swedetrap

If ever there was a game that was announced too early is was Hellblade 2. I'm beginning to think that the initial teaser trailer was made mere minutes before the game was first announced. Kind of like "Hey, what else can we put out?" "How about Hellblade 2?" "Yeah! Great! Let's make a trailer!"

What's strange about all of this is that many (though definitely not all) of the Akihabara stores have a lot of Xbox presence. I've always wondered how they justify the shelf space with so few sales, especially since I was mostly over there from 2014 to 2019, the absolute low of Xbox popularity in Japan. It's so weird to go into all of the used game stores and see all of these great old OG Xbox and 360 games, many of which I'd never seen in the USA, and then the same old XB1 crap over and over - though I did buy a few Japan exclusives. Here's hoping Series S cracks 4 figures...and beyond.

I'd love some Persona but couldn't care less about Final Fantasy at this point. 7 remake and 15 didn't do it for me. What I really want to see are updates from each of the studio acquisitions. I don't need 50 new games tomorrow but it would be cool to see what everyone is up to. Its almost summer so I'm not going to game much until the fall anyway. Still, it'd be nice to have a few things to look forward to.

Game Pass or not, it's a day one for me. I really enjoyed the demo. It would have been cool to get it for free but I'm not butt hurt to have to finally drop money on a game either.

@P3nguinprisM Great game at full price. Fantastic game on a sale.

Already bought the Master Chief shirt but man, I’d jump at the chance to get that controller too.

I am all over Hired Gun. The trailer was amazing.

@uptownsoul I have every PS5 PS+ game released to date. Bugsnax is marginally interesting for about an hour, the rest are shovelware. I did enjoy Maneater but I don't think that really counts.

Still, GWG has been super disappointing so far this year.

@NEStalgia I may actually prefer to never play another game again than listen to that guy.

My first 24 hours with Series X was a mild disappointment - sort of like upgrading from an iPhone 11 Pro to an iPhone 12 Pro. The more I used it, the more I realized that the difference was more akin to iPhone 7 --> iPhone 12 Pro.

It isn't a whole new beast, and that's what we're used to, so I can see where some people are mildly disappointed. Covid messing with game release schedules probably didn't help either.

On the plus side, my impression of PS5 over PS4 Pro isn't nearly as good. I've played my PS5 a total of 4 times and hadn't touched it since the holidays. I recently bought Returnal as I'm a huge Housemarque fan and didn't enjoy it in the least.

This Epic Games vs The World thing is still going on? Eh. I lost interest once Apple replied, "Bring it." Now I just know Epic Games as that awful PC gaming storefront that doesn't have a cart but gives away really old Xbox Games with Gold quality shovelware for free every other week.

I'm not sure that I even care what comes through Games with Gold anymore. Game Pass is giving me new stuff every week it seems, why do I need to bother downloading shovelware like Truck Racing Championship?

This feels like it's for every would-be Ark fan that didn't like the ridiculously slow frame rate and overly complicated crafting garbage.

I JUST WANT TO KILL DINOS! Don't make me build a damn bow and arrow and chop wood.

@SegataSanshiro 100% agree on Minecraft Dungeons. I bought every last DLC for it so far and absolutely love it. Would I have risked $39.99 or more on it without trying it first via Game Pass? No way. I feel the same way about Sea of Thieves and State of Decay 2. MS has made more from me on all of these games by distributing via Game Pass than they ever would have otherwise.

Simple economics:

Fortnite made $1.8 Billion in 2019 alone and it's free to play - that's just dlc, cosmetics, etc. All in a single year.

The future is base games via subscription with paid DLC, seasons passes, etc. - this 100% puts the power in the hands of consumers to decide what is worth playing vs not, what's fun vs not, and what has longevity vs not. I can't wait to play Dirt 6 on Game Pass as I've already 100% Dirt 5 after buying at launch. Worth the $60 I paid, even better on Game Pass .

Safe to assume that the "next gen" version (it's current gen now, is it not?) is free if you bought The Borked Version a few months back? I have it on my Series X but I've put off playing it for the next gen version. Now I'm mildly worried that they'll pull a 505 Games/Control move and charge me for the next one.

