swedetrap

I know I'm not supposed to think so but Torchlight III is one of my favorite games of 2020. I already own it, but I'm glad to see that thousands more will have no excuse not to try it out now.

In the U.S. you can literally go to the Microsoft support site and return a drifting controller, no questions asked. I think it's been this way for quite a while now. Do I need to sue for money for emotional distress too? I don't think so.

Start finishing the games I start and stop buying games until I finish some of what I have, even if it's just 1:1 (if I finish a game, I can buy a new one). The backlog is depressing these days.

I really liked this game when it came out. Lack of a decent-sized player base really hurt it as the months went on though. I do think it's a bit crap that the single-player game will no longer work. At some point, either they need to release this stuff as free to play right out of the gate (it went F2P but later on I think) or make the online component optional. 2K has burned me twice with this, first with Evolve (which I really loved) and now this.

Shadow Tactics for $9.99 is a steal.

Aw man. The kid crying almost made me cry. I miss childhood. Damn.

Have fun, kid.

I'm down for The Medium, Hitman III, and the formerly-absent-on-Xbox Yakuza games. All of this obsession with Scott Pilgrim though, I really don't get it. I've had it on my PS3 (PS Plus freebie) since 2012 or so and man, it doesn't live up to the hype around it. What will be interesting to see is what they charge for it as it was a $9.99 game when it first released. I fully expect the new/improved version to be $20 or more.

Several of my friends begged me to try this game when it came out, so I did, only it didn't take. That was on PS4. When it came to Xbox, several more friends told me I was crazy for not 'getting it' so I tried it again. Still didn't take. I'm a big fan of Platinum's stuff but NieR just hasn't clicked with me. Now that I see all of this praise, maybe the 3rd time will be the charm.

I can't stand Kingdom Hearts games but for some reason, I really love Melody of Memory; it was my go-to game during an otherwise downer of a covid-holiday season and brought me a lot of joy. And Hotshot Racing? So good.

I discovered PureXbox by way of Nintendo Life and you guys have quickly become my favorite Xbox site. Thank you for all that you do.

This is the first month in as long as I can remember that has some games I don't already own and actually care about. Already have Little Nightmares (and it's fantastic) but I really want these other 3. Nice.

Such a shame. I've always wanted to play XIII and was really looking forward to finally doing so. I guess I'll drag the old OG Xbox out of mothballs and play it on that instead. Bummer.

I can't remember Control's plot but I was so underwhelmed by the action it had that I think it's possible I've simply blocked it out of my mind. That said, knowing Fable is in the hands of someone respected is great. It's been far too long since Fable has been a thing. I played the crap out of the Fable Legends early release and was always bummed that it was canceled. It didn't blow my mind or anything but it was new Fable.

@Gunonaboat I voted for ODST too. I love all of the Halo games (even 5, yes) but ODST was just so different that I can't help but give it the nod as my favorite.

Watch Dogs Legion. The save game patch means I can finally make some progress again. Love the game, despite it's various flaws. After that, need to get back into Immortals Fenyx Whateveritscalled.

And then, there will be Cyberpunk.

I had no expectations because you couldn't pay me to watch The Game Awards in the first place. I've tried, twice in fact, and I find the whole thing ridiculously pandering and embarrassing to my hobby of choice.

I'll wait for the YouTube highlights.

The best part about the console wars is that the biggest system seller for any of these companies over the past couple years has been Fortnite. What sells on the software side more than anything? Also Fortnite (via microtransactions). What will the truly huge sellers this holiday season be? CoD, FIFA, Madden, and ... Fortnite microtransactions. Sure, a few million copies of Spider-Man the Amazing 15 Minute Reboot don't hurt, but it's mostly the cross platform stuff that's been making everyone money lately. Having a handful of mostly similar single-player adventure games is a great reason to own a PlayStation (I own mine solely for said games) but what are the kids yappin' about? Fortnite, CoD, EA Sports.

Still baffled as to why this got a remake. I'd love to see the original Watch_Dogs remade to look like the infamous E3 demo.

I get 30-40MB/s when I have a game active on Xbox, always have. It goes up to 900MB/s otherwise. Now, if that game is Destiny 2 or something, hey great, I get it. When it's Unraveled, that makes zero sense to me.

Still, my PlayStation 4 and 5 downloads seem to hover around 80MB/s regardless of what I'm doing. Day one with my PS5 consisted solely of installing games. I didn't get to play anything until the following day. GREAT user experience there.

I would love to see an Ubisoft partnership, even though I think I own all of their Xbox games at this point. It'd be a great way to share my Ubi-open world addiction with friends that are resistant to them.

