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]

[Madmya]

Am I old or was that xbox showcase boring as all shit?

I heard so many positive things spoken about it, maybe my twitter account is an echochamber.

Expedition 33 and Fable were really the only two that got me going.

Edit: Oh and Wuchang

[Rorschach]

I know I am too old. It's hard to get excited about games these days and harder still to finish one. The showcase was good from what I heard, definitely interested in Perfect Dark and Gears.

[pilonv1]

There's a new Fable coming?

[Mavy]

Compared to the summer Games showcase the Xbox one was sensational.

Definitely had more games that I was interested in. Just comes down to that.

Definitely find as I'm getting older it's harder to find things that I recognise as 'games'.

[Froggy]

I thought it was a pretty good line up, I'm dubious on how many will actually hit this year. I felt it was a clear line through the Xbox one support as nearly all the games were developed for Xbox X/S now and it showed.

[Madmya]

There's a new Fable coming?

What gets me most excited about it is that it's being developed by Playground Games.

[Madmya]

Even like Perfect Dark... it just doesn't look fun. Gears - yeah a new gears is coming, we already knew that was probably going to happen so nothing unexpected here. It's about emergence day, so it's a prequel, cool. No gameplay, just a video of Marcus and Dom which apparently triggered some feelings for people. I'm keen for a new Gears game, but this was just a lacklustre announcement to me.

[F for Fake]

LOL good lord. What a great time to be a gamer

[Froggy]

That character model is when a woke studio needs to update a character and that's their idea of strong female.

[unfnknblvbl]

Man, the new Doom doesn't excite me at all. I don't have time to learn and remember all these fiddly new game mechanics every time. Just give me a bunch of guns and even more monsters, dammit.

[Froggy]

I thought it looked alright but just a bit worried they've tried to make it too fast.

[unfnknblvbl]

I don't mind fast at all, it's the triple-jumping and wall grabbing with monster weak point nonsense that bugs me. Oh, and the weapon upgrades. What is this, Doom or DnD?

Whatever happened to that Quake reboot that was apparently happening?

[lestat]

Yeah, I have mixed feelings about the new doom, I enjoyed the last game but the rhythm mini game style of combat put a lot of people off, I think this one is going to follow the same mechanics. The setting is a bit weird, but we'll see. I was hoping to see a quake reboot too, not sure if that one is happening.

[unfnknblvbl]

They keep hunting at a new Quake game, but the series kinda feels like the red-haired stepchild of the iD Software family. Gimme some more Lovecraftian nonsense, please!