If one forces the other (and it doesn't matter which) to innovate, who cares? I have all the consoles and though I prefer Xbox because of their ecosystem, their community, and their commitment to backward compatibility, I don't think any of those 3 strengths exist without PS4 dominance last generation. If PlayStation grows up and learns to rely on something other than the same old 3rd person adventure game in new clothing every 6 months, that'd be awesome too - cloud powered or not. Fanboyism is so 1992.

Meh. I'll wait until it's 75% off in 90 days and buy it then anyway. And in my backlog it will sit, next to RE7.

WRC9 is so good I have no regrets having paid full price. Best rally game out there now and I don't expect EA will be kind to Codemasters' offerings in the future so maybe the only one worth playing here real soon.

I really liked Deliver Us the Moon but now I can’t remember if I actually finished it or not. Probably something to look into this weekend.

I have a Switch so I'm not sure I'd even play an RPG on my Xbox given how nice it is to play them on the go, but great news for people that don't have that option I suppose. I miss the 360 days where at least JRPGs had a presence (and yes, I know this isn't a true JRPG but you know what I mean).

All this "coming together" talk. BAH!

Sadly the underwhelming nature of this remaster has nothing to do with the Xbox hardware and everything to do with the dev that put it together. I wish I'd got a refund.

Quantum Break is Remedy's masterpiece, not Control. Control is like a lame excuse to re-use a metric ton of assets from Quantum Break and not even bother with a cohesive plot.

Eh. As games where the protagonist is armed with a flashlight go, I still prefer Luigi's Mansions 1 and 3.

Finally! It feels like I've been waiting months for this.

Oh yeah, I have.

@NEStalgia The demo content was easily the worst content in the whole game for the most part. Square should consider rethinking their demo department as they made some very odd choices as to what to show and what not to. That said, I'd still put it above most of the recent, similar titles. I enjoy it quite a bit more than say Spyro or Yooka.

I'm not at all surprised at how many people "reviewed" this either without playing it or off of the demo. It's not game of the year material by any means but I'd give it a solid 7.5/10 easily. It's extremely simple without being easy, rewards you for replaying levels (if you're into 100%ing anyway), and is rather charming all the way around. The big freakout over the 'strobbing lights' thing was a concern if you suffer from epilepcy but I'd think that's pretty obvious when it comes to many games out there now. Watching a YouTuber over-exaggerate how it almost killed him made me unsubscribe vs. hold it against the game. Now is it worth $60? Nope, but it's definitely a great $39.99 game in a winter/spring that doesn't have a whole lot to offer those of us with families who are bored of looter shooters.

Can't. Wait. Fingers crossed it comes out in 2021 but I'm a patient man.

Loved the first game but the others have done nothing for me. Too similar in tone I guess. I did really enjoy Tell Me Why and Twin Mirror though.

I support this. Xbox Live is sooooooo America Online.

@Hypnotoad107 100% agree. As much as I wanted to love BotW it never quite took hold of me, where Fenyx Rising kept me going straight through. It's rare that I play a single game only from start to finish but man, I couldn't quit. I was bummed I had to work and couldn't wait to get back to it.

I already own a Steel Series Arctis 9X and have been relatively happy with it, it certainly packs quite a bit more punch than my PS5 Pulse headset anyway. That said, I bought one of these anyway based 100% on the internet hype and have to say that in my opinion, most of the hype is sufficiently under-hyped to say the least. Everything from Halo to Gears to Forza to CoD sounds amazing. True to the review above, I've heard sounds in all of these games that I've never heard before and it's one of the few headsets that I can "turn to 11" and get more than enough volume. I love me some skull-rattling gun noises and this thing more than satisfies.

Couple that with the ease in which I also managed to pair it with my gaming laptop and I've already bought another pair for a friend who is a little too "frugal" for his own good and is quite content with his crap $29 Turtle Beach headset. Happy Birthday, buddy.

Microsoft has truly outdone themselves here. I wasn't expecting a $99 headset to blow me away but here we are.