I'll take mine with a Reese's peanut butter center please.

There's no game I'm looking forward to more than Infinite, and there's no game I'd rather wait for than Infinite. Now, let's see what the other 2 dozen MS studios churn out in the meantime.

Perfect Dark.

I'm very happy to see Quantum Break get some love here. To me, Control seemed like a whole lot of Quantum Break B-roll but without the plot and (mostly great) TV episode interludes. I love Quantum Break.

Now, as for the rest, I love me some OG Max Payne but I didn't get what everyone saw in Alan Wake. I tried, more than once, but it didn't stick.

Weekend is over and I played the hell out of Immortal Fenyx Blah Blah Blah, the most horribly named game I've ever FREAKING LOVED.

I did pause for a couple of hours of co-op goodness in Minecraft Dungeons, but yeah, I'm all about the Gods and Monsters or whatever it's called.

I'm 90% in love with the new controller, preferring it over all previous gen Xbox controllers and even over my DualSense PS5 controller (which I find to be very much a novelty and rather uncomfortable to use).

If not for the persistent wake-from-sleep connection issues I'm having with the new controllers (I have 3, all of them have the problem) I would give it a 95% and be anxiously waiting the next gen Elite controller.

As it stands now, I can only praise it so much as it locks up on my regularly if I leave a gaming a session and come back.

Having said all of that, I share more stuff now than I ever have, much like I've done throughout the PS4 era. Xbox has the wonkiest sharing features ever before. So glad they've finally fixed it.

@orionreplay Same. Some minor pop-in aside, it solidified my decision to get a Series X day one, and even though Infinite was delayed, I don't regret it a bit. The flat look had a very 'back to Halo 1' feel to it that I liked quite a bit. The game play looked great.

BIding my time by revisiting MCC in all its X|S glory, and I never stopped playing Halo 5 multiplayer - possibly my favorite multiplayer game of all time.

Excited for Infinite? Of course, but it's not like I don't have a 200 game backlog to keep me busy in the meantime.

Why choose? Game Pass means BOTH. And BOTH is the only correct answer to "Which one do you want?"

I wish I could have selected two. I'm at level 50 in Dirt 5 and have been discovering Sea of Thieves finally. Met some fellow dads on that game and am having the time of my life playing with them. 20 year old gamer me NEVER would have seen that coming.

To those that bought Control during the Black Friday sale, count yourself lucky. I bought it BEFORE the Black Friday sale and before the Series X|S version delay. It was one of the first games I wanted to play on my Series X so I paid full price only for it to get delayed, get discounted, and then (presumably) put on Game Pass before I've even tried it.

Yes, I'm aware I can go back and download and play the last gen version but who wants to do that?

Gamestop: your reliable super spreader/retailer.

@swedetrap I'm not knocking it, it's just what the art style reminds me of.

Is it just me or does this not remind you of every video game ever shown in an episode of South Park?

I've owned this for what seems like forever and never got around to playing it. Seems like something I'd like but there's been so much coming out in the meantime that I forgot I even owned it until just now.

Though I had no interest in it at first, the more recent trailers for Immortals Fenyx Rising have me pretty excited. I dare say it's the most awkwardly named game I've been looking forward to since Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice. And that one ended up being in my all time top 10.

Though it doesn't feel particularly "next gen," I've been enjoying Watch Dog Legions despite its dreadful save game glitch. Some of these missions are very fun, but not fun enough to repeat 4-5x because the stupid thing won't save my game.

Aside from that I'm all over MK11 and CoD Cold War (multiplayer). I've tried almost all of them and can safely say that it's ok to avoid The Falconeer and Bright Memory. You won't be missing anything.

@CRANIAL Tesla?

@mousieone I'd be inclined to give it a 10/10 and I can't think of a modern fighting game I'd score above an 8. The whole 'loading...' thing ruined the genre for me I think, but it certainly wasn't for a lack of trying to love 'em.

Because of a PS5 bundle I didn't really want (thanks Gamestop!) I ended up with AC Valhalla on both systems and quite frankly if you can truly see any difference between the two, you need to get a life. Both versions look decidedly last gen to me but if PS5 gets the edge per Digital Foundry's tests, then so be it. It's a wickedly fun game but graphically it's a huge disappointment on both consoles right now. I feel the exact same way about Dirt 5, it's a blast to play but looks a bit meh.

That said, MK11 on my Series X is mindblowing in every possible way. I couldn't stand the lengthy loading times with MK11 on XB1X (I'm an old school SF2/MK kid so the very idea of loading times in between fights seems stupid) but man, it's absolutely amazing.

