Topic: The everything Xbox thread

@gcunit I don't think it's strictly about the age rating. Plenty of ''zombie'' games are rated 18/M, but it's socially more acceptable to murder a horde of zombies, than a bunch of people. There's a reason why GTA causes controversy every time a new one comes out. I also think that it's easier to developers to create characters that are vaguely human-like in animation. You can use the same model rigs, you can use mocap data, etc. Same applies to the movie industry, with good make-up, you can easily turn a person into a ''zombie'', without the need of expensive CGI. It's the same reason why a lot of alien creatures are human-like in Star Wars. Additionally, if a character resembles a human, it's easier to connect with it, but that also applies to zombies I guess. Maybe the concept of your fellow human beings turning onto you is more scary than a weird alien glob trying to eat you. And I guess with zombies there's also the concept that ''you turn into them if they get you'', which is a psychological rollercoaster in its own right. I think there are dozens of good reasons why they are featured so often.

@gcunit Sorry, Ghost of Tsushima. I don’t watch TV and I sometimes assume that everyone else follows all gaming enough to use the same acronyms that I do. I make the same mistake when talking about assassin’s creed around here. Yeah I didn’t enjoy the first game of thrones book at all so I would never say anything about that franchise.

@Grumblevolcano @Ryu_Niiyama Thanks - I'd like to think if this was the PlayStation thread I would have got that 😉, but I'm generally just on the periphery of the PlayStation world so in any other context and I'm not tuned in enough to think of that game. I don't have GoT yet, but will pick it up at some point.

@Ralizah I suppose that isn’t something that I do then or at least not with bad things. I grew up in a hurricane and tornado state so I tend to keep emergency supplies and cash. The pandemic didn’t even bother me until about the 4th month into the toilet paper crisis after my normal size stock ran out. I don’t know, I like fiction that simplifies human nature a bit. Where lines of good and evil are clearly drawn and people work together. I also tend to like fiction that presents a kinder view of the world. Fiction is my escape while I review history and current events to prepare me to deal with the world.

I think history and real life are daunting enough to prepare one psychologically for the worst in people although I will admit I have a very dim view of humanity overall from experience and family history. I also don’t see the point in making the one thing that is guaranteed in this world (death) look like anything other than a final end.

I’m not dismissing what you are saying as I find it fascinating that people use death narratives in such a way. Makes me wonder about their daily lives.

@Octane There is still the aspect of cost and human actors in visual media lending to restricting how non human beings look. As well as lending to an undertone of (hetero)sexuality to it as well. It’s like why all those aliens Kirk went after were just white women in grease paint (if that, usually it was some eartips or a wardrobe change) or why in the old horror scifi movies aliens that look monstrous were somehow sexually attracted to white women and needed to kidnap them. That always confused me because I expected that the aliens would find them ugly as there is no direct analog. I always liked groups like the Founders/changlings because their natural form was liquid and the had so much trouble mimicking bipeds (humans in particular) to really highlight how alien humans were to them.

Plus human imagination is a limiter as well. Most fantastic creatures mimic animals or humans that have a trait or two enhanced or corrupted. Look at the the eastern dragon which is a bunch of animals stapled together (face of a horse, beard of a goat, horns of a deer, talons of an eagle/falcon, body of a serpent, scales of a fish) or even the way angels were described in abrahamic traditions before the current concept of pretty people with a single pair of bird wings. (One reason why I like the designs in the Bayonetta series. I am an atheist but I love the imagination in literature and mythology...even as I acknowledge its limitations.) I’m not saying I could do better (otherwise I be an author) but I just think life forms that evolved on a different planet would be much different than we have considered.

I do see the homogeneity trope in fiction but I don’t think I understand it since I feel that in many ways it is held up as a positive in many societies. In many aspects of life people are viewed as a monolith for their own gain or that view is foisted upon others and wielded as a weapon against them. So I feel it is less a fear of being the same so much as a fear of being absorbed into a different perceived monolith than the one that one is originally from. Perhaps I think it makes no sense as we are all humans and the violence we inflict upon each other is due to our own creation/perception rather than actual differences.

On Topic: SSD is on the way. I figure I will start with my fighting games first. You know the important stuff.

@Ryu_Niiyama Well, I think one would actually need to look at research to say anything meaningful about commonalities between people who enjoy certain sorts of fiction, although, based on the global prevalence and enduring popularity of fiction that explores darker themes, I'm inclined to say it's something that transcends culture.

I do think it'd be fascinating to conduct research on the question of whether commonalities in perceived life/family experience informs the sort of media we tend to consume. There are a galaxy of specific hypotheses that would erupt from that.

