VideoGame_Discussion

The X has become my main console. My PS5 had the network card crap out shortly after going out of warranty. Ethernet is completely dead, and wifi drops constantly. Its impossible to stay connected to PSN, and while playing a game you get a million messages about the connection. And both the controller batteries are completely shot. One only lasts around 20 minutes, while the other about an hour. So instead of spending $70 per controller to replace them. And Sony telling me it could cost upwards of $150 for them to fix the console (with shipping both ways), I decided to just make a permanent jump this gen to Xbox. I'll let the PS5 sit until prices on controllers come way down.

Upcoming GP additions

June 22

Need for Speed Unbound (Cloud, PC and Xbox Series X|S)
The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales (Console and PC)

June 27

Bramble: The Mountain King (Cloud, Console, and PC)
FIST: Forged In Shadow Torch (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S)

June 29

Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town (Console and PC)

July 3

Arcade Paradise (Console and PC)

July 5

Sword and Fairy: Together Forever (Console and PC)

Has anyone played the Last Case of Benedict Fox? That looked great but I just haven't started it up yet.

The XSX is still my main console, but I've really only been playing Halo Infinite and Fall Guys with my brothers. I do some of the rewards quests to get points, but most of gaming time has gone into Tears of the Kingdom. I wish Yuzu was ported to UWP so I could emulate the Switch on the Series X. Every once in a while I'll see a video on TotK and clearly they're running on an emulator hitting 60fps and have mods making the game look much better.

As far as new games go, I've recently decided that I need to play through a good amount of my backlog before buying anything new. I sold off my Steam Deck just to discourage me from buying more PC games until I can get through what I've got on Xbox and Switch.

You can just PM bill to re open topics instead of making a new one.

Anxiouz wrote:

I was excited about that one but heard plenty of complaints about it when it launched from meh gameplay (can't be fixed really) to bugs and such (which could be patched). I've been waiting to start it b/c of the bugs and haven't seen any updates to it yet unfortunately. So I played Tinykin and Somerville both before LCoBF and really like Tinykin, Somerville was alright.

Counter question, has anyone been playing Hi-Fi Rush? I have and it's pretty enjoyable. I'm only hitting on the beat around 60% of the time and really stink at the forced parry bits and don't really parry in battle, but the atmosphere, story and art style are solid and the music is generally great.

I really like Hi-Fi Rush but am not great at it. I lowered the difficulty so I could be less precise and that helped make it more fun. I dig the style and humor too but I'm not too far into it.

I’ve been playing Hi-Fi Rush a bit here and there. I think I’m on level 6? I like the story, but parts of the gameplay have annoyed me (particularly the part where an insta-kill heat wall chases you, and you have to use one of those partner assist moves without messing up the timing to survive). I got past that part but it killed some of my interest. I’ll play the rest eventually but over the long-term. The next Game Pass game I’ll probably check out is Exoprimal.

Slickriven wrote:

@Bleed_DukeBlue I think that I recently got past that same chase scene, though maybe there are more than 1. I have beat 2 main bosses for their security keys. I'm now stuck essentially at this one security area fight against a bot that will parry any of my attacks until he enters one of the forced parry sections by me. He hits like 6 times in very quick succession and after a handful of times failures such that Chai has died twice, I'm getting frustrated. Thanks to quick resume I've just paused the game and walked away twice, but it's annoying and halted my overall progress.

As for GP titles, I think I'm finally done with Horizon 5 as I've completed so much and the weekly things have become boring. So that's good, it's time to move on. I'm feeling like I want to try to get back in to Chained Echoes or Eastward next, as I started them both but didn't drive too deep yet. The soon to be released Bramble also looks cool.

Anyone else play Ravenlock on GP? I really liked that one. I couldn't get into Hi-Fi though.

They just announced a price increase for GP.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and Game Pass for Console pricing will increase starting July 6th. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate will move from $14.99 per month to $16.99. The base Xbox Game Pass for Console pricing will also move from $9.99 a month up to $10.99. Microsoft is not changing PC Game Pass pricing, though. If you’re an existing Game Pass monthly subscriber, then these new recurring prices won’t take effect until August 13th. New Xbox Game Pass members will see the new prices immediately on July 6th. If you’re subscribed to Xbox Game Pass through a yearly code, the new pricing won’t take effect until you go to renew your subscription.

Time to get 3 years now at the cheaper price if you are not stocked up already.

