came into play), but can't even match 20th century temporal resolution standards.
Re: Talking Point: What's Your Favourite Thing About Xbox Right Now?
I would mention how 60fps is available in the majority of games now, but I'm still on a last-gen potato, so that doesn't apply! 😅
Besides that, there's backwards compatibility, the comfortable controllers (which are also backward and forward compatible!), the ability to play any disc from CDs to UHD Blu-Rays, and the Rewards program!
Re: 'Brothers' Remake Analysis Hails Xbox Series X As Top Performer, Series S Struggles
Having watched through the video, this is not so much a Series S porting issue, but rather poor overall optimization. If even the Series X can't do 1080p 60fps consistently, then there's a problem!
(If the X already struggles, then the S will inevitably be hit that much harder.)
Re: Dragon's Dogma 2 Launches With Uncapped 30FPS Performance On Xbox
@Felinox Judging by the system requirement sheet for DD2 that's been circulating, they're not even building for high end PCs- as not even a 4080 can run this very well!
They're building games for the future- kind of like Crysis, but without the cutting-edge graphics.
Re: Poll: How Often Do You Buy Games That Have Been 'Remade' Or 'Remastered'?
@VoidPunk That's a great point. It's ridiculous that some re-releases are effectively "demasters", which simply take an older game and make it worse. (See also: Silent Hill HD, etc.)
Even besides those really egregious cases, I've noticed that almost every remaster and remake in existence will omit, break, or change some small (or large!) element that people like: maybe the enhanced textures look less gritty, there's new censorship, the funny/charming dialogue was redone, a fun bug was patched out, or a graphical trick was lost in translation.
Even a really good remake can never replace the original, so the original should always remain available. And it goes without saying that remasters should strive to be faithful to the original- though ideally offering optional enhancements to try to deliver the "definitive" version.
Re: Amazingly, Xbox's 'Kinect' Is Still Being Used For CT Scans In Hospitals
@Fiendish-Beaver The Kinect doesn't work with Series S or X. In fact, the Kinect-based games are the only ones in the Xbone's entire library that can't be played on current-gen consoles.
Re: Poll: How Often Do You Buy Games That Have Been 'Remade' Or 'Remastered'?
If a game is unavailable on modern platforms, or if it has major technical deficiencies (e.g., a 30fps cap), then I'm all for an enhanced port, or "remaster", if you will. It's a great way to get old games back into circulation, without requiring any would-be players to spend a fortune.
Remakes can be cool, too, if they polish up or reimagine an old favourite that hasn't aged well... but those old favourites are rarely the ones that get remade! More often, we seem to get modern shooters that already look and play fine: The Last of Us, CoD Modern Warfare, Dead Space, etc.
Re: Crazy Taxi Reboot Will Be A 'Triple-A' Title, Says SEGA Executive
"Triple-A" gets thrown around so much that it's losing its meaning. Do they mean that it'll be premium-priced? Feature a massive open world? Or simply have an appropriate budget, high production values, and lots of care put into it?
I'm hoping for the latter!
Re: Xbox's Next Console Will Feature The 'Largest Technical Leap Ever' In A Generation
I'm struggling to see how this claim could be anything besides hyperbole. We're obviously not going to see a huge leap in subjective fidelity, considering how good today's games already look, but even on the technical side, the 6th gen (original Xbox, etc.) was a massive leap over the 5th (by what, 50-100x?), and has never been matched since.
I guess they could go, "Our new system will be 20 teraflops, and that's an 8TF increase over the Series X. There has never been an 8TF jump before!", but that's the dumbest way to look at it, as that'd only be a 67% improvement- arguably the smallest generation leap in the history of gaming.
Ridiculous claims aside, it's good to see them still taking the console market seriously- keeping the "box" in "Xbox".
Re: Review: Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered - Updated '90s Classics Finally Arrive On Xbox
@Kaloudz Unifying the timelines seems like a bizarre move to me. I assume they're going to try passing off the '90s games as taking place in the present day, which surely isn't going to hold up to scrutiny. And wasn't OG Lara canonically born in the '60s?
