Xbox Series X | S

[deerokus]

In terms of tone just copy fast and furious Tokyo drift. 

[MNFRMTMRRW]

10 hours ago, Pockets said:

I've enjoyed messing around in FH4 and I suppose the way it constantly shouts at you is what the youth like these days, but I could do without it. Maybe an option to turn all the 'festival' shit off and just have events to do. It's like a great racing game that you can only play round the house of the most fucking annoying hipster cunts. It's like millennial Top Gear.

I feel it should be more Top Gear and less whatever millennial EDM hipster stuff we get now. The whole festival should be a pure race festival like Goodwood Festival of Speed, not some version of Coachellas. 

 

I am playing a lot of WRC 9 rally right now and it is near perfect in execution and presentation. Just focused on racing, light career and progression stuff but all in a focused garage setting and just tons of variation in the events and proper long rally events. This is how racing always more or less was... all this modern bloat is just a manifestation of the virus that is MTX/cosmetics/loot/Ubisoft style quest maps which gaming can totally do without. 

 

The future for racing games isn't very promising with Take 2 buying Codemasters (which was already moving fast towards the dark side). 

[Shimmyhill]

Dirt 5 is very much bro dude like FH4 and I’m not a fan of it on either but on FH4 I can ignore it easily enough but I guess I don’t follow the structure of the game and do what I want most of the time and dip in and out of the races etc.

 

Something like A combination of TDU + FH + FH2 would be perfection for me but saying that I loved FH3 and love FH4 thus far!

[MattyP]

1 hour ago, MNFRMTMRRW said:

The future for racing games isn't very promising with Take 2 buying Codemasters (which was already moving fast towards the dark side). 

Indeed. There has been a drought of arcade racers last gen IMHO. Although there seems to a few retro arcade racers coming though. 

 

For me there is still a gap for a PGR type game. Simcade city racer. It will never get made but something I've missed and Forza Horizon as good as it is - is no replacement IMHO. Sony haven't even announced any first party racers this gen - well other than Gran Turismo which isn't really a simcade type racer. Perhaps as a genre it's not that popular anymore. 

[Dudley]

 

2 hours ago, Shimmyhill said:

Dirt 5 is very much bro dude like FH4 and I’m not a fan of it on either but on FH4 I can ignore it easily enough but I guess I don’t follow the structure of the game and do what I want most of the time and dip in and out of the races etc.

 

Something like A combination of TDU + FH + FH2 would be perfection for me but saying that I loved FH3 and love FH4 thus far!

 

Well there's a new TDU on the way from the people who have apparently fucking nailed the PS5 WRC game so there's hope!

[sbrandon111]

16 hours ago, MNFRMTMRRW said:

I have a very had time believing this, unless it is a remake of a previous game. There is a reason they had Panic Button work on the Optimized version. Also the game is still receiving active updates while Forza Motorsport 7 was EOL-ed last year. 

 

I would personally prefer to have Motorsport first. Not the biggest fan of Horizon's modern installments, prefer the first 2 games. 

I love the racing in Horizon 4, I just don’t know what to do next. Online is still a mystery too.

[MNFRMTMRRW]

2 hours ago, Dudley said:

Well there's a new TDU on the way from the people who have apparently fucking nailed the PS5 WRC game so there's hope!

Cool. WRC 9 is fantastic, also on Xbox. That WRC license goes to Codemasters in 2023 unfortunately. Dirt 5 runs like dogshit compared to WRC 9.

 

I also hope Assetto Corsa Competizione gets a proper next-gen patch soon... hope they stick to 60fps and don't go for flashy 30fps again.

[koefoed]

Just bought a LG CX 48" for my XSX. Not a bad match, now I just need to find some games with HDR that makes the screen pop. 

[mdn2]

5 minutes ago, koefoed said:

Just bought a LG CX 48" for my XSX. Not a bad match, now I just need to find some games with HDR that makes the screen pop. 

We've got the 55" arriving tomorrow. Just because my other half wanted to get the best out of the Series X. I'm not complaining. 

[ChewMagma]

4 hours ago, sbrandon111 said:

I love the racing in Horizon 4, I just don’t know what to do next. Online is still a mystery too.

 

I absolutely loved this game for a week or so, even ironically enjoying the yah bants corporate projection of what imaginary cool rich kids into influencers would be like, but I raced to Level 10 in most of the series and then realised that after that it seems to just become a massive grind to progress with a lot of playing the same races over and over.

 

As someone else said the multiplayer is baffling. I get the concept of Drivatars but then it left me confused in some of the seasonal events on whether I was actually racing real people or not. The capture the flag, battle royale, zombie modes modes are all hot garbage as well. I looked up what a "convoy" was as well and it still made no sense so I ignore it when anyone invites me to one lol. I think I'm too old haha.

