themightyant

@Titntin agreed. Fable looked really ambitious. My only concerns are over the combat, which didn’t look amazing, and the writing which we basically saw none of. (Oh and can we actually be REALLY evil. lol) But it ticks all the other boxes and more. Molyneux would be proud.

A- for me. Fable looks incredible and super ambitious. I joked on the live stream it sounded like an authentic Peter Molyneux pitch. Beast of Reincarnation looked right up my street, plus Game Pass FTW. Kiln not for me but it looked fun and you can’t win em all. That just leaves Forza which looked visually stunning but they still have to do a bit to convince me it’s not just more of the same. Strong show.

@ElectricWizard I don't blame them, these "sales" are USUALLY pretty awful on Xbox and actually have you paying more. But I agree THIS one, which I had to read twice "buy ONE get TWO free" is pretty strong. Get 3 really good indie games for around £15 - £16 is a great deal.

My only concern is I have most that I want, I'm not sure I'll find 3 I will play in the next 12 months that I haven't already played. I'll have a look on Xbox later.

I hope they embrace some of the horror that was in Gears 1. The kryll, the berserker etc. ESPECIALLY as this is E-Day and they are caught unawares not knowing much about their enemy. It should be scarier.

It's a good game. Enjoy. Though personally I didn't love it as much as many, I felt they ruined too many things from the original, but still a good game.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner Bizarre "review" snippet from XboxEra. Who are they trying to convince? Themselves? lmao.

Definitely better NOT to release it than release a half assed version, Sands of Time deserves better than that. But you have to wonder how bad it must have been after 7+ years in development (which reportedly started in 2018) after all this is the company that released Skull & Bones.

Complete omnishambles.

Though I do respect them for not putting out a sub-par Sands of Time remake, I would have hoped they would have stuck with it after stringing us along for over half a decade!

Looking forward to seeing other gamers get to experience Halo. Though personally I'm not that excited as i've played Halo's campaign a dozen times already. Though I will probably play it eventually on Game Pass.

@Fiendish-Beaver I don't know why you bother brother. Asylum's have saner views.

This reminds me how much we need a remaster / remake of Jade Empire!

@UltimateKGB Ah I see what you mean. While it's been on PC since day 1 it's not been on the Xbox PC launcher. A Reddit post suggests it might be coming to Play Anywhere but take that with a pinch of salt, not every game does.

@UltimateKGB It's not currently Play Anywhere unfortunately.

You can always check this on the Xbox website games like 007 First Light will have the "Play Anywhere" tag at the top whereas games like Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound do not.

Was going to buy Ninja Gaiden Ragebound, so that's a win!

@Balaam_ I found my Gameboy in the attic at my parents house after about 15 years. The first thing that amazed me was that the AA batteries hadn’t leaked and broken the tech. The second thing was that it turned on after all that time, ah memories! that “bing” and then the Tetris music. My third was that Tetris is as addictive as ever, nothings changed. Great memories.

A shame, I thought True Colours was the best since the original, this just feels like less interesting fan service.

Strong month, not that I have much time to play them all!

Looking forward to this. But already so much to play, hopefully I can get to it soon.

Never scrolled past spoilers faster. I'll wait for the official reveal on thursday.

I’m hoping that they took the feedback on board and just want to get it into people’s hands. Let actual players be the judge, not “the internet”.

Best Far Cry. Love it.

Looks cool, but it's basically a one scene mood piece, we can't really derive anything about the actual game from this.

@FraserG An interesting read, I really appreciate ongoing updates on how tech sits months later, which is often ignored in the need for being first for news. Longer view takes are greatly appreciated.

Though as a gaming site I guess was expecting a bit more information on what actual games you have been playing on it / how it handled them and less about it's use as a PC, though that is interesting, it's not something I will ever do.

Totally with you on Xbox Play Anywhere. With Microsoft pushing the "everything is an Xbox" mantra as hard as they are it feels like a major piece of the puzzle is missing, and extra hoops have to be jumped through. Hopefully this will be mandated from next gen. I have similar issues with PS Portal and I have bought / not bought games based on if they are available on cloud.

Looking forward to giving this a go, but not anytime soon as there’s other games I want to play more, so hopefully it’s on Game Pass for a while.

@Scrubchub well said, couldn’t agree more. Sadly there are so many disingenuous takes online that show small parts of a game and then claim it’s the whole game, bad faith actors creating mountains out of molehills. People should try the game themselves before judging.

Sadly we will only see more of it as there is so much money made by streamers pushing negativity. Sad to see and exhausting to navigate.

@Echtzeit Other than not having to install them on Internal storage / expensive expansion card is there any other advantages to Gen9Aware?

Blood dragon! Best Far Cry partly due to the 80s retro future aesthetic and zaniness, but also because less is more, it stays interesting to the end unlike the others which drag with too much open world BS

Internal is basically full. But I try to leave 100gb for game updates etc.

I also have a 1TB Expansion card that is 70% full and 5TB of slightly slower storage.

Fable 2 is probably the better game, but I have a soft spot for the first game, which I've played half a dozen times.

