Yes, political intrigue is something I think of when I think of Halo.
Extremely tacky to bring up budgets in an interview like this in this fashion. That’s like saying “If we had more money, we could’ve made this the show fans wanted.”
@Sol4ris I do wonder if Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, and SoT was part of the Activision deal with PS. I’d be really interested to see what the terms and conditions are on that one. Could show us where the future of Xbox exclusives go.
Outside Elden Ring, RE4, and Witcher, I personally don’t feel like these games constitute a top 10 best games list… and even with Witcher, combat can be an acquired taste. It took 4 tries to click with me. Baldur’s Gate, I get it, but I also personally think it’s… not as fun as everyone says it is and I’m frankly over the hype with it. I have a hard time with enjoying Persona too, but, again, I get where the fans are coming from.
As someone that hated Souls games though, Elden Ring made me a believer. I think it’s far and away the best game in this list. Stanley Parable was really enjoyable too, but top 10? Eh… I dunno…
@BrilliantBill It’s such a weird title for me. Rare, in general is weird for me. Rare was one of the developers that sold me on Xbox, but my opinion of them soured over the course of the OG and 360 generation (though I’ll give credit where it’s due for Nuts and Bolts). Sea of Thieves has that weird feeling of generic that Rare games have had for a while now, though, like Viva Piñata, I’ll admit it’s a unique conceit and ambitious as a format. It just… never impressed me when I played it. SoT sort of reminds me of survival games in a way, where it’s like, I can vaguely understand the appeal as a concept, but I just don’t know how it hooks people longterm.
I’ll be honest, I’m sort of surprised by this. Sea of Thieves is a mystifying IP to me. It was one of the first things I tried the first time I got Gamepass and I spent a couple hours in it, but it never really got hooks in me. It’s one of those games that friends and I would try, but no one really attached to it. I’d think Hi-Fi Rush would be the big one. Good for Rare, I suppose. If it helps us see what the heck Everwild actually is some day, I wish Sea of Thieves success.
It was the games. The Xbox ecosystem felt very unique in comparison to PlayStation and Nintendo. I’ll put it like this: Halo AND Alan Wake both felt very Xbox in style and tone, just as Ratchet and Clank and Heavy Rain felt PlayStation in style and tone. Meanwhile, Nintendo had really gotten distant from me, I chose PlayStation over GameCube and, though everyone including myself had a Wii, it just wasn’t what I wanted out of gaming. If I was to chose a gaming ecosystem loyalty, I’d say I’m most likely to be a Nintendo guy, but the Wii/DS era, they had pushed me away for grandparents and kids, it felt like. Meanwhile, Xbox just had that ecosystem, especially as PS3 had a litany of issues. I liked the PS3, don’t get me wrong, but Halo was the social experience and arcade and all those unique IPs swayed me to be interested in Xbox more than before. Xbox felt like it was doing something in contrast to the other platforms in that generation that worked for me. Currently, I feel like I’m in a Wii era for Xbox. The Xbone just didn’t deliver on the games and neither has the Series, but man was the 360 a golden age. Even when a game flopped, you knew there was something else coming soon that would be worth the try.
I personally like 30 fps. 60 fps is nice to have, but it’s not mandatory. I find myself preferring graphical fidelity to frame rate. I know I’m an outlier with that mindset, but I dunno. I can’t see why this would chase anyone off a game that strongly excels in other avenues.
@Leuke @Titntin I agree with you both 100%. A D from me. Not a single title I’m interested in in the slightest. I suppose that’s it then! Letting my Gamepass sub lapse and waiting til something interesting gets announced for Xbox. At this rate, I may be waiting to see how Avowed reviews to see if I go back to Gamepass.
@Old_Man_Harper I played the beta. It’s definitely not necessarily “trash,” but it’s also definitely not good. It’s very barebones in what it does. The fact that they didn’t give the game any land combat is likely the reason people are hostile towards it. It feels like half a game. It’s easy to see where large improvements could have been made. The naval combat and ship building is fun, but it’s definitely not $70 fun. If it were F2P or sold as a budget title with a budget title’s marketing, people would probably have been warmer toward the game, but as it stands, it’s definitely a 5/10 experience from what I’ve played. It’s not quite abysmal and it does some things right, but it’s clear it was just tossed out there after a great deal of investment and frustration from Ubisoft.
You know, it’s been a while since we’ve had a decent new BR experience, so I’d welcome it… if the last BF title wasn’t the worst $70 investment I’ve ever made based on previous trust in the series.
After Suicide Squad taught WB to go harder on the live service elements rather than chase the success they had in Hogwarts Legacy, I’m sort of hoping this one flops too. The beta was a fine enough game, but far too barebones to be worth playing long term. It’d take a lot to make this one worth returning to.
Hopefully Still Wakes the Deep gets a release date. I’m really hoping for To a T, but I sort of know better than that. The last one of these was ok. I’m hoping we find out some dates for games in that time frame between Dragon’s Dogma and Erdtree. April, May, June, and even July all look like pretty dry months for gaming.
Control’s getting a second round, huh? 10/10 game, but otherwise that is a truly weak line-up. Hopefully that Xbox line-up beefs up soon. Right now, my Xbox playtime is still in the single digits. I’m going to let my sub lapse next month and re-up when Avowed comes out at this rate.
I used to use it all the time and loved it. Then Starfield came out and it didn’t run as well (I was planning on playing Starfield via xCloud). Honestly haven’t played much Xbox since Starfield came out though, so I can’t say I use it much at the moment. Cocoon took forever to get going too, as did anything I played toward the end of the year last year. I’ve played a bit of Palworld this year, but that’s about it and I downloaded that. xCloud used to be the best cloud gaming service out there, but honestly Sony’s streaming seems to run more smoothly now. But I’ll only use cloud if it’s faster than downloading a full game, and it’s about equal right now, which is no bueno to me. I don’t mind cloud gaming, personally. I liked my Stadia for what it was, even if it wasn’t much.
