stinkyx

$15 each or $20 for both...lol. Well, at least you can actually see your skin in-game, unlike Apex or Warzone.

@Magabro Nice, that's quite a feat if you did it without really making use of the tactical pause and micromanaging your squadmates. Made it feel closer to Dragon Age than Gears. But anyway, yeah...at this point in my life, I like the story of Gears better than Mass Effect, so I'd say you're not missing anything. For one thing, Gears doesn't abandon ship when one of its games does bad (i.e. Mass Effect Andromeda isnt getting a sequel, lol, so the TONS of time I spent absorbing the lore and story just got trashed, lol). I'm actually really loving the Gears story and would rather see a movie in that universe.

@Magabro You need to play these games on the harder difficulties because they are NOTHING like Gears of War! You'll need to carefully position your squadmates around the environment, use your powers and abilities at the right time on the right enemy, and carefully prioritize your targets. Also, like David Gaider in the article said, the choices really make the game special, and it really is just another run-of-the-mill sci-fi universe without them. I'm definitely gonna have to respectfully disagree with you there.

Looks good to me! Excited about the new control scheme so friends who've never palyed before can hopefully actually have fun without a lot of effort.

I'm really impressed with Xbox for making games more affordable (Game Pass), making sure new Series X games are X1 compatible, letting PC players join-in day one, letting you game anywhere with XCloud, and being the front-runner in accessibility for disabled players (just to name a few). No one gets left out, period. So cool.

Just when CoD and Battlefield thought their release dates were safe, lol...

This was never a big problem for me, just with certain games.

Less hype than I expected for STALKER 2. I think you're all in for a pleasant surprise this coming April...

Also, how come King of Fighters XV isn't here? That's my most anticipated game.

How time flies. Great series! I remember fellow PC gamers pirating the absolute hell out of the first game, which caused Cliffy B to not put Gears 2 on PC and call out PC gamers out as a bunch of pirates...and then PC gamers have the audacity to stay mad at him still to this day for his remarks, lol.

Anyway, Cliffy B is a genius, period. Great game design that stands the test of time.

Modern Warfare 2019 was so good it beats the nostalgia of the 360-era games, lol.

He can have his helmet off the entire time, so you know it's Chris Pratt! In fact, no one should wear their iconic headgear at all, just like in the Marvel movies!

Happy Halloween, y'all!

@GuyinPA75 Yep. Internet at home (decent sized city in California) with the most expensive available to me can't even handle YouTube sometimes, LMAO. Same goes for 5G. It's all trash.

Anyone have any luck getting this to work with an iOS device? Did a month before and it ran like total trash on my iPhone and iPad, but fine on my PCs. Checked online and that seems to be the consensus. Apple suuuuuuuuuucks...

@elpardo1984 KI is too complicated for that target audience, plus people would expect 2-button / command normal inputs for the game and other Smash-like games.

@LtSarge It's only a win if they actually make a third one! Hopefully it's not another IP that MS just lets collect dust for a thousand years...

@Luigi_Skywalker I was exaggerating a bit, admittedly, but it still takes a few dozen hours to get a good loadout in COD, IMHO! And I agree 100% that map knowledge makes the better player, but getting shot in the back because a player spawned right behind you will never not be annoying, and the map design of many levels makes luck too much of a factor (I think more "3-lane maps" and dedicated spawn bases goes a long way to correct this, i.e. Killzone games).

Big respect to the community here for the results

This is my first Halo game and it's reeeally fun! The COD beta was sooooooooooooooooooo much garbage (namely Champion Hill replacing Gunfight) and Battlefield looks like the same old slog, so it's good to have a new multiplayer shooter this autumn that I'm ACTUALLY excited to play.

@Luigi_Skywalker The special weapon timers are definitely an "old" design idea, but I think the fact that you can pick up these weapons after you kill the person holding them makes it more balanced. Also, having everyone respawn with the same loadout goes a long way to making the game more fair than COD, where you'd have to play for like over a hundred hours to unlock certain weapons and the good attachments for them.