I preferred simply viewing the rebooted series as a whole other universe. Not to everyone's taste, but at least it doesn't involve blatant retcons. Oh, well.
PS: Enjoy the trilogy! I first played TR1 a full 20 years after its release, and still enjoyed the exploration and challenge. Definitely archaic, but you get used to it.
Re: Sonic X Shadow Generations Brings Its 'All-New Collection' To Xbox In Autumn 2024
@Banjo- Makes sense to reuse the underlying tech, though I wouldn't want them to put in the slippery controls and "boostathon" gameplay that we've seen in the modern Sonic games. That would be a monkey's paw wish, if I've ever had one!
(I do like the modern Sonic games, but they're not at all the same thing.)
Re: Sonic X Shadow Generations Brings Its 'All-New Collection' To Xbox In Autumn 2024
Sonic Generations is about the last game to need a remaster (the vanilla PC version is still gorgeous), but this Shadow content is a real surprise. I'm intrigued!
Here's to everyone's favourite edgelord!
Re: Sonic X Shadow Generations Brings Its 'All-New Collection' To Xbox In Autumn 2024
@Banjo- A hypothetical Sonic Adventure remake and proper Sonic Adventure 3 (Heroes and especially '06 don't count) are in my top 5 dream games, for sure. And I'll probably be dreaming for a long time!
Not sure what remasters of SA1&2 would look like, though, since those already exist... they're not amazing out of the box, but I can't see anything even as ambitious as the Dreamcast restoration mods ever happening officially, as SA1 in particular is a mess. It would probably be cheaper to rebuild it from scratch than to overhaul it in any meaningful way!
Re: Spec Ops: The Line Has Been Removed From Xbox's Storefront
@OrfeasDourvas To play the digital devil's advocate, this game was only delisted, not removed from everyone's library.
Physical games get "delisted" (i.e., they disappear from store shelves) all the time, and usually much sooner than their digital counterparts.
I don't favour an all-digital future either, but digital distribution is the best way to keep older games available for years or decades after release.
There's a place for both.
Re: Poll: How Many Physical Xbox Games Do You Have In Your Collection?
@Gonzo_Me GOG* has been pretty good with that sort of thing, though I've rarely needed to roll back any updates. Which brings up a related point: this issue, along with the lack of ownership, isn't inherently tied to digital games in theory... but it tends to be associated with it in practice.
That is, you can own DRM-free digital games with the same permanence as physical games, but most companies don't want to let you, which leaves physical games as a way for the customer to take back some control.
*EDIT: GOG is a popular store for DRM-free PC games.
Re: Poll: How Many Physical Xbox Games Do You Have In Your Collection?
Only about 10 physical games for Xbone, but easily 100+ for older consoles.
It's not that I prefer digital now, but I mainly play on PC, and don't want to get stuck with poorly-performing versions of my games.
The disc drive was a key factor in buying an X1S, and it's a crucial part of an XSX as well (which I just haven't bought yet because of its steep price).
Re: Talking Point: 10 Years Later, What Do You Think Of 'The Master Chief Collection' In 2024?
The MCC is an amazing value, with its staggering amount of content, but I wish I could roll back to a 2019 build. It used to run beautifully for the most part, but somewhere along the line, a patch destroyed its performance on Xbox One, making it so Halo 1 and 2 have to be played with their original graphics- and even then, they can dip below 60fps. H2 even crashed after I played it for a bit with the Anniversary graphics enabled.
Re: Talking Point: 10 Years Later, What Do You Think Of 'The Master Chief Collection' In 2024?
@clvr I was going to say to give something besides Halo 1 a try (as that one can be a slog), but it seems that you've already given the campaigns a good chance to win you over, and found that they're not for you. That's understandable and respectable.