@Friendly Lol, all it takes is a good old fashioned 2020 to clear out the backlog a bit. I’ve been gaming for 35 years and have been pretty active on new games for a while, but that year off work really helped me clear through things and set things aside if I was never going to play them. Nowadays, I mostly play what I’m going to play and that’s it, but I also blast through about 20-40 games a year, depending on how long they are. I am NOT a completionist and… as much as I love JRPGs, I’ve accepted that I probably won’t play many of them unless I REALLY want to. Like FF7. But I tend to like shorter games that I can blast through anyway. Doesn’t mean it’s all I play, but it’s my preference. But seriously, I bought about a dozen games in February too. With Christmas cash, birthday cash, and taxes (and the strange thing with practically my whole wishlist releasing in February), it wasn’t too challenging. The challenge now is keeping up, depending on what comes out this year.
My wishlist practically disappeared in February, but that’s because most games I wanted from this year came out this month. My wishlist among all three platforms is currently under 10 items now.
Well, I’ve got Pacific Drive, Penny’s Big Breakaway, and Ultros started. I’d like to start Banishers and finally get to Silent Hill: A Short Message, even if the reviews are largely mixed. I’ve got that Unicorn Overlord demo just sitting there, waiting, and I’d like to try it. To date, I’ve only been able to get into two matches on Helldivers 2 also! It’s a lot to get through before Final Fantasy VII next week…
But, even so… let’s be real… I’ll be playing Balatro. The game is fantastic. I wanted so many other games this month and largely bought them all, but that one snuck in there and I’m thinking about it when I’m not playing it. I love the game. Given how much I’m enjoying it and how middling all my anticipated games for the year have been (all launching in February too, mind you… most of my wishlist, why?), I’m totally recontextualizing how I might go about gaming this year. Perhaps it’s out with the preorders and wait for the genius left field games?
The game feels like an Xbox game, after giving it about two hours of playtime today. Reminds me of when I played Firewatch, Gone Home, etc on Xbox years ago now. Outside the haptic feedback, it seems like it’s perfect for the platform. I like the game so far. February is the heaviest and most diverse month for releases we’ve had in a while and this one stands out in that, at least, which is a positive. It’s not easy, but it’s unique.
Honestly, it’s not as bad as people want to say it is as a game, buuut… it’s just not substantial enough of an experience to warrant its price tag. It plays like a proof of concept phase game. It’s just empty for what it is and feels like half the features just never happened. Ubi had to know this one was dead in the water before releasing it. It’s a totally different story from Suicide Squad, which I do think some at Rocksteady really believed in that one.
I’m hoping to start Banishers this weekend. Was sick all week, so I hadn’t had a chance yet. I still want to play that tiny, new Silent Hill game too. Maybe this is the weekend.
I did also pick up Ultros, so I may chip in some time toward that. I’ll be honest though: I am a little disappointed I jumped on it. After the lovely new Prince of Persia game, the bar was perhaps set too high for the genre at the moment. I dunno. It tries to do unique things, but it’s just… not hitting me the way I’d like it to and I feel like I’m going through the motions with it.
And, uh… I’ll probably play a match or two of Foamstars.
I should get Helldivers. I know I should but I spent a good chunk of change this week on games by spending my birthday gift cards on the games I mentioned, Pacific Driver, and Dragon’s Dogma. I’ve got a bit left in the wallet, but… I dunno…
I bought it, been too sick to play it as of yet, but I’m looking forward to it when I have time to get there this weekend.
I love Dontnod. One of the few developers out there that I feel like I’m ready for whatever they’re making, however it turns out because I know they’re trying to do interesting things every time. Even in their games that miss the mark, I’m happy I supported them. And, uh, yeah, I can’t wait for Lost Records as well!
@Kaloudz I totally agree with regards to Supernatural. The last season in general was a trainwreck, but so was season 8 and 9 of X-Files. I can find reasons to justify why it went sour grapes, but that’s just me trying to rationalize one of my favorite shows from a lawn chair perspective when in reality, there probably wasn’t any big problem going on other than they ran out of steam with it. Man, that last episode is certainly one of the worst finales though. See, with Lost, I felt the same way. The first time, I thought they were dead, but then changed my mind the second time. I really wish they’d get the cast back together for something fun.
You and me both brother. Team Tifa for life. They’ve set up that things could change, that things could be fate, but either way, there are differences. It’s certainly more fleshed out. It loses some of the archaic charm of the original, but it pushes the series forward in such a nostalgic way. I can’t wait for it to come out.
The power levels are mostly Goku > Vegeta > Gohan > Buu > Piccolo > Future Trunks > the rest. Goten and Trunks are almost non-characters in Super. Unfortunately, Gohan and Piccolo are pretty minor too. It’s almost like there are instances toward the later half of Super where the large cast is acknowledged, but it’s sort of the Goku and Vegeta show.
Krillen was always sort of a coward lol, but he had more opportunities in Z to be a cool character. I can honestly say Super tones down the blood a lot. The Broly movie has some brutal choreography though. The most directly violent arc in Super is ironically the manga only Galactic Prisoner arc. I’d love to see them bring the gore back for that arc. There were a few startling moments in that arc, given the tone of the rest of Super.
After the beta, I’m not surprised with this score. It was a fun beta, but you had to wonder where they were going with it. The game was missing land-based features. The tragic thing with GAAS now is that, because F2P is such a maligned thing among gamers, now we’re getting pay for experiences that could’ve been F2P 10 years ago.
