Personally I don't mind if this deal goes through or not, but everyone in these comments needs to do some research into monopolies and mergers. They generally only benefit the few in the long run.
Understandably in the console war space you want your own team to win. However you also need competition within the industry to keep moving things forward and keep the publishers relatively honest.
If Microsoft go full on gaas and there's no competition, then we will all have to play that way. I would rather MS can the deal and concentrate on its current developers.
Long story short, I have always loved computer games, from the amstrad cpc 6128 through to the gamecube. However with working, uni, apprenticeships, having a son at a young age, I hardly finished anything. Usually playing a few levels and never getting good. Genuinely I maybe finished 10 games that whole time.
That all changed when I was involved in an incident on duty in the Navy. I had 4 operations and was holed up in bed for 6 weeks on 2 separate occasions. It was around this time my wife bought the x360 to give me something to do. With only a few games I started working through them. I didn't take it seriously, more of a novelty. But I enjoyed the diversion and working towards achievements. I completed more games in 6 months than I had in the previous 30 years. And got ridiculously good at rockstars table tennis. Unlocking cheevos as I went.
Unfortunately life always gets in the way, I'm a busy dude. Got medically dischardged, started a job in civvy Street and had responsibilities and stuff. My achievement hunting career was over. I more or less stopped gaming.
Anyway, a few years later we got a surprise addition to our family, we hadnt long moved house and my mum was diagnosed with alzeimers and needed help with literally everything. All my surplus money suddenly evaporated. I couldn't afford to do much outside of pay the bills and had to make sacrifices to go on holiday, have a decent car etc. That included working every weekend and sacrificing my social life.
So I picked up gaming again. A PS4 to be exact and signed on to pushsquare. Its cheap and you can kick back for a few hours, picking up trophies / cheevos as you go. Joined in forum chat and looking out for the next big thing! My life was hard work, trophy hunting gave me something else to think about.
More recently my financial situation is much improved. But I quite enjoy my routine and missed Halo and Forza. So I picked up an xbox series x instead. I drop my daughter off at school, do some chores, get myself ready, go to work, go to the gym, have my tea, grab some achievements, run the ms rewards.
Achievements aren't the be all and end all. But if you are compromised in life you find other things to look forward to. I put value and meaning into achievement hunting as it has helped me get through major hurdles in my life. Everything's pointless if you view it nihalistically.
What's the point in getting achievements? Well they have saved me financially, given me something to focus on and are fun.
That is, except the stupid trophy for getting max social links and maxing the persona log. I agree with you, persona should be taken at its own pace. So why did Atlus add them as achievements/ trophies anyway? The only people I know who have achieved said trophies hated the act of redeeming them.
I loved P4G and then enjoyed P5. One thing I don't enjoy is the anxiety about minmaxing your social links and bestiary.
I hate using guides, occasionally will look up collectable locations or puzzle solutions if I'm stuck. But the social link stuff is usually attached to achievements / trophies and it drives me nuts. In a 100 hour game Atlus even want you to play through multiple times.
As mentioned it was novel in P4G and P5 but I'm noticing these elements filtering into other games and honestly, I don't like it.
@Bleachedsmiles great reply to my comment Bleach but I see the same complaints all the time. Just check out the 1 star reviews on any gamepass game on the ms store. Ridiculous and it makes you wonder what Microsoft could do. A great big game or 5 would help, unfortunately they don't have that luxury as god of war and tears of the kingdom are on other systems. We have Assasins creed through to Fifa on gamepass, outside of having the new Capcom games (never going to happen as they are worth £££s to the stockholders and staff) then I don't see any avenues they haven't tried.
All the people moaning. We only get so many AAA games per year. And trust me, you get bored of the same 1st / 3rd person action adventures with rpg light elements. It's great to have loads of indies on the service. If it was just AAA you would get maybe 1 a month.
I've come to the conclusion that the moaners have zero inclination to try anything off piste. They want standard, designed in a boardroom fare. Tick box collectaphones with zero creativity. Season pass hoares crying out for day one dlc. I'm going to be honest, all the big highly rated games for the last 5 years outside of a few personal standouts, are hard to remember as they share so many elements.
Give me inside, the witness, celeste, rogue legacy, citizen sleeper, immortality, route 96 etc over the likes of Days gone, Redfall, online shooter 279 any day of the week.
@UndyingInsurgent95 Every game In the MGS series can be played in any order. There are threads, character archs and mentions recurring throughout but honestly it doesn't matter which one you start with. The overall story is boss! Great gameplay and amazing characters.
As for zelda, it's even easier. The story is absolutely awful so whatever order you decide to run them it doesn't matter. As its for the adventure and mechanics rather than collecting mcguffins and saving a princess from an evil person.
@Altaria_97 I never got embroiled with mgs or mgs2 like some of my mates, played them briefly of course, didnt see the allure. I was more of a wipeout / final fantasy fan. But once I got into the swing of mgs 3 (the subsistence version I think) well I was a fan for life. Then went back and played the others properly!
@Moby no one brags about their achievement score other than occasionally mentioning it. Its more of a personal scoreboard. With ms rewards you can earn 1500 a month through achievements. So it's actually worth £15.38 a year.
£25 voucher is 29250 points. 18000 points through achievements in a year. £15.38.
Then you also get occasional punch cards for achievements which add a bit here or there. So it does have some real world value.
@Thenewguy @Fiendish-Beaver hard disagree on the platinum trophies. I missed a few plats last gen due to bugged trophies. This gen on xbox I've already had missed / bugged achievements but it doesn't matter because a few glitched rewards totalling 50g isn't a big deal to your overall score. 3 platinums is.
Also you end up doing the most mundane tasks for platinums. As an example I'm on 960g for lego star wars skywalker saga. It was boring af towards the end. If this was on PlayStation I would have had to grind all the crap hidden sub missions before I could move on. This happens a lot and was one of the reasons I'm back on xbox.
At the end of the day. I love achievement / trophy hunting. Currently sat on 164,900 achievement points and 62 platinums. But achievements are less ocd inducing.
