JayJ

@stefan771 I find it amazing how some people still keep getting excited about the same old 30 year old games getting enhanced again and again.

So these games have been enhanced, yet again?

I could never understand why Tiny Tina became such a focus. I always found her obnoxious.

@Sol76 Shadow Warrior 3 was such a disappointment for me after Shadow Warrior 2. Definitely an odd game by comparison.

Really looking forward to this, the original was excellent.

@Steel76 Pretty sure it's just been the meme stonk situation that has kept them alive. Reddit loved Gamestop apparently for some reason. It's like yeah, what a shame if the video game store that put all the better video game stores out of business went under.

I feel like gaming hardware sales have gotta be down all over by now. When I went to Best Buy the other day to buy a new soundbar, they had stacks of PS5's collecting dust.

I think we're just at a point in a console generation where demand has really died down.

@Pabpictu Honestly physical video games really lost their appeal for me last gen. You're right, they definitely became just an alternative to DRM, one where you need to have a disc in a drive in order to boot up a game. At best they're just physical backups, but most games have so much updating that you will probably be stuck downloading most of the game anyways unless you enjoy playing the buggy/barren 1.0 vanilla version of games they have been releasing. I mean lets not kid ourselves and pretend like the games we have had this or last gen have been finished products the day they release, it seems to have become a common practice to take the "release it now, fix it later" approach, making most 1.0's feel like betas. Combine that with all the DLC, and it's like you really aren't getting the full experience straight off a disc anymore. Heck throw live services into the mix and the disc is truly meaningless. My disc copy of The Crew is only useful as a frisbee or drink coaster by now for example.

What really ruined it for me though was how you needed to install the entire disc in order to play any games. The 360 store going offline made me get back into Xbox 360 and one of the best thing about my old disc collection for that console is how nearly all of the games are entirely playable off the disc no installation required. Now THAT is how physical disc media made sense, it truly saved you a ton of space back when hard drive storage was very limited.

Gamestop is the reason physical video game stores disappeared in the first place. They bought out all the competition, monopolized the industry, and basically ran everyone else out of business. Then when they had the market monopolized they got rid of most of their back catalogs and tried to rip everyone off. I liked buying used games before they took over, after it became a why bother situation.

Want to know what the real savior of physical media has been? Ebay. As someone who used to be into retro gaming collecting, that's basically where I got most of my stuff, and even today it's still probably the best source for the majority of retro gaming needs.

I am definitely going to pick up a few games, but I am going to focus on digital-only stuff I never bought. I figure anything that's on a disc is something I could just buy whenever.

@TakeItEasy What are all of these "stunning" Playstation exclusives that Sony have been releasing this year? Also the brand is now more associated with California than Japan, as that's where they moved their headquarters.

The FTC needs to move on from this Xbox obsession, there's far bigger things to worry about right now. This is just making them look petty and like they're holding a grudge.

Why doesn't the FTC go after major utilities and insurance companies who have been hugely increasing their rates? Why is all of their outrage focused on some video game service that is totally not needed?

Well that's something.

Pretty lame to be honest, not much to it. I'll be sticking with the original Xbox dynamic theme.

@Fenbops Yup, seems like it doesn't take long for good sales to show up on most games these days anyways. Heck deep sales have become a routine thing for most games after they have been on the market for a number of months.

Combine this with my backlog and it's like I just really don't see the need to keep up with subscriptions anymore. I own more games than I can find to time to play as it is, and they just aren't releasing new games that appeal to me all that regularly anymore anyways. I think Flight Simulator, Starfield, and a Yakuza title are among the few Gamepass games I really play regularly, and I was telling myself that if the subscription gets any more expensive I might as well just buy the games.

@Fenbops Yeah this value for your subscription issue is industry wide IMO. I mean it's not like things are better at Playstation, after their most recent PS+ price hikes I let my subscription expire and I no longer have an interest in subscribing again, I just think it represents poor value for money when I got honest about the games I really played from it. Nintendo's Switch Online service is also something I let expire, I never really play my Switch online and their emulator apps just aren't worth paying a subscription for.

The whole gaming industry just feels like it's trying to milk everyone with these subscriptions much like the streaming industry these days, and I've definitely gotten to the point where I've been questioning why I keep paying for some of these subscriptions especially as the rates go up. At least when I buy games it's just a one time expense and I have access to my games for as long as I like. With a subscription your access is instantly removed as soon as enough time has passed. I am really getting tired of subscription expenses.

Subscriptions can only get so expensive until I start to question the value they're presenting. The entire appeal of these gaming subscriptions is having access to a wide variety of games at one low rate, but if that rate is no longer low, I really start to question why I don't just apply the money I am spending on a subscription towards buying games I can actually own.

This question is made more obvious by the fact that I just really don't play games online much anymore. Over 90% of the games these subscriptions offer don't do anything for me and I can easily live without them, it's just a few that I really play often and get value out of. That and I have generally been losing interest in new games lately anyways, so having a subscription to keep up with the latest just isn't as appealing as it once was.

When the big sales come around I am really going to be looking into buying the few Gamepass games I still see myself playing long term and might just let it expire and move on from the concept.

There comes a point with these subscriptions where I have to ask myself if it's really worth it vs simply buying whatever games I like out of it. I mean I certainly don't play all the games on offer regularly, there's only a few that I really keep installed.