@Kaloudz I remember watching my mom watch Lost and she’d record the episodes and rewatch them before the next episode aired and I thought it seemed like an inconvenient way to watch a show, so I put it off for a while. But then the first time I watched the show, I dove right in and sort of only took sleep breaks when I was watching it, as I was on a break from school and work when I took it on. It’s the quickest I’d ever binged something. But I loved it. I’ve seen the whole series three times now. It’s definitely a contender for being my favorite show as well. For me, X-Files, Supernatural, and Lost are right up there, and sometimes The Walking Dead comes up to being in the same realm. My kids are still quite young and they are really resilient in not wanting to watch anything grown up. They’ve seen all the Ghibli films, but my son tells me he’s too young to see Star Wars. Lol.
Fortunately my kids don’t have much interest in Fortnite or TikTok. They don’t know what TikTok is yet. My son likes the Lego Fortnite thing, but he doesn’t really stick to it. Mario Odyssey is more his thing at the moment, but he’s hit that point where it’s “too hard” for him, so that’s annoying.
Oh man, the 7 Remake is fantastic. It’s a total remake of the first disk of the original game. It’s faithful in some ways, but also totally off the wall and meta. It’s a game that is self-aware on what remakes typically are, so it is rather cheeky about being one. Hopefully they eventually come to Xbox, so you can try them out.
That’s ironic that you say that since it was argued that the animation quality of Super is what caused them to pull the plug on the series and switch to films. I will agree though. I remember thinking it was really crisp and bright as a series. I know a lot of people are critical of Super, but I really do love it. Lol to the canon arguments. It’s super convoluted in Dragon Ball fandom. It’s such a serious and passionate fanbase for a mostly light hearted parody of its genre.
Yes, Super Saiyan 3 is the one that has a power drain. I do find it funny that it was intentionally designed as something ugly as an internal joke by Toriyama and then the writers and fans went hardcore with it being such a “serious” power up to the point where most 90’s and 2000’s fan mangas have these hilarious amalgamations of Super Saiyan 3 and 4 as Super Saiyan 5 and 6, etc. Gohan, at the end of the Cell saga, had outclassed Goku, but the whole anti-plot armor of Gohan being a slacker in his training is used over and over again in the series. They make it ambiguous if Gohan surpasses Goku in the Buu arc. If canon is a heated debate in Dragon Ball discussion, power level debates are on fire in the fandom. Lol. Things get significantly trickier in Super too because power level gets to be a more complicated thing. In fact, you could argue that Super intentionally eggs on the fans with regards to the topic. Theres several characters now where fans don’t quite know how to rank them now and it drives the fanbase crazy. It has to be intentional. Lol.
@Kaloudz Ah, I miss Alan Rickman as well. Such an icon of an actor. And Kurt Russell too! We simply don’t have actors like that hitting the big time these days. It truly does feel like Hollywood is an isolated pool now. In my illness today, I was watching Fellowship of the Ring, and I was definitely getting that old man, “they don’t make ‘em like this anymore, son” bent to how I was watching the film. Lol. And also I couldn’t stop thinking about Merry’s actor’s role in Lost. Man, between those two things and Quantum Break, you’d think he’d be a bigger actor.
Lol. Oh yes. I forgot about no Oddjob as a rule! If you snuck in as Oddjob, you’d have to play as Baron Samedi the next match for easy headshots. Not quite sure what they were thinking with the Baron’s character model. His hat is considered part of his head. Ridiculous. We also played similar rules in Monopoly at my cousin’s house, so we adopted the fines go in the center rule too! My wife doesn’t really like Monopoly, so she wouldn’t notice the change in the rules. It’s almost time I introduce my son to that game. I feel he would resonate with it very deeply…
Lol. I’m reserving potential grinding for FF7 Rebirth. Final Fantasy, I’ll always make an exception for those titles to do some unnecessary gameplay in spite of my typical rule to avoid any gaming grind. I decided to purchase Banishers today, so hopefully that’s just a good old fashioned story game with more action that forced rpg mechanics.
Yes, you can skip GT if you like and the Z movies. You can skip Dragon Ball Heroes too, which is confusingly similarly titled to Dragon Ball Super Hero. Or you could watch them if you just want more, of course. At this point, Heroes has already done the goofy proposition of making GT and Super as separate realities that have interacted because… anime video game logic. Lol. I personally just view GT as filler. It’s not my favorite, but it’s also not part of the real timeline. Toei has mostly done that confusion to themselves though since they’ve acknowledged both as being in the DB continuity, despite the fact that Toriyama sort of implied he made Super to cancel out GT and make a Dragon Ball continuation that exists in his continuity. Interestingly enough, there is another odd piece of the puzzle too. There was a Korean MMO called Dragon Ball Online that is technically canon too, as Toriyama personally developed the characters and concepts for it. He tends to restructure some ideas he’s had, but he’s acknowledged that the lore in Online is probably along the lines of where things would go if we ever hit a point of future in the series beyond the main cast.
The Dragon Ball fandom sort of cracks me up, to be honest. One of the funniest things I find about them is how few of them realize that the series was intended as a comedy and still carries the comedy tropes. Sure, it has its serious moments, but clearly Toriyama sees Dragon Ball in a more silly way than the fans realize. I mean, Super Saiyan 3 was designed as a parody of the manga itself and Toriyama himself said he didn’t make anyone else have the form because it’s ugly. Lol. You can’t make this stuff up! Yet the fans want SSJ3 Vegeta, Trunks, Gohan, Radditz, etc. And they want it to be serious! I would admit, I’m most curious what a Super Saiyan 3 Nappa would be like though. How much hair would come from bald, you’ve got to wonder!
@Kaloudz Lol. I suppose that’s true. They’ve either got to keep Will Smith alive or risk putting Chris Pratt in the film because he’s in literally every movie now. It certainly feels like this is a generation where they sort of forgot to replace a lot of the top name movie stars and they’re either keeping a small crop or letting the existing ones go for far longer than they used to.
