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I always prefer physical when it's an option (and not a super expensive limited edition), so even with my Series X being my first ever Xbox, I have amassed something like 40 physical games.

@PhilKenSebben that is saying something indeed!
Can't wait for this to drop on consoles!

I really really do hope they're working on a new Quake, a reboot of 1 in particular.
And I really really do hope they're not working on a licensed game as some have rumoured.

@smoreon wow, someone who finally respects my attempts at getting into it instead of piling on me like a bunch of fanboys, thank you!

@Banjo- never said they're bad, they aren't. They're boring, but the actual fundamentals of moving and shooting are top-notch.
It's just that the level design is basically non-existant, and the games quickly devolve in a mindless shoot fest without much engagement on my part.

@themcnoisy I'll just say that if I had to be there to get how good they were, they were not that great in the first place, cause quality tends to resist the passing of time.
Idk, Halo apologists are the only fans that insist on this notion of "you had to be there", and I don't get why. Is it a way to admit that today those games are just boring and bland?

@Zochmenos ok dude, it's impossible talking to you cause you're fixated on this mentality in which you're right and everyone else is wrong.
Ok, games cannot be evaluated if not the second they come out, noted.
Have a nice day.

All these comments saying playing on normal is wrong...my dudes, if the Devs intended the game to be experienced like that it's on them to either make the standard difficulty higher, or making normal difficulty more engaging.
Again, just goes to prove my point that they're not that well designed.

@Baler wow, calling someone a fool just because I criticized something you like. Very mature.
Also I played half of 1-4, all of Reach, and replayed the whole of CE with my brother to see if co-op would finally make it fun. It didn't.
Edit: I can name you a bunch of FPS that Halo doesn't even hold a candle to.

@ParsnipHero I'm referring to the campaigns, they're dreadful.

@Zochmenos dude, I said I get it.
It's just they were not that good to begin with.
Doom 1993 I played for the first time in 2020, and it became my most played game that year.
So yeah, you can definitely decouple a game from its context and evaluate it on its own merits.

@Zochmenos yeah I know that, but the difference is I can have a whale of a time with Doom 1993 or Goldeneye 007 even in 2024, while Halo just bores me to tears.
I appreciate the impact the series (and the original in particular) had at the time, but none of the games in the series hold a candle to the best in the genre, even contemporaries like Timesplitters 2.

Honestly it was one of the biggest disappointments I've ever felt in my gaming life.
Not for the collection itself (I played it a couple of years ago as my first Halo experience), but for the individual games.
Despite being very keen on finally trying out these legendary games, I just found them boring, bland and unengaging, and I still to this day don't understand how they're held in such high regard.

I'll definitely be playing some more The Finals and Cyberpunk if I find the time.

This was such a rollercoaster.
As soon as I saw Arkane Lyon I audibly gasped, as it's one of my all time favourite studios.
Then I saw it's yet another Marvel tie-in and lost interest. I hate superheroes, I hate Marvel, I hate licensed games, and especially licensed games that take time and resources away from an incredible studio like Arkane. It's time to stop with all these crossovers and cross-media crap. Hell, if there's one studio that's capable of creating interesting, detailed new worlds every single time, that's Arkane.
After Redfall I was waiting to see if Lyon would go back to its roots and deliver us another masterpiece, but it seems that Arkane doesn't exist anymore.
Honestly, nothing could've let me down more than this.
Between this and Machine Games developing Indiana Jones (another IP I despise), I'm not really that happy with MS's output in the next few years.
Let's hope Clockwork Revolution delivers at least!

Certainly Rollerdrome, since it launched more than a year ago on PS and now it's on Xbox with no fanfare.
It's an amazing, tight game, and it's even 50% off at the moment!

@Kezelpaso thanks!

@ZuneTattooGuy thanks, but I don't have that cause I don't play Warzone!

@Kezelpaso do you know how big the file size is for the Beta on Series X? I'd like to try it but I'm afraid I don't have enough room on my console and external memory lol

@Jonnybekeww are you really making fun of the author for being more excited at the prospect of a new game compared to remasters of super old games? Really? Shake my head.

Agreed. Dishonored is one of the best series around.

