Topic: Pure Xbox Game Club - Halo 2 (Nov)

@Balta666 Yeah it's not as simple as that because of an even greater issue: sometimes the objects aren't even highlighted red! I've been running around numerous times because I didn't know how to get to the next part of the level and all of a sudden, the object gets highlighted red after like 10 minutes of running around. They're definitely not always highlighted for some reason. Not to mention that it's not always the lack of highlighted objects, there are just too many things that you can climb on and then you have to look around and figure out the way the game wants you to take, which ruins the pacing. Like I just want to keep running because that's the nature of the game, but it truly forces you to stop and think where you need to go next.

@LtSarge ok, I will have to see it for myself. Not sure if the lack of colour highlighting is a bug related to backwards compatibility. Feels strange...

@Balta666 I'm actually playing the game on my 360. I'm curious to see what the experience is like on Xbox One/Series X.

@LtSarge how is the frame rate on 360? Stable or all over the place?

@Balta666 It's very stable actually. For a relatively early 360 game, it looks and feels great.

Just finished Mirror's Edge and overall, I didn't like it. From beginning to end, the difficulty level stayed the same and I wasn't becoming better at it because there was no learning curve. I was just as bad at the start as I was at the end and I don't think that's the sign of a good game. Clearly this was made for people who enjoy replaying games and getting high scores, not for those who just want to enjoy a fun campaign. I'm just glad it was so short (about 4-5 hours) because I don't know how much more I could've stood playing it.

I do have to say though that I'm rather curious what the sequel is like. I've heard it's more open world and people didn't like that, but in theory it could make it better than the first one as long as it gives you more paths to take and they're more highlighted.

Happy new year everyone!! I'm in the middle of a ton of games but I'll try mirrors edge out. My vote for next game would be forgotten City.

Had a chance to start it this evening and finished chapter 5. I can see where many of the complains from @LtSarge come from. I felt lost a couple of times (mostly because I forgot some simple technic I don't use often) but I just went for YouTube if I was struggling and I do feel the game is not evolving with time (on chapter 5 you do basically the same as the prologue but with more and more people shooting at you). Also the fighting mechanics are for me the worst part of the game.
Finally I do feel the game would be much much better on a third person perspective, even though I understand it is the first person one that gives it its uniqueness.
Overall so far I am enjoying it altough I feel I will forget about it ratter quickly.

@Balta666 I can relate to a lot of those things as well. For instance, I would constantly forget that you can wall run because you don't really use it that often in the first couple of chapters. Moreover, it can be pretty hard to pull off if you don't aim at a wall at a precise 45 degrees angle. I would constantly fall off because of that and all I could think of is how much I missed the wall running from Titanfall 2 lol.

There were a lot of times where I was stuck as well because you had to pull off some tricky jumps and the thing is that sometimes, Faith wouldn't grab on at all even if I did it right. I don't remember which chapter this was, but there was a blue pathway above her that she needed to reach and you had to jump towards a wall, then look away from the wall and jump to the pathway. She missed it two times, so I thought I had to try something else. Tried all kinds of things for 10 minutes, then I did the exact same thing as I did in the beginning and I made it. It's just so weird how sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

The fighting feels really loose and sometimes quite frankly unfair. If you get too close to an enemy, they can just stun you by continuously punching you over and over again without being able to recover. Not to mention that punching in first-person can be rather difficult when the enemies are constantly moving. While first-person is definitely cool in general, it doesn't feel implemented well enough, you know? I would constantly fall off a platform because I couldn't see where she was standing.

Another thing I would've liked to see is on-screen instructions on what you needed to do besides the guy in the headset telling me. Because it's easy to tune out to what he says when you're in the middle of combat or running away.

It is a wrap for me too. In the end I enjoyed my time with it altough I would not play the sequel anytime soon. Had to change the difficulty to easy in the last chapters as dying over and over to bullets was getting quite frustrating and the end was a bit underwhelming.

Started last night and completed the first couple of chapters. Actually enjoying it so far despite agreeing with most of the comments above.