I also hear everyone who says they don't matter. They don't in the real world. But they do to me and other achievement hunters. I'm not becoming a billionaire, pop star or sport sensation. But I can have my own digital tracker to rack up something other than debt and misery.
Coming on the heels of Max Payne (which is a bona-fide classic and top tier story) Alan Wake had its work cut out from remedy, even post release of Control. I personally dont think Remedy have developed a game as good as Max Payne - at their particular release dates (it's obviously aged now).
As others have mentioned the flashlight shooting does wear thin but it's a fine game all the same. Worth pottering through. 8/10.
Honestly I must have played a different game to everyone else as immortals fenyx rising is rubbish. (My opinion not hating on anyone else for liking it).
I also hated BOTW and Witcher 3, so maybe these openworld fantasy games are designed for another demographic. Give me Forza 4/5 or MGS5 any day. Games with a basis in reality are more my bag.
Coming after the fantastic 'inside' I was excited to playthrough Somerville, it was rubbish. Got maybe an hour in and had enough of the awful controls.
Gamepass is great. I'm currently playing halo mcc, vampire survivors and persona. Who has time for Somerville which is dipped in s'@#.
@FakeSunkist the saying is 'you can't shine a s£%t'
I am planning on giving redfall a shot later.
One thing I will say against this - xbox has no games - narrative. This year alone we have Hi Fi Rush, Age of empires 2, minecraft legends and now redfall. Honestly I fell off the likes of God of War and days gone on the PS last gen and had to wait an epoch for another first party to come along. At least xbox have a regular stream of games.
@Cikajovazmaj I get that. I've been gaming since the Atari 2600. But on a big 4k TV, switch looks terrible.
Also there are a ton of indies on xbox which simply don't get the exposure of Mario etc so no one tries them. Opus, Immortality and age of empires 2 remastered are all great. Have you played them?
Long story short, I've been getting fit and switch Ring fit adventures seemed like a good option to work on my core and posture. Do not regret buying it! Great workout.
However as a gaming system (so far Mario maker 2, Zelda and tactics ogre reborn) the sharpness and clarity is unforgiveable. On a modern TV it looks worse than an xbox 360. Playable but blurry. On the xbox series x most games are buttery smooth, on the switch you have awful shadows, frame rate dips and its hard to bear with. Handheld mode isn't perfect but at least it has its benefits. Would not recommend a switch if you preferably game on a TV.
I've just bought xenoblade chronicles after all the positive acclaim and am waiting patiently for it to arrive. After buying online I searched for a deepdive in preparation. Digital foundry on youtube noted its 700p resolution with drops in the 500s. I mean wtf is that?
@KaijuKaiser The Xbox series x outperforms the PS5 in raw numbers other than transfer speed. Which is blindingly quick on the PS5. Mark Kerny knew what he was doing there. The xbox should be out performing the ps5, especially with multi platform games available at release on PC too. But I strongly believe the talent isn't there for bespoke optimisation of games and ports will be developed around the weaker specs of the PS5. The transfer speed will be the Trump card when the historically more successful PlayStations specification are being aligned with. The series S is a concern, clearly effecting modern day gaming production.
Why can't they release games explicitly for the series x? If it has to release on the series S then yes MS are going to fall way behind, as its way weaker than both the PS5 and xbox series x.
@Benjamin sorry Ben I'm replying to a comment you made ages ago.
I disagree with your comment, although philosophically you are correct and it should be the case.
RPGs are catchall genre for a multitude of gameplay and story types. Compare FF7 to The Witcher 3 to Mass Effect 2. The only similar aspects are they have indepth menus and grand stories. Most early RPGs gave no choice really. A lot of the 'build' meta we see in more recent games are completely absent in many earlier games. Take Persona 5, it has as many similarities with a deck building game than it does with Disco Elysium which has more in common with a visual novel. I've been playing this idea around since turn based combat (which I assumed was integral) was swapped out for live action.
The only similarities with anything placed in the RPG camp are indepth menus. From linear RPGs to open world. From turnbased to action. From grandiose to mundane. It's all included. And now we have modern 3rd person action games with rpg elements. And all that means are upgrade paths and indepth menus.
Using Forza Horizon 4 as an example. I think the template is fair. A big open world with 50+ hours of stuff to do. 500+ cars off the bat and a variety of gamemodes. It's a full game. Monetary rewards from game modes are decent and you have a constant flow of new stuff.
The DLC is refreshing and you can buy them if you want. I bought the lego dlc. Developers do have bills too. Can't begrudge paying £20 for 15-20 hours in a big area, novel ideas, new circuits and great cars.
The car packs are less forgiving. If you buy an ingame car, the game doesn't change and this is where GT7 falls down massively. The game is accruing your garage. If its a slog and rewards are nerfed, it's not fun. If you can't enter races as you don't have a car and it's seemingly untenable to accrue 20million turismo dollarooneys then you miss out on major parts of the game. Once the cafe campaign was complete in GT7 it became an absolute chore to build up your garage. I had a solitary top rated vehicle in GT7 and hours of grinding ahead of me.
Proper fully fledged dlc is superior to car packs in every way. And I don't think anyone has an issue with that sentence.
Sorry but what is going on here? We need to bring back scoring from back in the day which marked graphics, sound, gameplay and stuff separately. All we get now is an opinion piece on how the story's are bad or not to a reviewers taste rather that a true reflection of the game itself. From reading those snippets I think the story is gash but the rest of the game is decent to good. And outside of mass effect and final fantasy, who gives a monkeys if the story is crap? Let's be honest for every walking dead (love you clem and lee) we get 500 weaker stories and some games with none at all. Is the story of Forza Horizon believable... no 2/10. See, absolute idiocy.
@jordan1992 Gran Turismo 7s cars don't even match up with Horizons, it also has that clinical look. Which I like but it's not realistic. GT7 does a lot right, the handling on a controller is 10/10, the track selection is a 9/10, the Pitstops are a good addition and work well (but could be improved) 7/10, the wet weather racing is solid - however I would rate that at a 6/10 as the weather effects are garbage and it doesnt feature on every track. The time trials are superb so too the licences 10/10. The scapes mode and graphic import tools are sublime 10/10. The lighting at the night Is brilliant but looks weird in the day (strange lights off cars) 8/10.
