ChopperCampbell

@The_Pixel_King if you have a PC or laptop log into the Xbox app on that too. On the Xbox app (phone, PC or laptop) there are always four daily challenges. One is play one game of Jewel (it’s built into the app so doesn’t need to be downloaded) and the other is open the app. These two can be completed regardless of with one of the apps you open and play Jewel on.
The important two are play a game on PC, and play a game with friends on PC challenges. If you have a PC/laptop download Age of Empires 1, launch the game and head to the multiplayer. You might need to refresh the list of lobbies but there are always dozens of lobbies where you can join and then just sit until both challenges unlock. If you have linked your social media account (can be done in any Xbox app) and have at least seven friends on your Xbox profile these four challenges will net you about 300 points every single day.

How many folk here do their daily, weekly and monthly searches and activities to redeem Microsoft Points? I’ve been doing them for years and I have never had to pay for a day of Game Pass for either myself or my son, and I’m subbed until September 2024.
Seriously if you aren’t taking advantage of this, why not!!?

I’m excited to replay Goldeneye, but like @grumpypotato said there’s definitely an element of rose-tinted glasses. Honestly I’m not hopeful that it will hold up particularly well now gameplay-wise after twenty five years of the genre being iterated on and improved. At least the Xbox version will seemingly get a fresh coat of paint and if it looks anything like the Perfect Dark remaster it’ll be fine.

I’ve spent many more hours than I’m comfortable admitting playing Grounded since the 1.0 release. I’d dabbled in it during early access, but I’m amazed at how much they’ve expanded the garden area and all the new creatures and building options.
I’m a bit of a sucker for base-building too so it’s been great going from a wee tent to three-storey mansion containing a tower with zip-lines to all the other parts of the garden. Good times!

Age of Empires looks like the sort of game I’d burn away hundreds of hours on, but despite having them on Game Pass on PC I’ve never really tried them (too much of a struggle to get the wife off World of Warcraft). Really looking forward to this and IV coming to console.

@Dr_Luigi I’ve bought tons of stuff from them, games, DLC and subscriptions. Never had any issues, in fact everything has always gone smoothly

I’d love to see this running on the Xbox One and Series consoles as opposed to the original console. There are still OG games that I’d enjoying playing online again, but not if it means having to buy another original console and physical games. I just don’t have the space that I used too

Since this is a strictly single player game I’ve no issues with waiting for either a significant price drop, or it to eventually land on EA Play.

I don’t wait as long for multiplayer games as the number of players for games can drop off quickly after launch (not that I buy many multiplayer game if I’m being honest).

I’ve 100% the original Dead Space anyway, which must have taken about five play-throughs, so no made rush for the remake.

It does look pretty terrifying though.

Now would be the perfect time to give Rare Replay a Series X|S upgrade.

@gollumb82 agree 100%. I started Control with ray-tracing on before switching to 60fps a few hours in. The performance difference going to 60fps was night and day compared to 30fps, and the graphical downgrade due to turning off ray-tracing was, to my eyes, pretty negligible. I’ve yet to see any game that makes me think ray-tracing is worth the time and effort.

I’d encourage anyone to give Hitman 3 a try. I was already a fan of the first two but 3 was fantastic. Even the missus enjoyed watching as Agent 47 dressed up in ludicrous outfits and stalked his pray through a nightclub, or a skyscraper or vineyard

Can’t wait to relive the NES, pretty sure I can still remember the layout of the dam level. One question, why is there no pre-order or pre-load option on the Xbox store? I’m back at work tomorrow and don’t want to have to wait to download it when I get home.

@themightyant try CDKeys, just had a look and they have Forza 3 & Hot Wheels DLC bundle for £30. Unfortunately it looks like the DLC on its own is out of stock.

@Would_you_kindly @101Force I’ve just checked and I was wrong. It’s actually Quake Arena Arcade that’s on console, not Quake III Arena. Sorry for the misinformation.

@101Force it’s been on Xbox consoles for years. It was released on Xbox Live Arcade on the 360 I think, and is backwards compatible with the One and Series consoles.

I’ll add them to the collection like I always do, but I can’t see me playing any of these if I’m honest.

@Bjaina The servers are down at the moment so you probably won’t be able to find a game. Hopefully they’ll be back up later tonight. It’s worth keeping an eye on the Fall Guys Twitter account for updates.

I only ever got halfway through 7 and have been putting off going back to it until this upgrade was released. Can’t wait now for my days off work to get stuck back in!!

I really need to get back into Elden Ring. Hit a brick wall with my melee build against the Godskin Duo so took a break and never went back.

The original has been a cracking reboot of the old Mega Drive Mutant League Football, so can’t wait for the sequel.

