@JaxonH The first Gears of War is also available on PC. Got it installed myself. And it, and all other older Microsoft games can be played offline, either as a standard feature, or by applying a Steam patch or whatever other patch is available. Many of these older games will only be available by other means than the Windows store anyways, so they'll probably have all the necessary patches included.
@NEStalgia Halo 1 on PC was simply the normal version that was also on the Xbox, albeit in a slightly higher resolution. It looks nowhere near as good as the anniversary edition, which is basically a complete graphical overhaul.
'The console wars are like boobs: Sony and Microsoft fight over which ones look the nicest and Nintendo's are the most fun to play with.'
@ThanosReXXX the pc version definitely had enhancements to at least textures iirc. Anniversary on x looks to me better than i remembered from pc for sure, but I'm pretty sure pc was more than og xbox at higher res. Xb textures looked awful at any res
@JaxonH Both Gears 1 and Halo 1 & 2 have normal controller support. Don't know about the other games, but it seems quite likely that these also have controller support.
@NEStalgia not so much texture enhancement as it was taking full advantage of what was there, but compared to the anniversary edition, that was just a drop in a bucket. It was simply the same game, but at a higher resolution, whereas the OG Xbox version was somewhat downgraded (in comparison).
The anniversary edition however, had completely new assets and textures, so that was an entirely different beast, and not the least bit comparable, other than also being the same game in story and gameplay.
The original two games look just fine on Xbox 360, though. Could be that even on that console, it uses some kind of upscaling or cleaning up of textures, I don't know, but they look just fine to me.
@ThanosReXXX funny, when i loaded anniversary in mcc it looked like i remembered it in pc back, what, 15 years ago now? I guess octopath looks just like we remember Chrono trigger, too ; lol
@NEStalgia There is an option to play with the original graphics and music for both Halo 1 and Halo 2 in MCC. You can even mix it with Halo 1 (e.g. original graphics and remastered music) but not with Halo 2 likely because of music licensing issues.
For the campaigns Halo 2 anniversary was created specifically for MCC meanwhile the other games (Halo 1 anniversary, Halo 3, Halo 3 ODST, Halo 4) are the 360 versions. There isn't ODST Firefight or Reach though those may be added in the future. Note that Halo 3 ODST is DLC though it's a rather cheap price.
Cool, that's what I guessed. So basically Halo 2 and Halo 4 are the most graphically advanced?
I have started the Blizzard Mountain DLC for Forza Horizon 3, what a great expansion! Can’t wait to sink my teeth into Hot Wheels which is supposed to be even better
Btw. Blizzard Mountain should be on sale for half the price for another day or two, so hurry up and get it if you haven’t yet.
@Dezzy Not just 2 and 4, but all four games that were originally released on the Xbox 360. All (re)built with the same engine (a heavily modified version of the engine that Bungie used) and with all the newer, much higher quality assets that 343 Industries created.
But if you're going to compare these 4 games with each other, then I would say that 4 is the best looking of the bunch, mainly because of the team being more at home with the engine and the franchise, making it the most accomplished game so far, from the first four main games released.
@JoakimZ It's only up for another 20 hours, actually...
So, haven't got the Hot Wheels expansion yet, huh? Well, you're in for one wild ride. It's truly one of the most fun Forza expansions I've ever played. And the area is larger and more varied than you would expect. But I'll stop here: wouldn't want to spoil anything for you...
'The console wars are like boobs: Sony and Microsoft fight over which ones look the nicest and Nintendo's are the most fun to play with.'
@Dezzy 2 was remastered specifically for X1, so it's technically the "newest" of the collection. 1 was the 360 remaster but the textures are very good so it gets more mileage out of the 1. Where it gets let down are the low poly assets that give it away for the age it is, but overall, it looks great. 3 is probably the weakest of the bunch (I haven't launched ODST yet but I imagine it's the same since they were launched around the same time as companion games) since it's in that weird spot that it's too "new" to warrant a remaster, but old enough that it shows the cracks of its age. 4 I don't believe was remastered either but since it was such a late cycle X360 release I imagine it had textures and assets out of the box intended to go with X1 so it looks "right."