Devs will figure this stuff out. They always do. Much ado about nothing.

I think the entire industry overlooked how "meh" 4K really is. I have several 4K TVs in my house, in addition to a 4K monitor for my gaming PC, and while I see the difference, it's seriously not something that I feel was really worth my time, money and research for. 4K monitors are great for clarity but I'm sitting 6-8 feet away from my TV and genuinely don't see much difference. 60 fps (or even 120 fps) though? Absolute gold. I'd rather they look the remaining horsepower and created convincing hair for once. It's so weird to see all of these near-photo realistic humans walking about and interacting with plastic wigs on their heads.

Love my Series X to death despite an apparent known-issue with it losing track of my controller and wireless headset if left unattended for 10-15 minutes. Fix that and I'm 100% happy with it. It really was the weirdest console launch (Xbox and PS5 both) that I've ever witnessed though, and I've been gaming since the Atari 2600 days. I do rather like this approach though. I love playing older games but my TV only has so many inputs and my house is only so big. Nice to be able to more or less shelve my PS4, Xbox One X, 360, etc. for now.

I'm a bit of a head case and buy all the systems at (or near) launch. While I might lean Xbox, I'm not about to miss the occasional Sony first-party gem here and there out of console allegiance, but holy s**t are people obsessed with this garbage.

Also, agree with @koffing above that the publisher-fueled tripe I read on a daily basis is neither constructive or even entertaining anymore. The sheer number of YouTube videos with OMGGASPCONTROVERY style headlines has annoyed me to the point where I'm questioning why I subscribe to YouTube premium, and these endless Digital Foundry videos about 2-3 fps differences just make it all that much worse. I couldn't care less who "wins" the whole thing - though I suspect the only REAL winner is PC gaming.

Bleed 2 is a great game if you haven't tried it yet but I'd have to agree with the rest of this. The Raven is pretty bad, to put it mildly, and I'm wondering how many people are still on their 360's waiting for the 2 new free games every month. On one hand, hats off to Microsoft for continuing to support their legacy consoles, but we're 7 years into the Xbox One generation and another week or two into Series X/S territory here. Let the 360 stuff go, or at least give us some OG Xbox stuff that we might have missed.

@KelticDevil I'm with you on the Vita. I hacked mine a while back and have a 512GB SD card in it. Amazing machine. Such a shame they treated it (and its fans) the way they did. I'd give up my Switch before I'd part with my Vita.

Lists like this do nothing but fuel the stupidity of the console wars. I bought both Xbox Series X and PS5 day one here in the states and while I don't regret either purchase, neither one feels like a next gen console of old, more like getting a new iPhone. If I had to pick between them, I'd go with the Series X simply because of how well it improves on B/C games. The new Spider-man was ridiculously short and I've now double-dipped into Demon's Souls only to find out that I STILL don't get the appeal of the Souls games whatsoever. Once I got both of those things out of the way I fully stopped powering up the PS5 altogether. I'm sure that'll change in the months ahead but I so far, eh, it hasn't quite proven its worth here yet.

Still, between them I'm very happy. 2020 was a hard year, it's nice to have some games to play.

I bought an X for myself but an S for the rest of the family (because I'm a horrible dad, basically). The X has my massive library of games and the S has Game Pass. So far, I think the S has seen more use than my X by 20:1. Granted, I have a day job, the kids don't, but I think it's safe to say that the market for such a device is clearly not the die hard gaming set but the 8-18s. Game Pass has proven to be huge in my household, and the kid sit on a couch 6-10 feet away so they couldn't care less if its 1440p or 1080p vs 4K.

What they have noticed is that it's faster, Quick Resume is awesome (when it works), and the whole thing is infinitely snappier than the old XB1X was.

I suspect YouTube's impotent compression makes the differences quite a bit less impressive than they are in real life. I went through this with XBox One X as well.

I already bought a Series X for myself but Game Pass has made it very easy to justify a Series S for the rest of the family (why yes, I really am that selfish!).

Seriously though, I make a very decent living but the randomness and uncertainty of 2020 has made finances quite a bit more conservative than in years past. I appreciate Microsoft taking note and responding accordingly.

I'm holding off on Legion until next week when my XSX arrives but love both 1&2, having beat 2 about 2 weeks after it came out. I only finished the original Watch Dogs last week and ended up enjoying it quite a bit, even though I ignored it for about 5 years. Both are great, 2 just felt more polished (and a bit more silly at times).