Topic: The everything Xbox thread

@DarthNocturnal I don't think it helps. The heating of the casing from playing and charging will have been a gradual process anyway so with earlier adopters experiencing it this summer, if the heatwave isn't making it worse you'll probably see more issues appear later on in the year. One thing's for sure, the fact save data backup doesn't exist until September makes all these Switch problems a lot worse.

If a XB1 breaks you can just buy a new one, login to your Gamertag, let that be your default XB1 and the only things lost are time (due to redownloading stuff) and money (due to buying a new system).

@DarthNocturnal Agreed on that. I let all of my old consoles run every once in a while, even if I don''t play them. With my Dreamcast, it's already nice enough to just look at it running in demo mode...

As for RROD: true, it was very common, all in first run Xbox 360'es, so it having a problem, is certainly something that it had in common with first run Switch'es...

But in all seriousness: for now, I wouldn't worry just yet, if I were you. Although more instances of it seem to be popping up all over the place, you also need to ask yourself, how much of those are honest in them having treated their Switch with the necessary care. Social media is a great outlet for sycophants and over-reactors of all walks of life and ages, so sometimes it's hard to filter out the ACTUAL cases from them.

This week in backcompat: Bought both Spec Ops The Line and Sonic Generations for under £5 each.

People raved about Spec Ops for ages. Always interested in playing an interesting shooter.

@Dezzy I also own Spec Ops, and as far as interesting stories in FPS games go, this is actually quite the interesting one. I bought it many years ago, for my Xbox 360, and I've also played it on PC. For the price you got it at, it's an absolute steal, and more than worth giving a go.

@NEStalgia So, I somehow forgot to tell you all about how I managed to do so well in Forza Horizon 3, and what my settings were. Must have been me being too busy following the Soccer World Championships (or any other excuse that makes me look totally innocent... ).

Anyway, booted up the ol' Xbox One S yesterday evening, also because I had to give my newly acquired Blizzard Mountain expansion a go, and as promised, I finally have that data for you:

The two cars I'm predominantly using (from the total of 21 that I've now collected) are the Subaru WRX STI and the Audi R8 V10 Plus.

Game settings are as follows:

Game difficulty - custom
Drivatar difficulty - average
Braking - assisted
Steering - normal
Traction control - on
Stability control - off
Shifting - automatic
Driving line - full
Damage & tire wear - cosmetic
Rewind - on

I'm currently thinking of switching on stability control, because my first run through Blizzard Mountain has been quite the eye-opener: it's a COMPLETELY different experience, and on the low visibility tracks especially, that full, visible racing line is most certainly a benefit, otherwise I would be crashing into all kinds of things...

But man, it is far more difficult than the original game or the Hot Wheels expansion. I'm slipping and sliding all across the tracks, just like I was playing this game for the first time. Arguably, this is also because I got handed another car to play in, which isn't tuned yet, and I remember having read on here or somewhere else that the snow tires are actually making things worse rather than better, so maybe I should give switching those off a try as well...

In any case, I still had fun with it, so it was definitely worth the purchase, especially at the discount price that it was available for now.

So, now you know how I did it, and what cars I used. Hope it does you some good. And a bit of good news: after you've unlocked the Hot Wheels expansion, you don't need to unlock any more festivals, to also be able to access the Blizzard Mountain area. I found out yesterday that I could simply travel there instantly, once the pack was installed.

So, just put in a couple more hours/evenings, get those stars, bonuses and stunts AND barn finds, and before you know it, you'll have opened your three festivals. Also look for locations where you can open them, on the map. And then just do races and stunts on the way to them, and you should have them soon enough.

If you feel you know how to manage power and car control, I'd say you could easily go through Blizzard Mountain without them, but I think it is a requirement for most races. Also, I've found it easier to just turn the AI difficulty all the way down to its lowest setting, as the AI will dominate these races somehow [unless it's one particular race similar to a true arcade racer, in which case they'll fail the jump and just get stuck there RIGHT BEFORE THE FINISH LINE! And I DVR'd that race as well so everyone can see].

