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

@Balta666 I get it entirely, I'd seen the idea from an outlet called MinnMax who do a gameclub and used the format for tears of the kingdom. I would agree with both you and @ralphdibny that things work well as they are, I just suspect Starfield will be a banger and suck everyone in for September! I'm really looking forward to Will of the Wisps this month, have downloaded now. Thought the first game was gorgeous and despite some brutal escape sequences, was a fantastic metroidvania.

@R1spam speaking of TotK, it sucked a lot of people away from here in the month it came out. It happens unfortunately but the point of GC isn't to bog people down with responsibilities, it's just supposed to be fun and collaborative when people have time to and choose to engage.

I think keeping it simple makes it easier to administrate too, maybe Balta wants more work to do for this club but I certainly didn't 😅. I'd encourage them to do the same so they don't get burned out quickly

Totally agree about Blind Forest. It was the best 2D platformer I'd played since Donkey Kong Country Returns on the Wii. (VVVVVV was the best platformer I've played since Ori Blind Forest incidentally). I do wonder if I have too high hopes for Will of the Wisps and it will let me down.

@R1spam I follow Minnmax (altough not a patron) and know abou their "deep dives". Personally I feel that won't work on our community where sometimes we struggle to have more than 3/4 people playing the game in a month. It looks to me that it is better for the moment to keep it simple and mindfull that everyone here has different times to play games.

@LtSarge Altough personally I don't think it is a big deal atm, it is true that sometimes games are announced around the middle of the month and get into the mix at a later date and maybe that could be avoid with that suggestion.
I will take it into consideration moving forward!

@Balta666 I played DS1 and played a good 15hrs before bouncing off that too. I was told this is more accessible of a game, but im not sure I see it. I loved the graphics and world, but ultimately it's just not my cup of tea. I posted something more in depth on NL under 'Games You Recently Dropped.'

@Balta666 I like a lot of their deepest dives, though no doubt there is a scale difference in participation! Be good, have fun, let's go 🤣

Already made some headway. Got a few abilities unlocked. I played a couple years back and loved the game.

@ralphdibny I totally get that, in fact that's where I was coming from. If its what people are playing anyway, then it's easier to engage with and less of a responsibility to download and check out something else. All cool anyway and things work really well as it stands with the last thing I would want to do is increase the admin burden for running the club. There are often months where I struggle to put anything meaningful back about the games selected, due to other commitments/interests and that's just trying to play them 😬! I appreciated how much you put into them and know Balta666 has been a gameclub stalwart and will do a cracking job.

Speaking of totk, have you played it? Sure it's a conversation for another thread but God damn I think it might be the best game I have ever played! True work of genius.

@R1spam cheers 👍 yeah Balta will be great!

TotK bit of a touchy subject for me tbh. Had a lot of the nice little things spoiled for me by NL headlines. Stuff I would have wanted to discover for myself. Normally I'd just not click on articles related to a game I wanted to go in blind for but kinda difficult when they put the spoilers in the headlines to garner clicks. I did play and finish the game in the end but I just couldn't let go of that feeling so I just felt sad through its whole run time and it ruined it for me. Or I ruined it for myself depending on your perspective. Overall, I could have thought it might have been one of the best Zeldas but I just couldn't bring myself to enjoy it 🤷‍♂️

I'm Gona add you on PS and Xbox in a min, trying to make an effort to add more people to the actual consoles in case I leave this site in future just so I don't lose contact with everyone! You'll find out my real name when I add you, please don't share it on any of the forums 😅

Edit: added! They aren't close friend requests or anything, I'm just a numpty and when I created the IDs so I put my real first name in them, I didn't expect years later to be adding people from a semi anonymous online forum! 😅

@ralphdibny oh that's rubbish 😔. I get they stay alive on SEO clicks but putting things straight in the article banner is nasty. I stayed away from any totk stuff online and still am. I can't wait to finally look when I finish the game and realise how dumb I am when I see other folks creations! Maybe I've missed out on that community aspect of that though, such a tough line to walk. Sounds good and no worries 🤣. I have added on PS and should be on xbox tonight to start ori, though I've not had any notifications.

@R1spam cheers, I'm not sure if Xbox gives you notifications because they aren't really friend requests on Xbox, you can add someone without them adding you back. But I should be in your list of "people who friended you" or "followers" or something. I think you need to go in that list and add me from there. Should be obvious who I am as the first part (my name) of the gamer tag is the same as the PSN ID. I have a weird monkey head as my picture.

I did remove NL from my quick links after I saw the caliber of their headlines after the TotK launch but sadly the damage was already done.

I think you've gone about it in the right way though to be honest. I would have liked to have had a full playthrough and taken what I could have out of the game naturally by going in blind and then gone and looked at the community stuff for ideas to play around with in the sandbox.