To each their own, but I'm personally sick of having to spend dozens and dozens of hours unlocking guns and attachments just to get some semblance of fair play online.

I highly recommend Homecoming and Downpour for anyone who hasn't played them yet. I definitely was prepared to hate them, but ended up loving them.

And nice choice of video to embed in the article, LMAO!

First year I won't buy this. Between butchering gunfight mode to all the stupid sex stuff...have a nice Xmas, Bobby Kotick, LMAO. Blizzard and Activision suuuuck.

The last two COD games have been amazing thanks to Gunfite mode...now that that's butchered, the game has lost all of its appeal to me.

Plus, the thought of grinding for MONTHS to unlock all the weapons and attachments in COD and BF just to have some kind of even playing field is not something I'd want to do again, lol.

Gonna install just to verify they ruined EVERYTHING about my favorite mode, Gunfight (got rid of fixed spawn points, single life, and everyone having the exact same weapons), and then skip the full release, lol.

So frustrating that MS is squandering all of its IPs and basically making us wait untold years between sequels in popular franchises.

None of us are getting any younger, lol. I mean, in the timespan between the last two Halo games, high school grads could complete 4 years of college and then gotten a 2-year masters degree. By the time another KI comes out, it'll be almost an entire decade between release dates at best.

MS has tons of money. It's super annoying to see them release one big game every few years while PlayStation drops big sequels multiple times per year.

Lol @ the gameplay in the trailer. Everyone knows you're supposed to uncloak right before shooting your gun, and then reactivate the cloak immediately after.

Thank you God for FFXIII, lol. Too bad it's not on the cloud too...playing a game without having to install it is my new favorite thing.

LMAO, nice first impression of the gameplay. They couldn't even bother to use an actual level from the game. I think they peeled back the curtain a little bit too much on this one.

Quake is such a mish-mashed series, lol. I personally like Champions the best...fun little hero shooter who's only downside (IMHO) is god forbid you run into a "Quake veteran" in the community forum who will trash the game for its fancy graphics, newfangled gameplay, and everything that makes it not-Quake-3. Yep...those old timer gamers aging disgracefully.

@Bdbrady Nice take. Makes me think that this game being cross-gen has everything to do with the delay.

@The_New_Butler I absolutely HATED Crysis 1 at first when I played in 2008 but ended up enjoying it a lot more when I switched to the hardest difficulty. You have to reeeally make use of your powers and the environment/physics, which means you can't just run through the game with guns blazing.

It really shines at that point, and has given me lots of really unique moments, like using super speed to rush a group of enemies, grab one, speed away into the bushes while being shot at, and then tossing the enemy I grabbed off of a cliff. Or using super strength to jump on top of a shed, punch a hole in the roof, and kill the enemy inside. The sandbox levels are really fun to just mess around in, IMHO. Maybe give it another try?

@SplooshDmg There's definitely something to be said about just making a "good game" without feeling the need to add-in extra features. In fact, I'd argue there's still a lot of ground to cover for gameplay features that seem to be relegated to secondary thoughts in most games...how about better A.I., and more interactable environments? Like Strogg enemies who keep fighting in totally dynamic ways depending on how you blow off their limbs, or having to kill a Shambler by physically blowing apart the architecture to crush it?

These are things we've seen in games before, but on a limited scale and in very staged and predictable ways. I think developing these secondary systems would add complexity without taking away from the simplistic core gameplay.

@SplooshDmg Hmmm, but how can Quake mix-up the Doom 2016 formula, or would it just be more of the same? I feel like advanced movement (strafe jumping, rocket jumps) is the one aspect of traditional Quake gameplay that can be explored, but those certainly wouldn't be selling points for a larger potential audience. The enemies and lore are great, so maybe they could reboot the series as an entirely new genre (turn-based tactical shooter? Horror shooter?).

The biggest barrier to Quake's popularity is the fanbase, IMHO. When I was playing Quake Champions, there was soooooo much complaining and toxicity from original "fans" on the Steam forums and in-game that I'm sure it scared away a lot of new players. Quake Live also has the most unwelcoming community I've ever tried to be a part of. From what I can tell, Quake "fans" want the old games, unmodified in every way, and don't want any new players touching "their" games. It's a community shooting itself in the foot, and head, lol.

