sorethumbed

Whilst I agree with the (very well written and coherent) article content and I feel that there should be no console exclusives at all, I kind of agree with @GrumpyGamr as well. The rant, IMO, is based on fear, a fear that this is Microsoft's last console and that MS is not really behind the Xbone and every dilution of the 'exclusive' catalog is another nail in that coffin. We know that MS made errors with the One, both in design (graphics) and in its marketing and the question is did it sell enough to warrant an Xbox2 or will it turn into a PC in your living room with achievements and a controller and every non exclusive/cross platform game plays into that fear. By the way, PC gamers have that fear already with the whole store scenario. Personally, I don't give a monkey's as long as the machine in my lounge doesn't attempt to take off when the fan kicks in, I can still use Xbox live (whatever they decide to call it) and still game with friends. Oh, and get achievements 😄

The day you really need to start worrying is the day they produce a PC Xbox one and Xbox emulator and a fan less totally silent PC capable of running it with PC/Xbox cross achievements undifferentiated from each other. The day that it doesn't matter WHERE you play a game.

I think this is a good move on Ubi's part. Whilst I enjoyed Syndicate, I am one of those who was plagued in the early days of Unity with the bugs and frame rate issues. It's weird, we all have the same console yet some people had no issues.
Anyway, whilst I really did enjoy Syndicate and there was a lot to do, there was also a lot of filler. Hopefully, a break will give them the opportunity to come up with the goods next year.

Genuinely stuck for this weekend. I spent so long 100% ing Diablo 3 that I can't seem to get into anything else ATM. I will dip into a few things till something grabs my attention.

Good review bud.

Standard Lego then so I will be happy when I eventually get round to it. I enjoy the change of pace of Lego games.

Continuing my slog through Diablo bounties to hit 500.
To break it up, I'm running a rift after every 5 and as many greater rifts as I have keys for after 25.
Got a build for my Barbarian that's almost there apart from a couple of bits of gear. Must say, I've really enjoyed the game, so much so that I will probably go back and buy 2 for the PC.

Well I sank a little time into the division and was reasonably impressed for a beta (it never broke) and quite enjoyed the mechanics of the game. The first mission I tried was a fair challenge with the last enemy being a problem as I was out of ammo and had to use a peashooter. Think I'll probably get this but maybe not day 1.

Visually it was pretty good for a beta. I'll try to get some more in to see how repetitive the mission structure is. The AI seems none too bright though.

ESO, Diablo 3 and Division beta.
I've got 3 chars at 70 on Diablo normal plus one at 70 on hardcore. It's a long haul.

Waay All those betas can disappear one more.

Only one game in town this weekend... PVZ GW2 MP beta, downloading as I write.
Well that was a disappointment. Spent ages trying to get on, lasted 5 mins before the server died, WTF - it's the same as the original - how can the servers die? From what I did manage to see, it should have been a DLC drop, not a new game. Still, it will turn up in the vault at some point. Somebody was lvl 50 tho already so I guess that they at least had less issues.

I watched some of the gameplay on this. Looks like one batman related product that I might actually play.

That's usually developer speak for 'it's crap and we need time to fix it'

Dipping in and out of diablo

@KelticDevil they have a pretty profitable movie division, music division, tv's division (hardware & programs). Sony is a massive company, the music division alone turned over 5BILLION year before last. PlayStation is really small beer for them, just like Xbox is for Microsoft.

Bang, owwwww, Microsoft marketing limping into the Future imperfect. Hope this is not the case.

Telltale Games bundle was too good a deal to resist.

Lego Star Wars and South Park so far.
PMSL at South Park, easily worth every penny.

Well I really enjoyed mafia 2 so I will defo give it a go. It's a marmite game though, they say.

I had a CPC6128 - it had a floppy drive lol.

Lol, can you remember floppies! The first proper hard drive I worked with was 100mb. The heads were individually replaceable and you couldn't take them on the tube. A complete data centre ran on 8 of them and the CPU (which ran a complete office ) had 256 KILOBYTES of core storage which you had to optimise. You don't know you're born!

If you know someone who plays it, get them to bring it to your house on a hard drive and copy it over.

