X-BOX Megathread 2023

[FLiam]

5 hours ago, Daddy Magic JasonM said:

I saw some footage of Matchpoint and I wasn't certain if I liked it because it seemed like the players had a lot of 'warping into place' whenever they'd go hit the ball and it looked a bit hokey and unnatural.

Did you experience that playing the demo, or maybe I was mistaken seeing developmental footage?

I definitely hope it'll be good and as @Bobfoc mentioned also has a good meaty career mode. I currently mostly play Tennis Elbow 2013 on PC, but that game series has never been a looker and is ever the clunker in terms of looks (although I love the gameplay, still).

I would say it is a little rough around the edges. Not sure what version of the game the demo is. 

It definitely has potential though.

[Maxx]

On 21/06/2022 at 14:49, King Ellis said:

On that subject, anyone up for some Turtles at some point? @Maxx I'm looking in your direction. After all, we have such a strong history of online beat-em-ups, such as our excursion to Die.

Well, I tried it out and think there might be some gamebreaking bugs.  Got to Rocksteady at the end of stage two and midway through the fight he just wandered off screen and never came back.  Then after a restart, midway through stage 1, the game crashed completely.

[Bobfoc]

As Dusk Falls is apparently quite good. It's a decision-based game that doesn't bother with token puzzles and ambling around, instead just working like an interactive film. It's out tomorrow and will be on Game Pass.

[Bobfoc]

After playing the first two chapters of As Dusk Falls, I can give it a recommendation. It's nice to see a decision-based game that actually respects my time. If you click on something to interact with, you don't have to wait for your character to slowly trudge towards it. It just goes straight to the corresponding screen. There's no walking around and clicking on a character to hear them spout the same line of dialogue. People just say things when it's part of the story. Cutting out the superfluous efforts to mimic "normal" games is something all of these games should be doing.

As far as the writing goes, I'd give it the rather tainted "good for a game" distinction. You're never going to mistake it for an Emmy-winning drama, but it's definitely better than anything Dontnod or Quantic Dream have ever put out.

[tristy]

I will not tolerate Life Is Strange 1 slander around here, sir!

[Your Mom]

Was going to play As Dusk Falls right now but it turns out there is an update so I decided to try "Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion" and I am obsessed!  

[Ruki]

1 hour ago, Your Mom said:

Was going to play As Dusk Falls right now but it turns out there is an update so I decided to try "Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion" and I am obsessed!  

I played it earlier in the year, so much fun and so silly. Very short too, I think 2-4 hours maybe?

[Owen]

Road 96 is on Game Pass now, that's cool. I just bought it last month so... that's totally fine! Yay!

[apsham]

It's really fun too!

[Your Mom]

Yeah I bought Road 96 too and I'm not mad that I paid for it. Great game

[Bobfoc]

Two Point Campus is out today and is on Game Pass as well.

[Ruki]

Just trying to 3 star the first level... pretty similar to Two Point Hospital. Good for a few hours, but I don't see me diving too deep. 

[Bobfoc]

It's a shame you have to unlock the sandbox mode.

[Chris2K]

Just a question out of curiosity, what kind of financial incentive to developers get for their games being on Game Pass?

It crossed my mind yesterday as I've clocked in huge hours on PowerWash Simulator and now Lawn Mower Simulator, but they seem to be from smaller studios and as I've got them on Game Pass I haven't actually bought the game. It made me a feel a bit guilty that I was only paying Microsoft for access to the game.

[Bobfoc]

Microsoft pays developers to put the games on Game Pass, but the exact model differs from studio to studio. In some cases, they'll get a lump sum, whereas there are some instances of Microsoft agreeing to pay the full production costs and the developers selling the game on other platforms as well. Some deals involve bonuses being provided based on the number of downloads a game gets.

Quite a few developers have said that they've made good money out of the increased attention their games get through Game Pass. Certainly, if streamers play games they've got on Game Pass, viewers tend to be more likely to pick them up on other platforms.

At the moment, it seems that there's a happy medium between games that are on subscription services and those that aren't. The fear would be that the entire industry eventually adopts a subscription model and developers are forced into accepting the Spotify model of payment while the big publishers scoop up all the cash.

[apsham]

2 hours ago, Chris2K said:

Just a question out of curiosity, what kind of financial incentive to developers get for their games being on Game Pass?

It crossed my mind yesterday as I've clocked in huge hours on PowerWash Simulator and now Lawn Mower Simulator, but they seem to be from smaller studios and as I've got them on Game Pass I haven't actually bought the game. It made me a feel a bit guilty that I was only paying Microsoft for access to the game.

Multiple developers have said that GamePass and even launching on it has covered their development costs fully. It’s been mostly tight lipped about actual details, but I’ve rarely heard anything negative about it if at all from their perspective.

A report recently said that they paid 600K to have Cooking Simulator added recently.

[Bobfoc]

Immortality releases today, and it's on Game Pass. It's an FMV game by Sam Barlow, who also made Her Story and Telling Lies. Essentially, you have to look through found footage clips to solve a mystery. Those other games were very good, so this should be worth a go.

[Bobfoc]

The recently announced Goldeneye remaster will be coming to Game Pass at launch. Not only that, but if you own Rare Replay, you also get it free.

[King Ellis]

That's kinda surprising, especially the Rare Replay part. They could have easily priced it full price to try and cash in on the nostalgia for it. Probably wouldn't have gone down well like but that doesn't stop people.

Online being exclusive to Switch isn't ideal though.

[Bobfoc]

It's a bit of a strange one. I'm guessing that letting the Switch have multiplayer exclusivity may have been part of the agreement between Microsoft, which owns Rare, and Nintendo, which, alongside the film company, owns the rights to the game itself.

You'd think that people playing the game would like to recreate the old days of four-player multiplayer, which is a bit harder when you're having to do it on a system that doesn't have built-in voice chat. I can see streamers getting together and doing it, but I'm much less sure about "regular" players. Not only that, but online play in other N64 games on Switch seems to be really unreliable.