God of War Ragnarok

[MattyP]

17 minutes ago, CrichStand said:

Not sure how you didn’t know that?!?!? People have posted about it loads on here in numerous threads. Plus the Xbox Rewards app on the Xbox itself has Pizza Express, Skype, Tesco, Argos, New Look, John Lewis, Ticketmaster, among many others listed so you can redeem points for their vouchers, 
 

You can use the points on loads of stuff, it’s an amazing rewards scheme. Crazy that you can basically play stuff on Xbox/Gamepass which already costs peanuts, and whilst doing  that, it pays for games on PS5 and Switch! 😁

How much "work" do you need to do though? I mean for a £10 Amazon gift voucher you need 15000 points which I expect will take a fair amount of time? (Given I've used Edge browser for a while and have an Xbox and only got around 6000 points) And MS are clamping down on bots so if using those and caught you can loose all your balance and be kicked of the scheme.

 

[dreamylittledream]

43 minutes ago, MattyP said:

How much "work" do you need to do though? I mean for a £10 Amazon gift voucher you need 15000 points which I expect will take a fair amount of time? (Given I've used Edge browser for a while and have an Xbox and only got around 6000 points) And MS are clamping down on bots so if using those and caught you can loose all your balance and be kicked of the scheme.

 

About a month taking approx 5 mins a day (assuming you have Gamepass and Xbox and a PC).

 

[CrichStand]

7 minutes ago, MattyP said:

How much "work" do you need to do though? I mean for a £10 Amazon gift voucher you need 15000 points which I expect will take a fair amount of time? (Given I've used Edge browser for a while and have an Xbox and only got around 6000 points) And MS are clamping down on bots so if using those and caught you can loose all your balance and be kicked of the scheme.

 

It doesn’t really take any work at all. I set Bing as the search engine on my IPads and phone, so they earn points when browsing the Internet each day. Also use the Xbox browser too which earns points.
 

Just playing games earns loads. Seem to have earned around 600-700 today on the Xbox Rewards app. Haven’t done the daily web based stuff such as clicking on a few links and taking a 3 question quiz yet. That takes about 2-3mins all in and will be maybe another 100 points. Then there’s regular stuff (weekly/monthly) which gets 500/2000 a piece and enters you in free sweepstakes etc. Plus, you get bonuses for using it everyday, which I think adds 1000 points per week? It all soon adds up.  
 

I got my Series S in February, did the rewards stuff for a few months, then wasn’t gaming much and busy with other stuff for ages. Started it again about a month ago and just had enough to buy God of War. Will easily have enough to buy Zelda by the time it comes out. 

[dizogg]

Could never be arsed with that MS points stuff. It’s ok if you’ve got loads of free time to fill doing boring busywork on Bing.com every single day

[footle]

2 minutes ago, dizogg said:

Could never be arsed with that MS points stuff. It’s ok if you’ve got loads of free time to fill doing boring busywork on Bing.com every single day

Exactly. 2.5 hours for £10?! (5 minutes a day, 30 days).

[Indy @ S.E.]

I've been using their rewards for a few years, its paid for 75% of my son's Series S and only last week I bought an Elite Controller 2 with the points. All whilst clicking on random stuff while on the shitter and spending an hour or so a week on the XBox doing the daily/weekly/monthly tasks.

 

I spent the money I would've spent on this on a Pokemon card so if anyone finishes this and wants to shift it on in a couple of weeks gimme a shout!

[amc]

Less than an hour to go. Buzz juice initiated. Peroni for in game.

 

[CrichStand]

14 minutes ago, footle said:

Exactly. 2.5 hours for £10?! (5 minutes a day, 30 days).