On to the bad stuff and GT7 doesn't have a tyre simulation so if you are all in the same car driving similar lines regardless of how smooth - you pit at the same time to swap them out. The offside graphics are terrible, the music selection is well its definitely something, thd games framerate sinks on certain tracks, the career mode is the same type of race throughout with no qualifying. The music races are pointless. The grind for cars Is ridiculous and the dirt racing isn't realistic.
To summarise, GT7 is THE best road driving simulation so far. However its not a good game. If you are into daily online racing and time trialling, taking shots of your bespoke car in the world greatest locations - its a blast. For single players who are in it for a laugh, it's not good.
Hopefully the new Forza does everything better with the same level of control.
@NEStalgia GT7 is good at times. The lighting at night, controls well on a controller, decent track selection (a couple more would have been perfect), driving licenses are great.
As a game it's pretty bad tbh. The graphics are below par, especially the details and fauna, the cars aren't as well modeled as forza horizon 4 or 5, the dirt racing is rubbish and the career progression is odd with hardly any variety. The music racing is a gimmick, the limited fuel levels are boring as fub. I stopped playing sometime last year as I couldn't play certain online races with a designated vehicle, as I refused to pay for the cars and none were dropping in the lottery. GT7 is overrated.
I'm a huge VR advocate but honestly, if anyone here has slight travel sickness. Never use vr in driving games. You will feel sick, its bad. If you don't, lucky you.
But as others have mentioned Ultimate team is the defacto career mode. It's great if you don't spend money, but when microtransactions are worth more to EA than selling the actual full priced game. Then somebody is. Its pay to win.
The actual career mode is a joke.
It's a pity EA have monopolised sports games, back in the 16bit days we had loads of great football games. Now it's just EA or 2k with some real bad indy efforts.
@jdv95 why hello there JDV. You have to download Forza Horizon 4 or 5! Welcome to xbox.
I will jump on p3p at some point. Maybe next week, we will see. Forza 4 and the ridiculously mediocre grid legends are seeing me right for the time being.
@Kaloudz together. You can skip a lot of conversations. Persona has an awful habit of repeating the same stuff sequentially. Also in dungeons just get to the end, the collectibles aren't worth the detours.
The biggest time sink is checking in with everyone. If you have a plan, like trying to max a single character it's much quicker. Also don't go for a completionist run - why anyone would want to max the persona log is anyone's guess, you tend to find a couple of good ones and stick with them.
For p4g and p5 I never used a guide, however I may try to find a min-max guide for the opening hours of P3. Just so I'm not stressing half way in.
@Kaloudz its not 100 hours in all honesty. My playthroughs of p4g on vita and p5 on ps4 have totalled maybe 145 hours.
These games are worth a go. I wouldn't replay either tbh. But that's the same as restarting a forza horizon save. No thank you. P4 is my favourite out of the two.
@themightyant @FatalBubbles both 4 and 5 are good. Very similar. Personally I prefer 4 for a couple of reasons. In forza 4 it feels like a real place with houses and villages dotted around. 5 has the one town and the change from sand dunes to jungle to dirt area, feels unnatural and too gamified. The progression and gradual uncovering of the map is better in 4. In FH5 I did a race, some drifts and was straight into the goliath. Bizarre decision from the developers.
I suppose my positives could be someone else's negatives.
@Kaloudz turn off the auto redeem as the voucher you receive is time limited (which is a £5 voucher for 5500 points in the UK) and sit on points until you can grab a £25 voucher (which is 29250 points) yes you miss a couple of quids worth of vouchers but you can then get a proper game!
So far Ive managed to snag Rogue Legacy 2, Sonic Origins, The Stanley Parable, a couple of retro gaming bundles, Sleeping Dogs and the Solitaire something or other which looked interesting
@ThatMoomin similar to Yakuza you want a big gap in between these games. Akin to Final Fantasy they are standalone adventures so you can tackle them any way you want. I played P4G a couple of months before P5 and gameplay wise they are so similar it was difficult running with P5. I could admire the game of course (it looks, plays and runs like a dream) but it's very difficult to jump from one 100+ hour social jrpg to another one knowing the amount of running around and rebuilding relationships and your persona deck.
@BAMozzy There is a counter arguement that exclusives take advantage of particular hardware.
Also you can buy an Xbox, switch, playstation and steam deck for £1400. Compared to our annual family holiday which is now over £3000 I know what I would prefer. Although a break away is nice. I know not everybody has the money or space but gaming is still a relatively cheap hobby. How many of us have multiple consoles? I would wager most of us in these here comments.
@BRT15 Eurogamer is infamous for their ridiculous reviews. I was an avid reader but nowadays look elsewhere for my gaming news. If high on life was made by Nintendo without the jokes it would be recommended by that shower.
@trev666 completely agree. The game is great. Refreshing with the right amount of progression (other than the intro) and content. I quite like the humour too, it's juvenile but in a world full of ultra-seriousness I'm happy to go along with it. I don't think the introduction helps the game though. Getting offered lines by your sister in a middle class household is kind of taboo - it doesn't help the game either and just adds a negative, the initial fights using Kenny alone quickly get boring (just imagine halo with just the pistol for a couple of levels). But otherwise it's sound. Ive Had a couple of bugs like being stuck in scenery from exploring, I just restart from the generous save points.
@hadrian nothing original? These insane takes for a decent game. I'm gathering you played on story difficulty as there's nothing tedious about the guns and abilities on normal. Also the additional traversal abilities are class, It's fun and occasionally challenging. Hooking onto a high wire, quickly shooting a gloop shot to take down the barrier, boosting up with your jet pack, landing on a sawblade you had to shoot prior to setting off before slowing time to enter a gigantic fan which is at the end of a gravity defying magboot walk. What about that is meh?
@Fenbops the gunplay gets better as you progress. Once you get creature and gus, combined with the jetpack and mag boots, it's on another level compared to Kenny and Sweezy (never use Sweezy as it's pretty weak and the time dilation seems pointless, maybe on hard that could be useful but on normal so far it's unnecessary).
