Xbox: This is the Jan 6th of gaming.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Xbox: This is the Jan 6th of gaming.

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Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

Never forget

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbWgUO-Rqcw

# ¿ Sep 29, 2022 22:02

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 05:44

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

Prodeus is great but the respawn system becomes detrimental (IMO) later on in the game when death starts to become an inevitability, since you have no opportunity to redo encounters without restarting the (sometimes very long) map. I guess they want to preserve the sanctity of the leaderboards but I'd rather be able to play unranked and have either manual saving or a proper checkpoint system.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2022 15:09

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

I played Grounded for a bit but I might restart with passive enemies enabled or something. So far my experience has been "gigantic fuckin spider wanders into my base and spawn camps me until I quit the game" at like three separate locations. It's kind of killing my enjoyment because I can't get anything done and it's not scary, I'm just suddenly dead.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2022 14:07

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

I liked Chiv 2 when I tried it but it turns out the cross-play is for matchmaking only, not for partying, so I couldn't play with my friends and refunded it. I'd probably play it again if they add that, but on Googling it seems like they haven't?

# ¿ Oct 3, 2022 19:49

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

YouTube Premium is basically necessary if you want to watch any significant amount of YouTube on anything other than a PC

# ¿ Oct 12, 2022 05:32

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

If the MS deal goes through I highly doubt they'll continue with yearly releases. Selling tons of copies of games is not at all Microsoft's core business model and if they're going to be on Game Pass anyway then their incentive is to get as much out of a single game as possible, not spend millions and millions of development dollars flooding the service with endless variations of the same game. Even assuming they keep it on Playstation for the foreseeable future, I would be willing to bet that microtransactions are way more lucrative than the one-time purchase price of the game, especially considering the price of the game is only like four times the average cosmetic bundle. There are a huge number of studios working on the various Calls of Duty that could be better utilized making new games and I would be surprised if Microsoft isn't well aware of that.

Volte fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Oct 13, 2022

# ¿ Oct 13, 2022 22:00

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

Prodeus is a 6/10 shooter that could have easily been 8/10. Great arsenal, great level design, poor bestiary, mind-boggling bad checkpoint system. Monsters with perfect projectile tracking is a cheap AI trick and is completely at odds with a fluid run and gun playstyle, and some of the enemies are weirdly balanced, like Lost Souls being the most important priority target in the game due to their speed and damage. It really drags in the middle part (the Prodeus dimension) and picks up again at the very end. If it had proper checkpoints I could overlook a lot of these problems, but the fact that you can just respawn when you die makes trying to get good at and pass individual encounters basically impossible. I enjoyed my time with it but probably won't revisit it any time soon.

# ¿ Oct 14, 2022 14:16

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

American McGay posted:

Prodeus owns especially if you’re actually good at the game and never die so you don’t complain about the checkpoints.

Did you play on Very Hard difficulty?

# ¿ Oct 14, 2022 15:58

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

veni veni veni posted:

Pretty sure that COD is the most profitable game franchise in history. Nothing about that statement is wrong.

It's Pokemon and it's not even close

# ¿ Oct 15, 2022 21:13

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

MS already has EA on Game Pass so it wouldn't even make a very big difference.

edit: whoops that was in the original post. :doh:

# ¿ Oct 19, 2022 18:08

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

Arkham Knight is Unreal Engine 3 which is kind of mindblowing to me. I just played it last year and it's still one of the best looking game worlds I've ever played. Art direction is everything.

# ¿ Oct 20, 2022 17:03

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

Apolog not accepted

# ¿ Oct 21, 2022 00:32

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

TheScott2K posted:

It's just a very weird thing to say when a really great way for non-CoD/Madden third party games to make money is to release on the Switch, which is so much more of a potato than the Series S or even Steam Deck. Like, that's the one you think is "holding you back?"

If every developer had to release every game on the Switch simultaneously with the other platforms, it would absolutely hold the generation back.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2022 16:42

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

TheScott2K posted:

Swap in Switch for "the average PC configuration on Steam," then.