I've pretty much forgotten all the controls already apart from the main action up and down buttons - totally forgot about all the combat/disarming stuff by the end of the second chapter as I'd just tried to out run enemies before that. I can't see any way in the menus to remind you of the controls either - they only really show what the actual buttons do rather than any situational/button combo stuff.

I haven't come across any issues like @LtSarge where I've not known where to go yet - tapping the B button points you to the destination and that's been enough so far. Agree that the checkpoints could be better though, especially as the platforming can be pretty tricky to judge in first person and I quite often found myself falling to my death.

Too many games not enough time!

Still working on Dante's Inferno which got side-lined due to Halo Infinite* and Christmas. I've barely played any games over Christmas and New year whilst with family but should pick it up again this week and power through.

As i'm behind likely won't replay Mirror's Edge this month, but while flawed I enjoyed it when I played it back at release and don't remember the getting lost issues others have mentioned. I might give it a quick go after Dante if I get time to see if it grabs me again. Like @KilloWertz I also want to replay Horizon, and the DLC I never got round to, before the sequel in Feb.

Votes for next month: The Forgotten City, The Gunk, Sable

*Aside - I thought the Halo campaign was a bit disappointing sadly. The moment to moment gunplay and grapple were great but the story/characters/world were all instantly forgettable and I felt it lost too much going open world. Highs and lows but it's the first Halo I haven't immediately replayed on a higher difficulty.

I ended up bailing on Dante’s inferno. But I’m down for Mirror’s Edge. Got halfway through it and another 360 died (I am on number 8) and I forgot to go back.

@Ryu_Niiyama EIGHT 360's??? Whoa! What are you doing to them? lol

Other than the RROD which MS fixed my original 360 is still working.

@themightyant Let's see if I remember the details still as most of this happened back when i was in undergrad...(disclaimer, I don't smoke and during the 360 era I lived in a pet free home for up until around number 6...even then my rabbit didn't shed that much and I kept him well groomed.)

1) used 360 from gamestop...ate craters into my discs. returned
2) given a new one in replacement for the old one (I worked at gamestop...my boss manipulated the inventory)...stopped working after about 2 months.
3) got fed up and bought an arcade edition (since I still had my hdd)...would not power on after a week (I'd only played it a few times because I had class)
4) returned that and got another arcade...I sold that one because the elites were coming out and i didn't trust the arcade anymore. (it died on that owner a year later...and he gamed way less in a non smoking home)
5) Got the halo 3 edition as that was supposed to have the new chip...that one was ok but I traded it to a friend for like 6 modded systems that I had never owned.
6) replaced the halo one with a modded version...got the ethernet cable error E65 i think?? (used a hair dryer to keep it working for about a year…also melted the back panel.)
7) traded that one in for a regular 360 (new) that one ate craters into disks again. traded that one in.
8) bought a S and that is my current one. I sorta wish i'd bought two since I have some games that aren't BC on xbone/series x. It’s only a matter of time before that one betrays me.

Also my systems were always horizontal.I never use vertical orientation.

So technically I only had 5 faulty ones as the others include my current one and the two I offloaded. However that really soured me on MS as a hardware manufacturer and quite frankly if I hadn't been so invested in the game library I would have dumped them entirely. As such I now wait until about 2-3 years before buying a MS system. Speaking of which, my disc drive broke on my xbone so I am not having the best of luck with them. If I didn't hate the PS controller layout, I would abandon ship. As (well before the bethesda buyout anyway....granted I play bethesda games on pc…) I had no interest in MS only franchises (aside from crackdown and it's not good enough to hinge a system on).

@Ryu_Niiyama Wowzers!

I did see you posted that your disc drive had broken on the XBone on another thread, I didn't have the heart to say you have whatever the opposite of luck of the Irish is

Personally not had too many major hardware issues across 3 decades and dozens of consoles and handhelds. PS1 I had to play upside down and ate a few discs (Sony replaced them). Xbox 360 RROD but was fixed for free. PS4 PRO I did have to return twice due to hardware issues and had to pay once, just 1 month after warranty expired, that was a bitter pill. I can't imagine FIVE times, it would be the 5 stages of grief.