@DarkRula Yeah, that's rubber-banding for 'ya...
But it also works in reverse, so if you're able to recover from any mistakes you make during a race, there's still a chance to win, even if you've fallen relatively far behind. This is only the case with Forza Horizon, though. No such shenanigans in Forza's main series, and that might also be what makes Horizon a bit more accessible for more gamers, especially those who aren't really into racing sims.

As for Blizzard Mountain: I've only done a couple of races and did some stunts/star earning objectives, so I do feel I need to put in quite a few more hours before being able to give it a final verdict, but the difference between driving there and on the other two maps was immediately and abundantly clear to me, so it'll take some getting used to, for sure.

@ThanosReXXX I found that turning the traction control off and stability control on helped me a lot on Blizzard Mountain, give it a try

@JoakimZ Funny you should say that: as mentioned in my earlier comment, that's exactly what I wanted to try, well, at least: turning on stability control. But I'll try the other option as well. Always good to share experiences and what works best, so thanks.

Forza Horizon 3 is likely the best open-world racer ever made but knowing that Forza Horizon 4 will be 60 fps on Xbox One X... Ohhh...

@BlueOcean Forza Horizon 3 actually also has a 60fps mode on Xbox One X. Most definitely agreed on it being the best open world racer to date, though.

FOLDERS!!!!!!!!!!1! Holy cow they did it, they freaking added folders!!!!! (Ahem, "groups"...)

As my digital collection grows, that's one thing that just on Friday started bugging me. I never cared about folders before, but a few weeks ago I took advantage of the PS4 folders feature and organized my whole catalog into genre folders, and discovered how truly wonderful it was to tame my games into several lists of like games rather than endless scrolling through the whole pile. And with this months free games and a few I bought on the sale (Yooka Laylee, Hat in Time) that don't really fit with the rest, it was starting to be a little bit of a nag making me like something about PS4's overall UI better for once....it was fine at first, I liked scrolling the big list with everything....but at some point there's one too many games that you lose track of what's in the list and it's a big wall of color. Just Friday night I was playing with the list sort thinking "well, I guess group by letter and group by last played is better than nothing, I'll try that." Just Saturday morning I was googling around for xbox one folders, hoping there was something I missed in the UI....nope just posts from 3 years ago about how people requested it but they never added it. Then I turn it on Saturday night and it keeps me from booting while it finishes running an update. I noticed the "my games & apps" menu is different after...."how annoying ", I thought, I liked one button to get to the games. Now there's this whole other panel with my pins to go through first. And then Sunday night I decided to check the "new for July update" page......GROUPS! Freaking GROUPS! I stayed up waaay too late sorting my games into groups, and it's so, so, so beautiful. 24 hours earlier I thought PS4's groups were one interface enhancement that make make it equal with or better than X1's interface. One day later, XBox has the far superior group system! It's a thing of beauty. The big groups list on the games & apps page. You can add groups as vertical pages on Home and you can pull them down in the guide menu for a beautiful array of micro tiles inside. It's the Windows 10 start menu that isn't. It's wonderful. And now, still better than the long left to right scroll of my RPGs list in PS4.

I feel special. 5 years of XBox One, and they wait until within 2 months of when I buy one, and wait literally to the day I finally get desperate and search for the feature to actually add the feature. (FYI, not sure if like PS4, X1 adds an icon for all your installed games from disc, but you can organize your disc installed games in groups too for a nice, from the couch way to browse your library!)

@ThanosReXXX Hmm, so you have braking assist on and I turned it off. Same steering. I can't remember how I have traction and stability control....but I bet I have them both off. Maybe that's why I'm spinning out like crazy! Part of me says I should turn it back on to get more control back, and part says I should just "git gud." It's a mixture of frustration and knowing I suck. And yeah I did notice F7 doesn't have the rubber banding like Horizon has. Strangely I do better in F7 than in Horizon but I think I have all the default assists on in there. Less crazy curves though, too since it's all built tracks. And I can bounce off other cars more often.