DB->DBZ Kai->DB Super->DB Super Heroes film is the official canon now. While GT hasn’t been officially announced as something that was de-canonized, they’d really have to pull some kind of weird logic to have it fit in now. I doubt they’d end Super with some giant power nerf to Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, and Piccolo, especially because we’re only chronologically like two or three years before the start of GT now. Super Heroes is essentially a film sequel to the DBS Broly film, which is itself a sequel to the manga in the Universal Survival arc. Technically, there’s two arcs in-between Broly and Super Heroes, but they’re manga only. Super gets a little goofy as a continuity because technically the manga is the official continuity. The anime sped past the manga at some point and just went off on its own trajectory, but while having the same major plot points. It’s strange.
Lol. Thanks for saving my time. I’ve been sick, so I’ve not been gaming for a bit, but good to know.
I had soooo many fond memories of Goldeneye. I had to have beaten it three dozen times. I even played through it on both Xbox AND Switch for the rerelease. It still holds up, in my opinion. My family developed all kinds of homebrew rules for it to keep it fair. We had “no screen peeking” and “wait until everyone has a gun” as house rules for the game. Back in the N64 days, we were more game renters than owners in my home. We owned a couple games, but mostly rented. We’d rent something every Friday along with a movie or two and get a pizza. My family was pretty routine about things. Lol.
@Kaloudz Oh, man, I forgot about the headphones. It’s crazy how uncomfortable gaming stuff was in the 90’s. The kids nowadays have got it so cozy. Lol. I was late to the N64 because I had to save up my own money to buy it. It took me three Christmases of saving for it. Thankfully, I didn’t spend my Christmas money yet from the year I first saw the 64. Lol. The moment I saw Goldeneye, I knew I needed the console. My parents were so proud of me for saving that they bought me a couple games when I bought the console, which was cool. Getting the 64 was definitely a highlight of my life before the age of 10.
I agree about RuneScape with the tutorial. My friend and I were waxing nostalgic about the game a couple of months ago and I found out it’s got a phone app, but the tutorial totally killed me. Lol. I’ll have to look into those social experiences. I’ve never heard of most of them.
I’ve been thinking about starting Like a Dragon for a while. I love everything I’ve seen about it, but it’s just fitting in the time for it. I always get lured in by new releases, so I tend to let the backlog be the backlog a lot of the time and I’m lazy about working on it. Maybe this summer will be slower for new releases that I’m interested in, so I sink into this one. I mean, honestly, this summer’s release schedule seems practically empty at the moment.
I’ve not watched the whole show, but I read the books after completing the game. I really quite enjoy the Witcher lore and am quite excited at what’s next for the series. I agree that it’s goofy to have multiple endings if there can be “only one.” I like how Mass Effect let you sort of craft your own story three games in… even with how that ending went. That’s crazy. I didn’t even know they were making I Am Legend 2, but that’s a baffling decision.
Comments 1,756
Re: Halo TV Showrunner Admits Budget Limited Fall Of Reach Screen Time
Yes, political intrigue is something I think of when I think of Halo.
Extremely tacky to bring up budgets in an interview like this in this fashion. That’s like saying “If we had more money, we could’ve made this the show fans wanted.”
Re: Ninja Theory Shares Four New Screenshots From Hellblade 2's Photo Mode
The tech is great, but unfortunately I really didn’t enjoy the first game. I’m looking forward to probably watching the game’s cutscenes on YouTube.
Re: Palworld Dev 'Open' To Acquisition Offers, But Hasn't Talked To Xbox
Palworld is overrated, but eh, why not have MS own it? Make a Viva Pinata crossover or something like that.
Re: Jim Ryan Explains Why Sony Kept Refusing To Sign Xbox's Call Of Duty Offer
@Sol4ris I do wonder if Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, and SoT was part of the Activision deal with PS. I’d be really interested to see what the terms and conditions are on that one. Could show us where the future of Xbox exclusives go.
Re: 'Nobody Wants To Die' Is A Cinematic Cyberpunk Adventure Coming To Xbox Series X|S This Year
Looks interesting enough. Does this particular publisher have any solid previous titles?
Re: Do You Agree With The 10 Highest-Rated Xbox Series X|S Games Of All Time?
Outside Elden Ring, RE4, and Witcher, I personally don’t feel like these games constitute a top 10 best games list… and even with Witcher, combat can be an acquired taste. It took 4 tries to click with me. Baldur’s Gate, I get it, but I also personally think it’s… not as fun as everyone says it is and I’m frankly over the hype with it. I have a hard time with enjoying Persona too, but, again, I get where the fans are coming from.
As someone that hated Souls games though, Elden Ring made me a believer. I think it’s far and away the best game in this list. Stanley Parable was really enjoyable too, but top 10? Eh… I dunno…
Re: Remedy's Sam Lake Wraps Up 'Final Motion Capture Shoot' For Alan Wake 2
It’s looking like this will be the year of DLC instead of new games come summer time. Erdtree, Alan Wake, FF16… We’re eating good on DLC
Re: Xbox Game Pass Hit Exoprimal Announces Title Update 4 & Mega Man Collab
Capcom, this isn’t what we want from Megaman. You know what we want. Please bring that to life. Thank you.
Re: Xbox's Sea Of Thieves Becomes 'Best-Selling' Pre-Order On PlayStation 5
@BrilliantBill It’s such a weird title for me. Rare, in general is weird for me. Rare was one of the developers that sold me on Xbox, but my opinion of them soured over the course of the OG and 360 generation (though I’ll give credit where it’s due for Nuts and Bolts). Sea of Thieves has that weird feeling of generic that Rare games have had for a while now, though, like Viva Piñata, I’ll admit it’s a unique conceit and ambitious as a format. It just… never impressed me when I played it. SoT sort of reminds me of survival games in a way, where it’s like, I can vaguely understand the appeal as a concept, but I just don’t know how it hooks people longterm.
