Topic: The everything Xbox thread

@ThanosReXXX its a financing option and nothing more, only in physical Microsoft stores. Every other store had financing options too. I don't get why a fancy label like all access gets internet kudos when it wouldn't have even been discussed if they just announced "for a limited time, use our 0%apr financing for 24 payments for well qualified buyers." There's literally nothing special on offer, just Microsoft stores allowing 24 month financing, and only if you subscribe to everything. As though other stores offer no credit options....

Honestly Amazon orders a better gig. 6 month financing without a credit score hit. Though the whole credit system is a disgrace but that's another topic all together

@GrailUK no, it's just a financed installment plan. You're just buying it retail same as before.

@ThanosReXXX even his Avatar says blp

@NEStalgia I was talking in general, about the word or meaning of the word "deal".
And what party or manner of financing is behind this Microsoft deal is of little to no relevance to the customer. As I mentioned earlier, in the end, it's nothing more than a similar construct as you would find with a smartphone subscription, since the result on the customer side is having to pay off a monthly fee, just like you would with an all-in smartphone bundle, hence me comparing it to that.

And just for clarity's sake: personally, I wouldn't go for such a purchasing model for a gaming console, but I can still objectively see that it could be a good solution for other people, that don't have or don't want to spend that kind of money all at once.

And I have to stress again (apparently), that I know full well that there is no special offer here, just an easy and accessible way for people to get their hands on a console and an Xbox Live subscription, without having to fork over the money all at once. It's a convenience deal in that sense, even if it isn't a financial discount. I did already mention all that several times, though.

I kinda expect a bit more from an intelligent person such as yourself, but maybe the whole bank thing got you so annoyed, that the red fog of anger is kinda blinding your vision...

Agreed on the credit score hit, though. We've got something similar over here, also tied to a governmental institution, called "BKR" in short. The full name in English translates to Bureau of Credit Registration, and if you have a problem with paying off your debts anywhere, such as with a bank, a housing company or on a car loan, you'll become registered there, and barred from making any new large purchases, or periodic purchases such as expensive subscriptions, until you're free of debt.

With notoriously defaulting debtors, they can even add a year extra, just to be sure that they are out of debt, and will stay out of it for more than just the allotted period of the specific loans/debts.

And yes, his avatar says blp (which, by the way, stands for British Let's Plays), because his YouTube channel hasn't changed names, so he's kinda using his avatar as an advert banner for his channel, but on here, his name is Knuckles-Fajita, a change he deemed necessary, due to all the people constantly harassing him.

@DarthNocturnal ODST is now 10MB, it seems 343 is doing the Halo Wars 2 approach with MCC where the DLC content is part of the main game meanwhile the DLC files are just unlocking the ability to play the content.

It sure looks rather likely MCC will be getting Reach in the future, both the acknowledgment of Reach in the MCC update blog post and various menus like the intelligent delivery screen has enough space for 1 more game. It's the same logic that predicted MK8 (Wii U) would be getting DLC cups.

Seriously? That's it. Done with humanity. Just, done.

I never played Halo Reach. What was the deal with that? Why wasn't it a regular numbered entry?

@DarthNocturnal

Cool. Well I hope they add it then. At some point I'm gonna do a full Halo marathon when I can find the space in my backlog.

@Dezzy it's the prequel to the first halo. it is based on the first halo book

@Dezzy I also want to do a Halo marathon now that The Master Chief Collection and Halo 5 are X-enhanced, but will probably play Reach the last so the developers might have updated it too by then. It's basically a prologue so I can play it last and still would make sense like a flashback or origins story.

Yeah, I'm really really hoping Reach will be added....I'd love to have the total collection in one single, convenient, 1.3TB archive.

I spun up MCC to take a look. WOW, Halo 1 almost looks like a modern, current gen game! The update really did some amazing work on that one! I tried ODST as well...yeah...it still looks kinda funky, but, still, it looks waaay better on the X than when I played it on the 360, even if it pales next to 1 still. Part of ODST's problem is just geometry and dark environments. Boxy buildings and square surfaces look more dated due to the cityscape than the alien terrain of other games.