I enjoyed the campaigns much more than you did, but I'd agree that the games' mechanics and feel hold up better than many of the level designs.
Halo is good, and I can recognize that, but it was Goldeneye that really "clicked" with me, despite my playing it similarly late!
Re: 'The Spy Who Shot Me' Brings Its Cheesy GoldenEye-Style FPS To Xbox
@themightyant It doesn't seem that similar to me, going by the trailer. Are some of the in-game tracks closer to Goldeneye?
I did notice that some of the sound effects are the same, but those are just the same stock sounds that have been in movies since at least the '60s.
Re: Talking Point: What Are Your Gaming Resolutions For 2024?
My gaming resolution for this year is 1080p, the same as always.
Re: 'Xbox-Next' Rumour Suggests Microsoft Could Launch Another Console Before 2027
"this is all rumour and heresy"
Sounds like you're taking this way too seriously!
Re: Former Sony Exec Says Japan Publishers 'Need' Xbox If They Want To Expand Business
@PsBoxSwitchOwner Now that you've said that, watch as MS tries to buy Square or Capcom!
Re: Microsoft Rewards 15-Minute Cooldown Is Extending To More Users
You guys are lucky; Bing searches outright stopped registering points for me, right around the time that the cooldown started for other users. The only workaround I found is to use the Bing app on Xbox, but I don't have time for that.
I've just dropped Bing altogether, and will probably stop using Rewards entirely after I cash in my remaining 5000 points.
Re: Beyond Good & Evil 20th Anniversary Edition Xbox Listing Appears On Microsoft Store
I wonder how extensive of an upgrade this will be, considering the Xbox 360 version was already 60fps, is on back compat, and only costs a few dollars ($3 or so, when it's on sale).
Actually, the originals all tried to do 60fps as well, but the PS2 especially struggled, and I think only the PC can run it stably enough.
Re: Killer Instinct: Anniversary Edition Announced For Xbox And PC
So if I'm understanding this correctly, all of the bonus content (KI 1&2, behind-the-scenes stuff, soundtracks) is being permanently delisted for anyone who doesn't own it?
This is a tough decision... I was considering the Steam version, but it lacks the classic games. On the other hand, the Xbone is unbearable with its long load times.
Re: Gabe Newell Reflects On Exiting Microsoft To Go Make Half-Life
@Savage_Joe
That actually explains a lot, when you think of MS's ability to count:
Re: Poll: Which Has Been The Best Generation Of Xbox So Far?
@rustyduck Yeah, the 360 era arguably saw Xbox at its strongest, but man, that was a rough time for gaming in general, largely because the hardware wasn't suited to delivering those HD graphics that it was supposed to. I stopped buying consoles at that point.
Turns out that many of the games from back then are actually quite good on PC (or XSX), now that they don't have slideshow framerates and long loading screens!
I'm tempted to get a Series X eventually, as it looks like a great way to experience most games, but getting back into consoles is a hurdle I haven't really cleared. For now, I'm voting for the OG Xbox.
Re: Review: Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 - A Fantastic Collection Presented With Minimal Effort
@Banjo- The HD Collection (2 and 3) was thorougly delisted, with even the Xbox 360 Marketplace version disappearing.
Peace Walker is still available, though.
Re: Antstream Arcade Unveils New Games Coming To Xbox, Including An Unreleased SNES Title
@OrfeasDourvas And downloading the games would be so fast that you usually wouldn't even notice that it's happening, seeing as most of them are smaller than one second of streamed video!
Re: Fortnite Revives Chapter 1 In Its New 'OG Season'
OMG, this was my childhood! So much nostalgia!
In all seriousness, it feels a bit weird for a nostalgic throwback to be coming out so soon after Fortnite's initial launch. On the other hand, this game has morphed into an enormous amalgamation of different elements, and I'm just sitting here on the sidelines, repeatedly baffled that xyz is being added to a supposed battle royale- so I can see why some would want the no-nonsense simplicity of the original.