I wonder if they'll change the point cost of auto redeem on Xbox Rewards

Was just reading this article too. I think a price increase is long overdue given the amount of titles in there and ongoing new releases dropping day one. It’s not too bad though increasing only a couple of dollars a month.

SwiftJAB wrote:

I'm sure they will. But I'd imagine not until the September redemption.

It's interesting that they raised the price now, since I just saw headlines that they wouldn't raise it after the Activision-Blizzard acquisition, regardless of if that got approved or not. Oh well, for the price, it's still a solid deal, even if the game selection has tailed off the last 6-10 months, but I think that less a case of bad GP, but less top notch games to even add, especially newer releases.

I just realized this puts a year of GPU over $200. I wonder if Sony will raise the price of PS+ Premium now? As that is only $120 a year. Which was $50 less than GPU before. Now its $80.

Honestly, I have both PS+ and GamePass. I've barely used them so to me, it's not worth it.

I hope they wouldn't raise PS+ Premium. They're not giving us the latest new releases the way GamePass does. I feel it's just barely worth the price as it currently is.

RE: Hi-Fi Rush - Well I got past that Samurai bot where you have to parry like 6+ times to beat him, I even got him on the first try this play session. Then I progressed and faced a 2nd instance of that bot and got the parry right on the first or maybe second time. But some of the lasers that do the same thing nearly killed me. Also had 2 interactive things where you need to hit like 8+ buttons in a QTE and wow did I stink at those... but at least you can keep trying without other negatives like losing health, because after all of that progress I faced a 3rd Samurai bot with his 6+ parries required and by failing to parry, he killed me... So I took a break.
Thank goodness for Quick Resume as I really like quick pick/put down games/sessions like that. So I put in 20-30 mins and feel like I made some progress by triggering 2 of 3 nodes that I need to 'fix' - not major progress, but it's something.
I do enjoy the music, quirky story and bright vibrant graphics, but I'm bad with beat timing even though I can tap my foot in sequence. I get too engaged I guess and tend towards more button mashing vs. keeping rhythm, eh I will stick with it but will curse those parry and QTE sections every time.

GP has been great for me as I got around 2.5 years with the first $1 Gold to GP conversion 'trick' and then used that again for 3 full years with the trick costing $15 the 2nd time.
Since I signed up at some point in '19 I've beat ~85 games via the service, with most being on the XSX, but with my X1X still hooked up on a different TV I beat a fair amount on there too, plus a dozen or so for the , and PC.
I've also played a decent amount of others that by trying out I learned I disliked and dropped, plus many that I have an active save in and simply haven't completed yet.

That said, if the Gold to GP trick isn't available when I need it again, I may not keep paying for it, not at $17/month. The unknown timed access to non-M$ internal titles has left me prioritizing those and largely ignoring M$-GP games, but also my sizable owned collection of digital games on the platform. So if I stop paying for it, I could refocus more on the games I already purchased and have neglected. And heck other systems that get less attention as well.

I loved Hi-Fi rush oh so much. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Sony follows suit and raises the price of PS+ tiers cause reasons.

After finishing Hi-Fi Rush last night and really enjoying it, outside of the dumb QTEs and Macaron's wall breaking interaction, I started Ravenlock... And yeah it's meh so far.
@Archer you said you liked it and it's not horrible but felt bog standard fetch questing with combat where you can hammer the attack button really fast. I'll likely stick with it since it's only like 4hrs long according to HL2B and the music is nice, but it feels rather basic. I only put around 40 mins in and the opening section at your new house was a bore, after doing the combat training and being able to run helped. If I would've been stuck with her initial walking pace the whole time, I don't think I would've kept playing.

If someone were interested in getting into the Yakuza series, more specifically limited to the 8 that are available on the X1/Series, which would be best to start with? 0, Kiwami, Like a Dragon?
Note the offerings are 0, 3, 4, 5, 6, Kiwami 1&2, LaD.
Thanks

Go with Yakuza 0. That’s the origin story and showcases why certain characters, especially Goro Majima, are the way they are in the other Yakuza titles. 0 is one of my faves too next to Kiwami 2, another excellent entry.

Just FYI, the 1:1 on Live to GPU conversion days are now officially over. It now converts at a 3:2 ratio. So you still save money, just no where near as much. They said this was going to be fixed over a year ago. But it was just actually fixed the other day. So you can no longer get 3 years of Live and convert for one month for 3 years of GPU. It will now turn 3 years of Live into 2 years of GPU.