It's still a great service with lots of games for xbox enthusiasts, but with multiple price hikes and tier benefit changes it's only "the best deal in gaming" for a few super heavy users, for most Game Pass Ultimate just isn't worth it anymore. I've no experience of other tiers.

Personally Ultimate is still worth it for the amount I play, but I locked in the price I am paying now 2+ years ago by stacking via Rewards, I will have to re-evaluate in 2+ years when my sub runs out.

@jesse_dylan agreed.Shame they’re all sports titles.

@andrewsqual The point is some of us on Xbox were a little tired by Forza Horizon 5 because it's basically the same game as FH4 with a new map, it felt like we'd played it before, which isn't as exciting.

But on PS5 it's the first taste of Forza Horizon for many Playstation gamers, that makes it more exciting and more likely to do well.

Good points on how long each has been available.

OMG Rise of the Dragon... I haven't thought about that game in over 30 years. I never had an Amiga but played bits of this at my mates house back in the day.

That all said I am not sure I actually want to boot it up, I suspect my memories of it are more gracious than the game will actually end up being if I played it. I'll stick with my unassailable memories.

@FraserG How did I miss that! Yes 5 of the top 10 rated games on Xbox not being updated feels like a bizarre oversight somewhere.

Pretty outrageous that we haven't had HD remasters or remakes of 4 of the top 10. 3 x Splinter Cells and KOTOR. Far lesser games have been updated to play better on newer consoles.

Things like saves and cloud saves need to "just work" if an "everything is an Xbox" future is to succeed.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner Agreed. But the fact they didn't get Forza Horizon 1-4 also made FH5 even more popular over there, it was new and fresh to them.

Love to see it, well done on coming together to try and tackle this, it’s bigger than one company.

Xbox continue to be leakier than a sinking ship. They are their own worst enemy a lot of the time, you only had around a week to go till the Dev direct.

That's very cool to see. While I was personally a bit disappointed by Starfield there was always plenty of potential for the modding scene. While that scene isn't anywhere near as active as Elder Scrolls, Fallout or BG3 it's great to see there is an active community making fun things.

I like the look of several of these, but it's the same old story, too many games not enough time. Will likely give Mio a go on Game Pass and keep an eye on the others.

Gears of War at my friends house is the one that first springs to mind, I went out and bought a X360 the very next day with the money I had been saving for a PS3.

I did see Halo before in a store, but never really engaged with OG Xbox much as no one I knew had one.

Wishing Larry all the best along with many others laid off. I miss his frank honesty and earnestness as the go-between between Xbox and fans but I don't think that would work with Microsoft's current policies and practices.

This looked awesome in the trailer, and I love that Remedy doesn't just make safe sequels.

Loved Hellblade 1, utterly unique use of binaural audio, and playing with headphones (a MUST) was a truly memorable experience.

Was pretty indifferent to Hellblade 2. It was a visual tour de force, but almost everything else was worse in the second game and it ended just as it was starting to get good.

I'd take a Hellblade 3 but it needs to focus far more on what made Hellblade 1 so unique and important.

@GoldenPants I understand what you are saying, you are monetising time you couldn't otherwise monetise, but if someone came up to me and said I could earn £100 for 60+ hours simple but repetitive of work over a year i'd tell them, very politely, to piss off. As I said that is subjective and some may think it's a good use of their time, that's fine, we're all in different positions.

But I also disagree with it taking just 10 mins to do everything across 3 devices. Having tried it for a while at the very least if you optimised it from booting up your Xbox, launching a game, back to PC to launch Solitaire, do PS searches/dailies, onto mobile search and app, back to Xbox (after 15 minutes) then back to PC to get game rewards the minimum you are looking at is 17+ minutes a day imo, that's 100+ hours a year for £100, or < £1 an hour. My time is worth more.

@GoldenPants If it's worthwhile for you great. But 10 mins a day is 60+ hours a year, and for that we get around 120,000 points which equates to around £100 in Xbox vouchers (I'm not sure what that is in CAD). This will be different for everyone based on their circumstances, but personally that isn't a good return on my time. You may feel differently, that's fine.

@Netret0120 @Elbow Agreed. It used to be a lot more worth it.
I'm not sure the Xbox rewards would even cover the energy cost of playing 15 minutes a day on XSX let alone all the time taken on all the other things.

That said I do the Xbox ones as you get them while playing and the daily set and get most of these for minimal effort through normal use.

Always depends on circumstance. If you have no console or are short on funds getting a XB1 is a win, most games are abailable and they can be had for cheap second hand.

But for most everyone else a series S or Series X is a better buy.

Fable >>> Beast >= Surprise >>> Forza

Just not very excited about a sixth Forza unless they change a LOT. With FH5 I felt like I’d already played it, that’s not exciting to me.

Once again rewarded for waiting. While this is on Game Pass, I am being conditioned to wait for games and often get them much cheaper.

I watched a bit of it and what I saw was cool but 3.5 hours is a joke. Certainly designed by streamers who have all day to sit around and play/watch games.

@abe_hikura We posted at the same time. lol.

I think it might be the other way around... but who knows, not long to wait.