Yeah that's got a lot to do with why the past generations felt so much better, the games were just a lot easier to pick up and play. Today's gaming scene has far too much emphasis on these massive epics and live service games that demand your constant and continual dedication. Gaming used to be a lot more relaxed.

It's a very cool concept for a game and one that I would have loved to have played on modern consoles. I mean I can always just pick up a disc copy and play it on an old 360 but having it digital would have been fantastic. This is definitely in my list of games I would have loved to have seen added to backwards compatibility along with the Project Gotham Racing games.

Just another reason this new release seems like it will be easy for me to pass on. The PS4/One versions have held up well, and this is a game I originally bought on 360 way back. I feel like I have moved on from this game for the most part, last gen releases are fine if I am ever in the mood to go back.

@Weapon_Wheel Yeah the thing about online gaming is that the audience is very fickle and all of the content offerings ages very poorly. There is still people who play the classic GTA games and they are still just as playable today as they were when they released. Anything online however has an expiration date, eventually the online audience will move on to the next big thing, and at some point the activity will die down to where companies just shut down the servers. As soon as that happens all of that online content will be lost forever.

This is honestly why I have so little faith in GTA6 and today's Rockstar. The founders left, solo content was scrapped in favor of online gaming that I have zero interest in, and Rockstar has literally spent the last decade just milking that online component. I wouldn't be surprised if GTA6 turned out to be some online-only live service deal.

Now is definitely the time to check on any DLC for 360 games you might want to buy before the 360 store goes down. While most backwards compatible games should have their DLC on the One/Series Xbox store, there is still a surprising amount of stuff that is only accessible on the 360 store. I know that was the case with COD MW3 when I went to get the DLC, unavailable on One/Series, but if you open up the store in-game it takes you to the original 360 store listings and you can still buy it there. Heck it also requires you to add new downloads that will undoubtedly become inaccessible if you couldn't access the 360 store to add them to your account. Even some content that you can buy on the One/Series store might require you to access the 360 store to properly download it, as was the case with COD Black Ops 2 DLC.

@GuyinPA75 It's overcast in the other picture as well. The new one just has the clouds standing out a lot more with a much brighter white and more vibrant blue sky. Overall the new lighting looks brighter with more vibrancy in general.

@Nightcrawler71 I played it then and it still looked off to me, definitely a lighting issue.

It always looked kinda washed out and a lot of paint looked really awful.

Great! Xbox is definitely my favorite platform right now and they seem to be making all the right moves.

What is the point of this? They already remastered it for PS4 and One.

For me the high point has been features like FPS boost and the backwards compatibility as well as great games like Forza Horizon 5, Flight Simulator, and Starfield.

@nomither6 Yeah I have zero faith in today's Ubisoft to produce anything I will want anymore. All of their new games seem to be ruined by needless live service requirements anyways.

@joey302 A lot of 360 games won't show up on Xbox One or Series consoles as they were never made backwards compatible.

I don't think I'd be looking forward to anything that anyone who was responsible for Redfall could be working on.

@OldGamer999 Yeah I couldn't agree more. The fans will defend the difficulty as they do, but it's always been a real turnoff for me. The entire mentality behind defending the difficulty basically just reminds me of why providing options is such an important thing. Sure they might love the hardcore challenge and repetition in trying to overcome the difficulty, but that is exactly why games have hard modes in the first place, to please that sort of person. Meanwhile offering a medium or easy difficulty opens it up to people who might not enjoy that.

Restricting it to such hard difficulty basically comes off as sort of an elitist situation to me. Forcing people to play their way because they think it's the ultimate way to play video games or something. While that's fine for them there's a good reason why most video games try to provide more accessibility, not everyone is a hardcore gamer, and not everyone is capable of hardcore challenges. I always felt like video games should be enjoyable for anyone, not just the most capable and elite at playing them.

I think I'll be fine with the old HD version. This game is so old that I really don't see the need for more enhancement.

Honestly this game got really unfairly attacked and criticized by video games journalists. I got it on a sale a while back and I had a blast playing it, enjoying it far more than most games these critics seem to praise these days.

@Fenbops I've seen this happening a lot lately, they take real actors and claim to model the video game character after them, yet they make a lot of changes to their face that results in them no longer resembling the aforementioned actor. It seems especially common among female characters with them looking more masculine than the reference actor.

I also don't get the mentality of implying feminine characteristics are somehow unrealistic. There's no shortage of feminine looking women out there, seems asinine to deny their existence while spouting off the values of representation.

She looks like a female Brock Lesnar, wonder if she fights like one as well.

This game seems like it's going to be bad.

This trend is basically speeding up my loss of interest in new AAA games.

@IOI Except it wasn't.

So I imagine this will just be an update for the current version of Flight Simulator?

Got this and I can definitely tell it's an iOS game. Feels very mobile phone. Not much to it or the content either. Definitely not an 8, I would maybe give it a 6 if I'm feeling generous.

@theduckofdeath I think the only real reason so many gamers got so worked up over Tango closing is because it's been one of the latest excuses to hate on Xbox. Most of them never even cared about Tango.

I loved high on life, if it's cheap enough on sale I might get it to play it again and the DLC.

@theduckofdeath Look into it, most of the main talent left. One of the lead figures started their own studio.

I can wait for a deeper sale, I played the game on Switch and it was alright. I'm sure it's better now though.

@IOI Most of the talent at Tango left on their own before that to form a new studio. It was basically a shell of a studio when Microsoft closed it.

This is going to make Xbox consoles far more appealing to the casual COD player.