Road 96 and Citizen Sleeper for me. These kind of games never get a look in during polls. I absolutely love them. Polished, unique, fresh and engaging. Yes they are in no way comparable to Elden Ring or the glorious Persona 5 but I actually treasure them even more.
@Dezzy70 I have seen comments like this forever and yes the games are weak* but if they bin the games you won't get anything else and will be paying the same. Ive seen it with ps Plus, my service subscriptions away from gaming and DAW subs. PS Plus used to give away roughly 4-6 games a month on the instant game collection (variable quality admittedly) and that was reduced to 2 a couple of years into the PS4 gen. Do not give companies the ability to take away your perks, that's the only life advice I will ever give out. Bear in mind Xbox live - you originally paid a fiver a month for just the online. There have been a decent amount of playable games over the last year including portal 2, broken sword and yokis island express. It's not Forza 5 but they are great for an evening session.
@Lup cool is an understatement. Mass effect is the best trilogy ever (up there with Halo, Streets of rage and the naked gun films).
It's great for everyone! Ive Played every game through 4 times now and it's so so good. Once the credits roll everything else is pants in comparison.
Frazer is right FIFA WC 2010 was ace. No micros, the controls were on point, great gameplay and the vibe was fabulous.
@BBB Swos was the stand out game for years. Great game and the tactics you could edit have never been bettered imo PES 3-5, FIFA 09-Fifa WC 2010 and then PES 18 have been worth playing since. I also have a soft spot for a sega soccer slam but it's more an arcade take on 3v3 not really the same thing.
I think it's great that 10s are given more frequently. No game is perfect.
That said Deathloop wasnt for me (that AI?) and P5 is great, however I had played P4G to completion recently it didn't have the same effect. For anyone new to the series, yeah it would blow you away!
A couple of 10s available on Gamepass are Inside and Forza Horizon 5.
I can't fathom why someone would be give it a 9 or 10. Although scores are arbitrary, it does feedback to developers who then provide more of the same. And I honestly don't want more of immortals fenix rising.
And it wasn't to feel superior. In fact if you met me I'm one of the least egotistical people you are likely to meet. I was a member of Pushsquare (sister site) for a while and instigated gaming nights and forum competitions. I suppose writing something like that on Push were I was known, tended to fare better, rather than being name called as wanting to be a 'superior gamer' I am not superior to anyone at any game.
I have disliked ubisofts output for a while now, what they build seems like a ticksheet in a boardroom. They are not designed from the heart, like say Mario Odyssey, God of War or Ori. They don't do anything new like say Arms, Detroit become Human or Deathloop. Ubisofts games exist as an open world storefront advertising their next disappointment.
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Re: FTC Requests Temporary Restraining Order Against Microsoft & Activision Blizzard
Personally I don't mind if this deal goes through or not, but everyone in these comments needs to do some research into monopolies and mergers. They generally only benefit the few in the long run.
Understandably in the console war space you want your own team to win. However you also need competition within the industry to keep moving things forward and keep the publishers relatively honest.
If Microsoft go full on gaas and there's no competition, then we will all have to play that way. I would rather MS can the deal and concentrate on its current developers.
Re: Atlus Reveals Two New Persona Games, Both Coming To Xbox Game Pass
@NEStalgia I love achievements!
Long story short, I have always loved computer games, from the amstrad cpc 6128 through to the gamecube. However with working, uni, apprenticeships, having a son at a young age, I hardly finished anything. Usually playing a few levels and never getting good. Genuinely I maybe finished 10 games that whole time.
That all changed when I was involved in an incident on duty in the Navy. I had 4 operations and was holed up in bed for 6 weeks on 2 separate occasions. It was around this time my wife bought the x360 to give me something to do. With only a few games I started working through them. I didn't take it seriously, more of a novelty. But I enjoyed the diversion and working towards achievements. I completed more games in 6 months than I had in the previous 30 years. And got ridiculously good at rockstars table tennis. Unlocking cheevos as I went.
Unfortunately life always gets in the way, I'm a busy dude. Got medically dischardged, started a job in civvy Street and had responsibilities and stuff. My achievement hunting career was over. I more or less stopped gaming.
Anyway, a few years later we got a surprise addition to our family, we hadnt long moved house and my mum was diagnosed with alzeimers and needed help with literally everything. All my surplus money suddenly evaporated. I couldn't afford to do much outside of pay the bills and had to make sacrifices to go on holiday, have a decent car etc. That included working every weekend and sacrificing my social life.
So I picked up gaming again. A PS4 to be exact and signed on to pushsquare. Its cheap and you can kick back for a few hours, picking up trophies / cheevos as you go. Joined in forum chat and looking out for the next big thing! My life was hard work, trophy hunting gave me something else to think about.
More recently my financial situation is much improved. But I quite enjoy my routine and missed Halo and Forza. So I picked up an xbox series x instead. I drop my daughter off at school, do some chores, get myself ready, go to work, go to the gym, have my tea, grab some achievements, run the ms rewards.
Achievements aren't the be all and end all. But if you are compromised in life you find other things to look forward to. I put value and meaning into achievement hunting as it has helped me get through major hurdles in my life. Everything's pointless if you view it nihalistically.
What's the point in getting achievements? Well they have saved me financially, given me something to focus on and are fun.
That is, except the stupid trophy for getting max social links and maxing the persona log. I agree with you, persona should be taken at its own pace. So why did Atlus add them as achievements/ trophies anyway? The only people I know who have achieved said trophies hated the act of redeeming them.
Re: Atlus Reveals Two New Persona Games, Both Coming To Xbox Game Pass
I loved P4G and then enjoyed P5. One thing I don't enjoy is the anxiety about minmaxing your social links and bestiary.
I hate using guides, occasionally will look up collectable locations or puzzle solutions if I'm stuck. But the social link stuff is usually attached to achievements / trophies and it drives me nuts. In a 100 hour game Atlus even want you to play through multiple times.
As mentioned it was novel in P4G and P5 but I'm noticing these elements filtering into other games and honestly, I don't like it.
