Feffster

@themightyant - probably safe to say it will be a little bit sharper than Series X (2160p vs Series X’s 1800p). If there’s anymore headroom still available then likely it’ll just be an adjustment to the Ray-tracing and shadows. Still a fine looking game on Series X regardless.

Personally, I’d be more interested to see how Starfield might run on a Pro. If it could get to a smooth 60fps then I might be tempted to double dip if it got ported.

Unrelated question….if you buy a Microsoft game on PS5 does that give you a free PC version of the game (as per many Series X/S purchases)? If it does then that would be a brilliant way of subtly bringing gamers towards the Xbox ecosystem (assuming the next generation Xbox is a PC/Xbox hybrid).

I’ve been playing other things but had a brief look at launch. Although the gameplay was smooth (Series X, performance mode, VRR, 120hz tv) the early cut scenes sometimes ran run at a lower rate (perhaps 30-40fps). Is this something that has now been addressed or is it still an issue?

@Cakefish - you may know this already but just in case you don’t - there’s a ‘hack’ to run all The Orange Box games at 60fps on Series consoles (do a Google to find the YouTube video). You will need access to an XB360 and the game on disc, but if you have got that it is definitely worth the bother. I played through Half Life 2 on Series X at 4K60fps last year and it still holds up superbly. Wish they would just patch and re-release the game digitally and I’d buy on day 1.

Haven’t played it before but have heard great things. An absolute no-brainer to try on GP, plus the file size is only 426mb so it downloads in under a minute even on my rubbish connection. Happy Days.

No interest in GTA6 so please don’t delay Fable because of it. My advice would be to get it out the door ahead of GTA6 - otherwise how long do you delay?….a month, two months, a year?!….GTA6 will have insane demand and the longest of long tails (however little I think of it).

@FraserG - thanks Fraser. I was hoping there would be but couldn’t remember if they’d said they were skipping a year.

Gamepass really is ridiculously good value - back in the day I’d have bought Avowed, Doom TDA, Fable and CoD2025 on release and may well have been tempted by South of Midnight and Outer Worlds 2 - and that’s without all the third party stuff like Sniper Elite, Atomfall, Wuchang Fallen Feathers, etc.

Is there no CoD in 2025?

@Elbow - maybe just call the next console Xbox 720. A nod back to the cool days of XB360 and gets a 7 into the name (as opposed to 6 in Sony’s next PS).

OG Xbox with Halo. The Silent Cartographer remains one of the greatest gaming moments I’ve ever experienced, right up there with Shamus on Atari 400. I sat out the Xbox One/PS4 generation but love my Series X - hopefully Xbox will remain a thing through the rest of my gaming lifetime.

I will give the balanced mode on Series X a spin but will almost certainly prefer performance mode with VRR - give me extra frames over a bit more detail any day of the week. Good to have options though and each to their own personal preference.

50ish hours is more than enough for me, especially as I usually take at least twice as long as ‘normal’ to complete most games. Sounds like a very solid release from Obsidian, this is the fourth review I’ve read in the 8-9 range of scores.

Roll on next Tuesday!

Looks like it needs more polish, lots of screen tearing and the framerate isn’t always smooth (not just the stop motion bits) in the footage shown. Still two months until release, so hopefully there’s enough time.

I don’t mind the stop motion animation just so long as it is restricted to cut scenes, and the opening video looks really well done.

Looking forward to trying on Gamepass.

@FraserG - I’ve not used them but think Age of Empires IV supports mods.

Series X - Halo Wars 2, Far Cry New Dawn, AoE4
PS5 Pro - Astro Bot Playground, Wipeout Omega Collection and a bit more God of War. Downloaded, played and deleted the F1 demo - very underwhelmed by the so-called Pro enhancements.

Have a good weekend everyone.

@RiverGenie - well said. Early access isn’t for me but fine for those that want to pay for it.

Great news, hopefully it stays within the VRR window to make a stable experience at 60.

@IOI - that’s very interesting. I’m not particularly bothered about what games are playable where but I do hope Xbox continues as a platform. It is pretty odd if there’s a shortage of Xbox hardware worldwide as seems to be the case.

If Microsoft do want to exit hardware and go third-party then I can’t fathom what the plan is with Gamepass or everyone’s (Xbox) digital libraries? Got to be something else on Microsoft’s agenda, I just can’t work out what.

