Tdx

I'm rooting for Ubisoft. I haven't liked several of their recent games, but I'm still a fan of the Far Cry and Ghost Recon franchises. They've also set the bar for open world environmental detail and current gen console optimization for years.

Starfield. Easily.

After that, a few amazing indies: Citizen Sleeper, Sable, Neon White, Tunic.

Since they are combining Xbox and Windows, call it the Windows Xbox Portable or just Windows XP for short.

Played through Golden Idol as a couch coop game. Definitely challenging to finish it with no hints. Really well done puzzle game.

Completed 83 games on Xbox this year. Almost all through Game Pass and Ubi+.

From your GOTY list, I completed Stalker 2 and Indy. They were just OK to me.

Best games: Far Cry Primal Survivor, Dead Space, Hardspace Shipbreaker, Neon White, Chants of Sennaar, Wo Long, Lies of P, FIST, It Takes Two, Golden Idol

Worst games: Fallout 76, Breakpoint, Control, Evil Within 2, Gears 4, Chicory

I feel very disconnected from the mainstream opinions on games these days.

Next year I’d like to spend more time on games I truly love like Skyrim/Fallout4/Starfield and maybe a few indies mixed in.

Finished Indiana Jones. Wasn't a huge fan of the gameplay or level design, but they nailed the environments, music and tone of dialogue from the films. The tombs and side quests were well done.

Love Starfield

Finished Stalker 2 after 50+ hours. I have mixed feelings. I really wanted to love this game but the more I played the less I felt connected to the world and story. It’s not just the bugs or lack of A-life that hurt the experience. It’s a game designed primarily around the main quest and cutscenes and I guess I was hoping for a more Bethesda-esque open world approach. The combat feels very rough with minimal stealth, difficult enemy movement, bullet sponge, etc. The world and atmosphere - especially underground - is fantastic though. It reminds me of Cyberpunk, not just because of the bugs but because it has a conflict between an urgent main quest for a preset character vs open world exploration and side quests. Yet due to the game’s focus on the main quest, the open world is not as deep, open-ended and rewarding as it could be - there is little opportunity for role playing. It may feel better to play eventually with patches, but I don’t think it’s my type of game ultimately - it’s more an action adventure game with long walks than RPG.

Guess I’ll play Indy next.

Definitely the best one they’ve ever done. Only like 2 games interested me (Long Dark and Outer Worlds) but it was very entertaining throughout. Great speech by the Larian guy. I think I called every major award correctly.

Every year I look forward to watching and then by the end I'm wondering if I even like video games anymore.

Played Stalker 2 a lot. The performance is OK (up-res in the distance is blurry as hell), the world is beautifully done, the combat/AI/stealth feels quite rough and I'm paranoid about softlocks. But overall the vibe is amazing.

Game Pass was solid. I finished 60 GP games this year (play a lot of short indies).

Favorite AAA: Dead Space
Favorite AA: Hardspace Shipbreaker
Favorite indie: Neon White

Appreciate the honest review even if it goes somewhat against the consensus. Sound like you thought it was too shallow for an imsim and too plodding for a cinematic game. That’s totally fair.

Top 2% time played, top 1% gamerscore. I did an experiment and played a new game every week this year (so no super long RPGs), mostly using Game Pass.

Played through Cuphead & DLC with my partner this week. A lot of fun trying to grade high on each boss.

Next is Nine Sols. A game I would’ve probably purchased on Switch if not for GP.

Wildlands.

New Vegas, Far Cry 4 and Primal need 4K.

Old Blood. Others have way too much story and cutscenes for my taste.

Keep bringing top indies to GP. Some truly excellent Starfield DLC. Maybe bump New Vegas to 4k. That’s all I need.

Finished Steamworld Dig 2 - surprisingly solid Metroidvania. Gonna give Stalker 2 one more week and hope for some essential patches. Might play Cuphead with my partner.

Would you recommend the original (dated jank and all) over this?