Re: Xbox Boss Phil Spencer 'Really Enjoying' New Game Pass Indie Title
@Bleachedsmiles great reply to my comment Bleach but I see the same complaints all the time. Just check out the 1 star reviews on any gamepass game on the ms store. Ridiculous and it makes you wonder what Microsoft could do. A great big game or 5 would help, unfortunately they don't have that luxury as god of war and tears of the kingdom are on other systems. We have Assasins creed through to Fifa on gamepass, outside of having the new Capcom games (never going to happen as they are worth £££s to the stockholders and staff) then I don't see any avenues they haven't tried.
Re: Xbox Boss Phil Spencer 'Really Enjoying' New Game Pass Indie Title
All the people moaning. We only get so many AAA games per year. And trust me, you get bored of the same 1st / 3rd person action adventures with rpg light elements. It's great to have loads of indies on the service. If it was just AAA you would get maybe 1 a month.
I've come to the conclusion that the moaners have zero inclination to try anything off piste. They want standard, designed in a boardroom fare. Tick box collectaphones with zero creativity. Season pass hoares crying out for day one dlc. I'm going to be honest, all the big highly rated games for the last 5 years outside of a few personal standouts, are hard to remember as they share so many elements.
Give me inside, the witness, celeste, rogue legacy, citizen sleeper, immortality, route 96 etc over the likes of Days gone, Redfall, online shooter 279 any day of the week.
Re: Pick One: Which Is Your Favourite 'Metal Gear' Game On Xbox?
@UndyingInsurgent95 Every game In the MGS series can be played in any order. There are threads, character archs and mentions recurring throughout but honestly it doesn't matter which one you start with. The overall story is boss! Great gameplay and amazing characters.
As for zelda, it's even easier. The story is absolutely awful so whatever order you decide to run them it doesn't matter. As its for the adventure and mechanics rather than collecting mcguffins and saving a princess from an evil person.
Re: Metal Gear Solid 3's Remake Treatment Looks Impressive In New Screenshots
@Altaria_97 I never got embroiled with mgs or mgs2 like some of my mates, played them briefly of course, didnt see the allure. I was more of a wipeout / final fantasy fan. But once I got into the swing of mgs 3 (the subsistence version I think) well I was a fan for life. Then went back and played the others properly!
Re: Report: Microsoft Makes Three Major Changes To Xbox Achievement Rules
@Moby no one brags about their achievement score other than occasionally mentioning it. Its more of a personal scoreboard. With ms rewards you can earn 1500 a month through achievements. So it's actually worth £15.38 a year.
£25 voucher is 29250 points. 18000 points through achievements in a year. £15.38.
Then you also get occasional punch cards for achievements which add a bit here or there. So it does have some real world value.
Re: Report: Microsoft Makes Three Major Changes To Xbox Achievement Rules
@Thenewguy @Fiendish-Beaver hard disagree on the platinum trophies. I missed a few plats last gen due to bugged trophies. This gen on xbox I've already had missed / bugged achievements but it doesn't matter because a few glitched rewards totalling 50g isn't a big deal to your overall score. 3 platinums is.
Also you end up doing the most mundane tasks for platinums. As an example I'm on 960g for lego star wars skywalker saga. It was boring af towards the end. If this was on PlayStation I would have had to grind all the crap hidden sub missions before I could move on. This happens a lot and was one of the reasons I'm back on xbox.
At the end of the day. I love achievement / trophy hunting. Currently sat on 164,900 achievement points and 62 platinums. But achievements are less ocd inducing.
I also hear everyone who says they don't matter. They don't in the real world. But they do to me and other achievement hunters. I'm not becoming a billionaire, pop star or sport sensation. But I can have my own digital tracker to rack up something other than debt and misery.
Re: Three Games Are Available Today With Xbox Game Pass (May 25)
@munstahunta What a mental comment ToTK is so last week. We have all moved on.
Re: Poll: Looking Back At Alan Wake, What Score Would You Give It?
Coming on the heels of Max Payne (which is a bona-fide classic and top tier story) Alan Wake had its work cut out from remedy, even post release of Control. I personally dont think Remedy have developed a game as good as Max Payne - at their particular release dates (it's obviously aged now).
As others have mentioned the flashlight shooting does wear thin but it's a fine game all the same. Worth pottering through. 8/10.
Re: Video: 10 Xbox Games To Play If You Like The Look Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom
Honestly I must have played a different game to everyone else as immortals fenyx rising is rubbish. (My opinion not hating on anyone else for liking it).
I also hated BOTW and Witcher 3, so maybe these openworld fantasy games are designed for another demographic. Give me Forza 4/5 or MGS5 any day. Games with a basis in reality are more my bag.
Re: Indie Dev Prefers Selling Games Outright Despite 'A Pretty Good Deal' With Xbox Game Pass
Coming after the fantastic 'inside' I was excited to playthrough Somerville, it was rubbish. Got maybe an hour in and had enough of the awful controls.
Gamepass is great. I'm currently playing halo mcc, vampire survivors and persona. Who has time for Somerville which is dipped in s'@#.
Re: Redfall Dev Says The Team Is 'Continuing To Improve' The Xbox Title
@FakeSunkist the saying is 'you can't shine a s£%t'
I am planning on giving redfall a shot later.
One thing I will say against this - xbox has no games - narrative. This year alone we have Hi Fi Rush, Age of empires 2, minecraft legends and now redfall. Honestly I fell off the likes of God of War and days gone on the PS last gen and had to wait an epoch for another first party to come along. At least xbox have a regular stream of games.
Re: Xbox Gaming Revenue Down 4% YoY In Latest Earnings Report
@Cikajovazmaj I get that. I've been gaming since the Atari 2600. But on a big 4k TV, switch looks terrible.
Also there are a ton of indies on xbox which simply don't get the exposure of Mario etc so no one tries them. Opus, Immortality and age of empires 2 remastered are all great. Have you played them?
Re: Xbox Gaming Revenue Down 4% YoY In Latest Earnings Report
@Romans12 I bought a switch 3 weeks ago.
Long story short, I've been getting fit and switch Ring fit adventures seemed like a good option to work on my core and posture. Do not regret buying it! Great workout.
