Xbox (Series X - $750 and Series S - $500) - 10/11/20

[Peppermint Lounge]

Starfield. Quest bugs are pissing me off now. One of the hardest-hitting story quests bugged out so spectacularly/comically for me it made a mockery of what should've been one of the game’s biggest story beats. Game could not proceed and I had to write off two hours for the most recent save prior to undertaking the quest.

[unfnknblvbl]

So who's getting Forza Motorsport early?

[Madmya]

Man, I'm tempted. But I shall hold off.

Unless you need the premium version to get the additional tracks...?

[flipswitch]

Slightly OT, I have seen much of Lestat of late but do occasionally see him on Steam. Is he okay?

The Forza reboot looks interesting. I know it’s been awhile, so hoping it turns out to be successful and great opportunity for gamers to try it on Game Pass.

From the DF previews we’re getting locked 60fps ( and 30fps in fidelity mode) which is what I like about it. They have always managed to hit it no matter the hardware .

I think I read the PC version has an additional high res texture pack.

[unfnknblvbl]

Forza Motorsport first impressions:

I went with the 30fps high fidelity visuals mode first just to see. Even at 30fps it looks gorgeous.

Interesting selection of cars, much more so than FM7 and FH3 (which was the last one I played). Still a few too many effective duplicates of some cars. At least Toyota is reasonably well represented again at least. I can't imagine a racing game without my beloved MR2!
But... The Lotus lineup is severely thinned. That's pretty strange for a company with such a tanning and engineering pedigree, but the unforgivable sin is that Lancia is not represented at all. Seriously, the makers of some of the greatest racing cars ever made is not in a car racing game!
This better be fixed with some DLC, FFS.

Also, there's no Fiat, but who cares.

[unfnknblvbl]

Track selection feels limited. I kind of wish they'd release all the tracks ever as a DLC, even if they're not up to current visual standards. But I guess they'd still have to update a whole bunch of metadata in them, so I can see why not.

Even still, no Mount Panorama, and no Nurburgring from what I can see. That's pretty poor.

I'm terms of car handling, I took an MR2 around Maple Valley, and it feels a lot closer to reality than FM7 did. I'll dust off my wheel on the weekend and see how it feels with no assists.

[pilonv1]

Wondering if it's worth the $50 to get the premium edition add on to the gamepass version or just stick with standard. $50 for a bunch of cars seems like a rip off, would be nice if there was something extra other than getting it 5 days early

[unfnknblvbl]

Ehhhhh it includes Car Pass, which is something I used to buy separately all the time anyway.

I don't dig the RPGification of car upgrades. But I do dig the way you're now rewarded for clean driving and the way you can choose where in the field you start. Even for a driving god like me (lolol) starting from right at the back is quite the challenge.

[unfnknblvbl]

There a rather "excellent" bug in the launch code where the game freezes when applying upgrades. The only solution is to quit the game entirely, but then it doesn't save the fact that you finished the previous race.

...but it seems to let you keep your car & driver level increases.
It's actually really annoying, I'm sick of Suzuka East, ffs.

[pilonv1]

Sounds like I'll give this a few weeks to get sorted out then

[Peppermint Lounge]