Thanks for the info @Archer

I got a year of Live last weekend and it was turned into 4 months of GPU. I was already a GPU subscriber until April, but that extended it to August. Would I have to have not been a GPU subscriber to get the 3:2 conversion?

Yeah, non GPU subscribers get a better conversion rate than existing subs

Yep the 'trick' only works/ed for non Live subs. When I got it the 2nd time, I let my Live lapse by about 2 days then bought 3 years of Live, applied that to my acct and then bought GP for ~$15 and ended up with 37 months access to GP.

That stinks. At least I extended what I have, I guess. I’m going to need to find a cheaper way to maintain it than $15 a month when it comes due next time. I don’t use it enough for that price.

Depending on how much one can acquire 3 years worth of Live Gold for, it's still not that bad. Using enaba and purchasing from a foreign country I got 3 years for around $42 each last time I tried. So that would convert to 25 months of GP for around $144 which is only around $6/month.

3 years for $42 or each year was $42? My 1 year of Live equaled 4 months of GPU, so 3 years would be 12 months of GPU. I’m all for making this as cheap as possible, but that math doesn’t seem to add up.

Happy 14th year!

That price of $42 would have been per year of live. So x3 that price.

You have to let your current sub completely expire. Even wait a full day just to be sure. Then buy 3 years of live. Even at full price that is $180 for 3 years. A year of GPU is just over $200. Those three years at $180 will then be converted to 2 full years of GPU after you add them and buy 1 month of GPU. So you spend $197.99 (at full price) to get 2 years of GPU. Where as a full year of GPU is $215.88. You end up saving $233.77.

The year of live you bought didn't convert at the best rate because you were currently sub to GPU already. So it did $ cost conversion.

1. Let all subscriptions be expired, no gp, no pc gp, no gpu, no live.
2. Buy 3 years of live, add it to account.
3. Buy 1 month GPU after adding live. It converts live to GPU. Not at 3 full years, but at 2 years.

There is also the Microsoft Rewards points option as well. You can earn enough points to continually pay for a month of GPU with only spending ~10 minutes a day doing stupid crap to earn points. Like doing bing searches. Clicking on tiles to earn points, and just playing a GP game on xbox.

@Slickriven congrats on the 14 years.

Thanks @BucketofJustice and @Archer - I made an excellent choice 14 years ago today it seems, glad to be a part of this community.

Nice work explaining it Archer, that's 100% how I did it last year to get the current subscription situation I'm in. Yeah $42 was per year Bucket, that's why I said it cost me $144, as $42x3=126, then you need to buy 1 month of GP and it'll convert any existing Live months you have to GP. Used to be 1:1 rate, is now 3:2.

Yep that's a good point Archer too on the M$ Rewards path. I search daily on Bing using Edge browser on my PC, do the 3x daily things, playing GP games and earning achievements in them, plus the Xbox things and using the Xbox app and playing a level of Jewel nets me well over 400 points/day for a few mins of effort and I'm up around 235k points right now (haven't redeemed in a good while). Then to redeem for 3 months, it's 35k points, which via quick math you'd need to average earning 390 points/day to keep buying, so my 400+ has me covered... if I went that route.
I tend to buy Xbox GCs instead and purchase games and DLC with those points.

I have a free one month trial of GamePass on PC that came with my PC when I bought it in September 2021. Is there a way I can browse what is currently available to play without having to activate the trial first? I'm obviously not in a hurry to use it if I've already waited this long, especially since I just bought a few more games from the current Steam sale yesterday adding to my backlog even more, but if there's 2 or 3 titles on there I feel I need to play and can't do it elsewhere, I will check it out.

@PizzaTheHutt That code is probably expired now. You might want to check the card it came on. Most of the time those expire after one year.

But you can see a list here:
https://www.trueachievements.com/pc-game-pass/game...

Archer wrote:


It tells me every time I start the Xbox app thingy in Windows that I have a trial and asks if I want to use it. I used the offer last year for 3 months for $1 or something like that, so I thought that would override the trial that came with the PC but I'll test it out maybe this weekend because I do see a couple of games I already have in my wishlist on consoles so I'll check them out on GamePass and see if they're worth buying.