So, this months GwG games are a mixed bag. One of those months where the X360 games are vastly better than the X1 games.
X1: Assault Android Cactus (Indie party run&gun arena) ; Death Squared (another indie party type game, a puzzler that never really interested me on Switch either, but I'd get something like that on Switch before X1.) Very meh.
X360 Virtua Fighter: Final Showdown ; Splinter Cell: Conviction. Fairly old stuff. I gave Virtua Fighter a spin....pretty barebones. Just an arcade mode and all the versus modes, but darned if it isn't very very pretty and cool overall. More of a FG enthusiasts FG, so not too interesting mainstream, but it looks and plays great. Conviction, I have the disc still but won't turned down a digital copy. It was "ok", but easily the weakest entry in the whole Splinter Cell franchise. That was when they tried to make it go mainstream and turned Sam into more of a space marine to shoot everything in sight rather than the stealth roots of the series.
So a kind of ho-hum July. I know Sony's doing Heavy Rain this month along with throw-away "online melee action" Absolver....so the first is either a huge win or a big yawn depending on which side of radical opinions one has of David Cage, the most polarizing man in video gaming Though last month they had X-COM, BLOPS3, and Trials Fusion while MS had so-so games. Seems MS has a habit of so-so throwaway X1 freebies these days but good 360 games, while Sony's been relying on their deep bench of old exclusives to give high grade freebies while not spending much money on publishers to do it.
@NEStalgia You're forgetting Smite, which is still part of this month's offerings. I took a look at Virtua Fighter's downloads, because the game itself was so small, and strangely enough, downloads for individual characters are either just as big or even bigger than the main game itself, which seems crazy. All in all, if you download the entire bunch, you're looking at almost 30GB's... And quite a few dollars lighter in the process...
As for Sony's "glorious" offerings: I wouldn't be interested in the yawn fest quick time event that is Heavy Rain, even if people were willing to pay me to play it. This developer's incessant need of wanting their games to be these highly engrossing Hollywood-like movie experiences, has always annoyed me.
Of late, their games are getting better, but for me, Heavy Rain was a good example of how such aspirations can result in a rather unhinged experience. I never understood all the praise and high grades for it either, because it has numerous flaws, that are somehow disregarded. If this were a Microsoft or Nintendo game, grades would most surely have been quite different. I guess the awards are for the intent and the efforts...
And yes, I've actually tried it, on my friend's PS4. Wasn't going to bring one into my own house, obviously.
'The console wars are like boobs: Sony and Microsoft fight over which ones look the nicest and Nintendo's are the most fun to play with.'
@ThanosReXXX I'm still debating if a cash pack for an F2P really counts as a free game at all But either way that's really with the June batch.
Wow I didn't even look at VF DLC. That said it comes with a big roster. You've got to be hardcore into FG to feel the need to buy specific other characters. OTOH there's not too much of a single player game...just bot matches. I do fear that the publishers caught on and free games (and even Game Pass) are being used to push DLC more. I can't imagine why those characters are so huge though, even if they come with a stage.
As for Cage's games like I said, he's the most polarizing man in games....Heavy Rain never interested me. Beyond didn't either, but I played the first part of it when it was free a few months ago....it was actually more fun than I expected but the broken timeline was just....broken (the fact they had to fix it in the remaster with a "play it as intended" or "play it chronologically" option says a lot...though I opted for the original layout.) It was more interesting than I thought with serious timer based gameplay suspense....but it was also a QTE fest. I wouldn't pay money for it, but I feel like for free it was higher value than many free games. Detroit (haven't started it yet) but I was hooked at the first showing of it before I really understood the whole Cage thing. The whole Blade Runner environment mixed with a "choose your own adventure" dialog tree system was really appealing. We'll see once I play it (I have about 70 XBox games to get through first ) With Heavy Rain I think scores were inflated because it was so art house and advanced in presentation everyone ignored the fact that it had no gameplay. (Not that I don't think there's room for interactive movies as its own entertainment, I do. It's more like a Western graphic novel like Zero Escape, Psychopass, etc.)