Though I didn't return to BotW in any meaningful way, it took a long time for the community to break the game and get into the nitty gritty of it so it was well past my 99% playthrough (missing a damn bridle from a horseback archery challenge lol) that I saw all that stuff and it was quite welcome and I enjoyed reading it years later.

But with TotK, I think the expectation for creativity was already there so people blazed ahead with their creations and media outlets just picked it up and plastered it over headlines before I even had a chance to turn on the game.

With a game like BotW and TotK, I think it's much more rewarding to forge your own path and explore and discover things for yourself than it is to follow in somebody's else's footsteps.

So I've played Ori for a few hours now and it's already so much better than the first game. For starters, the combat is much improved. Instead of spamming orbs that home in on your enemies, you have a blade now, which requires more skill. Also, there are "badges" that you can find and equip in order to improve your character. Honestly, it feels like Ori 2 borrows a lot of elements from Hollow Knight, both in terms of combat as well as gear. And that's great, because Hollow Knight is my favourite Metroidvania of all time.

You're also able to manually regenerate health now instead of saving anywhere compared to the first game, which makes it less difficult. I've also managed to add an additional four health cells in just the first few hours alone. So overall, this game seems more gentle while still retaining the challenge the series is known for.

Can I also just say how beautiful this game looks on Series X and how wonderful the soundtrack is? I'm constantly mesmerised while playing it. It's such a delight to play!

I'm seriously enjoying this game a lot and I can't wait to play more of it.

@LtSarge I play the game in 6K/60 because I don't have a 120Hz display and it looks absolutely incredible. Everything looks so clean!

Dolby Vision adds another gorgeous layer to the game. I don't know if it this game natively supports Dolby Vision or if it relies on the Dolby Vision up-scaler, but it really makes everything "pop".

The game was also mixed in Dolby Atmos - so if you have either a Dolby Atmos home theater or use Dolby Atmos for Headphones, you are in for even more of a treat!

And yes, gameplay-wise, it is a huge step up from the previous title.

All-in-all Ori and the Will of the Wisps is just a festival of great gameplay, amazing level design, gorgeous visuals, and immersive audio.

This is easily the best improvement in the game! The previous mechanic was just bad game design.

@GamingFan4Lyf The thing is that I don't even have a 4K TV. I still have a 1080p one, but the game still looks absolutely gorgeous! I think that's due to super sampling that the game mentioned at the start. I think that means the game will look great regardless if the output is 1080p or 4K.

@Balta666 I think a lot of things with the first game was bad game design, including the save feature. I mean, the combat was basically just spamming a button over and over again. This time it requires more finesse when fighting the enemies. Not to mention that you have different types of attacks, i.e. both light and heavy ones. In other words, there's more depth to the combat now.

@LtSarge I love me some hollow knight too and I think moon studios do as well! I just gawked open mouthed at the TV when I bumped into the Cornifer equivalent and they equally had the cheek to charge me for their wares. There still not quite the same weight and precision to the combat as hollow knight so far but the movement feels so responsive in will of the wisps when platforming.
@GamingFan4Lyf I tried out 4k 120 hz tonight and it looks insane in motion but then I couldn't really tell between that and 6k 60 hz to be honest, they both look incredible. It's so fluid in motion but the detail in the backgrounds and the hdr lighting have such finesse.
I agree with everyone so far around the improved mechanics, I've just played for 90 mins tonight and have had to force myself to switch off the console to go to bed. Always a great sign!

Ori & the Will of the Wisps(and Blind Forest for that matter) were my absolute favourite exclusives on Xbox One. Wonderful games. I'm so excited for you.

Blind Forest had a few quirks that made it harder to love, especially the manual save point mechanic and some super-tough, for some, auto-fail chase sequences. But I loved it. It's a magical game, set in a stunning world with tight gameplay a soundtrack to remember and a story to hit your heart.

Will of the Wisps improved the first in almost every way. Better combat, better traversal, deeper mechanics, visuals that seemed to pop at every moment, so vibrant and alive. They removed the worst of the difficulty spikes, and told another heart wrenching story. Loved it again. Even better it plays like an absolute dream on Series X. Either 4K 120fps (if your TV supports it) or supersampled 6K 60fps, both look and feel amazing.

I'm going on holiday tomorrow, and I replayed it late last year, else I would join you all. ENJOY! Look forward to the discussion.

@ralphdibny Enjoy being just a member!

@themightyant thank you, I am indeed a member! (Innuendo intended)

I've got this bad boy locked and loaded ready to play Will of the Wisps

@ralphdibny lobe 8bitdo. I got a couple of their controllers. The charges seem to fade fairly quickly though, at least on one of mine.