However as a gaming system (so far Mario maker 2, Zelda and tactics ogre reborn) the sharpness and clarity is unforgiveable. On a modern TV it looks worse than an xbox 360. Playable but blurry. On the xbox series x most games are buttery smooth, on the switch you have awful shadows, frame rate dips and its hard to bear with. Handheld mode isn't perfect but at least it has its benefits. Would not recommend a switch if you preferably game on a TV.
I've just bought xenoblade chronicles after all the positive acclaim and am waiting patiently for it to arrive. After buying online I searched for a deepdive in preparation. Digital foundry on youtube noted its 700p resolution with drops in the 500s. I mean wtf is that?
Re: Reaction: Should Xbox Produce A Mid-Gen Upgrade If Sony Launches 'PS5 Pro'?
@KaijuKaiser The Xbox series x outperforms the PS5 in raw numbers other than transfer speed. Which is blindingly quick on the PS5. Mark Kerny knew what he was doing there. The xbox should be out performing the ps5, especially with multi platform games available at release on PC too. But I strongly believe the talent isn't there for bespoke optimisation of games and ports will be developed around the weaker specs of the PS5. The transfer speed will be the Trump card when the historically more successful PlayStations specification are being aligned with. The series S is a concern, clearly effecting modern day gaming production.
Why can't they release games explicitly for the series x? If it has to release on the series S then yes MS are going to fall way behind, as its way weaker than both the PS5 and xbox series x.
Re: Reaction: Should Xbox Produce A Mid-Gen Upgrade If Sony Launches 'PS5 Pro'?
No.
Has any game pushed the series x yet? No, no it hasn't. Let's have this conversation In a few years time.
Re: Best Xbox RPGs
@Benjamin sorry Ben I'm replying to a comment you made ages ago.
I disagree with your comment, although philosophically you are correct and it should be the case.
RPGs are catchall genre for a multitude of gameplay and story types. Compare FF7 to The Witcher 3 to Mass Effect 2. The only similar aspects are they have indepth menus and grand stories. Most early RPGs gave no choice really. A lot of the 'build' meta we see in more recent games are completely absent in many earlier games. Take Persona 5, it has as many similarities with a deck building game than it does with Disco Elysium which has more in common with a visual novel. I've been playing this idea around since turn based combat (which I assumed was integral) was swapped out for live action.
The only similarities with anything placed in the RPG camp are indepth menus. From linear RPGs to open world. From turnbased to action. From grandiose to mundane. It's all included. And now we have modern 3rd person action games with rpg elements. And all that means are upgrade paths and indepth menus.
RPG = game with essential menus
Re: Forza Motorsport Developer Update Hints At Post-Launch DLC Plans
Using Forza Horizon 4 as an example. I think the template is fair. A big open world with 50+ hours of stuff to do. 500+ cars off the bat and a variety of gamemodes. It's a full game. Monetary rewards from game modes are decent and you have a constant flow of new stuff.
The DLC is refreshing and you can buy them if you want. I bought the lego dlc. Developers do have bills too. Can't begrudge paying £20 for 15-20 hours in a big area, novel ideas, new circuits and great cars.
The car packs are less forgiving. If you buy an ingame car, the game doesn't change and this is where GT7 falls down massively. The game is accruing your garage. If its a slog and rewards are nerfed, it's not fun. If you can't enter races as you don't have a car and it's seemingly untenable to accrue 20million turismo dollarooneys then you miss out on major parts of the game. Once the cafe campaign was complete in GT7 it became an absolute chore to build up your garage. I had a solitary top rated vehicle in GT7 and hours of grinding ahead of me.
Proper fully fledged dlc is superior to car packs in every way. And I don't think anyone has an issue with that sentence.
Re: Roundup: Here's What The Critics Think Of 'Atomic Heart' On Xbox Game Pass
Gaming Trend 9.5/10
Twinfinite 4/10
Sorry but what is going on here? We need to bring back scoring from back in the day which marked graphics, sound, gameplay and stuff separately. All we get now is an opinion piece on how the story's are bad or not to a reviewers taste rather that a true reflection of the game itself. From reading those snippets I think the story is gash but the rest of the game is decent to good. And outside of mass effect and final fantasy, who gives a monkeys if the story is crap? Let's be honest for every walking dead (love you clem and lee) we get 500 weaker stories and some games with none at all. Is the story of Forza Horizon believable... no 2/10. See, absolute idiocy.
Re: Analysts Predict Xbox's Activision Blizzard Deal Will Close Soon, Despite UK Objections
Everyone goes on about Cod.
There's are 4 big elephants in the room which are Diablo, WoW, Overwatch and Starcraft.
Biggest looter, once biggest online rpg, top 5 online shooter and biggest RTS. Weirdly I'm not a fan of any of them but loads of people are.
Re: Microsoft Reveals Xbox 360 Marketplace Will Close In The Near Future
I was ps4 last gen and jumped back to xbox this gen. I have around 70 x360 games in my library. What happens to them?
Re: These 18 Games Could Be Permanently Delisted On Xbox Next Week
I hate this. Why are they being delisted? Next thing they will be removed altogether.
Re: Forza Motorsport Specs Revealed, Including Xbox Series S Performance Targets
@jordan1992 Gran Turismo 7s cars don't even match up with Horizons, it also has that clinical look. Which I like but it's not realistic. GT7 does a lot right, the handling on a controller is 10/10, the track selection is a 9/10, the Pitstops are a good addition and work well (but could be improved) 7/10, the wet weather racing is solid - however I would rate that at a 6/10 as the weather effects are garbage and it doesnt feature on every track. The time trials are superb so too the licences 10/10. The scapes mode and graphic import tools are sublime 10/10. The lighting at the night Is brilliant but looks weird in the day (strange lights off cars) 8/10.
On to the bad stuff and GT7 doesn't have a tyre simulation so if you are all in the same car driving similar lines regardless of how smooth - you pit at the same time to swap them out. The offside graphics are terrible, the music selection is well its definitely something, thd games framerate sinks on certain tracks, the career mode is the same type of race throughout with no qualifying. The music races are pointless. The grind for cars Is ridiculous and the dirt racing isn't realistic.