I do also agree that Sony gets a pass on mediocrity in games for some unknown reason among critics. So does Nintendo, but not to the extent Sony does. I mentioned it before but in judged sports there's a trend that athletes with a reputation for not messing up don't get scrutinized and get away with minor errors, while athletes with a reputation for frequent errors always get scrutinized so all those same flaws are found and deducted. I think that's part of it. Sony has a reputation for so many high quality games they just get a pass assuming it's all high quality and no scrutiny. MS has a spotty history for games so everything they do is put under a microscope and criticized even if it's as good or better than Sony's output. Nintendo is Nintendo. Main franchises get that same pass as Sony. Minor franchises are held to the standard of the main franchises and ripped apart. Plus critic's in film and gaming loooove arthouse.....for some odd reason it makes them feel refined and culturally superior heaping praise on anything presenting itself as arthouse, probably in fear that if they critisize it it's because they don't understand it's intellectual merits, it can't possibly be simply flawed. (Babel is a terrible move. There, I said it. It's disjointed, broken, disorienting, and often incoherent. And it's the very kind of arthouse and the trend in arthouse presentation that was popular in creative circles right around when Cage was doing Heavy Rain. Even pretentiousness is just derivative in modern art entertainment. Heck then Sony even hired Gustavo Santaolalla..... Well, not hired.....it's Sony every recording artist ever already owes them their soul and spleen.... they just point the lawyer finger at where to go like the Ghost of Christmas Future.)
Still, may Sony remain dominant so XBox remains the quality underdog
@NEStalgia Ha, I never take movie critics seriously. They continue to pan, bash and burn every multi-million dollar earning movie into the ground, so you should think that by now, they ought to be "a bit" more informed on what people actually like, instead of trying to make them go see those heavy, dystopian Eastern European dramas that reflect on the futility of life and heavily lay on the guilt trip for us Westerners, so that we'll shamefully realize that we really aren't having such a bad life at all...
I go to the movies to be entertained, not to be tortured. If I want to see something heavy or emotional, then I'll watch it on my TV, so I can cry in the comfort of my own home, thank you...
@ThanosReXXX Ahh but they're so sophisticated and refined, that they realize that those popular films are just circuses for the peasant rabble, not true art to be admidred, interpereted, and deconstructed like the fine film they critique. Popular films are like hot dogs to make uncivilized people content at a bawdry sporting event, while their films are a refined merlot only the sophisticated, worldly, and intellectually accomplished could appreciate. But they do their best to bring such knowledge to the poor, feckless masses.
The Academy Awards are a 5 hour back patting session among which of the noble houses has demonstrated their erudite experience to the fullest (as well as who paid off the judges, and/or who did or didn't sleep with the producer.) And Cannes just takes it to a whole other level. Meanwhile said films still lose money for any of the "select theaters" showing them.
Your summary of the heavy dystopian dramas is poetry. Dare I say, arthouse? Bravo, good show (golf clap)
Meanwhile we look at E3 and it's starting to look like Cannes. Dystopian wasteland A, dystopian wasteland B, dystopian wasteland C (now with zombies), dystopian wasteland D (now without zombies and with unexplained romance stories that seem really out of context), and indie games clearly made by those same dystopian producers, all reminding us how fragile and hopeless we are, while video games originally appealed by making one feel stronger or more significant than they are. And "torture porn" as someone, maybe you, called it in another thread is becoming a thing.
Speaking of dystopian wastelands I fired up Recore......not exactly the modern wasteland game It's actually really cool. It has some issues...but I wasn't expecting a kind of action game like that...it's really cool actually.
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