Zero hype for the next installment of the most overrated gaming franchise ever.
The 6th gen games were revolutionary, sure, but I've never seen a franchise coasting on past success as much as GTA does.
Having recently replayed V and the Trilogy, well, these games never had good gameplay, and even the writing is seriously overrated.
The satire was always overplayed by fans, and the stories and character leave a lot to be desired.
I get why the old games had the success they had, but after refusing to evolve for so long, I don't understand why GTA is still relevant.
GTA VI will certainly not be an exception: I predict it will be a very pretty game with a lot of graphical detail and that's it; the gameplay will still suck like it always has, and the open world will be just as non-interactive as usual.

Can't wait to get home from work and finally start Starfield! I'm so hyped!

Boy do I despise Imagine Dragons.

@Widey85 wow, I usually get dogpiled when I criticize GTA, thanks lol
Yeah R* was never good at gameplay, and I get excusing that fact for a couple of PS2 games, but even by the time San Andreas was released it was high time they made some improvements, which they kept not making with IV and V.

I'm hoping that for once people will not give R* a pass and actually criticize GTAVI, instead of shilling it to no end like everyone did with V, which was outdated the day it came out.
I mean, they could surprise me and overhaul the gameplay and mission design, but who's expecting that?
If they don't seriously fix the formula, it'll be an incredibly outdated game, but we all know it'll sell and review very well based on name alone.

Definitely gonna grab Far Cry Classic and Instincts Predator, as I've been meaning to play all FC games lately.

Well, I for one agree with SkillUp that Redfall is unsalvageable, and would rather see Arkane Austin move on to their next (hopefully single player, Arkane-style) game, than watch them bleed resources and staff just to try and steer a boat that's doomed to sink.

Game of the show for me.
Everything from the aesthetics to the genre to.. basically everything else speaks to me on a deep level lol
Can't wait!

Quake 1 reboot all the way, please!
It was my most anticipated announcement but unfortunately it didn't materialize 😥

I just want a Quake reboot by id Software 😭
Please Hugo, please!

Adios is great, by all means try it! It's very short too.

Pie in the sky: a new Banjo and/or Dishonored 3.

Realistic: a Quake reboot.

@Tharsman as @themightyant rightly suggests, Zelda is way more sophisticated in its approach, even if some of those thousands pieces of content are not all unique.
For one, the ways in which you can interact with the environment make every challenge sort of new, as there isn't just one solution intended by the Devs.
Secondly, Zelda takes a "world first" approach, while Ubi games are "map first", in the sense that yes, both feature towers to climb, but only the latter tells you where anything and everything of interest is.
In Zelda you must find stuff on your own and are guided by your curiosity (which is always rewarded), making even reaching a mountaintop (or a Shrine, or a tower, etc.) a challenge in and of itself: do I have enough stamina? Should I climb or go the other way around? Are there enemies?
And with TOTK, things have become exponentially more complex and sophisticated, giving player the chance to MacGyver up any solutions you might think.

So yeah, I think these 2 Zelda games are absolutely in a league of their own, and no Ubi open world game can even think of coming close.
The former are a gourmet meal, the latter is comfort food. Tasty and likeable all you want, but not really high quality or nutritious.

@Tharsman "I’m curious why no one ever complains (that I heard of) about Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom being too long…"

Certainly you can see the difference between a systemic open world with emergent gameplay and handcrafted challenges on the one hand, and a smattering of copy-pasted outpost on a non-interactive stretch of land.

That's what kept me playing for 150+ hours in BOTW and has me bored after 15 hours with any Ubisoft game.

Soooo, am I dumb or is the title misleading? Because the two "modes of play" referenced here are 2 player co-op versus 4 player co-op.
Nothing was said about single player.

Was hoping for it to be Immortality honestly.

Yeah, the setting is great, but also a big pile of wasted potential.
This game is the prime example of a mess born of too many ideas, all at once, with the final result being a thoroughly unfocused and lesser experience, compared to the Rapture duology.
The plot is all over the place, the gameplay is watered down to an incredible extent, and the themes...well, better not even touch those with a ten foot pole.
Oh and the retcons in the DLC are absolutely dreadful.

@Baler @nomither6 Again with the silly "you played it wrong" angle!
If a game offers multiple difficulties, why the hell would you shift the blame on me for playing the recommended normal difficulty.
If Bungie/343i didn't want that, they could've just gone the Fromsoft route and made one singular difficulty setting for everyone.
I'm sorry but that's a terrible argument to defend a game.
Even if it weren't, a higher difficulty wouldn't increase the number of different enemies, nor fix the abysmal level design and signposting, so no, playing on Legendary or whatever won't fix what are glaring flaws in this series.