I appreciate the breakdown and explanation. Thank you! We’ll see if it still works that way in a year I guess haha

I really think I’m only going to re-up on GamePass when I’m ready to tackle Starfield and still paying like $18 for a month for GPU now or $11 for GP to hit and quit it is better than the $70 price tag for buying it outright.

Wow, I'm shocked. I got a refund for a digital game. I bought a game on the 7th. Downloaded it. Just booted it up for the first time. Hated it. It was also super broken. Requested a refund. It was approved within 5 minutes. I didn't know it was so easy to get refunds on xbox. Its damn near impossible with Playstation. I've tried to get a few games refunded by them. It was a long processes that required phone calls. And I only ever got one refunded. The others were denied.

Looks like they won the AVB merger case?

Feeb wrote:

And the CMA caved and backtracked as well. So the deal is completed.

I honestly don't think there is one series/Game from AB I even care about.

I’ve Inarguably put more hours into series / games under that umbrella than any other. 15 years ago it was all I was into. Diablo is about all I still play.

Diablo is the only one from them that I play. At least in the last decade or more.

(obviously Sekiro doesn't count since they had fudge all to do with development)

Just wondering how long MS will take to mess this up? They can’t manage what they have… I am sure it will end well.

CoD will be even more rushed out and bad, like all the other recent big Xbox releases.

Maybe Sony can bring back Socom then

We are also in an era of GP hikes… the current one will not be the last.

benstylus wrote:

Would love that, playing that was probably the most fun I had In a military shooter. Honourable mentions would be COD WW2 and the first Rainbow 6.

This is pretty lame: https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2023/07/17/xbox-game-p...

They’re getting rid of the Game with Gold games entirely and just giving access to 25 games that rotate in and out 2-3 times a year.

I actually think in some ways @Bleed_DukeBlue the new GP-Core is better. Being fully honest, there hasn't been an even remotely decent game offered from GwG in the last... 18 months, maybe longer. This way, if you're not a GP sub, you get those 25 games and they listed nearly 20 so far. Those listed included Halo 5, Gears 5, Psychonauts 2, Doom Eternal, Forza Horizon 4, Fallout 4 & 76 - so pretty solid Xbox exclusives and not even comparable to the crap GwG offerings of late. Sure they're not cutting edge newer releases, but Core is really the rebranded Gold, and older titles makes sense. I mean they're not going to lose potential sales of newer releases and at this point very few folks are going out and buying titles in that set.
The interesting thing is the GP-Console offering since it doesn't allow/support online multiplayer and doesn't allow you access to already acquired GwG X1/Series games. So it's GP console only and no 'Gold' like perks, which with the CoD games now likely coming to the service eventually, that rather stinks for the scores of folks who play CoD for MP only/primarily - they'd be missing out on the online party with that tier.

I’m always subscribed to GPU, so the 25 games are ones I would have already had access to. Also, it was nice having some games that don’t have a clock on them as long as you’re subscribed. It’s a net loss for me all around.

Slickriven wrote:

Bleed_DukeBlue wrote:

Yeah I've always been a GPU sub, since the Gold to GP conversion trick gives you Ultimate. I guess that from my Gold days, ever since GP became a thing, those GwG offerings just went to total junk. Plus beside the always keep 360 games, a failure of the 360's store really, you only can keep access to GwG for the time that you're subscribing, so they're timed in their own way. I also get the feeling that of the 25, the near 20 they already announced will very likely remain for many years at that tier, especially if they're only looking to adjust the game set 2-3 times per year.

Anyhow, it's just speculation for now. But I also think it will likely put a nail in the Gold (now Core) to Ultimate conversion trick, or it will stay at that 3-2 conversion rate I suppose.

I can't remember the last time GwG even had a decent game on offer. I couldn't care less its being removed. Its been pretty crap since they removed offering 360 games. And it wasn't that great leading up to that either.

I'm more in line with @Slickriven on this. This really only seems to be a slight blow to GPU subs, but as mentioned, the offerings on GwG have been mediocre at best for quite some time now. That being said, the writing is on the wall here now that the acquisition is moving forward. $67B is no small number and Microsoft is going to start making more and more moves to recoup those costs as quickly as possible.

I just hope that they don't end up screwing up things. I also hope that they can undo some of the terrible decisions that Activision Blizzard have made recently.

Next set of games leaving GP are:
The Ascent
Marvel Avengers
Dreamscaper
Two Point Hospital

I wanted to get into The Ascent and tried it over a year ago. It was alright but a decent amount of reading, it didn't hook me so I didn't play it for like 9 months and when I went back to it, I felt lost. Am thinking I'll just have to walk away from this one.