Maybe I'm just crotchety because I just don't really loving care about graphics anymore beyond "does it run smoothly"

PC games are allowed to have system requirements and there are plenty of games that don't run well on the "average" PC configuration on Steam. It doesn't seem that controversial to me that releasing a powerful next gen console but requiring that all games also run on a far less powerful console is going to have some impact on how games are designed.

That said, I think Microsoft can't really split the ecosystem at this point without pissing off basically everyone who bought a Series S. Plus this generation is basically stillborn and games are going to be supporting PS4 for years to come anyway, so I'm not sure it would much of a difference.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2022 16:58

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

Professor Beetus posted:

I don't see why console games can't have granular graphics settings, at least on the dev's end. If a PC version of the game can let the end user fiddle with all kinds of poo poo to increase performance, there's no reason that it would be difficult to have a version on the S that has toned down graphics to accommodate the lower system specs. I mean games already have "performance" modes on this gen, as well as the series x/s patches.

These seem like lame excuses to me, and to be frank how do you gently caress up optimization on something like surgeon simulator?

Graphics are in some ways the least of the Series S's concerns - the CPU and RAM are a lot more constrained too, and that stuff is a lot less tunable on the user's end. I don't know what Surgeon Simulator has anything to do with it considering it does run on Series S at 60fps and the original story only says the developer of Surgeon Simulator said that other devs are asking about it (which I fully believe).

Believe it or not, when you force devs to make their games run at a certain level on a low end machine, it impacts what is practical to make the game do on the high end. These things are not all sliding scales where you can just turn down certain things to make it work on whatever machine you want, and developer resources are finite.

Volte fucked around with this message at 23:19 on Oct 21, 2022

# ¿ Oct 21, 2022 23:17

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

American McGay posted:

Uhh you sure about that?

My bad, I thought the CPU was lower than it is. The point remains, the lower you stretch the low end, the harder it becomes to stretch the high end, especially in ways that aren't just scaling up graphical fidelity. I think games with complex game systems and a lot of dynamic moving parts like Outer Wilds are more likely to run up against this than games with a lot of fancy graphics.

Professor Beetus posted:

I mean it just seems like the performance gulf between consoles is smaller than typical min/max PC settings, which is why I have a hard time believing that series s is the problem here. As people have been pointing out, seems more like the fact that devs are still essentially supporting the PS4 is more problematic.

Yes, continuing to support the last generation is definitely holding things back, but that's both a temporary problem and more-or-less a self-imposed one. They don't have to support the PS4, they just think it's a good idea for market share reasons. At some point, devs will be moving to next-gen-only (presumably) and at that point, the Series S will be more of a bottleneck. How much of one remains to be seen.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2022 23:50

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

DLC Inc posted:

Xbox Series S isn't holding anything back, Capcom made RE8 run at 60fps and look incredible on a baseline PS4. the problem is other devs have lovely game engines and shittier optimization. Ubisoft could barely make loving Asscreed 3 or 4 run on a Switch whereas idSoft committed sorcery to get DOOM 2016 up and running at a solid 30fps.

None of these things have anything to do with Xbox Series S holding anything back.

# ¿ Oct 22, 2022 03:20

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

Storm One posted:

Just lol at the prospect that any console game has complex enough simulation/physics/whatever logic that 8 GB of RAM wouldn't be enough.

I wonder why they don't :thunk:

# ¿ Oct 22, 2022 19:16

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

Bethesda are seemingly the only company who knows how to make an interesting open world game where the open-worldness of it is the point of the game and not just a way to pad out the content with a million optional side things. Has any other company (besides Obsidian) actually made a Bethesda-style open world where there are no "point of interest" icons, no story progression beyond the arbitrarily designated "main quest", and you actually just have the whole world at your disposal to do as you please and role-playing is actually possible? I can't really think of one.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2022 03:02

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

Professor Beetus posted:

Like what is the point of making this big world with all these NPCs and all this poo poo to do, when you'll be hearing the same 4 voice actors reading the same 10 lines over and over again?