@Ryu_Niiyama LOL!

@DarthNocturnal What do you mean? Destiny is.....is........ok, yeah, you got me there.... But hey, 2's free on Playstation this month, so there's something!

@NEStalgia Why is everybody always harping on Destiny? I've missed out on the first game, but after I bought the Xbox One, I've played the second game quite extensively, together with a pair of friends, and I quite enjoyed it. Solid gameplay, good story, interesting characters, so really nothing much to complain about. I also haven't needed any loot boxes, something that's also frequently mentioned in relation to games like these, so I didn't feel any obligatory "pay to win" structure in it, and I was able to finish the entire main campaign just with stuff found and/or earned in the game itself, without ever spending an extra penny.

Well cross game campaign playlists aren't broke anymore so you could go for the Master Chief Saga playlist when doing your Halo marathon and it'll actually properly save your progress this time when you want to save and quit.

@ThanosReXXX Probably the greatest problem with Destiny is that it's Halo for Playstation fans. I mean, the gunplay is decent. The story is deeply lacking....it sets up cool but goes nowhere. It's a shared world game with deep MMO hooks, systems, and loops, but without MMO payoffs, and just overall feels like "why am I not just playing Halo instead? It's the same thing but better and without the MMO!"

As for loot boxes and Pay2Win, I'm surprised you didn't get suckered into the pay 2 win considering Activision operates this with their patent that actively makes the game more difficult for non-payers by pairing them up in PvP situations against more skilled opponents, and when you pay pairs you against easier opponents. EG, if you don't pay you get "nightmare difficulty" and if you do pay you get "don't hurt me" difficulty where PvP is concerned.

As a co-op game like Diablo it seems like it might be fun though. Then again....so is Halo....which is better. And i have 5 of those + reach + Infinite (eventually) to work through, let alone 5 Gears games

I played the Demo on PS back in winter....the demo is generously lengthy to give you a feel. My takeaway of it was "it's kind of a fun game, I'm always interested to get back into it, I like it, but no I'm not paying money for it." Then I got an XBox and it became irrelevant

But it's free on PS now. I'll play the base game. Not sure about buying expansions though. There's $20 of expansions just to be up to date on the "free" game Maybe it will be free on XBox soon since they apparently no longer sell the base game, new base game has the expacks. This month's GwG games seem pretty awful while PS has Destiny 2 and GoW3HD....between that DQ11, and Spiderman the XBox may get a much needed rest this month

@NEStalgia Switch has the best September on the games front, Torna beats all of that. Outside of games though, Switch has the worst September because of how Nintendo's handling the paid online service.

@Grumblevolcano LOL, yeah, I just wrapped up XC2 and am staging my next 3 weeks around playing whatever I think will be finished in time for Torna on the 21st (assuming it arrives on time.) Technically I'm into Octopath but I love keeping that game as my "when I have some time" game in Switch #2 rather than my "I'm sitting down to play for hours" game. It just works so beautifully in that role

Of course XBox picks up with Red Dead and Soul Calibur in Oct.... Most of these games I'm probably going to just stack on the backlog except Soul Calibur.

@DarthNocturnal Maybe, I'd read it was specifically tied to skill level, but that could have been wrong. I never played 1 but by all accounts 2 is much better in general. But the same core problem exists. It's a game trying really hard to be "the other, cooler, Halo" while also satisfying Activisions never ending MMO demands. In February when I had no X1X-Enhanced Halo 1, 2, 3, ODST, 4, 5 or Infinity on the way that proposition sounded a lot less bad

@NEStalgia Well, I don't agree with that assessment at ALL. I liked the story, the characters, and there's more than enough to do. There's a lot of unique weapons, and the whole super-power thing most certainly also adds another layer to it. And I really liked the voice acting. Nathan Fillion is one of my all-time favorites in both acting and voice acting.

