smoreon

The One S has been solid so far, but I've only had about 5 years or so.

I got a bunch of OGs, on the other hand, and 3 or 4 of them have problems with the DVD drive (one is even a Samsung, i.e., the good kind... go figure).

You know what system is tied with the OG Xbox for problems, in my experience? The GameCube. Yes, the same console that's proven to survive a 15-foot drop onto concrete. I had to return mine twice within the warranty period, as the first one was prone to random crashes, and the second developed disc read errors in under a year. The third one is fine... but I later got a spare console, and it had a dead power supply!

PS: In case it needs to be said, I don't drop my consoles onto concrete! I let others do it. For science.

Regarding open-world fatigue: one thing that's neat about Mad Max is that you don't have to spend much time on open-world busywork. Max is already pretty powerful from the start, and the Batman-like combat isn't all that difficult, so you could probably get to the end in 10 hours if you ignore all the side stuff.

For what it's worth, this game held my interest long enough for me to do the majority of the side content anyway, but I haven't played all that many open-world games (yet)!

PS: Side note: I had a lot of fun blowing things up in Just Cause 3, another Avalanche game from the same year(!), but that one artificially gates all of the story content and forces you to clear a certain percentage of fluff from the map. That one started to overstay its welcome, unfortunately.

@TJ81 Wait, what? Next, you'll be telling us that there are two game studios named Monolith.

@Darude84 Yeah, I suppose his review can be a bit wordy at times, now that I'm looking at it again. I made an attempt at rewriting the last paragraph:

Hellblade 2 is the best-looking game we've ever played. It sounds incredible, Melina Juergens puts a lot of skill and effort into her acting, and technically, this game is above all others.

However, we still don't feel that turning Senua's struggle into a longer journey/series is a good idea. As we had feared, this sequel does the same things as the original, but it's not as powerful this time.

It's no longer unique or important in 2024, and it tries to compensate by being louder and more intense. It's a good and interesting game for eight hours, but it's not a "must-play". Weak combat and boring puzzles only hurt it more.

60fps even on last-gen consoles? Split-screen support? Are we back in the '00s again?

@armondo36 So it was actually Dead or Alive 3 that convinced you, but Rallisport makes for a convenient cover.

I just picked them both up somewhat recently. Haven't properly gotten into either, but they both look great!

I'm one of the weird ones who started with an Xbone!

It was a combination of Rare Replay, Halo MCC, and backwards compatibility, plus Blu-Ray support and that low price (half as much as a Switch!) as bonuses.

I got a couple of OG Xboxes for free later on, and it has been fun to do a bit of catching up on this great system that I didn't play much during its time.

@Pastellioli Interesting to hear a different perspective from a latecomer appreciating those quality games from Rare's golden era!

@Decimateh I think his villain arc has been going on for a while now.
When does his redemption arc start?

@BAMozzy You brought to mind a quote that I can't remember exactly, but it was something along the lines of, "Our job is to help the studios make their games, not to force them to make ours."

There have been so, so many times that- like you said- publishers and bosses have not lived by this, choosing to force their people/companies to do things they're not good at, instead of harnessing their passions and skills.

Option A: Shut down two of the best studios, who have released critically acclaimed games and want to do more of what they're best at.

Option B: Switch Call of Duty to a biennial release schedule

Microsoft:

Really not interested in portable systems in general... but if I did need one for some reason, it would have to run the games natively, as that's the whole point of being portable! Apparently, there's a larger market for a cloud-based handheld than I had thought, but regardless, it has absolutely zero appeal to me, both in principle and in practice.

@AshKirin19 The mention of "suffering" was a bit much, I agree (assuming there isn't some missing context that drastically changes everything!), but when they're spending $500+ on a console, are they not entitled to good games and good technical performance?

I'm sure we could all stand to be more thankful in general (I know I could), but these are expensive products, not gifts. That's where I take issue with the whole "entitlement" spiel.

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.

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"?

All right! Finally, the Conker sequel we've been waiting for!

@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!

Here's to everyone's favourite edgelord!

@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!

@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.

My gaming resolution for this year is 1080p, the same as always.

"this is all rumour and heresy"
Sounds like you're taking this way too seriously!

@PsBoxSwitchOwner Now that you've said that, watch as MS tries to buy Square or Capcom!

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.