To summarise, GT7 is THE best road driving simulation so far. However its not a good game. If you are into daily online racing and time trialling, taking shots of your bespoke car in the world greatest locations - its a blast. For single players who are in it for a laugh, it's not good.
Hopefully the new Forza does everything better with the same level of control.
Re: Forza Motorsport Features 500+ Cars And 'Cutting Edge' Ray Tracing, Launches In 2023
@NEStalgia GT7 is good at times. The lighting at night, controls well on a controller, decent track selection (a couple more would have been perfect), driving licenses are great.
As a game it's pretty bad tbh. The graphics are below par, especially the details and fauna, the cars aren't as well modeled as forza horizon 4 or 5, the dirt racing is rubbish and the career progression is odd with hardly any variety. The music racing is a gimmick, the limited fuel levels are boring as fub. I stopped playing sometime last year as I couldn't play certain online races with a designated vehicle, as I refused to pay for the cars and none were dropping in the lottery. GT7 is overrated.
I'm a huge VR advocate but honestly, if anyone here has slight travel sickness. Never use vr in driving games. You will feel sick, its bad. If you don't, lucky you.
Re: Pick One: Which Is Your Favourite EA Sports Series To Play On Xbox Right Now?
Fifa is OK. Loads of modes and a polished UI.
But as others have mentioned Ultimate team is the defacto career mode. It's great if you don't spend money, but when microtransactions are worth more to EA than selling the actual full priced game. Then somebody is. Its pay to win.
The actual career mode is a joke.
It's a pity EA have monopolised sports games, back in the 16bit days we had loads of great football games. Now it's just EA or 2k with some real bad indy efforts.
Re: Two Games Are Available Today With Xbox Game Pass (January 19)
@jdv95 why hello there JDV. You have to download Forza Horizon 4 or 5! Welcome to xbox.
I will jump on p3p at some point. Maybe next week, we will see. Forza 4 and the ridiculously mediocre grid legends are seeing me right for the time being.
Re: Review: Persona 3 Portable - Atlus' JRPG Classic Still Feels Essential
@Kaloudz together. You can skip a lot of conversations. Persona has an awful habit of repeating the same stuff sequentially. Also in dungeons just get to the end, the collectibles aren't worth the detours.
The biggest time sink is checking in with everyone. If you have a plan, like trying to max a single character it's much quicker. Also don't go for a completionist run - why anyone would want to max the persona log is anyone's guess, you tend to find a couple of good ones and stick with them.
For p4g and p5 I never used a guide, however I may try to find a min-max guide for the opening hours of P3. Just so I'm not stressing half way in.
Re: Review: Persona 3 Portable - Atlus' JRPG Classic Still Feels Essential
@Kaloudz its not 100 hours in all honesty. My playthroughs of p4g on vita and p5 on ps4 have totalled maybe 145 hours.
These games are worth a go. I wouldn't replay either tbh. But that's the same as restarting a forza horizon save. No thank you. P4 is my favourite out of the two.
Re: Soapbox: Forza Horizon 5 Expansion 2 Should Take Notes From 'Fortune Island'
@themightyant @FatalBubbles both 4 and 5 are good. Very similar. Personally I prefer 4 for a couple of reasons. In forza 4 it feels like a real place with houses and villages dotted around. 5 has the one town and the change from sand dunes to jungle to dirt area, feels unnatural and too gamified. The progression and gradual uncovering of the map is better in 4. In FH5 I did a race, some drifts and was straight into the goliath. Bizarre decision from the developers.
I suppose my positives could be someone else's negatives.
Re: Poll: How Many Xbox Games Have You Actually Bought This Year?
Ive Bought 12 games this year. Got 2 games for Christmas physical. The rest are digital.
Re: Poll: How Many Xbox Games Have You Actually Bought This Year?
@Kaloudz turn off the auto redeem as the voucher you receive is time limited (which is a £5 voucher for 5500 points in the UK) and sit on points until you can grab a £25 voucher (which is 29250 points) yes you miss a couple of quids worth of vouchers but you can then get a proper game!
So far Ive managed to snag Rogue Legacy 2, Sonic Origins, The Stanley Parable, a couple of retro gaming bundles, Sleeping Dogs and the Solitaire something or other which looked interesting
Re: Xbox Game Pass: All Games Coming Soon In January 2023
@ThatMoomin similar to Yakuza you want a big gap in between these games. Akin to Final Fantasy they are standalone adventures so you can tackle them any way you want. I played P4G a couple of months before P5 and gameplay wise they are so similar it was difficult running with P5. I could admire the game of course (it looks, plays and runs like a dream) but it's very difficult to jump from one 100+ hour social jrpg to another one knowing the amount of running around and rebuilding relationships and your persona deck.
Re: Soapbox: This Game Pass Gem Is My Xbox Game Of The Year For 2022
Road 96 is a gem. So glad I stumbled across it.
Re: Xbox Confirms Exclusivity Plans For Three Upcoming Bethesda Games
@Lup 7 months? Jeez. I would move.
Re: Xbox Confirms Exclusivity Plans For Three Upcoming Bethesda Games
@BAMozzy There is a counter arguement that exclusives take advantage of particular hardware.
Also you can buy an Xbox, switch, playstation and steam deck for £1400. Compared to our annual family holiday which is now over £3000 I know what I would prefer. Although a break away is nice. I know not everybody has the money or space but gaming is still a relatively cheap hobby. How many of us have multiple consoles? I would wager most of us in these here comments.
Re: High On Life Is Dominating The Charts Right Now, And Team Xbox Is Thrilled About It
@BRT15 Eurogamer is infamous for their ridiculous reviews. I was an avid reader but nowadays look elsewhere for my gaming news. If high on life was made by Nintendo without the jokes it would be recommended by that shower.
@trev666 completely agree. The game is great. Refreshing with the right amount of progression (other than the intro) and content. I quite like the humour too, it's juvenile but in a world full of ultra-seriousness I'm happy to go along with it. I don't think the introduction helps the game though. Getting offered lines by your sister in a middle class household is kind of taboo - it doesn't help the game either and just adds a negative, the initial fights using Kenny alone quickly get boring (just imagine halo with just the pistol for a couple of levels). But otherwise it's sound. Ive Had a couple of bugs like being stuck in scenery from exploring, I just restart from the generous save points.