I did try Dreamscaper and it was decent too but I saw it was a longer title and then didn't end up playing it much.

The Ascent was more fun if you have a buddy to run thru it with I thought.

This new dashboard is fudging terrible. Its just ads. Based on user feedback my ass. The dashboard is now just the store app and the gamepass app all in your face. I hate it so much. They also removed our ability to customize it. And that pisses me off even more. Because I had a very clean and nice minimalist setup with everything removed. And the only things I needed right in front of me. Now its a mess and I can't change anything about it. Really pisses me off.

Surely you can pay to make it go away?🥶

Well all that care about is selling Gamepass, and you sell it by ads targeted towards people who already have it, clearly.

Kommie wrote:

Yeah, this update gives the impression its whole goal is to try and drive more digital game sales. And to try and get people who may not be subbed to GP to do so.

I don't know why none of the console makers can make a system UI or a store UI that is worth a crap.

The last halfway decent storefront was the old PS3 store (before they modernized it and made it run on Java or something and it became super slow).

But PS3's system UI was absolutely terrible for digital games. Sort by creation date or last played date. Just not alphabetical.

OK. Microsoft has officially gone too far with the special edition controllers. This one is "pizza-scented":

https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/24/23805501/micros...

Weird. Can't wait to see someone unbox one of these in 30 years to see if it still smells like pizza

Anyone try that Antsream retro game service? It’s $30 a year or $80 for a lifetime subscription. I’m curious about it, but I don’t want to spend the money if it sucks.

I was a bit curious about that @BucketofJustice but after reading some user reviews for the app/game on the console, I lost most of that interest. Some said the lag was terrible, others said the 1400 games promised was BS and way, way less. Seemed like a good bit of or that generation of games and that didn't seem to appeal to me. But if someone actually has real experience I'd be interested.

Slickriven wrote:

Try it on PC - I think they have a free ad supported tier.

Is that an option on Xbox or only the paid annual or lifetime tiers?

Xbox only has the paid version.

And you can see all the games they offer here (not a great selection in my opinion):
https://www.antstream.com/games

If you arr into c64, Amiga, and spectrum games it looks like a dream come true.

Decent selection of arcade games too.

I finally got updated to the new dashboard and %@#$ that - a few days ago I noticed it must've been preparing me for it as my normal like 8 groups of games added to the old style got reduced to just 2 and I couldn't add more. Then this new look is just crap. I don't mind the very top with my most recently used games/software which expanded and then the seemingly standard 3x ads really. But below that is terrible.

Promoting recently added is fine, but they're bigger tiles than anything I actually want to see and they won't change often enough to make them always the first thing you have to scroll past. Then came my 2 optionally added groups which was nice, but after that were 13!!! sections that I don't give a crap about.
Friends & Community was first and meh, I play 99% of the time solo.
Coming to GP was next and that's much like recently added - nice to know, but doesn't need to be that high up also barely will change
Most Popular on GP is next and again I don't care what other's play
EA Play thing was next - this is meh, I already knew what EAplay games were available and had a group of those games before this
Top Entertainment is next and I NEVER use my system for Netflix/Youtube/streaming/etc
Then 8 more categories that thankfully I won't really have to dive down to look at b/c they're useless IMO. But what a cluster-F. I don't care about 80% of that and forcing it on the main screen, even at the bottom is crummy. Then the total lack of customization beyond adding a paltry 2 things that we actually want is THE WORST. I also confirmed that 2 is all we flipping get.

I want to complain about this to them, does anyone know where we can do that? Flarking pissed about this.

Ive heard horror stories of buying used or "refurbished" consoles at Gamestop. I wanted to buy a NEW Xbox X before MS ups the price like they said they would.
Anyone have any experiences? I have a buttload of GS Credit and lots of points to reward for certificates, so i'd prefer to buy from GS, but they never have new consoles in stock.
Dell has new consoles for $429 and then $449 2 days ago and i slept on it and they're OOS now.
Any help and guidance would be appreciated, thanks guys.

Can't you buy a new system on their website using your credit? Or does it have to be in-person?

My local GS always have new series consoles. Check around.

Anxiouz wrote:

I have yet to find a new one in stock on their website

Simon_Belmont wrote:

Probably cause they want you to buy in store and get harassed to pre order something.