In terms of death-related themes in particular, I think the inherent uncertainty of what comes after the death of the body (be it nothingness, hell, heaven, reincarnation, etc.) gives such themes a very universal power. It's probably also worth mentioning that most people seem to believe in some form of an afterlife, or at least don't subscribe to the purely physicalist view of death as the mere breaking down of biological machinery.

MCC Series X/S enhancements announced!

@Grumblevolcano That would probably sell me the Series X by itself if I hadn't bought the One X for the same reason 🤩

@Ryu_Niiyama @gcunit It's a gaming site, everybody here does use the same acronyms. gc's just been out of the Playstation loop too long! It helps that I get all my gaming news from E3, and as soon as Sony dropped out of E3 I lost all contact of everything they were working on at all other than that "PS5" is a thing that will exist. The last two things they showed at E3 were Spiderman and GoT.....and that's the last two things I bought and the last two things I was interested in. Every. Other. Thing. was zombies....

Also, yeah I was talking personality, not appearance in terms of "normal." Any classic gaming nerd is simply not "normal." That's like saying fish can fly well.

"AC" is the tough one because there's two current series with the same AC acronym, and it's really weird talking about the removal of stealth mechanics as Animal Crossing has become more of a brawler RPG.

@Ralizah @Ryu_Niiyama I think that's an incomplete view on horror and why it works. I'd take it further and say it works that way for people that need to be faced with imagery and simulations with it in order to put themselves in a place of facing it....and even then are people that can remain emotionally detached from it. Cold, aloof people. Like Ralizah and Octane. I'm betting whether someone is empathic or not has a lot to do with their perception of horror and the "benefit" you describe of those who are into it. Someone that instantly, involuntarily puts themselves in any one elses shoes, real or fictional, game, film, book, or news story and can kind of experience their POV in their head....horror can't possibly have an up side. That doesn't explain haunted houses though where you physically encounter it. I'd either die of a heart attack in a haunted house or snap, go fight or flight, and start actually attacking the zombies....50/50. (We can apologize to Tyranexx who's done the zombie show thing in haunted houses for the fact I'd likely try to kill her later.....I won't tag her since she's not in the XB world )

I also think that works for people who need to see their "fears" in some manifestation like that to actually process them in any way. I'm continuously imagining, processing, and running scenarios in my head of every conceivable problem 24/7 on a non-stop loop. Can't help it. I need fiction to draw my attention away from that thinking so it doesn't consume me entirely rather than actually adding more to it!

@Ryu_Niiyama We'll have to have a contest or something to figure out which of us has a dimmer view of humanity. I don't think there's a clear cut winner there.... But yeah, I also wonder about the daily lives of the people into such things.

Regardless of it all, that's one thing that keeps Playstation in distant 3rd for me as far as 1st party goes. Nintendo has....Luigi's Mansion.....and....that's about it of the horror themes (I kid you not the first section of Luigi's Mansion 3 before you get the Poultergust was legit horror for me.... I won't go more horror than that Microsoft has State of Decay......and that's about all the horror they do. Sony - at least half their entire catalogue is just zombies. And half the third parties they highlight at the top is zombies. When I think PS right now, I think TLoU, Days Gone, RE, "PT/Silent Hill", and every time they have a new game I first have to research if it has zombies. GoT has the new addon with zombies. Uncharted 1 I rally cant stand it after you get to the monestary. Just all zombies, all the time! (I don't count FromSoft games and Nioh....it has "zombies" but it's not really the same context.

Lol I’m glad I still have a regular one and no 4k tv. My eye is gonna melt whey I finally upgrade.

Glad I bought it during the sale last week!

Aren't we still expecting another event in the next 10 days though? I'm sure they said there'd be another event to announce the various enhancements for current gen stuff?

@Dezzy No, the quote was:

"We’ll be sharing even more details on every game being fully optimized this holiday for the launch of Xbox Series X|S later this month, as well as showing more gameplay from these titles, so stay tuned for more."

Which was revealed last week:

• Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (Smart Delivery)
• Borderlands 3 (Smart Delivery)
• Bright Memory 1.0
• Cuisine Royale (Smart Delivery)
• Dead by Daylight (Xbox Game Pass + Smart Delivery)
• Devil May Cry 5: Special Edition
• DIRT 5 (Smart Delivery)
• Enlisted
• Evergate
• The Falconeer (Smart Delivery)
• Fortnite
• Forza Horizon 4 (Xbox Game Pass + Smart Delivery)
• Gears 5 (Xbox Game Pass + Smart Delivery)
• Gears Tactics (Xbox Game Pass + Smart Delivery)
• Grounded (Xbox Game Pass + Smart Delivery)
• King Oddball (Smart Delivery)
• Maneater (Smart Delivery)
• Manifold Garden (Smart Delivery)
• NBA 2K21
• Observer: System Redux
• Ori and the Will of the Wisps (Xbox Game Pass + Smart Delivery)
• Planet Coaster (Smart Delivery)
• Sea of Thieves (Xbox Game Pass + Smart Delivery)
• Tetris Effect: Connected (Xbox Game Pass + Smart Delivery)
• The Touryst (Xbox Game Pass + Smart Delivery)
• War Thunder (Smart Delivery)
• Warhammer: Chaosbane Slayer Edition
• Watch Dogs: Legion (Smart Delivery)
• WRC 9 FIA World Rally Championship (Smart Delivery)
• Yakuza: Like a Dragon (Smart Delivery)
• Yes, Your Grace (Smart Delivery)