@FraserG - much clearer (even for my pea-brain!) Thank you 👍

Also worth knowing that it now ‘Gen 9 aware’ - so there’s no need to run it off internal SSD or expansion card, it works just fine off an external SSD.

Nice upgrade. I’ve been playing on Series X this morning and to my eye it looks sharper than it was (with FPS boost) and no frame drops. Not sure if it is 4K or 4K with dynamic res - although it looks fine it is obviously an older title so some of the details are not as good as you’d see in a new release.

Gameplay - yep, there will be the usual copy & paste criticism of Ubisoft games being copy and paste (there’s something beautifully ironic about that) but this is a decent FPS. If you like FC5 then consider this a smaller but enjoyable (and standalone) expansion.

Series X - I’ve got to stop playing AoE4 - I can’t seem to go 24hrs without it drawing me back for yet another skirmish. Also playing some Sniper Elite Resistance- enjoyed the first level but finding it tough going on the second (I’m new to this so any gameplay tips welcomed, thanks)

PS5 pro - God of War. Didn’t think this would be my thing but I’ve enjoyed it so far. Still a very long way to go. Also dipping in and out of WRC Generations.

@themightyant - spot on mate, they always seem to get it in the neck from gamers but you have to hand it to them for ongoing support - they’ve upgraded AC Odyssey, Origins, Syndicate, FC5 and now FC New Dawn without charging us a penny for the privilege. Some would say that’s what should happen, but there are plenty of examples (Rockstar anyone?) where it simply doesn’t work like that.

Excellent news, really made a difference to FC5 when they bumped the resolution back up to 4K. Hopefully this is the same.

@Alstil - welcome to the party! I was in a similar position a few years back after completely skipping the Xbox One/PS4 era. Series X and Gamepass got me back into gaming. You are spoilt for choice now - enjoy 👍

I own Series X and PlayStation 5Pro so I’m fine with it (and the inevitable arrival of Starfield, Gears and Halo on ‘rival’ platforms). Im just still not sure what the end game is.

Short term it is easy to see the logic, more ££s. Longer term I’m not so sure - maybe 1.they’ve given up on consoles and beyond this gen will become a third party publisher (gradually winding down console support and Gamepass); or 2. They are confident that next-gen their ‘console’ is 100% PC compatible and they have a plan to transfer game libraries and Gamepass subscriptions to it.

When I say Day 1 obviously I mean Day 1,3 or 5 😃

I’m not convinced about the strategy (longer term) but I’m over it already. The only thing that matters to me is that Microsoft continue to pump out lots of quality content.

I have the option to buy some games on PS5 Pro but I’d rather play everything Day 1 on Series X with GPU.

@FraserG - thanks mate, and good luck! 👍

@FraserG - thanks for clarifying Fraser. My comment wasn’t a dig at you (or Pure Xbox) - I just think that it isn’t necessarily clear messaging (and presumably you are repeating the way Microsoft themselves make the announcements).

If you think about it logically you can see why Joe Public would be baffled -

Microsoft: “Game A is coming to Gamepass for Series X/S”
Microsoft: “Game B is coming to Gamepass for Console”

Gamer: “I have Gamepass and an Xbox console, does that mean I get the game to play Game A and Game B?”

Microsoft: “That depends, which console do you have?”
Gamer: “I have a Series X. Does that mean I get both games because it’s a bit weird you mention Series X/S specifically with Game A, but mention ‘Console’ with Game B - does that mean Game B is only available for last-gen consoles or is it on all consoles?”

Microsoft: “Er, no. Perhaps we should spell it out a bit more clearly.”
Gamer: “Oh, believe me, you should.”

Microsoft: “Well first of all, when we say Console we actually mean ‘all Xbox consoles, well more specifically all Xbox One consoles and all Xbox Series consoles, but not original Xbox consoles or Xbox 360 consoles’ - hope that’s clear?”
Gamer: “Much better. As I have a Series X I’m assuming I get both game A and game B?”

Microsoft: “Well that depends…”
Gamer: “On what?”
Microsoft: “Which level of Gamepass do you have?”
Gamer: “Gamepass Standard”
Microsoft: “Well no then, you get neither but on another occasion it could mean you get one, or both”
Gamer: “Clear As Mud, & Thanks - For Nothing!”

@FraserG Sorry to be dim, but what does it actually mean when a game becomes available on ‘Console’ ? (eg does it mean available on all Xbox consoles regardless of which Gamepass subscription they have?)