You don’t need to turn it into some kind of weird job description and work out it’s hourly rate (unless you enjoy that kind of thing)! Just see it as - whatever points you earn from playing games, that you were already playing anyway and from browsing the net,  which you already do anyway, are a nice bonus. Which is what I’ve done and, with no effort..........free copy of the latest God of War (and Zelda). 😁

[Stanley]

1 hour ago, CrichStand said:

Not sure how you didn’t know that?!?!? People have posted about it loads on here in numerous threads. Plus the Xbox Rewards app on the Xbox itself has Pizza Express, Skype, Tesco, Argos, New Look, John Lewis, Ticketmaster, among many others listed so you can redeem points for their vouchers, 
 

You can use the points on loads of stuff, it’s an amazing rewards scheme. Crazy that you can basically play stuff on Xbox/Gamepass which already costs peanuts, and whilst doing  that, it pays for games on PS5 and Switch! 😁

Sorry yeah I was being facetious, I’m well aware of it. I’ll spoiler this because it’s totally off topic.

Spoiler

I used it all the time when I got my Xbox and even bought myself the official wireless headset using points, but I just got to the point where I was sick off doing the same stuff every day just for the sake of a few pence, playing games I had no interest in etc. It felt like work. 

 

[amc]

Let's go.

[scoobysi]

3 minutes ago, amc said:

Let's go.

Thank fuck for that, can we hear about the game now.

[amc]

Playing it in HFR (up to 120FPS) feels crazy. I played 2018 to death on my Pro and from my memory of that Kratos now feels like he's been at the Speed. Whizzing about like a six year old. It feels good, just need to acclimatise, same went for HFW.

 

Anyway, played the intro but built a stupidly fat joint to kick things off and unlike Kratos in HFR I'm not as spritely as I once was, it's knocked me out.

 

Look forward to some proper playtime on the 'morrow. I can tell it's going to be an epic ride. Looking forward to it.

 

Night.

[stir fry]

I played the first hour or so last night. It's pretty good, but it's extremely familiar, almost expansion like in how familiar it is and given the time that's passed since 2018 I'm not certain it will have near the same impact this time. I'm fine with that though

 

One thing I find tho is the visuals appear oddly soft, I messed around with the settings so I'm not sure if its resolution or something else. Not going to go all DF on it but it's not as big an uplift visually as I'd imagined

[dizogg]

12 hours ago, CrichStand said:

You don’t need to turn it into some kind of weird job description and work out it’s hourly rate (unless you enjoy that kind of thing)! Just see it as - whatever points you earn from playing games, that you were already playing anyway and from browsing the net,  which you already do anyway, are a nice bonus. Which is what I’ve done and, with no effort..........free copy of the latest God of War (and Zelda). 😁

I get a tiny amount of points for playing games that I was already playing anyway. I mean I pretty much only play Halo infinite online on Xbox at the moment, so I get points for playing a game pass game and that’s it.

 

P.S. I’ll stop talking about this now as realise it has 0 to do with this thread in any way. Apologies!

[Stanley]

I’m gonna jump in tonight all being well, even though I have only a very small window of game time this evening. 
 

Has anyone tried the 40fps mode yet, and if so how does it fare? 

[stir fry]

3 minutes ago, Stanley said:

Has anyone tried the 40fps mode yet, and if so how does it fare? 

Yeah, this is the setting I tried and I felt like the resolution was soft, but maybe it's just these opening scenes (ps5, lg cx fwiw)

 

I'm probably going to settle on quality 30fps if that is the case.

[Stanley]

4 minutes ago, stir fry said:

Yeah, this is the setting I tried and I felt like the resolution was soft, but maybe it's just these opening scenes (ps5, lg cx fwiw)

 

I'm probably going to settle on quality 30fps if that is the case.

I’m sure the DF review said that 30 and 40fps were the same in every other way, I could have misheard though. 
 

Also does anyone know how much the PS4 to PS5 upgrade costs? 

[PaB]

1 hour ago, Stanley said:

I’m gonna jump in tonight all being well, even though I have only a very small window of game time this evening. 
 

Has anyone tried the 40fps mode yet, and if so how does it fare? 

Yup it’s what I’m playing on. ( quality mode + high frame rate) . I’ve just done a run through of the original at 60hz and to be honest there’s not much in it . There’s the odd stutter but vrr does a bloody good job 

[Stanley]

Really looking forward to this, it’s very rare nowadays we even get these big AAA hitters, especially ones of this quality. 

[Dark Soldier]

The accessibility options are off the chart. Fantastic work all round.

[Number 28]

I hope that means you can swap X and O like the previous game...