This isn't an accurate description of Bethesda games at all though. The lack of distinct voice actors does suck (although it was way more of an issue in Oblivion and Skyrim than any of the Fallouts that I noticed) but the game scripts are massive, which is the thing that makes the lack of voice actors stand out so much. It's the same 4 voice actors reading 60,000 lines.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2022 12:42

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

The Kins posted:

Softdisk published Keen Dreams and Aliens Ate My Babysitter as part of various contractual obligations (Id was formed by Softdisk employees while they were on the clock using company equipment, so they had to make a deal to do some stuff for their old bosses to avoid legal trouble), while Apogee published the rest. Id owns the rights to the Apogee Keen games, but whoever owned the Softdisk stuff was apparently asking for get-outta-town money for those two games back in 2007 or whatever. Thus, the current mess.

Keen 6 (Aliens Ate My Babysitter) was published by FormGen, not Softdisk. It seems like maybe Atari owns it now?

# ¿ Nov 1, 2022 16:13

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

Did they make Vampire Survivors way harder after early access or something? I was ripping and tearing, doing hyper mode with my eyes closed a few months ago, but since 1.0 came out and my progress got wiped, I haven't won a single run on the first level after like 15 attempts. There's this insane wave of ghosts that comes in at about 13:15 and no matter how untouchable I am at that point, I just get evaporated in seconds. I have the evolution chart up at all times and always prioritize getting those. Did the strategy change in the meantime?

# ¿ Nov 2, 2022 01:27

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

The strategy was to complain on the internet. Next run I obliterated the run without taking basically any damage.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2022 03:00

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

nom epique posted:

Any word on mw2?I see Vanguard is still $69 lol.

I'm having fun with the multiplayer although I'm very rusty as I haven't played much shootmans in 2022. I never played a MW before (the old ones or the new one) so I dunno if it's the standard practice but the one thing I don't really like is that attachments are unlocked per "weapon platform" and you have to level up all of the weapons in that platform to unlock all the attachments for it. I'm used to just picking a weapon and sticking with it until it's fully unlocked.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2022 12:48

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

Blue Raider posted:

It�s very bad. The maps are completely trash, the unlock system is nothing but grind, and the TTK/TTD is hosed. Putting 20 rounds from an M4 into a guy just to have him one shot you is very common.

I�m not exaggerating when I say it�s the worst cod I�ve ever played, and I�ve played them all except Infinite Warfare and Vanguard. It�s the only Xbox game I�ve ever refunded.

I definitely see what you mean about the TTK although I'm just trying to take it as something to get used to. It feels like they nerfed the ability to snipe with basically any gun, and damage falloff is huge now. Back in Vanguard and especially Blops:CW it felt like every weapon was a sniper rifle if you had a good enough scope.

There are definitely some lovely maps though. One of them is like a compound with tons of windows and balconies and half the time you spawn on the other side of a wide open field and either have to trace the perimeter to get to a safer approach, or take your chances on getting sniped for free. None of them seem particularly memorable, especially the one that's just a shitload of cars and two hallways.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2022 22:15

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

Feels Villeneuve posted:

where are people storing both consoles do you all live in the freaking batcave??? Lol

My XSX goes in the TV stand which has sat empty since I got my PS5, which does not even come close to fitting in it.

edit: The PS5 is the best PS4 Sony has ever released. I couldn't give a poo poo about generation exclusivity any more than I'm mad that there are new PC games that don't require a 3080 to run.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2022 15:04

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

drewmoney posted:

Cyberpunk on Xbox series x is the first, and only, fps to give me motion sickness. Been playing fps since quake 1.

Did you try turning off all the auxiliary camera movement in the options? I don't normally have any issues but the insane amount of head bobbing and weaving was really unpleasant to look at. I turned it off and now everything is fine.

# ¿ Nov 9, 2022 05:32

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

I haven't played the first two Monkey Islands since about 2003 so I didn't really remember most of the references and it was still an incredibly good game. Although if you didn't see the ending of MI2 then the framing story won't be as impactful, but it won't affect your enjoyment of the game.