I have both Series X and Series S (one for me, one for the fam) and Control is a crash-prone mess of mediocre game design on both of them. Parity achieved!

I miss 360 Uno.

I'm not even sure how much I care about any of the Bethesda stuff being "exclusive" to be honest. People make such a big deal about PS exclusives and frankly, they always feel like much the same game over and over to me these days. Insert third-person X in a single-player adventure with some button mashing and the occasional QTE sequence. Add some DLC. Let it bake for 45 minutes at 350. They've definitely had some winners, don't get me wrong, Day's Gone is still one of my favorite games of the last generation, but I'm sitting here with a PS5 and maybe 60 minutes of Miles Morales under my belt and I'm bored to death with it. PS players need Bethesda games as much as Xbox at this point. Stuff like Dishonored needs to be made available to as many people as can get their hands on it. I think you'll see Microsoft continue to let Bethesda publish wherever they want and let the money roll right in.

I never stop playing Sea of Thieves and Minecraft Dungeons, but I made some time for FarCry 4 (900p is awful on 4K but 60fps is so good) and State of Decay 2 and Wreckfest (which I already owned but forgot about - thanks for the reminder!)

Almost every game on here is worthy of being called a Zelda-like, except Oceanhorn. That game just bugs.

But if you haven't yet played Immortal Fenyx Rising, I'd dare say it's the best Zelda game that isn't a Zelda game in the past 10 years.

Honestly the sheer number of Xbox One titles that could benefit from a 60fps boost is massive, though it's only about half of the Xbox 360 games that could benefit. Either way, this isn't something anyone at MS **had** to do, so I'm happy it's being done at all. That said, there are several dozen OG Xbox games I'd love to see come to back compat, regardless of whether they got enhanced or not.

Taxi Chaos is the only one I'm interested in.

In other news, I need to stop buying games altogether. Too many of them end up on Game Pass, some before I even have a chance to play them in the first place.

Watch Dogs 2 is 100% better in terms of how it feels. That game used to chug something fierce.

Downside: I hadn't yet seen it on a 4K TV. Holy crap is it pixelated. I almost wish there were some kind of mild blur filter I could use. Still a blast to play though.

Meh. I have these on an SNES emulator. Not about to pay for them again considering I bought all 3 on cart back in the day and probably paid WAY too much at the time.

I've had Xbox One X & PS4 Pro and Xbox was at least 2-3x faster to download anything UNLESS you had a game running, then PS4 was about 10% quicker.

On my Xbox Series X & PS5 it's about 2:1 in favor of Series X unless (again) there's a game running.

I'm on fiber. Sony's internet infrastructure has been mostly trash since the earliest PS3 days. They've made some improvements here and there but it's just barely better than Nintendo's when it comes to download speeds.

Wait a minute. I thought no one buys game consoles for watching media? Oh is it not 2013 anymore?

Seriously though, the Xbox blu-ray app is trash. It always has been.

@LtSarge I didn't like either of his games and I think his immature method of knocking pretty much everything is sort of tired at this point.

When Fortnite is making both Sony and Microsoft more money than any of their own games, and it has nearly no story at all, I'm sure everyone is paying a LOT of attention to "that guy that swore at the game awards that one time" when he says it's all about being story-heavy.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of some of Sony's 1st party story games (even if they are all sort of cookie-cutter and templatized at this point) but seriously, this sounds like the film directors that decried Netflix years ago, only to find themselves without work that didn't involve Steven Seagal.

MK11 aside, KI is the only fighting game from last gen that I played regularly. Some of the best creativity I've ever seen in a fighter, and fresher than SFV, Tekken 29, and Soul Cal 72, etc.

I truly loved this game and can't for the life of me remember why I stopped playing it. Thanks for the update; I can't wait to jump back in.

This game was a blast for the first couple of weeks but it got old fast and relying on new costumes and that kind of crap didn't keep it fresh.

I have to imagine the LAST thing Microsoft is going to try right now is a price hike. That said, I'd pay $19.99 or even $24.99 for Ultimate. It's saving me a lot of money compared to what I used to spend on games and it's more or less got me hooked on the Xbox ecosystem despite owning a PS5 and a Switch.