Re: Xbox's Sea Of Thieves Becomes 'Best-Selling' Pre-Order On PlayStation 5
I’ll be honest, I’m sort of surprised by this. Sea of Thieves is a mystifying IP to me. It was one of the first things I tried the first time I got Gamepass and I spent a couple hours in it, but it never really got hooks in me. It’s one of those games that friends and I would try, but no one really attached to it. I’d think Hi-Fi Rush would be the big one. Good for Rare, I suppose. If it helps us see what the heck Everwild actually is some day, I wish Sea of Thieves success.
Re: Talking Point: In Your Opinion, What Made The Xbox 360 Era So Incredible?
It was the games. The Xbox ecosystem felt very unique in comparison to PlayStation and Nintendo. I’ll put it like this: Halo AND Alan Wake both felt very Xbox in style and tone, just as Ratchet and Clank and Heavy Rain felt PlayStation in style and tone. Meanwhile, Nintendo had really gotten distant from me, I chose PlayStation over GameCube and, though everyone including myself had a Wii, it just wasn’t what I wanted out of gaming. If I was to chose a gaming ecosystem loyalty, I’d say I’m most likely to be a Nintendo guy, but the Wii/DS era, they had pushed me away for grandparents and kids, it felt like. Meanwhile, Xbox just had that ecosystem, especially as PS3 had a litany of issues. I liked the PS3, don’t get me wrong, but Halo was the social experience and arcade and all those unique IPs swayed me to be interested in Xbox more than before. Xbox felt like it was doing something in contrast to the other platforms in that generation that worked for me. Currently, I feel like I’m in a Wii era for Xbox. The Xbone just didn’t deliver on the games and neither has the Series, but man was the 360 a golden age. Even when a game flopped, you knew there was something else coming soon that would be worth the try.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (March 9-10)
Rebirth and nothing else. Whatever game time I get belongs to FF7.
Re: Hogwarts Legacy Dev 'Sets Expectations' For Upcoming Free Content
The game introduces live service elements and micros to make it the GAAS WB wants it to be? Just a cynical guess!
Re: Talking Point: After Two Shows, What Do You Think Of The 'Xbox Partner Preview' Format?
I like the format a lot, but I’m sort of hoping I like the games more next time.
Re: Dragon's Dogma 2 Launches With Uncapped 30FPS Performance On Xbox
I personally like 30 fps. 60 fps is nice to have, but it’s not mandatory. I find myself preferring graphical fidelity to frame rate. I know I’m an outlier with that mindset, but I dunno. I can’t see why this would chase anyone off a game that strongly excels in other avenues.
Re: Poll: How Would You Grade March's Xbox Partner Preview Showcase?
@Leuke @Titntin I agree with you both 100%. A D from me. Not a single title I’m interested in in the slightest. I suppose that’s it then! Letting my Gamepass sub lapse and waiting til something interesting gets announced for Xbox. At this rate, I may be waiting to see how Avowed reviews to see if I go back to Gamepass.
Re: Ubisoft's 'Quadruple-A' Game Skull & Bones Is Already Getting Price Cuts
@Old_Man_Harper I played the beta. It’s definitely not necessarily “trash,” but it’s also definitely not good. It’s very barebones in what it does. The fact that they didn’t give the game any land combat is likely the reason people are hostile towards it. It feels like half a game. It’s easy to see where large improvements could have been made. The naval combat and ship building is fun, but it’s definitely not $70 fun. If it were F2P or sold as a budget title with a budget title’s marketing, people would probably have been warmer toward the game, but as it stands, it’s definitely a 5/10 experience from what I’ve played. It’s not quite abysmal and it does some things right, but it’s clear it was just tossed out there after a great deal of investment and frustration from Ubisoft.
Re: Battlefield's Next Entry Will Reportedly Include A 'Free-To-Play Battle Royale'
You know, it’s been a while since we’ve had a decent new BR experience, so I’d welcome it… if the last BF title wasn’t the worst $70 investment I’ve ever made based on previous trust in the series.
Re: Free-To-Play Brawler MultiVersus Appears To Be Teasing Its Return
After Suicide Squad taught WB to go harder on the live service elements rather than chase the success they had in Hogwarts Legacy, I’m sort of hoping this one flops too. The beta was a fine enough game, but far too barebones to be worth playing long term. It’d take a lot to make this one worth returning to.
Re: Xbox Partner Preview Event (March 2024): Date, Start Times & How To Watch
Hopefully Still Wakes the Deep gets a release date. I’m really hoping for To a T, but I sort of know better than that. The last one of these was ok. I’m hoping we find out some dates for games in that time frame between Dragon’s Dogma and Erdtree. April, May, June, and even July all look like pretty dry months for gaming.
Re: Warner Bros. Wants To Move Away From 'One And Done' Console Games
They clearly want to do away with getting any money from me.
Re: These Six Games Are Coming To Xbox Game Pass (March 7-19)
Control’s getting a second round, huh? 10/10 game, but otherwise that is a truly weak line-up. Hopefully that Xbox line-up beefs up soon. Right now, my Xbox playtime is still in the single digits. I’m going to let my sub lapse next month and re-up when Avowed comes out at this rate.
Re: Xbox Announces New 'Partner Preview' Event For This Week
The headliners don’t get me so excited, but hopefully there’s other games there that are real surprises.
Re: Poll: How Often Do You Buy Games That Have Been 'Remade' Or 'Remastered'?
If it’s Capcom, Nintendo, or Square, I’m there Day 1. Otherwise, I’m skeptical of remakes and remasters. They’ve got to be good to have me interested.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (March 2-3)
Rebirth whenever I get the chance and Balatro if I don’t have the time to devote to it.
Re: Talking Point: Do You Make Use Of Cloud Gaming On Xbox Game Pass?
