Topic: The everything Xbox thread

Finally got round to playing the base campaign for Gears 5!

Excellent game overall. Easily one of the best xbox exclusives from last gen. Maybe only Forza Horizon 4 would be better in my opinion. (unless you count Halo MCC as an exclusive, in which case that's easily the best of the lot)

The major positives were the solid gunplay, interesting story, awesome environment design, and WAY better writing and dialogue than Gears 4. Also I really appreciate a shooter being 60fps.

The only real negatives were that I saw the major story twist (about Kait) from a mile off. Also, whilst the huge environments were really impressive from a technical perspective, and created an awesome spectacle, they never really felt in tune with the gameplay and story. They felt more like having huge environments just for the sake of it.

@Dezzy
Have you also played the expansion HiveBusters? That's a great add-on, only lasts about 3 hours but it's very fun

@Magonigal

Yeah, it was fairly good. Although I didn't really get why they made a short standalone campaign like that. It feels like they should've either done something that adds to the base game, or just created a new spinoff game instead.
I personally prefer DLC that adds to the main game. Gears 5 would've been such a good candidate for that as well, with the massive open areas.

@Dezzy

It's the characters from the Hivebusters multiplayer mode to introuduce them and maybe get you to try the multiplayer mode. I didn't really realise until i'd finished playing

Hm. I had been quite enjoying quick resume with Stardew Valley. But it seems now every time I turn on the Xbox, my game starts over. I have no idea what changed.

I only have 12gb left on the hard drive, since I was able to buy most of my disc games digitally thanks to the year end sales, maybe that somehow affects it?

@Eel

Yeah I haven't figured out exactly when quick resume works or not!

What I've heard about the 'smart upgrades' is they should do it all automatically, @DarthNocturnal .... So, if you're only installing games after they've been upgraded, it should do it all for you! Other sorts of 'updates' may be the ones that want doing separately? Maybe someone here knows more about the specific games

I know Microsoft always makes jokes about non-Xbox stuff when it comes to supporting the other console manufacturers but this just came right out of left field

Considering Microsoft and SEGA have things going on together with Yakuza launching on Series X and PSO2 being a timed exclusive....hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Ah, OK, I only know what they said generally, @DarthNocturnal.... Hopefully someone here has that game on Series X, so they can check details easier

@TheFrenchiestFry Persona 5 Dancing confirmed

But yeah, if Persona returns to Xbox it'll likely only be spinoffs like Strikers and Dancing (P4A came to 360).

I do think Steam will get more mainline stuff though.

@Grumblevolcano For some reason beyond explanation the Dancing games are weirdly still PlayStation-only like most of the main entries. There's no reason why they couldn't be multiplatform like Arena or Strikers, but they just are.

Pretty sure games get the logo placed on them even if the updates haven't been done to make them Series upgraded. When Squadrons got updated to be Series upgraded, the logo appeared on the icon, but I don't have automatic updates enabled. @DarthNocturnal Probably the console just got a bit confused after the transfer and thought it still needed to be updated.

So far Playstation have upgraded just as many previous gen games to the new consoles as Xbox has. I'm kinda disappointed by this, given how much emphasis Xbox put on being a backcompat machine.

Where are all these 60fps upgrades they hinted at? It's been 2 months.

@Dezzy Don't know about the PS side but the Xbox side so far has only been 2018-2020 for upgrades except MCC which arguably had a relaunch in September 2018 (abandoned 2015-2017 in a broken state and 2018 introduced Halo Insider which led to the "relaunch" update).

@Grumblevolcano

Yeah and that sucks, given how few good exclusives they had in that period!

Today MS did an excellent job of removing my burning desire to play PSO 2 New Genesis and lessen my enthusiasm for XSX in general. Asking $120/yr for accesss to online multiplayer is unacceptable. Don't get me wrong, I would still like to purchase an XSX at some point in time. But it appears that it'll be a platform of single player experiences only for me going forward.

Heaven forbid any of the MS first party games become Game Pass exclusive with no corresponding physical release.

@Magician The weird thing with what MS did is that the price for GamePass Ultimate didn't change just the base Gold price. Which makes no sense. If uping the price is to push more people to get GPU then why not just get rid of Gold by itself in its entirety rather the punish people who just want Gold.

@Tasuki

I think it's fair to assume a price hike for GPU isn't far behind. It won't stay at $15/month forever. Worse yet, this gives Sony and Nintendo an excuse to increase their annual memberships as well. I could envision Sony and Nintendo being more gentle with their increases, $70 for PSN and $25 for NSO respectively.

@Magician Quite possible. I am glad that I stocked up on GPU cards this Black Friday when they were selling 3 months for $20. 😄

Yep guess I won't be getting Gold again any time soon.

It's not like I need it to begin with, I don't play any multiplayer games anyway, but it does suck for people who do. It's a huge price increase.