@TheGiraffe I was for a while (200+ hours). It's hard for me to switch between an immersive RPG like that and a random Game Pass game though. I really have been meaning to go back - so much I still have left to do with new characters. Do you only play Starfield or do you alternate?

10th anniversary of Far Cry 4 today. Can we get a resolution bump for FC4 and Primal?

@Nightcrawler71 I’m not sure Wildlands could run 60fps at it’s current resolution. Breakpoint’s 60fps mode is much blurrier (like 1080-1440p) than Wildlands 30fps mode. But yeah I would love that - one of my all-time favorites.

Dungeons of Hinterberg - Pretty chill circa-2005 Zelda game. Puzzles could be harder but the dungeon variety and story push you through.

Journey to the Savage Planet - Love the FPS metroidvania concept. Nice length and pretty fun exploration game - underrated. Like High on Life + Subnautica + Supraland.

Neon White.

Awesome game - one of the best indies I’ve played in recent years. The game makes you feel like you’re highly skilled. One thing I didn’t take from review footage is how easy it is to play: slow fall speed, auto-aim, zero lateral momentum, instant restarts. Each level is a puzzle (to get the ace+gift), so both your reflexes and mind are always engaged - a mark of a great game. The soundtrack is fantastic. Yes the dialogue is overlong and anime-esque but whatever.

Dropped Inscryption after the great first act - the next part is banal, frustrating and overwhelming in ways the first act wasn’t at all.

Almost all of them.

Gears gameplay feels slow, clunky and imprecise. And the last few games have constant MCU dialogue.

Halo guns have always felt soft, spongey. The covenant designs are kinda goofy and “The Weapon” dialogue is painful.

Forza Horizon treats you like a child that needs to be coddled every 3 minutes. The race structure is chaotic and messy. The story bits are inane.

Fable feels like a little kids cartoon next to almost any other fantasy RPG.

CoD puts me to sleep with its linearity and handholdy design.

That being said, I love my Series X and the BGS RPGs are the best games ever made imo.

Borderlands The Pre-Sequel. I try to avoid purchasing bundles, but the only way to get BL2 on Series X is to get the Handsome Collection, so I felt somewhat obligated. Anyways, better vibe and gameplay than 2, but the side quests are some of the most backtracky tedious missions I've ever played. Borderlands 1 is still my favorite in the series.

Will probably bang out a few indies in the next month with a re-sub to Game Pass while waiting for Stalker 2.

Borderlands 2. Mindless and grindy is sometimes the prescription.

Why Fallout 76? Isn’t it already part of every GP tier?

AAA on Xbox.

Indies, retro and coop on Switch.

I buy very little on Xbox due to Game Pass, but I’ll buy replayable all-time favorites like BGS RPGs. The only game I bought in 2024 was Crew 2 for $1.

On Switch I have no interest in 95% of Nintendo exclusives. Like in 2024 I only bought Blasphemous 2, Animal Well and Iron Meat. All these games are 60fps on Switch.

100%’d Far Cry 4. In terms of gameplay, setting, and soundtrack working together to create pure fun, that game is a masterpiece. 3rd time I’ve completed it in 2 years. Wouldn’t recommend going for the collectibles though. 60fps on Series X is great, but wish it was 4k on consoles too.

Gonna revisit Borderlands 2 now for the first time since 2014. And then probably the PreSequel for the first time.

> “ In an age of clockwork soulslikes and heavily curated experiences like God of War: Ragnarök”

Exactly why I have an Xbox and not a PS5: Open-ended Western RPGs.

Most anticipated release of the year. Excited.

Fallout 76. Truly, truly awful. And I say that as a huge BGS fan. Has none of the role play, atmosphere, immersion of other BGS games. People say you can enjoy it as a single player game and that the game is now good - I strongly disagree.

When you download the free play trial does it stay in your library forever (like other demos) and need to be hidden?

Replayed Far Cry 5. Game is such a mixed bag for me. I’ve completed it 3 times now. The setting, gunplay, and outpost design are so immersive. The story presentation, side characters, and music aren’t my favorite.