I used to use it all the time and loved it. Then Starfield came out and it didn’t run as well (I was planning on playing Starfield via xCloud). Honestly haven’t played much Xbox since Starfield came out though, so I can’t say I use it much at the moment. Cocoon took forever to get going too, as did anything I played toward the end of the year last year. I’ve played a bit of Palworld this year, but that’s about it and I downloaded that. xCloud used to be the best cloud gaming service out there, but honestly Sony’s streaming seems to run more smoothly now. But I’ll only use cloud if it’s faster than downloading a full game, and it’s about equal right now, which is no bueno to me. I don’t mind cloud gaming, personally. I liked my Stadia for what it was, even if it wasn’t much.
Re: Embracer Group Set To Sell Two Major Studios In Big-Money Deals
Seems like Embracer is folding up. Do they have any high profile releases scheduled at this point?
Re: Ubisoft Boasts 'Record Player Engagement' With Pirate Adventure Skull & Bones
Record player engagement from the 12 people playing it, I’m sure.
Re: If Your Xbox Wishlist Has Suddenly Disappeared, You're Not Alone
@Friendly Lol, all it takes is a good old fashioned 2020 to clear out the backlog a bit. I’ve been gaming for 35 years and have been pretty active on new games for a while, but that year off work really helped me clear through things and set things aside if I was never going to play them. Nowadays, I mostly play what I’m going to play and that’s it, but I also blast through about 20-40 games a year, depending on how long they are. I am NOT a completionist and… as much as I love JRPGs, I’ve accepted that I probably won’t play many of them unless I REALLY want to. Like FF7. But I tend to like shorter games that I can blast through anyway. Doesn’t mean it’s all I play, but it’s my preference. But seriously, I bought about a dozen games in February too. With Christmas cash, birthday cash, and taxes (and the strange thing with practically my whole wishlist releasing in February), it wasn’t too challenging. The challenge now is keeping up, depending on what comes out this year.
Re: If Your Xbox Wishlist Has Suddenly Disappeared, You're Not Alone
My wishlist practically disappeared in February, but that’s because most games I wanted from this year came out this month. My wishlist among all three platforms is currently under 10 items now.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (February 24-25)
Well, I’ve got Pacific Drive, Penny’s Big Breakaway, and Ultros started. I’d like to start Banishers and finally get to Silent Hill: A Short Message, even if the reviews are largely mixed. I’ve got that Unicorn Overlord demo just sitting there, waiting, and I’d like to try it. To date, I’ve only been able to get into two matches on Helldivers 2 also! It’s a lot to get through before Final Fantasy VII next week…
But, even so… let’s be real… I’ll be playing Balatro. The game is fantastic. I wanted so many other games this month and largely bought them all, but that one snuck in there and I’m thinking about it when I’m not playing it. I love the game. Given how much I’m enjoying it and how middling all my anticipated games for the year have been (all launching in February too, mind you… most of my wishlist, why?), I’m totally recontextualizing how I might go about gaming this year. Perhaps it’s out with the preorders and wait for the genius left field games?
Re: 'Pacific Drive' On Xbox Is A Possibility, But Probably Not Anytime Soon
The game feels like an Xbox game, after giving it about two hours of playtime today. Reminds me of when I played Firewatch, Gone Home, etc on Xbox years ago now. Outside the haptic feedback, it seems like it’s perfect for the platform. I like the game so far. February is the heaviest and most diverse month for releases we’ve had in a while and this one stands out in that, at least, which is a positive. It’s not easy, but it’s unique.
Re: Report: Ubisoft's Skull & Bones Gets Off To Slow Start Despite Free Trial On Xbox
Honestly, it’s not as bad as people want to say it is as a game, buuut… it’s just not substantial enough of an experience to warrant its price tag. It plays like a proof of concept phase game. It’s just empty for what it is and feels like half the features just never happened. Ubi had to know this one was dead in the water before releasing it. It’s a totally different story from Suicide Squad, which I do think some at Rocksteady really believed in that one.
Re: Review: Balatro - LocalThunk's Deck-Building Roguelike Is A P-P-P-Poker Ace
The Vampire Survivors of 2024
Re: Two Xbox Exclusives Are Launching On Nintendo Switch In The Next Few Months
I am really curious how well these two will sell on Switch.
Re: Talking Point: Would You Be Interested In A New 'Multi-Subscription' Tier On Xbox?
Nah, I’m not too fussed about paying extra for more services.
Can I pay less and have the EA games removed? That’s what I’m interested in.
Re: 10 Free-To-Play Games To Look Forward To On Xbox In 2024
@ParsnipHero oh, yes, I know it’s a full price game with a cash shop, but it should have released a F2P title.
Re: 10 Free-To-Play Games To Look Forward To On Xbox In 2024
I wish Skull and Bones was in this list because it belongs here.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (February 17-18)
I’m hoping to start Banishers this weekend. Was sick all week, so I hadn’t had a chance yet. I still want to play that tiny, new Silent Hill game too. Maybe this is the weekend.
I did also pick up Ultros, so I may chip in some time toward that. I’ll be honest though: I am a little disappointed I jumped on it. After the lovely new Prince of Persia game, the bar was perhaps set too high for the genre at the moment. I dunno. It tries to do unique things, but it’s just… not hitting me the way I’d like it to and I feel like I’m going through the motions with it.
And, uh… I’ll probably play a match or two of Foamstars.
I should get Helldivers. I know I should but I spent a good chunk of change this week on games by spending my birthday gift cards on the games I mentioned, Pacific Driver, and Dragon’s Dogma. I’ve got a bit left in the wallet, but… I dunno…
Re: Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO Powers Up In New 'Goku VS Vegeta' Trailer
@Kaloudz My friend, I don’t see your response. Have you accidentally deleted it?
Re: Banishers: Ghosts Of New Eden Is Getting Amazing Feedback From Xbox Fans
I bought it, been too sick to play it as of yet, but I’m looking forward to it when I have time to get there this weekend.
I love Dontnod. One of the few developers out there that I feel like I’m ready for whatever they’re making, however it turns out because I know they’re trying to do interesting things every time. Even in their games that miss the mark, I’m happy I supported them. And, uh, yeah, I can’t wait for Lost Records as well!