As for that nightmare difficulty: I kinda take to my avatar...
But seriously: I don't like to pat myself on the back or profess my greatness to others, but what I can say, is that I'm pretty persistent in my attempts to try and win or succeed, not just games, and I've done quite alright in Destiny 2. Nothing flawless, mind you, but no quitter ever won anything, so I just keep going at it, albeit on the condition that I'll only do that, for as long as it remains entertaining enough to do so, and in this case, it did.

And having friends who are already leveled up FAR beyond me, sometimes guiding me and helping me out in the REALLY tough bits, also came in handy....

Mind you, it wasn't all THAT easy, as that sounded, because my friends sometimes took an almost satanic pleasure in just being spectators, so while they were actually with me in the game, they'd at the most only handle the foot soldiers, and let me take on the bosses and so on. Something I also prefer, because otherwise, it would feel like somebody else was playing the game for me, instead of me succeeding in completing it myself, which would feel like quite the hollow victory, to say the least...

But I never noticed anything broken or messy or whatever, so again: I neither get that criticism, nor do I see any of it to be of any relevance and/or truth to my own experience with the game. I also don't see Destiny as some poor man's Halo. Maybe the first game might have been the lesser experience, but I can't comment on that, since I never played that, but for the second game, that is most definitely not true. There's far more to the story than that, and Destiny's world is more expansive than Halo's, so that's another thing I don't recognize.

I have only done one expansion yet, though, and I doubt I ever will get much further, since right now, I'm still in the "life takes precedence over gaming (or any other hobby)" mode, and by the time I'm finally out of the woods, my friends will have long moved on to other digital playgrounds.

They've already done me the courtesy of revisiting the game on my behalf, so to them, it was probably already old hat, and I wonder if they would be inclined do that again next year. They might, but I'm not completely counting on it. We'll see what happens...

Either way, I've enjoyed my time with it, and I think that people who are into this kind of game, should at the very least give it a fair chance, and go into it with an open mind, not with Halo glasses on, or with the predisposed opinion that it's Bungie attempting to recreate something that they already have, because that's not what Destiny is.

As for this month's (you probably mean the coming month) Games with Gold offerings: yeah, they're not nearly as good as the one's we got in August (pretty hard to top Forza Horizon 2 anyway, unless you don't like that type of game), but they're still decent games, nonetheless.

And I never liked God of War anyway, so that's no great loss to me. The only game in that series that even remotely piques my interest, is the last game, because it comes across as considerably more down to Earth and less presumptuous and disrespectful to ancient cultures and beliefs.

@NEStalgia I would put 1 (after various patches and expansions) WAY ahead of 2 as an overall package. Spent over 700 hours playing 1,not even up to 100 in the sequel L. And outside of using the MT currency I was given for preorder and such, I haven't spent a dime on MT and hasn't effected my play in the slightest. I do agree with you on the story though. So much wasted potential there mainly because of cut content and bad design choices. Really is a shame because the lore itself is enthralling.

@ThanosReXXX I forgot Fillion was in it. I always liked that he was in ODST! (Then again, Destiny is Sony Halo confirmed!!1 )

Well, yeah if you like MMO shooters, then Destiny will be a thing more than Halo I suppose.

I'm not sure "decent" is the word I'd use to describe Sept GwG. Insulting is a little closer to my choice. Two indies, a decent but ancient 360 lego game, and a collection of Master System + Genesis games. Maybe the hidden gold box at the end is something special. The thrill of free games is, retail games. Sure Horizon and For Honor were big steps up but it's natural to compare two services that are otherwise identical when one is offering a lot better value. "Free"....well it's a $5/mo subscription. For my $5 mo I get Destiny2 + a system exclusive (that you don't like versus....well...the above

MS is the one that started the whole "pay to play online, but we'll give you free games" thing. Right now, Sony is the one to beat for value in that space, while MS is following the Nintendo model. Maybe they'll give us 10 free DOS games.