@hadrian nothing original? These insane takes for a decent game. I'm gathering you played on story difficulty as there's nothing tedious about the guns and abilities on normal. Also the additional traversal abilities are class, It's fun and occasionally challenging. Hooking onto a high wire, quickly shooting a gloop shot to take down the barrier, boosting up with your jet pack, landing on a sawblade you had to shoot prior to setting off before slowing time to enter a gigantic fan which is at the end of a gravity defying magboot walk. What about that is meh?
@Fenbops the gunplay gets better as you progress. Once you get creature and gus, combined with the jetpack and mag boots, it's on another level compared to Kenny and Sweezy (never use Sweezy as it's pretty weak and the time dilation seems pointless, maybe on hard that could be useful but on normal so far it's unnecessary).
The levels open up.
Re: Poll: What Is Your Xbox Game Of The Year For 2022?
Road 96 and Citizen Sleeper for me. These kind of games never get a look in during polls. I absolutely love them. Polished, unique, fresh and engaging. Yes they are in no way comparable to Elden Ring or the glorious Persona 5 but I actually treasure them even more.
Re: Another 11 Games Will Leave Xbox Game Pass Soon (December 15)
Absolutely devastated. Such a great list of games. The biggest miss of all 'Race with Ryan'.
We will all cry over that one I'm sure.
Re: Xbox Games With Gold For December 2022 Announced
@Dezzy70 I have seen comments like this forever and yes the games are weak* but if they bin the games you won't get anything else and will be paying the same. Ive seen it with ps Plus, my service subscriptions away from gaming and DAW subs. PS Plus used to give away roughly 4-6 games a month on the instant game collection (variable quality admittedly) and that was reduced to 2 a couple of years into the PS4 gen. Do not give companies the ability to take away your perks, that's the only life advice I will ever give out. Bear in mind Xbox live - you originally paid a fiver a month for just the online. There have been a decent amount of playable games over the last year including portal 2, broken sword and yokis island express. It's not Forza 5 but they are great for an evening session.
@Lup cool is an understatement. Mass effect is the best trilogy ever (up there with Halo, Streets of rage and the naked gun films).
It's great for everyone! Ive Played every game through 4 times now and it's so so good. Once the credits roll everything else is pants in comparison.
Re: The Witcher 3 Next-Gen Looks Even More Impressive In Side-By-Side Comparison
@gamma64 The games are coming. Next year will be huge for the Xbox.
Right now it kind of sucks from an exclusive stand point, especially compared to the PS5. But next year will be the breakout.
Re: Soapbox: 2010 World Cup South Africa Might Be The Best FIFA Game Of All Time
Frazer is right FIFA WC 2010 was ace. No micros, the controls were on point, great gameplay and the vibe was fabulous.
@BBB Swos was the stand out game for years. Great game and the tactics you could edit have never been bettered imo PES 3-5, FIFA 09-Fifa WC 2010 and then PES 18 have been worth playing since. I also have a soft spot for a sega soccer slam but it's more an arcade take on 3v3 not really the same thing.
Re: Lots Of Games Reduced By 90% In The Xbox Black Friday Sale 2022
@EliJapan sleeping dogs was great, I have picked up the remaster as I will definitely play again and as an open world game, you don't say that often.
Personally the contra collection for £3.99 is a bargain. Getting that tonight!
Re: Review: Somerville (Xbox Series X|S) An Engaging Sci-Fi Story Let Down By Dull Gameplay
@Titntin agreed, Inside is a gem imo. But yeah Somerville is worse in every way. Gutted and 2d is considerably better than 3d for this mini genre.
Re: Four Xbox Games We've Given 'Outstanding' 10/10 Scores To In 2022
I think it's great that 10s are given more frequently. No game is perfect.
That said Deathloop wasnt for me (that AI?) and P5 is great, however I had played P4G to completion recently it didn't have the same effect. For anyone new to the series, yeah it would blow you away!
A couple of 10s available on Gamepass are Inside and Forza Horizon 5.
Re: Talking Point: Is Halo 3 The Pinnacle Of The Franchise So Far?
Halo Reach - Halo 3 - Halo 2 - Halo ODST - Halo 4 - Calo CE - Halo Infinite - Halo 5 for me.
CE has the best story but it's maps are a bit too old school and repetitive. Reach is fantastic. 3 is obvs legendary.
Re: 'Scorn' Dev Shows 8 Minutes Of The Game's Opening Level Ahead Of Xbox Game Pass Launch
Looks like trying to get into my mates house at night, who lives in inner city Liverpool.
Looks awesome, fingers crossed it's a great experience!
Re: Poll: What Score Would You Give Immortals Fenyx Rising On Xbox Game Pass?
@Howling_Fog and your score is fair.
I can't fathom why someone would be give it a 9 or 10. Although scores are arbitrary, it does feedback to developers who then provide more of the same. And I honestly don't want more of immortals fenix rising.
And it wasn't to feel superior. In fact if you met me I'm one of the least egotistical people you are likely to meet. I was a member of Pushsquare (sister site) for a while and instigated gaming nights and forum competitions. I suppose writing something like that on Push were I was known, tended to fare better, rather than being name called as wanting to be a 'superior gamer' I am not superior to anyone at any game.
I have disliked ubisofts output for a while now, what they build seems like a ticksheet in a boardroom. They are not designed from the heart, like say Mario Odyssey, God of War or Ori. They don't do anything new like say Arms, Detroit become Human or Deathloop. Ubisofts games exist as an open world storefront advertising their next disappointment.
Re: Poll: What Score Would You Give Immortals Fenyx Rising On Xbox Game Pass?
@BlazeGawd007 jeez, I'm the baby? I said y'all are easily pleased. Not exactly the worst insult in the history of humanity.
It's an article about if you liked it. I didn't. Is my opinion less valid than yours?
Anyway please don't respond, I look down on the likes of yee. (That's sarcasm by the way).