Topic: The everything Xbox thread

Fun BC sale going on now. Lots of fun classics for $5 or so digitally including lots of Sonic games. $10 for Generations. Jet Set Radio for $5, can't beat that!

@NEStalgia Such great value. Better versions (resolution and performance at least) of classics all together on the same platform: Xbox One remasters like Okami HD plus Xbox 360 games plus Xbox 360 remakes of Sega consoles games plus original Xbox games...

I was playing Halo1 in the MCC yesterday. Three things truck me. First the HD update is simply astounding, it looks and feels like a whole different game, even though the texture toggle shows you you're in exactly the same space, the graphics massively change the feeling, though I do miss that enemies always gave themselves away with that ugly green glow around them before And there are spots that the old mood really fit better. The exterior of the buildings looked like ruins before, now they look well maintained. And the interior of the ancient buildings were dark, endless, oninous before, now they're vaguely beautiful. I'm not sure how I feel about the mood shift, but darned if it isn't pretty.

The second thing is....wow, Halo 1 really wasn't a great game. The gameplay and theatrics of it made it revolutionary in its day. The gunplay is fun and addictive. But the level design was in most chapters, literally, the same 3 rooms repeating over and over, for far too many iterations...it just feels like a maze of completing the same thing over and over.....and then backtracking again and again. Assault on the Control Room never ends....but most of it after the trench and bridge is just the same 2-3 room pattern in the complex over and over....by the end I just ran past the enemies and through the rooms, and I felt like I needed to punch something having to ascend the pyramid several times because the stupid tank and wraiths couldn't be touched most of the time but kept getting me. With The Library coming up I'm feeling less motivated to pick it up again today A decade and a half ago, this didn't seem as bad. Later Halos keep the theme of missions that are too long with repetition, but not to the extent of pure copy-pasta that Halo 1 used. I'd blame the limited RAM of OG X-BOX, but plenty of games managed large unique areas.

The third is: it's really annoying that you have to play the WHOLE chapter in co-op when chapters are so long like Assault on the Control Room.

@BlueOcean It's funny to say that my X1X is my current retro console. But it's true. PS4 left past PS behind so it's only new stuff and a handful of PS4 ports of PS1, PS2, PS3 games. Switch has tons of indie and a few 360 era games. But only the X1X has a library spanning back to the Genesis/Megadrive in such quantity I still love that technically X1 is the current Sega machine

@NEStalgia Two Betrayals is where copypaste is the most extreme, you'll understand what I mean when you get to it

@Grumblevolcano It's been so long I don't remember the details. I last played it when it launched on PC as the Anniversary Edition...what was that..... '03, '04 or something? I do remember the backtrack through the whole game if that's what you mean I remember both loving the memory of Halo 1, and just wanting it to be over when I was playing. I'm experiencing that again I actually skipped 2 (it was one of those Games for Windows games that required Vista before I had a Vista box, and I didn't have an OG X-BOX) so that will be a wholly new game for me which is awesome. I played ODST and 3 and loved both. I never bought 4 so that's also going to be fully new for me. I bought Reach...and never opened it So if they ever add that it's more new Halo! I'm not counting on 5 simply because I've heard the campaign is kind of meh, but I do own it.

@DarthNocturnal drags is an understatement. I never feel like I'm making progress, just repeating for the sake of doing so. The design was actually solid. As a shorter game it actually would be truly amazing. They got to roped into "make it have tons of playtime" by adding as much filler as possible by repeating things rather than making it short and sweet, but replayable. And the backtracking in the second half wouldn't be bad either if the sections themselves were short and sweet, as it would have momentum. It just feels awful when you've passed through the same room 3 times and then you get to it again....and again....and again, you're never sure if you're going the wrong way, if the game is glitching, or if they just bloated the game endlessly. It's silly filler design like excessive grinding in an RPG, and though it makes the game longer, I think a drawn out padded game of repeating areas is ultimately less fun than endlessly replaying a short game that moves at a fast clip. I knew they didn't suffer that problem in 3 and ODST, but it makes me look forward to 2 as well! (Well, ok 3 re-did the "Assault on the Control Room" as the ultimate send off ) Actually the repeating designs weren't a bad idea....it fits the feel of these colossal Lovecraftian superstructures as these endless redundant vaults. But seeing the same room 4 times was enough. I didn't need it 8, 10, 12 times to understand the scale.

Then I remember these guys went on to Destiny and it all makes sense

Actually Halo is still "new fangled" to me from Bungie. Anyone remember Myth and Marathon? Myth was IMO their best game.

@NEStalgia I already played Halo 1 on MCC before the X update. Are you saying that they upgraded the textures and it's not just a resolution bump? It's time for me to play 2 but I am curious about this because I thought the upgrade was 4K and HDR.