Its a massive download. It was 65gb and that's before the 2 huge dlc's.

Dlc spree I think.

Farrow & Ball. If it had just been one tin, it wouldn't have been so bad 😡😡😡😡

@stylon hope so too. I will get one in the new year when my card recovers from buying paint for my wife for our lounge and dining room. £65.00 a bloody tin!!! I said to the guy, I only want paint, I'm not buying the shop.

@stylon it's worth remembering that unlike conventional hard drives, when it comes to SSD's, the bigger it is, the faster it is. I don't know why. 😊😊

Would be that the same site where the Kinect was always going to be an integral part of the boner and the graphics weren't suffering because of it?

The Samsung 1Tb external SSD clocked 5 times the speed of a conventional external drive (READ) on tests. £283 on Amazon. Those tests were before Windows 10 though and historically new operating systems from MS are bad from a HD point of view till they get them optimised. IF I was going to get one, that's the boys I'd go for. Interestingly the drive reviewed here is about 50% more expensive.

I'm on my second play through and mostly hit some minor glitches. It's a big complex world with things going on all over the place and not all of them responding to you. I was tasked to go help a safe house, only to find an NPC coming out of the door having just done my job for me then asking me what I was doing there. Like real people, weird sh.t happens. Save often, smile through the weird stuff and try not to get too upset if you have to reload,

@A_BabyRed_Yoshi it's a role playing game (that's what RPG means). It's about survival and part of your Role is to build places for people to live. You don't have to, you can play a totally different role, go into town and kill everyone. It's up to you.

Looks interesting. Just a quickie though, the streets of London weren't 'war torn' after WW1, that would be WW2.

Nah.

Fallout 4. Finished my first play through (bar 2 achievements). Now comes the fun run.

Nice well balanced review, thank you. I really wanted to like this.... But I didn't. Well, not enough to buy it. I will wait till it turns up in the vault then give it another go.

I'm also with those posting below about the lack of a story mode. No story, no real appeal for me.

@KelticDevil , I thought band of bugs related to Bethesda games 😀

Yeah, I kind of took a break and spent waayyyyy too long playing ESO. I should hit it this weekend though. GL with the 75k as well.

Fallout 4. Shooting for the last 230 points to hit the 100k cheevo mark.

They just can't help themselves.

I used to be pretty good at backgammon. I used to play in a world league on the PC and got to number 3. Gave it up as you couldn't play for fun anymore, all that happened was challenge after challenge.

@A_BabyRed_Yoshi Lol I've got all the achievements for that.

I'll spend the weekend trying to kill a very large mire lurk.

@BAMozzy, I'm with you (though I'm not much of a COD multiplayer). I really liked the single player and zombies is good also. Being able to mod campaign weapons is a plus too.

Haven't tried the multiplayer yet. I found zombies fun and really enjoyed the single player.

Really good review, thank you.
As several achievements are tied to a 'gold' score and the necessity of buying cards to get this, I won't be buying this game. I'm not in the market of purchasing achievements.

I found the rollers the toughest. Even when you nailed them, the splash was still bad and by the third or fourth.....

I finished it on Hardened. Just about to start realistic. I found with them, annoy with the fireflies, head shots when distracted. They are tough SOB's though, even on hardened.

@Utena-mobile well put

Not sure about top of the list but for me 5 comes close to the bottom (sorry to those of you who like it) propped up by Reach. I just felt Locked out of my favourite character (sorry, pun definitely intended). Locke in Halo terms means absolutely nothing to me (for me Halo is about the Chief/Cortana). IMO Locke is just a generic (completely forgettable) wooden computer game hero and 5 minutes after the game finished I couldn't remember a single line of his in game dialog and cared less. I really don't like the direction this series is taking.

@Captain_Chao5 I also like COD campaigns but I absobloodymarvellously adore this one. Think Metro/specOps the line and several others rolled into one. It's a great game. Just finished my first play through and it won't be my last.

Might just have worked through some of my back catalog by then 🎮

Like @stylon Blops and Syndicate. Will also see what XUR is selling and do a few writs in ESO. Anytime left over and I'll do some of the building work around the house 😊😊