Re: Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO Powers Up In New 'Goku VS Vegeta' Trailer
@Kaloudz I totally agree with regards to Supernatural. The last season in general was a trainwreck, but so was season 8 and 9 of X-Files. I can find reasons to justify why it went sour grapes, but that’s just me trying to rationalize one of my favorite shows from a lawn chair perspective when in reality, there probably wasn’t any big problem going on other than they ran out of steam with it. Man, that last episode is certainly one of the worst finales though. See, with Lost, I felt the same way. The first time, I thought they were dead, but then changed my mind the second time. I really wish they’d get the cast back together for something fun.
You and me both brother. Team Tifa for life. They’ve set up that things could change, that things could be fate, but either way, there are differences. It’s certainly more fleshed out. It loses some of the archaic charm of the original, but it pushes the series forward in such a nostalgic way. I can’t wait for it to come out.
The power levels are mostly Goku > Vegeta > Gohan > Buu > Piccolo > Future Trunks > the rest. Goten and Trunks are almost non-characters in Super. Unfortunately, Gohan and Piccolo are pretty minor too. It’s almost like there are instances toward the later half of Super where the large cast is acknowledged, but it’s sort of the Goku and Vegeta show.
Krillen was always sort of a coward lol, but he had more opportunities in Z to be a cool character. I can honestly say Super tones down the blood a lot. The Broly movie has some brutal choreography though. The most directly violent arc in Super is ironically the manga only Galactic Prisoner arc. I’d love to see them bring the gore back for that arc. There were a few startling moments in that arc, given the tone of the rest of Super.
Re: Talking Point: What's Your Immediate Reaction To Today's Xbox Announcements?
@NEStalgia Good to see you back, my friend!
The podcast was a bunch of pleasant PR speak nothing.
Re: Review: Skull & Bones - Solid Combat Saves The Day In Ubisoft's Middling Pirate Playground
After the beta, I’m not surprised with this score. It was a fun beta, but you had to wonder where they were going with it. The game was missing land-based features. The tragic thing with GAAS now is that, because F2P is such a maligned thing among gamers, now we’re getting pay for experiences that could’ve been F2P 10 years ago.
Re: Embracer Group Cancelled Almost 30 Games In The Back Half Of 2023
It feels like Embracer has stopped developing games and is just slowly closing down dozens of studios.
Re: Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO Powers Up In New 'Goku VS Vegeta' Trailer
@Kaloudz I remember watching my mom watch Lost and she’d record the episodes and rewatch them before the next episode aired and I thought it seemed like an inconvenient way to watch a show, so I put it off for a while. But then the first time I watched the show, I dove right in and sort of only took sleep breaks when I was watching it, as I was on a break from school and work when I took it on. It’s the quickest I’d ever binged something. But I loved it. I’ve seen the whole series three times now. It’s definitely a contender for being my favorite show as well. For me, X-Files, Supernatural, and Lost are right up there, and sometimes The Walking Dead comes up to being in the same realm. My kids are still quite young and they are really resilient in not wanting to watch anything grown up. They’ve seen all the Ghibli films, but my son tells me he’s too young to see Star Wars. Lol.
Fortunately my kids don’t have much interest in Fortnite or TikTok. They don’t know what TikTok is yet. My son likes the Lego Fortnite thing, but he doesn’t really stick to it. Mario Odyssey is more his thing at the moment, but he’s hit that point where it’s “too hard” for him, so that’s annoying.
Oh man, the 7 Remake is fantastic. It’s a total remake of the first disk of the original game. It’s faithful in some ways, but also totally off the wall and meta. It’s a game that is self-aware on what remakes typically are, so it is rather cheeky about being one. Hopefully they eventually come to Xbox, so you can try them out.
That’s ironic that you say that since it was argued that the animation quality of Super is what caused them to pull the plug on the series and switch to films. I will agree though. I remember thinking it was really crisp and bright as a series. I know a lot of people are critical of Super, but I really do love it. Lol to the canon arguments. It’s super convoluted in Dragon Ball fandom. It’s such a serious and passionate fanbase for a mostly light hearted parody of its genre.
Yes, Super Saiyan 3 is the one that has a power drain. I do find it funny that it was intentionally designed as something ugly as an internal joke by Toriyama and then the writers and fans went hardcore with it being such a “serious” power up to the point where most 90’s and 2000’s fan mangas have these hilarious amalgamations of Super Saiyan 3 and 4 as Super Saiyan 5 and 6, etc. Gohan, at the end of the Cell saga, had outclassed Goku, but the whole anti-plot armor of Gohan being a slacker in his training is used over and over again in the series. They make it ambiguous if Gohan surpasses Goku in the Buu arc. If canon is a heated debate in Dragon Ball discussion, power level debates are on fire in the fandom. Lol. Things get significantly trickier in Super too because power level gets to be a more complicated thing. In fact, you could argue that Super intentionally eggs on the fans with regards to the topic. Theres several characters now where fans don’t quite know how to rank them now and it drives the fanbase crazy. It has to be intentional. Lol.
Re: Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO Powers Up In New 'Goku VS Vegeta' Trailer
@Kaloudz Ah, I miss Alan Rickman as well. Such an icon of an actor. And Kurt Russell too! We simply don’t have actors like that hitting the big time these days. It truly does feel like Hollywood is an isolated pool now. In my illness today, I was watching Fellowship of the Ring, and I was definitely getting that old man, “they don’t make ‘em like this anymore, son” bent to how I was watching the film. Lol. And also I couldn’t stop thinking about Merry’s actor’s role in Lost. Man, between those two things and Quantum Break, you’d think he’d be a bigger actor.