Also Baler mentioned stuff like the atmosphere, which just doesn't change with difficulty.

@Baler lol @ "playing it wrong", what does that even mean? Just because I didn't like something you did doesn't mean I must've gotten something wrong.
The games are incredibly boring due to a combination of slow moving speed, huge barren maps, terrible indoors level design with samey corridors, empty rooms and poor signposting, and (at least the first few games) a laughable selection of weapons and enemies. I remember playing Halo CE with my brother and thinking to myself "this is the definition of mindless shooter".
What people refer to as the Halo sandbox is an absolute mystery to me, as it's got some of the shallowest mechanics in all FPS games.
If having the option to slowly walk versus mounting a vehicle is enough to call it a sandbox, then I'm afraid the bar is pretty low.
And it's a shame, because the fundamentals of running and gunning are quite good if floaty, and I don't think that's a negative because it certainly gives Halo games a unique feel.

Definitely Infinite, since it's the only one I managed to enjoy and complete, despite being average at best.
It does my head in the way Goldeneye is touted as ancient and a product of its time, while the old Halo games are still held in high regard.
I tried the MCC both by myself and with my brother in co-op, and they bored me to tears like very few other FPS games do, while I had a whale of a time with Goldeneye.
So yeah, I guess my hot take is that Halo was never that good to begin with lol

@Fishticon erm...no it's not? If you played any one Arkane game before you'll know Redfall isn't even gonna be close to FO76.
That is a MMORPG, while RF is a co-op (or solo) FPS with all the usual Arkane trappings, like the powers and the ability to tackle objectives as you see fit.
So no, completely different things.

I got my first Xbox ever this April, and I've bought roughly 25 games, maybe 30, since then, the majority of which is physical.
I haven't played them all yet, of course, but I'm having a great time with my Series X!

@UltimateOtaku91 yeah god forbid anyone stray from the pack of reviewers, they must have a hidden agenda certainly.
Go on and cut that crap, it's incredibly ignorant and infuriating. I really wonder how anyone could have so little self-awareness as to claim something so ridiculous.

Idk, I found it incredibly boring just like all the games in the MCC, bar parts of Reach.
I personally had way more fun with Infinite than any of the MCC games, and that's saying a lot seeing how flawed and incomplete Infinite is, both in the SP and MP components.

No please, don't do this to me! How can I choose only one? Lol

@Fishticon "You're like a person in society who sees their country being taken over by communism, and you're just like "oh well, it is what it is"."

I laughed out loud 😂 can't believe anyone would say something so dramatic with a straight face, but apparently you did lol

Hype! YLAD was incredible!

Although I'm not sure where I stand on Kiryu being back, as I like Ichiban way more and I hoped the new saga would distance itself a bit from the old one. Also, I don't really like having multiple characters or parties, but hey...let's wait and see!

@MaccaMUFC doesn't really sound like you can appreciate these games judging by the way you talk about them, but ok, I trust what you say.
Next time maybe don't be so dismissive of them, and don't bring up comparisons that don't work.

"don’t kid yourself saying Immortality is more fun than Saints Row, which is actually a proper game with proper gameplay where your in complete control to do pretty much anything like driving, shooting etc."

1) fun is subjective, quality is not.
SR may be more fun to you, but that says more about you than these two games. SR is a poorly executed attempt at a stale and dated concept, while Immortality is a completely unique experience that pushes the medium further.
Sign me up for the latter all day, every day.

2) again, the fact that to you a game that has shooting is better than a game that doesn't says mire about you than the games, and to be honest, if you really think that, you're absolutely clueless about how games, and art in general, work.

@MaccaMUFC dude you can't compare Saints Row with Immortality though.
One is a dated, by the numbers open world action game, while the other is an arthouse experimental narrative experience.
You might've had more fun with the former, but there's no way it can even touch Immortality, if Barlow's previous works are anything to go by. They're just on different levels.

Bought it yesterday, but I still haven't gotten around to trying it (damn you, Elden Ring lol)! Today I will for sure, I love Barlow's previous games and I'm super hyped!