So they haven’t patched it to make it so I can beat the Godskin Duo with my melee build? Meh, I’ll just have to keep trying then!!

Yep, this is going straight on the must play list

@sikthvash I’ve had Soma for ages but never got round to playing it, and heard good things about Amnesia. Are they worth giving a go?

As for Scorn, I’ve had my eye on this since the reveal trailer. Looks-wise it’s very H.R. Giger influenced which has me intrigued, but I want to see more of how it plays from a gameplay perspective.

They look awesome! Don’t think that they actually be great to use, but they’d certainly catch the eye on a display.

The platinum edition of this is dirt cheap during most of the big online sales so I picked this up a few months ago. Wasn’t expecting much but to my surprise I’ve been putting a good few hours into it (well I was until Elden Ring took over my life) and I’ve really enjoyed it. Not sure how much difference a next gen version will be. I’m pretty sure till already runs at 60fps and looks good graphically for an older game especially on XSX. I’ll definitely jump back in once the update is released.

I started with the 1tb when the console launched, but recently got the 2tb from very.co.uk which lets me pay in three instalments. Gave the 1tb to my son for his XSS so we’re both pretty happy.

@Shigurui Dark Souls 2 is underrated in my opinion. I loved it and I’m glad to see someone else does too.

A game that I keep dipping in and out of. Actually really enjoy it but it just doesn’t hold my attention for quite long enough.

@Bleachedsmiles I love both franchises, but personally I’d take a new Killer Instinct over Street Fighter

I’m not holding my breath for this. Pre-release, the original version looked great, but when I played at launch I thought it was a janky, bug-ridden mess and haven’t tried to get back into it since.
Hopefully this is much improved and excites me again for playing it, but the original first impression has left an extremely sour taste.

I’d hold off on blasting through these too quickly. Every few months Microsoft Rewards has a week/fortnight where you are given 1 Microsoft Reward point for each achievement point, up to a maximum of 10000. Great way to get achievement score and money off games or subscriptions

I remember back in 2013 when Microsoft wanted to expand into movies, TV and other media and the backlash they faced for not focusing on games. It’ll be interesting to see how this works out for Bungie and Sony.

I much prefer the Xbox controller to the DualSense (I will never get used to the sticks) but have recently used my DualSense to play Xbox games on my Apple device. Quite an interesting mashup.

@Tasuki @JayJ in all honesty you weren’t missing anything special. No actual racing is in the game, just a button for the accelerator which you let go as you entered a turn and held again as you exited. Couple that with masses of micro transactions and it all adds up to a fair generic mobile game.

@Gunonaboat you can use a VPN to access the American version of the website which has loads more points available

Can we expect this on Xbox since Quantic Dreams haven’t made an Xbox game for over 15 years?

Just tried the first level and seems to be working really well now.

I really enjoyed the first one. Not the greatest sandbox game ever but still piled in tonnes of hours into it. I’ll definitely look to get this at some point, but think I’ll hold off for the inevitable Game of the Year version somewhere down the line.

Planet Coaster also has full K&M support but is missing from this list.

@NEStalgia a USB keyboard is your friend in this situation. I also tried it with the controller and struggled, but really enjoyed it with muse and keyboard. Just shelled out the cash to keep it as its too good to loose.

Can’t wait to loose another few dozen hours exploring Skyrim. Ten years and five consoles later and I still love it.

@Nightcrawler71 hope you have a free 100gb space on your hard drive!

I bought the trilogy a few months ago on the PS5 and despite living them at the time going back to them now is rough. If the prices in the article are anything to go by I’ll be giving these a miss until they drop significantly in price. Hate being charged extra for the X|S versions too.

Wishing I had the money to get more, then I could have become a professional scalper and retired to a tropical island.
Sadly, one for me and one for my son will have to do!

Just bought two

Pretty sure mine should still be the Superman shield from Superman Returns. God, that came out in 2006!!!!!

I’m assuming it will be full retail price, if so hard pass for me. I’m not expecting a Smart Delivery upgrade either, so looks like the only way I’ll be playing this is if there is a paid upgrade from the Xbox One version, but even then I doubt I’d pay.

Haven’t got far enough to be proclaiming it game of the year quite yet, but I’d definitely say it’s the most enjoyable and funny platformer I’ve played in many years.

My son is eleven and enjoys the more recent COD games. I owned the first few and he’s played and enjoyed them so I was looking to get some of the early Xbox One COD’s or even Black Ops 3 and 4 but the prices for them, even on sale, are ridiculous. Looks like he’ll just have to stick with the new ones because I refuse to pay what they are asking for five to eight year old games.

I really enjoyed the first but never finished it. Might give it another whirl before I pick this one up too.