Lol. Oh yes. I forgot about no Oddjob as a rule! If you snuck in as Oddjob, you’d have to play as Baron Samedi the next match for easy headshots. Not quite sure what they were thinking with the Baron’s character model. His hat is considered part of his head. Ridiculous. We also played similar rules in Monopoly at my cousin’s house, so we adopted the fines go in the center rule too! My wife doesn’t really like Monopoly, so she wouldn’t notice the change in the rules. It’s almost time I introduce my son to that game. I feel he would resonate with it very deeply…
Lol. I’m reserving potential grinding for FF7 Rebirth. Final Fantasy, I’ll always make an exception for those titles to do some unnecessary gameplay in spite of my typical rule to avoid any gaming grind. I decided to purchase Banishers today, so hopefully that’s just a good old fashioned story game with more action that forced rpg mechanics.
Yes, you can skip GT if you like and the Z movies. You can skip Dragon Ball Heroes too, which is confusingly similarly titled to Dragon Ball Super Hero. Or you could watch them if you just want more, of course. At this point, Heroes has already done the goofy proposition of making GT and Super as separate realities that have interacted because… anime video game logic. Lol. I personally just view GT as filler. It’s not my favorite, but it’s also not part of the real timeline. Toei has mostly done that confusion to themselves though since they’ve acknowledged both as being in the DB continuity, despite the fact that Toriyama sort of implied he made Super to cancel out GT and make a Dragon Ball continuation that exists in his continuity. Interestingly enough, there is another odd piece of the puzzle too. There was a Korean MMO called Dragon Ball Online that is technically canon too, as Toriyama personally developed the characters and concepts for it. He tends to restructure some ideas he’s had, but he’s acknowledged that the lore in Online is probably along the lines of where things would go if we ever hit a point of future in the series beyond the main cast.
The Dragon Ball fandom sort of cracks me up, to be honest. One of the funniest things I find about them is how few of them realize that the series was intended as a comedy and still carries the comedy tropes. Sure, it has its serious moments, but clearly Toriyama sees Dragon Ball in a more silly way than the fans realize. I mean, Super Saiyan 3 was designed as a parody of the manga itself and Toriyama himself said he didn’t make anyone else have the form because it’s ugly. Lol. You can’t make this stuff up! Yet the fans want SSJ3 Vegeta, Trunks, Gohan, Radditz, etc. And they want it to be serious! I would admit, I’m most curious what a Super Saiyan 3 Nappa would be like though. How much hair would come from bald, you’ve got to wonder!
Re: Pick One: Which 2024 First-Party Game Are You Most Looking Forward To From Xbox?
Definitely Indy first and Avowed second… if we don’t count Fable or Elder Scrolls 6! South of Midnight’s up there on my list too.
Re: Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO Powers Up In New 'Goku VS Vegeta' Trailer
@Kaloudz Lol. I suppose that’s true. They’ve either got to keep Will Smith alive or risk putting Chris Pratt in the film because he’s in literally every movie now. It certainly feels like this is a generation where they sort of forgot to replace a lot of the top name movie stars and they’re either keeping a small crop or letting the existing ones go for far longer than they used to.
DB->DBZ Kai->DB Super->DB Super Heroes film is the official canon now. While GT hasn’t been officially announced as something that was de-canonized, they’d really have to pull some kind of weird logic to have it fit in now. I doubt they’d end Super with some giant power nerf to Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, and Piccolo, especially because we’re only chronologically like two or three years before the start of GT now. Super Heroes is essentially a film sequel to the DBS Broly film, which is itself a sequel to the manga in the Universal Survival arc. Technically, there’s two arcs in-between Broly and Super Heroes, but they’re manga only. Super gets a little goofy as a continuity because technically the manga is the official continuity. The anime sped past the manga at some point and just went off on its own trajectory, but while having the same major plot points. It’s strange.
Lol. Thanks for saving my time. I’ve been sick, so I’ve not been gaming for a bit, but good to know.
I had soooo many fond memories of Goldeneye. I had to have beaten it three dozen times. I even played through it on both Xbox AND Switch for the rerelease. It still holds up, in my opinion. My family developed all kinds of homebrew rules for it to keep it fair. We had “no screen peeking” and “wait until everyone has a gun” as house rules for the game. Back in the N64 days, we were more game renters than owners in my home. We owned a couple games, but mostly rented. We’d rent something every Friday along with a movie or two and get a pizza. My family was pretty routine about things. Lol.
Re: Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO Powers Up In New 'Goku VS Vegeta' Trailer
@Kaloudz Oh, man, I forgot about the headphones. It’s crazy how uncomfortable gaming stuff was in the 90’s. The kids nowadays have got it so cozy. Lol. I was late to the N64 because I had to save up my own money to buy it. It took me three Christmases of saving for it. Thankfully, I didn’t spend my Christmas money yet from the year I first saw the 64. Lol. The moment I saw Goldeneye, I knew I needed the console. My parents were so proud of me for saving that they bought me a couple games when I bought the console, which was cool. Getting the 64 was definitely a highlight of my life before the age of 10.
I agree about RuneScape with the tutorial. My friend and I were waxing nostalgic about the game a couple of months ago and I found out it’s got a phone app, but the tutorial totally killed me. Lol. I’ll have to look into those social experiences. I’ve never heard of most of them.
I’ve been thinking about starting Like a Dragon for a while. I love everything I’ve seen about it, but it’s just fitting in the time for it. I always get lured in by new releases, so I tend to let the backlog be the backlog a lot of the time and I’m lazy about working on it. Maybe this summer will be slower for new releases that I’m interested in, so I sink into this one. I mean, honestly, this summer’s release schedule seems practically empty at the moment.
I’ve not watched the whole show, but I read the books after completing the game. I really quite enjoy the Witcher lore and am quite excited at what’s next for the series. I agree that it’s goofy to have multiple endings if there can be “only one.” I like how Mass Effect let you sort of craft your own story three games in… even with how that ending went. That’s crazy. I didn’t even know they were making I Am Legend 2, but that’s a baffling decision.