@Tasuki I'm ashamed to admit that I'm probably gonna get it too, but you didn't need to take it that far, lol.

Money is the only language these horrible corporations understand, so not-buying the game is the only way to say, "Stop harboring a work atmosphere of creepy behavior." I mean, have you ever worked in a job where your employer shanks you in some way or another? Even after you quit, you still want to see them fall. Activision-Blizzard need to face consequences for treating employees like dirt. All us "normal" people are all on the same side. Let's stand together!

It's not about owning it, it's about the convenience of playing it on XCloud without having to install it! Dumb move, IMHO.

@RedShirtRod 100%. God forbid they made a sequel to Andromeda that learned from its mistakes. Instead, we're going to back to Shepard's story, and canonizing the ending of ME3. So dumb.

Imagine investing yourself in a story and books and all that and they just throw it all away. For a story-based series, it just ruins the immersion and what makes a series like ME special, IMHO. I've actually jumped over to Halo for my sci-fi epic fix.

Eh, looks alright. The UI is soooo horrible, and I think it's weird to show off a game's progress like this. I mean, as a first impression, it's like going on a first date with someone and sending them a picture of you getting ready. They should stop with the dev logs and cut a real trailer when they're further along.

How easy was it to get into the beta (via the Insider program)? And is it too late??? I was hoping there'd be some beta keys on eBay for $2 to save me the headache and waiting, lol.

I bought 4 of those copies, lol. Fav game of all time, actually. Just wish they had supported it longer...I mean, the other FGC big doggs Tekken and SF5 have 4+ years content each.

Now we'll actually have to wait 3-4 years for MKX2. BOOOOOO!!!

I just wonder if the Bad Company 2 maps will be fully destructible (that was the only BF game I actually LOVED, and mainly for that reason).

I'm excited, although I'm fairly certain that the "Cut off their limbs" warning is still just written in stock horror font re-used from the original game.

Wonder how Glen Schofield feels about his new game (The Callisto Protocol) going head-to-head with his original work!

@Trmn8r I use the browser version on my PC laptop and it works flawlessly! I have no doubt there's something Apple has in-place that throttles the bandwidth or something.

Apple sucks haaard...I'd abandon ship on their phones if sending photos and videos wasn't a compression nightmare between iOS and Android.

Is it just me, or is XCloud total garbage on iOS? Works great on my other devices, just not the ones I would actually use this service on...

You guys got me excited when you said "arena shooter" (i.e. Quake, Unreal, Lawbreakers), but really this is a "hero shooter." Get your terms straight!

Looks a little bland, otherwise. I've got the feeling it will come down to just shooting each other TDM-style instead of using each class's abilities to complete objectives or something more strategic (i.e. Lawbreakers, Overwatch, R6S).

@InterceptorAlpha Maybe he means Ubisoft? Regardless, I don't mind it when companies re-use assets as a template for a new game...it just bothers me when they don't ADD to the template. In the case of COD, it doesn't feel like they've added anything new since bullet-penetration in 2007. No noticeable improvements to A.I. or physics or destructibility or interactivity, etc.

@NEStalgia I think it was more about "Prey 2" being teased years before that was a proper sequel to the 2006 game...the trailer for that game was so popular that once that project was cancelled, Bethesda capitalized on the hype by re-using the name for Prey 2017.

I'd LOVE a sequel, but in my experience, it's not worth getting your hopes up. Play what's in front of you and stop wishing for a sequel. Soooo many franchises I've loved have stayed dead for 10+ years and it's a shame that IP holders like MS never really put these kinds of classic licenses to use.

Only JRPG I've ever played where I didn't fall asleep at some point while playing (probably because of the time limit, lol). Definitely hope this turns out to be true...

@LocalPenguin Oh god, good point about F2P. I think MS is already doing a lot to make NEW games affordable to everyone (Game Pass) but yeah...as a mostly PC gamer, I'm worried about THAT crowd coming into the mix in-particular.