> there's no need to regurgitate everyone's dissatisfactions

This should be a warning label on every video game comment thread on the internet. I swear people constantly go out of their way to always bring up this game and everything they don't like about it - even completely out of context.

I think Scorn is pretty awesome - just have to play it like a stealth game and avoid combat.

Finished Breakpoint. Holy hell that game was bad - even the reworked DLC campaign. If I didn't love Wildlands so much, I would've dropped it.

SW Outlaws next, while I still have Ubi+.

The future survival of Ubisoft as a publisher depends on this game. They need to elevate their approach from the bloated microtransaction/live-service-focused model that is actively aggressive towards the immersion, logical consistency and vibe that helps create an organic emotional connection to a game.

I'm rooting for them, but the last 6 years has seen almost all their series take a step backwards.
Far Cry 6 < Far Cry 5 (2018)
Breakpoint < Wildlands (2017)
Legion < Watch Dogs 2 (2016)
Valhalla < Origins (2017)

The Division 2 campaign. One of those games I'm not sure if I'm enjoying or not. Confusing. Such a fantastic premise and setting for a game. The base gameplay is kinda fun but takes no thought and is extremely predictable. It has an ultra-realistic aesthetic juxtaposed with very robotic and arcadey game loop. I get no joy out of looting and rearranging my equipment every 10 minutes - conversely, I'd prefer to feel attachment to a few pieces. I think I like the first one better due to its sense of loneliness and dread, but this one plays slightly smoother and there are actually more than four enemies at once.

Personally, Xbox is the clear winner this gen for me. The backwards compatibility boosts, Starfield, interesting indies on game pass, better looking console, better controller, quick resume. For me, MS first party stuff has always been mediocre (even in the 360 glory days), so I'm not let down by any of those flops. I have no interest in JRPGs and 3rd person cinematic or souls stuff so I'm not even tempted to get a PS5.

But most gamers want those polished AAA cinematic story-driven games, the hot multiplayer exclusives and Japanese stuff so I see why PS5 would be more appealing to the mainstream.

Not watching this. Going in blind just like the main game. No expectations, just fun. Love Starfield.

Finished Watch Dogs Legion. The London they built is modeled spectacularly - so much work went into little environmental details. Unfortunately the game was a complete bore, especially sad since WD 1 and 2 were both great. The main issue is that there is no vibe: music, voice acting, atmosphere, tension, tone - it’s all completely banal and empty. Bloodlines DLC was a bit better but still just OK.

As a Ubisoft fan on Xbox, I’m often choosing between better-game or better-resolution/fps.
WD 1 > WD Legion
Far Cry 4 > Far Cry 6
Etc

Hey while you’re there, do you mind picking me up a Wildlands 60fps patch?

@Romans12 3DO was $699 (30 years ago)

They had a chance to correct the ugliest console design of all time and chose to just add a few extra grooves?

I don't think graphic fidelity is what's holding the industry back right now. But maybe those boring 3rd person cinematic cutscenes will finally make you feel something in 4K/60.

Almost through AC Mirage. Stealth gameplay gets pretty fun once you have all your tools, but the game suffers from so much robotic exposition and boring Witcher-sense quest design.

Like all AC games, the core assassin-y gameplay is fun, everything else is not. Origins is the only one that pulled everything together with satisfying exploration and a balanced, well-paced story without a lot of Animus dreck.

@Lup If I could have the tone from the first hour of FC5, the openness of FCND and the setting of FC6, (and soundtrack of FC4), that’d be one of my top 5 games.

Just finished Sekiro. Pretty fun game and it was a thrill to beat the final boss after several hours of attempts. But the game has a lot of annoyances (camera, awkward story progression, confusing world design, multi-phase boss fights) and it’s not as “pure” as I thought (still tons of items/tools/side quests that I ignored or probably need a wiki to follow). I enjoyed the rhythm gameplay but it’s more good than great for me.

I think it just picked a release window with almost zero competition across all consoles/PC. Esp since the ER DLC appears to be more niche.