I’m fascinated to see what they do next. I have Xbox and PlayStation but can not for the life of me understand what Microsoft are trying to achieve.

If someone had set out to destroy third party sales on their own store, reduce sales of their own consoles and erode the c30M customers signed up to Gamepass then I can’t imagine a better strategy than the one they’ve been employing in the past 12 months.

Well there are eleven ?s underneath the redacted title and eleven letters in PerfectDark…

That’s insane. You can only assume that current CoD titles are costing $1BN+ to make. That means they need to sell 20M+ copies just to break even!

Anyone know what sort of numbers has Black Ops 6 done to-date?

@Jackha - you’re not missing anything. As others have said, Series X + comfy sofa + big 4K TV > cloud gaming + ‘this is an Xbox’ nonsense!

Off the top of my head (but sure I’ve forgotten a few):
Cocoon
Halo Infinite campaign
Half Life 2 (from The Orange Box)
Toy Soldiers HD
Deus Ex Mankind Divided
Exhumed/Powerslave
Hellblade 2

Work-in-progress:
Indy
BLOPS 6

XBSX - Indy, AoE4, Forza Motorsport
PS5Pro - Bust-A-Move 2, Astros Playroom, WRC Generations

Have a good one everyone.

Just need to fix the issue of me being rubbish at the game and job done.

@FraserG - thank you!

Brilliant game, still play it every week and love the changing seasons. The condensed mini-map merging the Cotswolds, Lakes and Edinburgh is inspired, as are the changing seasons. Stayed near Windermere and Ambleside in September and the resemblance is uncanny.

Can’t beat the progressive, mid-race, weather changes and gorgeous lighting (golden sunsets reflecting on snow and ice) -better than any other race game out there - and that includes FH5, Forza Motorsport and GT7.

Hope it stays back-compat for decades to come.

@Titntin - I turned off motion blur - might be worth trying to see if that helps?

Hope it does, it’s a cracking game.

Best graphics (by a mile) and sound of any game I’ve played this past year (including anything on PS5 Pro) and generally I don’t ‘do’ 30fps games. Well deserved, even if it’s more of an experience than a game. It really is an impressive title.

I’d completely forgotten about Towerborne.

2025 already looking busy for Microsoft - Avowed, Towerborne, South of Midnight, Doom The Dark Ages, CoD 2025, Fable?

Well that’s a bullseye from Microsoft 🎯

@abe_hikura - that sounds poor. Presumably if you can demonstrate that you’ve earned an achievement (against your gamertag) for either or both of the expansions it MUST prove you’ve previously paid for them?

I still have some of the older CoD games on disc, but happy to see them come to Gamepass. Just wish they could give them a resolution boost also.

The ones I really want to drop on GP are Black Ops III, Black Ops Cold War, Modern Warfare 2 remastered, Modern Warfare (2019) and Modern Warfare 2 (2022).

Really impressed so far, looks superb and enjoying the mix of stealth and action. What a nice change to boot up a game on release and find it polished and bug free. Watched Raiders of the Lost Ark at the weekend in preparation!

@BANJO - sorry for any confusion- didn’t know there was more than one! He’s already acknowledged my earlier comment.

Blimey, this turned into a sh1t-storm didn’t it?

Opinions vary, each to their own - no harm in that. But not good to see readers (and staff!) sniping at each other. In fairness to @Banjo he’s always pretty positive and his original comment doesn’t outright accuse anyone of anything - it’s so easy to draw the wrong inference from a sentence. Texts and emails can often be misinterpreted, so a comment on a gaming site is hardly a hanging offence!

Anyway, looking forward to playing Indy next week. I find stealth games a bit marmite - loved Splinter Cell back in the day but never much of a fan of Metal Gear. Cautiously optimistic about Indy but I guess we’ll all have our own opinions by this time next week.

I think there needs to be some sort of halfway house for Xbox consoles - well at least for those of us with less than perfect broadband speeds.

After the patches I can finally play it but it’s nowhere near as smooth or detailed as the previous game - so I’m uninstalling again.

Maybe add an option to install data by continent, or country, to keep the data needed to something manageable.

We could then delete and download another area when ready.

Mmmm, I wonder if my Series X will allow me to download & install WRC after yesterday’s shenanigans with the Indy download.

Does anyone know if Indy is reserving that extra 130GB of space or was it just some sort of weird download quirk?