# ¿ Nov 12, 2022 19:01

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

It's not a phone game and it's not a casino/gambling game. The guy who made it used to make casino software so he built in some of the tropes from the casino software business like garish colours and huge explosions of loot but otherwise it's basically like a tower defense game where you are the tower and you defend yourself. There's actual gameplay and decisions to be made and you unlock more and more gameplay and decisions the more you play. It's not a mystery why it's so popular.

# ¿ Nov 14, 2022 03:17

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

Maybe I'm just accustomed to it by this point but I haven't noticed nearly as much slang in the game as people make it out to have. I think I've heard the word "choom" like three times. It's no A Clockwork Orange.

# ¿ Nov 27, 2022 15:07

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

Feels Villeneuve posted:

smh if you dont already own DQ11 outright on some platform or another

I own it on Steam but only the original version and Game Pass has the S version, which is where my most recent playthrough is sitting at the beginning of the "post game" waiting for me to one day revisit it. :argh:

# ¿ Dec 1, 2022 21:04

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

Omon Ra posted:

I'm imagining someone who would rather do "bing dailies" than pay like a dollar per week, and it is not a pretty picture.

Where are you finding Game Pass Ultimate for a dollar a week

# ¿ Dec 4, 2022 14:29

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

acksplode posted:

Lol this cast. All the cheapest names that you might possibly recognize

ErrEff posted:

It's not a GTA 6 trailer, but, uhhhhhh...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1P_pvpYawg

...it's someone's GTA fangame made flesh.

Is it me or is that image of Chuck Norris just literally this Walker Texas Ranger promo photo

# ¿ Dec 9, 2022 21:39

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

1glitch0 posted:

Mindshare gap!
https://twitter.com/DMC_Ryan/status/1601064246694932480

Every time I see that guy I just think about this
https://twitter.com/dmc_ryan/status/1043223971477385216

# ¿ Dec 10, 2022 06:14

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

The Far Cry games are fun to me. I never play them on release but I think I've ended up beating every single one come to think of it (except 6 which I'm playing right now). Far Cry Primal is the best one.

# ¿ Dec 12, 2022 16:00

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

Larry Parrish posted:

It's not like I've never listened to regular music or a podcast while zoning out half paying attention to games but deliberately seeking out that tier of boredom is one of the most insane things I've ever heard in my life.

What do you mean, I don't deliberately seek out your posts

# ¿ Dec 12, 2022 16:14

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

The last game to give me the flow state was Return of the Obra Dinn

# ¿ Dec 12, 2022 16:51

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

Far Cry 4 was a straight up clone of Far Cry 3 with the white saviour aspect filed off, but Far Cry 5 was a little bit different structurally, and 6 is quite different in a lot of ways. 5 annoyed the poo poo out of me with its forced story progression segments but 6 has been pretty good about staying out of my way so far. I like the toys you get to play with.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2022 14:53

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

Toaster Beef posted:

FC5 was frustrating in a billion different ways, and it started before it was even released � when they came in hot insinuating their game was going to be a critical look at far-right America and then pulled waaay the gently caress back when they realized the world and discourse of early 2017 was considerably different from the one in which the game started development.

I guess I never saw any of that early insinuation but I dunno how anyone could have interpreted it as a look at modern day far-right America at all. It's a story about an insane prepper cult and the main bad guy is basically hipster David Koresh.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2022 18:58

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 05:44

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

Feels Villeneuve posted:

ubisoft likes to put the aesthetics of hot political topics in their games without actually doing anything with them, which has been a complaint about their games for a while, i think the Division gmaes had similar complaints

Even aesthetically, FC5 doesn't have much of a political aspect to it at all beyond the background "the world is at the brink of nuclear destruction" poo poo you can hear on the radio. I guess it's supposed to put a bit of a spin on the preppers' craziness because at least the thing they say they are preparing for is really happening. It was still probably the most structurally awkward Far Cry game with the least coherent story.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2022 19:09

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