@BlueOcean You know, I'm not certain. I had taken a look around back months ago at the regular MCC, but then shelved it until the X update, so I don't clearly remember the before after. I think you're right that it was just a 4k/hdr bump. But I think it's more than "now renders in 4k" and actually includes 4k assets....so the textures are still sharper than before ("4k" being a fun filler word for "now with PC version textures" )

I've got my screenshots all confused though. I've seen the bad original ones then I see "new" textures in screens with gemoetry that looks simper and without the circuits and things glowing on the exterior of the buildings...something between OG and now....and then now where it looks like a modern game betrayed only by some simple geometry. I want to say the in between was the original PC release, but others have told me that was just the OG graphics still rendered higher.

@NEStalgia Well, the update was as big as the collection itself (update replacing the original file) so probably they upgraded everything that was possible and if they had higher resolutions assets they must have used them.

I am liking the new UI much better, is more traditional and cleaner for choosing games, etc.

Erase and download content here: Options & career, Settings, Gameplay, Installed games.

@NEStalgia Here's a couple of comparison videos of all versions across all Xboxes, that might clarify/help:

OG Xbox vs Xbox 360 version:

@NEStalgia As for Halo 2 on PC: that was already patched mere months after release, way back when. I had the patched version, and played that on my WinXP PC. Still have it installed on my current PC as well...

@ThanosReXXX oh, great, NOW you tell me! Where were you a decade ago? . At least it makes the hd remaster that much fresher

Where I was? Right here, on NLife, spending about two years lurking around in the shadows, deciding to register an account or not, which I ultimately did in 2012, after the world didn't end after all...

@NEStalgia

P.S.

Probably needless to say, but just in case: that patch was illegal as hell, of course. You could either install the "Vista version" of the game on your WinXP PC, and then apply the patch after, or simply download a complete, pre-patched version, and install that. I've tried out both, and they both worked perfectly fine.

@ThanosReXXX ooohh, i thought you meant ms came to their senses and patched out the requirement i did eventually get the visa box, mostly for Jade empire . But was kind of "over"halo at the time and never bothered (plus reviews of 2 were so so)

@NEStalgia Ha! Microsoft and patching a game that was completely intended to market the crap out of Windows Vista? That would have probably taken some very hot and nasty place freezing over...

This BC sale is pretty cool. Re-aquiring old classics like Dragon Age 1 & 2, Supreme Commander. Mirror's Edge 1 on the X is amazing....it looks basically equally good as Catalyst! But it's the Sega stuff that's amazing me. Sonic CD looks great, Sonic Adventure....ok it's still freaking weird. Jet Set Radio looks and sounds amazing.

Also after the annoyance of Assault on the Control Room and the pending Library, I detoured to Gears1...I'm really getting into it...solid cover system is lots of fun to play, and it handles coop better than Halo MCC IMO.

If I get Destiny 2 "full" with Forsaken I'd might as well get it on the X....base is free on PS4 but the addons required end up costing the same price as just buying it full anyway, and it for some reason looks a heck of a lot better on the X than the Pro....it should look better on Pro than it does. Not sure what happened there. Contrast is done entirely differently, much like with Nier Automata. Things that are dark shadows and moody environs at night on the X are fully lit on the Pro. I don't think that's a hardware difference, I think that's a Bungie fail.

@NEStalgia looks fine on my pro, now granted I don't have an X to compare side by side but have no complaints at all with how it looks. Would say get it on whichever one you have more friends playing it as it really is a social game. Also the ps4 has 1 year exclusivity with certain things, not much I think 1 or 2 strikes and some weapons but not too much. And yeah just the base is essentially a 15 - 20 hour demo at this point. Still not bad of a freebie imo and there is a good amount of content if you go for the $60 forsaken bundle legendary or whatever the hell they call it edition lol

@NEStalgia Nice to hear you're really getting into Gears. It has always been a favorite series for me personally, and the multiplayer and co-op is great. Try and find people online that want to play the alien waves co-ops with you, or the capture the flag games. Brilliant fun.

Kinda surprised you're considering Destiny 2, though, seeing as I've only seen you and a couple of others being rather negative about the series, or perhaps that was purely based upon the first game. Wouldn't be able to comment on that, since I never played the first, but I've had a great time playing the second game, both alone and in co-op with two friends, and I never had to buy any loot boxes or any other extra stuff, to finish the campaign, and to level up to a point where I can quite easily hold my own in online multiplayer.

As for why it looks so much better on the X, I'd say that's simply down to the superior hardware, and native 4K. Resolution will go quite a way in improving looks, vs the faux-4K of the Pro, and then there's the considerable jump in memory and processing power on top of that, making it possible to get more out of the upscaling/optimizing functions, such as frame rate and HDR, giving it a considerably wider range, in comparison to the Pro.

@DarthNocturnal I'm the same as you. Never cared much for MMO's and the like, and I only play online with friends or family, but that has never deterred me from thoroughly enjoying Destiny 2's campaign and side quests, so even as a non-MMO fan, I can still easily recommend this game to anyone. And the voice acting is pretty darn good as well.

@DarthNocturnal I've played close to almost 800 hours between D1 and 2, id say 80% of that was solo, with 1 or 2 friends or with in game matchmaking. While it is a "social" game there's plenty of fun to be had even playing by yourself.

@redd214 Couldn't agree more.