Meanwhile my Gameboy, SNES, MegaDrive, N64, PSP, 360, PS3, launch Xbone, launch PS4 etc. all still work. Guess i'm Irish

@themightyant It's just me and MS. I literally dropped my Gamecube down a flight of steps and it still works. My Ps2 was used and still works. I have literally no other systems that I have had to replace (except my N64 because my mom spilled soda on it and it still worked for about 2 years after that) than the 360. I have bad luck with their surface pros as well even though I love them as computers.

On topic...starting mirror's edge today!

@Ryu_Niiyama that saga was legitimately an interesting read! 😅 Unfortunately I gave up after my first 360. RRoD one week outside of warranty booo lol

I do/have had tons of 3DSs/2DSs though (will also tag @themightyant incase they are interested).

1) Had an original aqua blue, beautiful machine until the L button broke. It probably only needed a clean but I wasn't aware of such things at that time. I traded it in at Game
2) one of the Pokémon 3DS XLs. The screen had some weird burn on it New out of the box. I returned it to Game and it was a complete Saga as you can imagine, got it replaced with a
3) Blue/Black 2DS, another beautiful machine. From here on out, I've still got all my 2/3DSs, (except one actually...)
4) Cosmos Black 3DS - bought this for like £80 in a black Friday. Barely used it, I actually came to hate it because it had an inferior screen to my original traded in Aqua Blue one. The screen had like a yellow tint to it instead of the bright screen of my original. I did play Snake Eater 3D on it though with the circle pad pro. I keep it around so the CPP actually has a purpose in my collection even if I never use either.
5) An Ambassador aqua blue 3DS which I bought off eBay. It was in pretty rubbish condition but I imported the ambassador games into my 2DS so I could have them on my account. I probably traded this one in too.
6) A New Nintendo 3DS XL SNES edition. Couldn't pass up this SNES design and it's my final 3DS that has my account imported onto it. Barely used it though as I guess my interest in the games themselves were waning by this point.
7/8) 2x New 2DS XLs, bought these for £50 each in Tesco when they were End of Life. I imported another eBay DSi XL account onto one of them (it had Zelda Four Swords Anniversary Edition on it) and gave it to my partner. The other one I planned to hack but never actually got around to it cos I'm too lazy.

Other than the mentioned 3DS XL and 360, my other broken consoles have been...

My first GameCube died, still in the warranty. While I was playing Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance. Brilliant game but I was too scared to go back and play that one unfortunately as I thought it might break my replacement GameCube.

I had a PS2 ultra slim cratering discs last year too. Wrecked a Season of Millennium and half a season of X files before I realised what it was doing 😭😭😭

My GBA SP has a bit of an iffy power button it.

Oh yeah, how could I forget. My housemate knocked my original DS off the bed when I was at uni. Ended up in two halves with a ribbon cable holding it together. Still worked though so I taped it back together with masking tape and carried on using it. I felt really cool playing Pokémon Black on a taped up original DS 😂😂, even though the 3DS had been out for ages at that point. I replaced the masking tape with scotch tape a few years ago just because it was getting a bit grimey.

I've still got my 360 though and I plan to fix it one day (again too lazy). I've also been gifted broken consoles which I've cleaned/fixed up if they are retro and also a broken PS3 (PS2 BC version) which I've got no idea how to fix!

@ralphdibny As was that! Interesting. I'm feeling VERY lucky about my lack of misfortune now

Although you reminded me that I had a problem with a crack on the hinge of my DS Lite that kept getting worse and worse until it busted apart. Panicked at first but eventually I searched Ebay and found a replacement part for a couple of quid. Just had to wait the weeks (or was it months?) for it to be delivered from China. Anyway I've deviated from the topic for long enough!

@ralphdibny my eye started twitching as I remembered what happened. I will have to check my old posts to see if I left anything (I whined about it a few times on NL) out. All my 3ds systems were fine. I gave one system to a user on NL even (for context I have to have a JPN and NA system and I love Zelda….Nintendo got a lot of my money that gen. 7 systems total. All new but one. ).

Mirror’s edge…. I’d forgotten how this game messes with me. I don’t like first person in general but I get nauseous when Faith falls to her death. Woo. Gonna keep playing though. I still have to beat the sequel.