@NEStalgia being able to bounce of cars more often in main series Forza is simply a quite logical case of there being more cars to race against, since it's often a full racing grid, and not just twelve cars max, like in Forza Horizon.

As for settings: you should definitely switch traction control on. Stability control isn't necessary per sé in the main game and on the Hot Wheels tracks, but as someone else told me, it might be of great help in the snowy terrain of Blizzard Mountain.

As for "gitting gud", that's of later concern. First, "git" the points, festivals, and unlock the expansions, and then, once you've gotten good enough WITH these assists on, you can gradually switch them off, one by one, until you're in full, un-assisted mode, but at least get all the areas unlocked first, since it's simply easier that way. And the nice thing about switching things on one by one, is that you'll gradually also become much better in main series Forza, because besides the slight difference in rubber-banding and tracks vs open world, the mechanics are largely the same, so gitting gud in one series, is also beneficial for your achievements in the other.

Oh, and selecting certain cars for certain areas, might also help. Don't just select cars you might like or would want to have in your collection, really look at, and compare the numbers. Perhaps you should even try with one of the two cars I mentioned, just to test if you get on a bit better with those than with what you've been driving in so far...

P.S.

Man, I've never seen anyone being THAT excited over folders. Now, if you were a bookkeeper or an archivist, then I could understand, but as a gamer? A bunch of f-ing FOLDERS...
What is this world coming to? Madness, I tell you...

@NEStalgia Every console made by any of the big 3 (Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony) this decade except the Switch (maybe also the Vita?) now has folders.

3DS has folders, Wii U has folders, XB1 has folders, PS4 has folders, Switch doesn't have folders and is the system that needs them the most.

@Grumblevolcano Well it took Microsoft 5.5 years, so if Switch gets folders by E3 2023, they'll still be ahead of X1.

Not sure Switch needs it most though, given it's heavy physical games dominance and slot #1 being whatever game is in the drive. But it would still be nice considering Switch's UI is most similar to Sony's (terrible) UI.

(Edit: Without managing to be terrible at all.)

@ThanosReXXX So far I just have the cars picked when prompted (the M4, the Lamborghini SUV thingy (seriously, why is that even a thing), and the third of the three dune buggies they offer you...can't remember the model as I don't know much about buggy racing (I opened the outback festival before the city one.) )

Haha, well folders are exciting when you have a ton of games and you keep randomly trying all of them

@NEStalgia I guess... So far, I've done just fine with using the game thumbnails on the MyGames page.

@ThanosReXXX I liked the thumbnails until some magic point when I wished i could sort them differently (A Hat in Time up first, then a bunch of ACs, with Yooka last at the bottom just felt weird. I tend to think of games by genre more than alphabetical. And having Forza and Need for Speed separated by a bunch of RPGs and Just Cause also felt kind of weird. "Oh, a racing game...this one or....where in the list is the other one?"

I guess it's the old school game store thinking. These days you ask "where's the switch section"....back then you'd go to the racing/simulation shelf or the role playing shelf, or the action shelf, etc. Like Babbages when it was all PC.

Darksiders 3 coming out November 27th. Looks more akin to the first than the second from the trailer. Probably won't get it at launch but look forward to playing it eventually

@NEStalgia Well, I was already used to it, because of the arrangement of games on the Xbox 360, so I thought with you also being an Xbox 360 owner, that the move to selecting games on Xbox One would feel largely the same, other than them not being displayed in one, endless, horizontal line.

P.S.

That Lamborghini SUV thing sucks balls, especially on off-terrain parts, weirdly enough. Could be something with the settings, but seeing as I've managed quite decently with quite a few other cars, I've decided that it's the car's fault, so it's now permanently stored in my garage. And you don't have to stick to the cars that you're offered, well, except for in the barn find challenges, but other than that, you can use your in-game credits to buy better cars and upgrades. Don't use tokens, though: tokens are the game's micro-transaction currency.