Re: Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 Is 'Anything But Masterful', Says Digital Foundry
@Gollum Have you seen just how bad this collection looks at times?
MGS1 is literally as jagged as pixel art, but with blur on top of the jaggies.
And as a lesser issue, some of the textures in the PS2 games look like they're out of a Nintendo 64 game in the Series X version, despite looking much better on the 360... or even on a real PS2, for that matter.
Re: Ubisoft Ending Online Services For Three Xbox 360 Titles Early Next Year
I can understand shutting down the servers for a 15-year-old game that people have mostly stopped playing.
The bigger, and much less excusable, issue is when games effectively become inaccessible, like if:
Though I can also see it being frustrating (to a lesser extent) if there's no option for local multiplayer, or if the company is really aggressive towards people who are trying to recreate the servers.
Re: Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol.1 Officially Arrives On Xbox This October
@johndoe89 I do think it's great that the NES games are available in Volume 1 now, and if this upcoming Vol 2 has a solid port of MGS4, then that's even better. I like to see as many old games re-released as possible, even if they are largely unchanged.
However, Konami has apparently done the absolute bare minimum here, and it's disappointing. Getting all of the 3D games (including MGS1!) running in 4K or at least 1080p should take almost no effort, as emulators have already been doing this for years. And I know that making MGS1 run at 60fps without bugs would take some work, but it still would have been a welcome upgrade, and I would have been willing to buy it again for that reason.
But instead, upgrades are almost non-existent here (with the Switch versions being downgraded from previous releases!), and so I'm concerned as to how MGS 4 will be handled. Will they just slap a 30fps cap on it, and offer it at 720p, with any PS3-specific references ripped out?
Re: Nintendo Boss Showers Praise On 'Great Relationship' With Xbox & Microsoft
@Banjo- It really is a shame that they've done so little with their IPs for all these years (and the few games they have made are just not to my tastes).
And they did so many great games back in the day, like you said! I feel like a few of them are carried more by their graphics and/or personality than the gameplay itself (Conker, SFA, Kameo), but the gameplay in most of the games you mentioned is really good, and sometimes doesn't get the credit it deserves. Things like how DKC is fine-tuned to facilitate fast, smooth gameplay. Or how DKR has accessible controls, yet a high skill ceiling, with its ludicrously fast boosts and drifts. Or how GE and PD's flexible level design allows for smart, creative approaches to the challenges. The presentation is consistently great in these, but there's a great core there, as well!
Jet Force is great, too. The controls are admittedly a little weird on the N64, but I thought they're basically just like Call of Duty on Xbox (in the modern scheme, that is), so I'm curious as to where you ran into issues.
Re: Nintendo Boss Showers Praise On 'Great Relationship' With Xbox & Microsoft
@Banjo- Guess Nintendo got to keep any games that included their characters, even if there were also Rare-owned characters involved. Again, speculation, of course.
As great as it would be, I highly doubt that Rare could just go ahead and release Dinosaur Planet on Xbox without Nintendo's permission. We already know that Nintendo got to keep Krystal and Tricky, and has used them in later games.
Plus, if our theory is true, and Nintendo got to keep all of SFA minus most characters, then that means they own a large chunk of the code, scenarios, and music from DP, making it impossible to release without again cutting out half the content- just that it'd be the half that didn't get cut in the move to the GameCube, making it like a negative image of SFA!
Re: Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol.1 Officially Arrives On Xbox This October
@johndoe89 That's what they claim, but the screenshots and trailer clearly show that MGS1 is only in 240p. (If there was a 1080p option, I assume they'd show it off.)
I suspect that this "1080p" figure refers to some upscaling nonsense, kind of like how you can have pixel art games in "4K". There's nothing remotely HD about it, aside from the final video output signal being HD, so this comes just short of a blatant lie.
This has me wondering if MGS 2 and 3 are similarly running at an internal res of just 720p, which is upscaled (i.e., enlarged and blurred) to a faux 1080p.