MCC enhancements aren't at launch, it's on November 17th so that's why it wasn't in the original list.

That said, I think it's likely there'll be an event close to the Series X launch. We pretty much know nothing about after Gears Tactics apart from some Series X/S enhancements for XB1 games.

@Grumblevolcano

Most of those were already known, which is why I'm assuming it was a different event. They had the announcement about the new enhancements to backcompat stuff on SeriesS/X, including the 60fps patch for some Xbox One games. So I was assuming we'd hear more about that. Like which Xbox One games are gonna get 60fps upgrades? But maybe that's something we hear about at some point over the next year instead.

@NEStalgia zipper does seem ready to beat you down if you touch his costume. From Soft games are scary because you don’t want to forfeit your progress. Not due to character design. Granted horror tropes merely annoy me so take that with some salt. That is the only thing I hate about my bday month. All the movies are boring (well...back when I watched movies regularly) ... I have not quite succumbed to my mom’s hobby of watching Chinese fantasy love dramas though. (The irony makes me laugh though).

So hyped for new Yakuza!!! This will be my first xbox title in the series. I figure series soft reboot needs a hardware change. Getting the xbone version of course.

If they do have a wide range of 60fps patches for current gen games (that previously only ran at 30, or at least sub 60), which games would people be most interested to play at a higher framerate?

The games I'd really enjoy replaying at higher framerate are:

-Witcher 3 (already being developed by CDPR)
-Sekiro
-Dark Souls 3
-FFXV
-Red Dead 2
-Spyro Remastered Trilogy
-FF7 Remake (assuming it's coming to Xbox)

(and of course Gears 5 and Forza Horizon 4 which are already confirmed)

@Dezzy Wait, Spyro wasn't already 60fps on home consoles? I kinda forget how bad a lot of multiplats ran on the so-called "power consoles."

@Ralizah

Nope, I deliberately checked. Even on Xbox One X it was still 30fps. The game ran pretty much flawlessly at 30fps though so it's not that noticeable.

Yeah that'd be good. I haven't played Skyrim since the time I did nothing else for an entire week, back when it launched.
This might tempt me to go back for a 2nd go.

@NEStalgia Sorry for taking so long to reply. I'm going to talk about third parties first. My bet is that Series X will get the best version of multiplatform games during the whole generation. However, developers will target the common features and even target PC. This means that if PS5 has a rare hardware feature it won't be used and if Series X has a rare hardware feature it won't be used either. The reason why games will run better on Series X is because it has a more powerful CPU, GPU and faster GPU memory.

Secondly, first-party games will run great on Series X and PS5 (well, depending on the studio) but none of these cross-gen games will make the most of the new consoles, e.g., Gears 5 free remaster and Spider-Man Miles Morales Deluxe cross-gen spin-off PS4 next-gen DLC 😂. In November, we'll see how multiplatform games run on each console (I agree, DF is perfect for benchmarks) and I say that they'll run and/or look better on Series X but it's going to take a while before we see a first or third-party game that looks truly next-gen. I'm more excited about better performance, loading times and latency at the moment and when Fable finally comes, heck, wonderful.

https://www.purexbox.com/news/2020/10/gears_5s_input_latency_...

I think that, right now, there are more reasons to get a Series X because of the better value of Game Pass, free remasters and full backwards compatibility. I mean, Xbox is just better value. Once the next-gen games come and each console gets its own exclusives, it's going to become more of a subjective thing as it has always been, such as Halo or Spider-Man? Fable or Horizon? Forza or Gran Turismo? And so on. I like some Sony games (Wipeout, Ratchet & Clank and even Knack II) but, generally, I prefer Xbox games because of what we have discussed many times, Xbox games, just like Nintendo games, are more "gamey" than Sony's blockbusters.

@Dezzy It's not just one person but I don't want to discuss that any longer.

@DarthNocturnal
Fallout 4 upgrade is confirmed. 60 fps.

Hopefully the same will apply to most games that have PC ports. Given that they nearly always target 60fps, you'd assume they all used frametime-independent approaches to their game systems, so they can share assets between all platforms.
I'm sure a few are more clumsily designed too though.