swedetrap

I'm mildly curious about High on Life 2. The first one grabbed me, but not enough to warrant completing it. If anything, i'll probably go back and finish it now that the sequel is out, same thing I did with Outer Worlds.

I installed and played through Avowed before I ever saw the Internet (fake) outrage about it. Personally, I thought it was a high point for Obsidian and one of the better RPGs of the past decade. Once I saw all of the complaints I just wondered why everyone hates fun. I still think about it from time to time and don't doubt that I'll revisit it at some point in the future - I'd like to be a little more standoffish in my responses next time.

@Coletrain Funny you should mention it. I played all the way through South of Midnight via Cloud but found Doom Dark Ages to be nearly unplayable due to artifacting - worse than any other game I've tried and its not even close.

Haven't yet tried the 2016 one.

@BAMozzy What I don't understand about the hardware vs cloud argument is why there can't be both? I use both. I know several people who use both. I'd likely buy the next Xbox if it isn't overstuffed with AI crap, but I don't spend half my life on my couch either. Why can't I have it both ways? Xbox, for all of their faults, gives me that. Do I wish they were run by braindead, profit-hungry idiots? Of course. Can I do anything about that other than complain? Not really.

@TheGameThrifter And that's cool for you I guess? And besides, I get WAY more for my $400/year on Xbox than I got when I had Netflix. I mean, I watch maybe 5-6 hours of non-sports a week vs. 8-9 hours of gaming.

@Sol4ris I have a few long-time friends that work at a few different Xbox game studios (I live in the Seattle area) and yeah, they all live with a lot of daily anxiety. It's 100% unacceptable in my opinion but they're all still drinking the kool-aid for now and thinking its not going to happen to them.

@GuyinPA75 Is the Series S the "extremely unnecessary" console in this scenario? Just curious. We have a couple at our house, in addition to a Series X, and while no, I don't use it (the kids do), I don't hate it. I don't really like it either, but I wonder how much lower still Xbox hardware sales would be if they hadn't introduced Series S.

@TheGameThrifter I play half my games via Xbox Cloud. It works great. I've been playing FFVII (at work, no less, shhhh) almost exclusively via Xbox Cloud on my work iMac. Perhaps I'm not in my right mind, but it runs great. I've even dabbled in Black Ops 7 here and there, and while its not QUITE as smooth on my Series X, it's hardly unacceptable.

Quake? First I've heard of that.

Honestly, MY roadmap looks a lot different. It's a massive backlog of games that I'll play as I wait for Microsoft to pull their heads out of their butts.

@RiverGenie 100%

@FraserG oh ok thanks. I REALLY tried to love Redout - so much so that I bought the sequel. Neither one really grabbed me in the end.

Are these the original Carmageddon devs? I have such an extreme love/hate relationship with those games that I'm all at once excited and marginally offended that this is on the way.

Eh. They got me over to Xbox from PS5 with that one-off Game Pass inclusion. Mission accomplished. Now me and my friends all play on Xbox instead and are all planning on just buying it anyway.

I quit buying physical Xbox games about halfway through 2014. I can't remember which game it was, but I realized that most of the game wasn't even on the disc to begin with, nor could you even play from the disc alone, so what was the point moving forward?

Also, who wants to leave the comfort of their couch to change games? Lazy? Sure. But I'll own it.

@Gooseuk Precisely what I was thinking. I mean, I feel bad for the 14 people that were really looking forward to reminiscing about Nickelodeon games, but they really weren't that great back in the day, so you're probably better off and just need to take off the rose-colored glasses.

Ugh. Still no Command and Conquer.

Q: How many negative things can we read into this?

A: ALL of the negative things!!!!!! It's the internet!!

@Darylb88 Agree, except that Xbox doesn't seem to consider this to be a AAA title, despite its budget. I think it'll be a sleeper hit across platforms.

@JoNJoN3 Right? I remember preordering FH3 on disc for a $99 USD and being thrilled with it. Inflation is real. That doesn't mean we have to like it, but c'mon, $20 after a decade or more? Quit crying. At least you can largely write-off the purchase of the base game by telling yourself it came with Game Pass (only to buy it a few years later much cheaper because it's facing delisting)

This looks fantastic

I can't say that I would give this ANY attention at all had it not been for the absolute blast I had playing both Keeper and the Psychonauts games. This isn't my genre of game at all, but I recall saying that about those other games when they were announced too. Double Fine keeps surprising me; Game Pass makes it a no-brainer to try.

I really need to check out the Anno series at some point. Obviously it gets enough attention to warrant a try.

Came here to weep over Beyond Good & Evil 2 but it looks like the comments section is already 2 steps ahead of me.

The funny thing is, I think one of Ubi's best games in recent years was the last Prince of Persia - the 2D Metroidvania one. Hardly AAA, definitely top-shelf fun.

@AverageGamer Because it is. That's the joke.

@BacklogBrad 100% - I'm very confused as to why there's no multiplayer.

@Naughtyottsel92 Better? No. Older? Yeah. The Xbox community in the US is almost as bad – they're just 10-20 years older. That probably makes them worse now that I think about it.

“Healthy” is not how I would describe the PlayStation fan base but maybe it’s just me hating racism, bullying and sexism from 13 year olds in the US Midwest.

@Rangers420 You got to 20 hours? I was hard pressed to reach 2. Just not my kind of game at all.