 

5 minutes left of installation here. HYPE OVERLOAD

 

Edit: 9.5gb update downloading... 💀

[teddymeow]

18 hours ago, teddymeow said:

Oh, good.

 

Shopto have shipped my copy via Evri.

 

Guess I won't be playing Ragnarok tomorrow night...

 

Well, well, well.

 

Evri delivered. Installing now.

[CrichStand]

4 hours ago, dizogg said:

I get a tiny amount of points for playing games that I was already playing anyway. I mean I pretty much only play Halo infinite online on Xbox at the moment, so I get points for playing a game pass game and that’s it.

 

P.S. I’ll stop talking about this now as realise it has 0 to do with this thread in any way. Apologies!

Yeah, i suppose with most things it works out well for some and not so much for others. Can’t grumble at free stuff though! 
 

5 hours ago, stir fry said:

I played the first hour or so last night. It's pretty good, but it's extremely familiar, almost expansion like in how familiar it is and given the time that's passed since 2018 I'm not certain it will have near the same impact this time. I'm fine with that though

 

One thing I find tho is the visuals appear oddly soft, I messed around with the settings so I'm not sure if its resolution or something else. Not going to go all DF on it but it's not as big an uplift visually as I'd imagined

Sounds like the same issues the previews/reviews raised. It’s basically more of the same and feels very familiar, almost like an expansion. Don’t think this will top Horizon FW in terms of visuals, that game looks absolutely nuts, but surprised to hear the image quality looks soft. Supposed to be some of the best 3D Audio yet though. Looking forward to my copy turning up.

 

Edit - Just turned up so jumping in. 😁

[Dark Soldier]

I don't mind the visuals not being a leap. 2018 still looks stupidly stunning.

[CrichStand]

5 minutes ago, Dark Soldier said:

I don't mind the visuals not being a leap. 2018 still looks stupidly stunning.

Yeah, I only finished it for the first time the other day. Still looks amazing. I’m in for the big action set pieces and hopefully some proper fuck off boss battles.

[amc]

Yeah, early on you can see its PS4 tether but as above that's no bad thing really. 2018 still looks incredible and this with VRR and HFR is one smooth playing game. I imagine there will be plenty of jaw dropping moments later on, mind.

 

It feels awesome to be back in this world smashing the fuck out of goblins and misfits. Think I'm gonna order in take-away and immerse myself completely.

 

Feels good.

 

On a side note. Early scene spoiler.

Spoiler

When boy sits with his wolf as it passes it really hit home. We had to put my mums dog down the other month, she had a good innings and a much loved by us life. She had been my best mate for several years, helped having her around after a personal tough time and I'd regularly pinch her to stay with me at my flat for a few days of adventure. Anyway, I cuddled her as the vet let her go and was looking into her eyes telling her I loved her, I saw the moment that she passed in her eyes. Exactly like boy. It hit me hard that scene. She had a great life and it was the right thing to do but damn, wish she was still here. I'd have paid any amount to get her better but sometimes money isn't enough. Soz for the downer. It was a good heartfelt scene.

 

R.I.P Dixie.

 

 

[pledge]

In performance mode the texture detail is lower which maybe is what people are seeing as 'softer'. The other mode looks very sharp to me.

[TommyG]

Is there a general consensus (Digital Foundry recommendation) on which graphics mode is best to play it on (assuming you’ve got HDMI 2.1)? 

[amc]

Subjective really. Personally after trying them all I'm down for the highest fps mode, VRR and HFR. Feels incredibly smooth with the frame rate always well above 60, mainly in the 70-80s. With VRR that just equals better than 60 feels and look.

 

The image is obviously a fair bit softer than 4k 30fps but not enough to negate that buttery frame rate, for me anyway. 40/120hz is obviously the middle ground but I gotsta have those frames. Plus the image looks sweet enough to me with Favour performance +VRR+HFR.

[Dark Soldier]

51 minutes ago, pledge said:

In performance mode the texture detail is lower which maybe is what people are seeing as 'softer'. The other mode looks very sharp to me.

I'm in Performance and sitting on the sofa some distance from TV it looks banging. Slight lack of sharpness > 30fps every time.