 

Still it looks gorgeous and the racing is perfectly balanced for a casual like me. If I could play Spotify in game, I would overlook all of the above.

[MattyP]

"Convoy" is just a way to have a game session with friends.. just think of it as a means to create a lobby.

 

It is essentially an RPG car game once you have done some bits and pieces. Quite enjoyed the showcase events, stuntman events. Just feels a bit flat after that. Not really got into the online modes in any of the Horizons although did I a spell back in Forza Horizon 2 where I had a few online adventures which were cool at the time.

 

I love cruising around on this as it's such a lovely environment to experience and a it's fun with the wheel. However spent two months when it was initially released playing it a fair bit managed to get to level 52 before I got bored. Even grinding for money didn't do it for me (11M credits sat there doing nothing!) so the game feels a bit tired at times for me.

[Eighthours]

9 hours ago, MNFRMTMRRW said:

I feel it should be more Top Gear and less whatever millennial EDM hipster stuff we get now. The whole festival should be a pure race festival like Goodwood Festival of Speed, not some version of Coachellas. 

 

I am playing a lot of WRC 9 rally right now and it is near perfect in execution and presentation. Just focused on racing, light career and progression stuff but all in a focused garage setting and just tons of variation in the events and proper long rally events. This is how racing always more or less was... all this modern bloat is just a manifestation of the virus that is MTX/cosmetics/loot/Ubisoft style quest maps which gaming can totally do without. 

 

The future for racing games isn't very promising with Take 2 buying Codemasters (which was already moving fast towards the dark side). 

 

I think that the Coachella angle could be amazing, but Playground have never been anywhere near getting the tone right in any of these games when it comes to the festival stuff. The writing’s always awful and the dudebro shit is horrible. It’s a shame, as FH4 is a fantastic game when you’re in the car. I would like much more of a sense of actual progression in the next one - let’s have a decent story mode, and I wouldn’t mind being forced into specific cars or classes more often, rather than letting you go through so much of the content in whatever car you want. I know that’s part of the ethos, but it leads to a worse videogame IMO when you’re outside the free roam mode.

 

Next gen would seem like the perfect time for a bit of a reset, as I think there will be diminishing returns if they just do the same thing yet again (the seasons were a cool gimmick, mind!), even if it looks stunning and is set in Japan. Sure, I’d still play it loads and it would be a solid 8 or 9, but think bigger, Playground! 

[Dudley]

Yeah where it absolutely has lost its way is you could spend 75% of the game in one car easily.  FH2's regions thing was annoying but it did provide a skeleton that maybe FH4 needs, especially with houses replacing festivals and thus also removing FH3's early game structure.

[MNFRMTMRRW]

1 hour ago, Eighthours said:

Next gen would seem like the perfect time for a bit of a reset, as I think there will be diminishing returns if they just do the same thing yet again (the seasons were a cool gimmick, mind!), even if it looks stunning and is set in Japan. Sure, I’d still play it loads and it would be a solid 8 or 9, but think bigger, Playground! 

Give me a Slay The Spire type of branching narrative (overlaid on a map of course) with proper boss races. I want to drive through a world but I don't want to have "do anything you want all the time" continuously with 100+ things to take part in all the time, Ubisoft style. Make it more like a trek/rally through a vast landscape with different vehicles and classes. In all seriousness, I feel Forza has become bloated... both editions and it needs a proper re-imagining in a more lean and focused package. 

 

Instead of having 1000+ of each one have 100+ that are meaningful and truly exciting. 

[Parksey]

Not sure why there's a smoke for Horizon 5 to be set in Japan - I've only played FH4 admittedly but you'd have to play really loose with authenticity to have wide open spaces and a free "drive anywhere" experience. 70% of the country is dense forest or inhospitably steep terrain and the remaining 30% are quite narrow, packed urban spaces. 

 

It would basically be the opposite of FH4's map. I can understand the desire to race around a Tokyo-esque neon cityscape, but wouldn't that be a bit of an antithesis to Horizon's approach? 

 

I've only played 4 though, so maybe the others have mixed their map up a bit more. I guess they may also just sort of create a fictional Okinawa-style island where it's flatter and more open, and then just make it generically Japanese. 

 

I wonder if it would be something they'd consider in order to back up their recent push into the Japanese market though. 

 

As a complete aside, the tone of the game is quite jarring and annoying too. Aren't Playground doing Fable? Hope it doesn't bode ominously for them nailing it in a game which largely depends on tone...

 

[mdn2]

17 minutes ago, Parksey said:

Not sure why there's a smoke for Horizon 5 to be set in Japan  

 

As a complete aside, the tone of the game is quite jarring and annoying too. Aren't Playground doing Fable? Hope it doesn't bode ominously for them nailing it in a game which largely depends on tone...

