X-BOX Megathread 2024

[FLiam]

22 hours ago, Bobfoc said:

I started it and, to be honest, the first impressions weren't brilliant. It begins with a dull walk-and-talk sequence (you know the ones - slowly following someone down a corridor while they spout exposition) and then runs through the usual action setpiece combination of shimmying along beams, sliding down a slope on your bottom, grappling between platforms and a boss fight that keeps getting interrupted by cutscenes that add nothing. Then you've got several "squeeze through this narrow gap so the game has time to load the next skybox" bits.

Then the story started to get a little more interesting and I landed on the first proper world, so I'm going to give it a bit more of a chance to hook me.

Absolutely stick with it. Even better than the first game.

[Bobfoc]

On 26/04/2024 at 22:07, FLiam said:

Absolutely stick with it. Even better than the first game.

I've found it's become a bit more enjoyable over the following couple of hours, but I'm not sure if it's going to grab my attention for the 25 hours it's supposed to take to finish. I find that action games like this are most to my liking if they're fairly short.

[Your Mom]

Does it still have the really hard to understand map?

[Bobfoc]

2 minutes ago, Your Mom said:

Does it still have the really hard to understand map?

It isn't great, but there's an option to turn on an audio cue that tells you when you're going the right way.

[Bobfoc]

This starts in about twenty minutes.

[Bobfoc]

As expected, this is the official date of the not E3 showcase, with the logo on the right teasing a "mystery game". I'd guess it's Gears 6 or a new Call of Duty.

[Ruki]

5 minutes ago, Bobfoc said:

As expected, this is the official date of the not E3 showcase, with the logo on the right teasing a "mystery game". I'd guess it's Gears 6 or a new Call of Duty.

From reddit, people are saying Call of Duty which, ehh

[Bobfoc]

I'm sure whatever it is will leak before the show anyway, so it won't be much of a surprise. If it is Call of Duty, I wouldn't complain because at least it won't be part of the main show, and I can skip the follow-up.

[Your Mom]

Looks like some sort of military nonsense based on that logo. Like you said I'm just happy to be able to skip whatever it is

[FLiam]

Bethesda discussed changes coming to Starfield in May.

Maps have been completely revamped for cities, look a lot more user-friendly (not sure on the galaxy map though), also in bigger news - the option to run in performance mode 60fps is being added to console.

[Bobfoc]

Microsoft have closed Tango Gameworks (The Evil Within and Hi-Fi Rush) and Arkane Austin (Prey and Redfall), as well as Alpha Dog, who made the Doom mobile game. This is despite a reported $21.9 billion net income during the last financial quarter.

[King Ellis]

I don't know the sales figures but Hi-Fi Rush I think was very well regarded from critics and fans alike. By pretty much any metric it can be considered a success so it's a kick in the teeth for their studio to be closed.

There's been that idea that a studio is only one bomb away from being closed but when you make a good game and still get the boot I imagine it must make you very anxious to be in that industry and feel like you have very little job security day to day.

[Bobfoc]

I can imagine people working at Ninja Theory, Obsidian and Machine Games might be looking over their shoulders for their games later in the year. Hellblade II comes out in a couple of weeks and doesn't seem to have been promoted to the extent you would expect it to be at this stage. If it's a good game that sells badly, blaming the developers would be terribly unfair.

As for Hi-Fi Rush, it seemed to be a great success. The game sold over 700,000 copies on Steam, which is impressive for a quirky game that was also on Game Pass at launch. From what I can tell, it was a fairly cheap side project for Tango, not unlike Pentiment was for Obsidian, so I don't know what more Microsoft could have hoped for. I think Shinji Mikami's recent departure from the studio might have had something to do with Microsoft's decision not to keep going with it, but Mikami didn't have much to do with Hi-Fi Rush anyway. It's all rather sad.

[Bobfoc]

Hellblade 2 comes out tomorrow. We've seen barely any actual gameplay and the review embargo lifts on release day. Microsoft have done very little marketing for it as well.

[Bobfoc]

Well, there are several stellar reviews and a few that say it's mediocre. Concerningly, even some reviewers who have lavished it with praise have said that the actual gameplay isn't great.

[Captain Kirk]

10 hours ago, Bobfoc said:

Well, there are several stellar reviews and a few that say it's mediocre. Concerningly, even some reviewers who have lavished it with praise have said that the actual gameplay isn't great.

To be honest Hellblade 1's gameplay wasn't actually very good. Every Ninja Theory has been second to none in atmosphere and setting with lacking gameplay I think.

[Ruki]

2 hours ago, Captain Kirk said:

To be honest Hellblade 1's gameplay wasn't actually very good. Every Ninja Theory has been second to none in atmosphere and setting with lacking gameplay I think.

I agree with that. The first game was pretty mid on the actual gameplay front. It was all about the setting and the audio design.

[Ruki]

Finally started Senua 2, but only played for 30 minutes or so. It seems like it is gonna be a "Press and Hold Up On the Joystick For A Bit" kinda game. Did a lot of that already. Also, this is the first game to make my computer feel it's age (about 7 years), defaulted to low quality and it shows. So I will just continue my playthrough on the Xbox. 

 

Edit: it feels bad to play on Xbox because of 30fps. I gave become a 60fps snob!