100% agree with almost all of this, though I’m using an OG ROG Ally with the full-screen Xbox update instead of the Xbox Ally X and tend to leave my machine online so that I can play games via Xbox Cloud for no other reason than I get tired of shaders doing their compiling thing.

All of that said, I have a ridiculously competent (and only 4 month old) gaming PC that still doesn’t get much use because the temptation to just sit on the couch and play with the Ally is simply too great - much like my Switch 2 has been played in docked mode a total of twice. I’m fully convinced that handheld gaming is the future with few exceptions (Black Ops with my pals, for example) where twitch reflexes and slightly better control are necessary. But I’ve now played through Keeper, South of Midnight, Avowed, and the Original Outer Limits on the Ally and it felt great.

Lastly, you’re dead right about Play Anywhere. I just preordered FFVII Remake last night even though I already own it on Steam, just so I could play across the Ally and my Series X. Making a game available via Play Anywhere almost guarantees that I’ll pick it up if of interest.

Looks amazing. But then again, so did Perfect Dark, Scalebound, and countless others. Shame Microsoft has nearly zero clue how to do anything but pointlessly burn money.

Wasn’t this panned for being “woke” or something? I thought it was stellar.

@GlasgowGuy Which 28TB drive are you using for 'cold storage'?

@Master_Cthulhu70 Thanks. I also owe ya one - I somehow completely missed MX vs ATV Legends. That's 100% a game I'd play and yet I had no idea it even existed until I looked it up just now.

@Kezelpaso I was one of the Fable Legends faithful - possibly to a fault. I met some great people playing that game. For me, that was sort of the beginning of the "Xbox Cancels Games" era that still continues to this day.

RIP Fable Legends, Scalebound, and so on and so on and so on.

Huh. I guess I need to revisit Fable 2. That was the one that I aborted after only a couple of hours because something else came out, and I never went back. To know its the most popular here is saying something.

I have a 2TB series X with a 4TB expansion card and a 4TB SSD for OG and 360 games and I still want more. Losing digital libraries on things like my Vita have made me paranoid and I can’t stand owning games that I can’t keep installed.

@theduckofdeath You could release Whore of the Orient for $99 retail tomorrow and I'd buy it. Unfortunately that entire project was scrapped and will never see the light of day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whore_of_the_Orient

@FrenchVaniIIuxe Cue comments about the game being "woke!" Here we go!

We still have an Xbox One X connected to fantastic 2 gig ethernet and use it to play all kinds of cloud games. Works great. It's not the main console in the house, that's a Series X, but you'd never know it's as old as it is, and no installing much of anything.

@Questionable_Duck Almost the exact same list I have. I really love the Marathon art style but have never cared for anything Bungie has made, post-Halo. Destiny 1&2 are a lot of hours trying to enjoy a game that I was never meant to enjoy. Same with Plague Tale.

There are maybe 3 games on this list I'm not interested in. That's a pretty solid ratio.

@ElectricWizard This! I can't even count how many PS games I've bought on disc where the disc is rendered worthless by the sheer number of updates post-launch. GT7 is a great example - abysmal game at launch; fantastic today, but the disc does absolutely nothing to reveal that.

Sure, I could play Spider-Man 2 again using the disc I guess, but other than The Last of Us 1&2 and the entire Halo series, I can't think of a single-player game I've gone back and played a second time. There's too much good stuff out there to retread.

Hate LRG and couldn't care less what they do, regardless of how much I love this game.

Meh. I couldn't care less about the box that sits under the TV so long as all of my future boxes can continue to play my massive Xbox library. I've had a blast with my Series X and play it 10-1 over either my PS5 or Switch 2. If the next one is more PC than Xbox, I truly don't care as long as I don't have to do all of the usual PC things like manually update 30 drivers a week, wait for shader compiling, and all of that nonsense.

I remember I was visiting London for a few weeks when Anthem came out. It was weird seeing all of the buses coated with EA Anthem propaganda, giving one the impression that one of the best and biggest games of a generation was imminent.

And here we are, nary a game preservationist in sight crying foul that it'll be no more.

Sort of a bummer really.

Finish:

• The Outer Worlds
• The Outer Worlds 2
• Pokemon Z-A
• Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter Rebootmakemaster

@Jenkinss Triangle Strategy is fantastic. Don’t pass on it at that price if you have any interest at all.

I’ve just finished this and gotta say, it was shamefully overlooked when it released. Yeah, a couple of the later chapters are a tad tedious but overall I think it’s truly a beautiful experience.

@Weebleman oh 100% - I mean, my GOTY is Vampires: The Masquerade 2 but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone due to the thrashing it got from critics. I just assume I really liked the story and overlooked its flaws. And I REALLY like the story. But should anyone else buy it? Maybe at 80% discount.

Different strokes; different folks and all of that.

@Fiendish-Beaver So true! I think for me its that I was really looking forward to Yotei and AC: Shadows for quite a while, and neither of them really worked for me like previous games. I assume its burn out, but I find it sort of funny (and expensive) to learn the hard way that the things I look forward to the most are oftentimes the games I don't like as much as I think I will.

Meanwhile, I'm having a blast with Metroid Prime 4 even though none of the previous games clicked and I hadn't care about it at all in the lead up to its release. Go figure.