 

For the first part, there was some leaked concept images a while ago that suggested Japan - whether they were genuine or not, I don't know. 

 

For the second, Playground set up a second new studio with new talent away from the Horizon games. It's that studio doing Fable, so I wouldn't worry about that too much. 

[mushashi]

24 minutes ago, Parksey said:

As a complete aside, the tone of the game is quite jarring and annoying too. Aren't Playground doing Fable? Hope it doesn't bode ominously for them nailing it in a game which largely depends on tone...

 

 

It's a long running misunderstanding about who is actually making Fable, Playground was originally set-up as a racing game developer by people who made racing games, so understandable why this confusion continues to exist.

 

They set-up an entirely separate and new development studio in a different building and hired staff for it. These are the people making the RPG, not the existing set of people working on the racing games. How good the RPG will be is unknown, you are reliant on the track record of the management of Playground games being keen eyed enough to hire suitable talent.

 

The most recent example of this being Respawn Entertainment (Infinity Ward) who had only ever made FPS games, and then staffed up a separate dev team to make 3rd person action games led by the director of God of War 3.

[Darren]

Well it wasn’t the first game I ever played on an Xbox, but Halo CE was the first I finished. Which is probably as it should be.

[teddymeow]

9 hours ago, Darren said:

Well it wasn’t the first game I ever played on an Xbox, but Halo CE was the first I finished. Which is probably as it should be.

 

The final level of Halo CE still haunts my dreams!

[footle]

12 hours ago, Parksey said:

Not sure why there's a smoke for Horizon 5 to be set in Japan - I've only played FH4 admittedly but you'd have to play really loose with authenticity to have wide open spaces and a free "drive anywhere" experience. 70% of the country is dense forest or inhospitably steep terrain and the remaining 30% are quite narrow, packed urban spaces.

 

Never forget the Internet videogame community Japan fetish.

[partious]

I do think there is an element of that to it but at least with Japan there's a reference point of classic games like the mountain racing of Initial D or Battle Gear, the urban highways of Wangan Midnight etc. Gamers clearly have a reference point for arcade racing games set in Japan. Nighttime mountain roads and neon cities are what come to mind when I think of a racing game set in Japan and I think it's an appealing setting for a game, particularly the latter, with one of the selling points of the Series X being the ability to make every surface look like a mirror...

 

Also, Japan actually makes a lot of cars and has a fairly substantial and influential car modding/racing scene, which is more than can be said for some of the other settings they've chosen.

[Parksey]

Has anyone played Fable Anniversary on the BC recently? 

 

I'm playing it on my S and it runs a bit jerky. I've heard it's always been compromised it terms of smoothness and frame rate, but I'm wondering if there's a difference between the S and X. 

 

I've heard that the S bases its BC on the One S, and the X bases its on the One X. 

 

I'm wondering if it just runs like arse on both consoles or whether it's another string in the X's bow and making me wanting to upgrade. 

[Darren]

On 29/11/2020 at 07:37, teddymeow said:

 

The final level of Halo CE still haunts my dreams!

Driving through the ship? I’ve had a moan about that in the Halo thread!

[Super Craig]

29 minutes ago, Parksey said:

I've heard that the S bases its BC on the One S, and the X bases its on the One X.  

 

That's for Xbox One games, because the One X is better spec'd in a few areas than the Series S. I wouldn't think it would affect OG/360 games other than output resolution.

[RaoulSilva]

35 minutes ago, Parksey said:

Has anyone played Fable Anniversary on the BC recently? 

 

I'm playing it on my S and it runs a bit jerky. I've heard it's always been compromised it terms of smoothness and frame rate, but I'm wondering if there's a difference between the S and X. 

 

I've heard that the S bases its BC on the One S, and the X bases its on the One X. 

 

I'm wondering if it just runs like arse on both consoles or whether it's another string in the X's bow and making me wanting to upgrade. 

I played it a year ago and it was a mess not just how it ran but the controls gameplay etc, it hasn't dated well. Fable 2 and 3 are much better. 

[layten]

On 23/11/2020 at 13:39, layten said:

For those wanting BC with earlier PlayStation consoles.  

 

 

Getting there.

[Super Craig]

I wonder if it'd be possible to tap into the native OG/360 emulation and get games working that aren't officially supported.

[Hitcher]

Nope.

[Shimmyhill]

I have filled my internal hdd and pretty much filled the external ssd I have hooked up... sure I could get rid of some things but I love having my games I play in rotation in there plus some new ones and others I fancy trying! 
 

Handily the OS update tells you what games are S | X enhanced better now so can move some stuff off the internal once I’ve deleted some games.... 

[deerokus]

Football manager is terrible. Mad, octodad esque controls and blurry ps1-level graphics in the match engine. Wtaf. 

 

I'm doing something I've never done on xbox before and getting a refund.