Thaliard

My sons will love Lego Batman. Otherwise, nothing else will be getting any play in this household. It could be worse.

Next stop: Office. Can't wait for those achievements.

Not saying this is necessarily true of this game, but horror games without combat/resource management are nothing more than haunted house attractions. How can anyone feel any "real" danger when the game is designed for you to be adequately prepared for every scenario? I want to be counting bullets, dreading every missed shot, and facing the horror of knowing I don't have enough to dispatch every enemy. I want to question if the devs expected me to waste less ammo/healing items earlier and wonder if I can even finish. XCOM and Dark Souls are scarier than most modern horror entries.

Maybe I'm dumb, but I just got the name. RE:Verse as in the Resident Evil Universe and as abbreviated RE Versus. Clever.

Really looking forward to this one. Annapurna has been proving themselves as the king of artistic achievement in video games.

@Dukebb06 If you pre-ordered through the Xbox Marketplace, you can get a refund at any time before release. You have to request the refund, though.

@endlessleep No, you can't. Just look at Silent Hill HD Collection. You could take the original, emulate it, and rework assets though. It wouldn't be perfect and/or it would take a lot of work. You really need the source code to do it justice.

@Krzzystuff That's how Game Pass works. They get money through subs, then they charge for DLC after you're invested in a game. Every game is now a potential platform; it's essentially a premium F2P model.

I'm not saying this is true for every game on the platform, nor is this inherently a bad thing. It could certainly be abused, though.

Yikes, Balan under Just Cause Mobile. At least Avengers near the top implies they've not given up on it quite yet.

It's hard to imagine a world where you would pick the One S over the Series S. I guess if you're married to the idea of physical media, that's a reasonable case, but even then you're money's likely better saved for a Series X.

@carlos82 I've always meant to go back to the new Prey. The twist in the first hour sold me on it; I don't quite know why I fell off of it.

@carlos82 A fellow person of culture, I see!

And New Order was better too. I guess they're only putting the most recent full release in a franchise?

I'd bet Elder Scrolls 6 is going to be on PlayStation, but it'll be the last one there. Historically, previous ES releases have either skipped the platform or been utter rubbish on PS, so we can throw out "legacy" there. Starfield will also likely be on PS for the same reason as ES: they've already started development for PS and probably already have those contracts in place. ESO will also continue to release new expansions on all platforms, as will Fallout 76.

Aside from these exceptions, though, I'm sure every game will be exclusive from here on out. However, the term 'exclusive' doesn't really mean much here, considering Microsoft is dedicated to making GPU as ubiquitous as possible. It's not like people aren't going to be able to play these games if they don't have an Xbox. I don't know if the PS5 has a browser, but if it does, you better believe MS is trying to find a way to get Game Pass on it through there.

I have yet to see one an Xbox Series in stores, so for all I know this is the packaging... 😭

Unless they could easily adapt visual changes from Gotham Knights to Arkham Knight, I doubt this. Xbox also made every game "available" for Game Pass, which clearly wasn't true.

@Bdbrady Try going to the Network settings and turning off your internet, then logging into your account. The problem I had is that my account kept getting stuck trying to connect to Xbox Live and I couldn't actually log in. Disabling internet until you can log in helped me.

@NEStalgia I really like what you've said, particularly regarding Quake. I remember making the comparison to Quake with 2016 because of the way they handled 3D movement, but I honestly hadn't made it in regards to Eternal. I guess it was just too tempting to compare it to 2016. The comparison definitely makes the tonal shift feel better. It fits nicely in the id canon this way. Thank you for fixing that part of my brain.

As for atmosphere in the older id properties, particularly in regards to Doom, I think they're extraordinarily atmospheric. You can hear the different demons chattering and groaning in parts of the map you haven't been too yet, the lights flicker and change to set more of a mood, and the art design in the maps have a quality that feels like stuff was happening there before the demon outbreak occured. Facilities feel like facilities. Storerooms are littered with boxes. Even in Hell, there are demons being tortured on the walls, and certain areas look either constructed by someone (or something) or look natural. They have this reputation of being videogamey, but that's because they set the bar for what a video game should be. Quake and Quake II are also dripping in atmosphere. It's not until Half-Life that these games look weak by comparison.

Exploration and quietness was also a huge part of OG Doom. I remember countless hours exploring the maps of Doom, knowing where I'd been because of the corpses littering the floor, and trying to find the next place I was supposed to go. This would've been terribly boring if it weren't for the sense of place established, the landmarks, and overall atmosphere. It's also great when you're wandering around a map and find a way that it's connected to a part you've already been to (unrelated: Dark Souls is a master of this, speaking of atmosphere and building a sense of place). It's also part of why I don't like Doom II that much. There's no picture of the overworld to establish where you are in relation to everything, and there's nothing that makes you feel like you're on Earth in particular. The player just has to take the developer's word for it.

As for the intensity of Doom Eternal, I feel you. There were definitely a few times that I had to walk away, if only because my frazzled nerves were making me worse at the game and creating a negative performance loop. This is to the game's credit, though, because the game makes you feel exactly as it wants you to feel. And the feeling of beating a new encounter on your first try (or one you've been stuck on for forever) due to your mastery of the mechanics is unrivaled by anything.

@NEStalgia The way the story is told and the atmosphere. The cast was smaller and allowed for more character development. Sticking largely to two different locations (the UAC and Hell) bred more cohesion. Slower parts of the game felt more suspenseful and atmospheric, and the levels being grounded in "reality" allowed for more environmental storytelling and encouraged exploration.

It's almost as though Doom (2016) was trying to suspend your disbelief as far as it could and DE is trying to break it at every turn. The levels in DE feel like video game levels, which dampened 2016's subtle comedy of a ridiculous video game plot made real. Exploration/hunting for items in DE feels more like a chore because you don't feel like you're exploring a real place, therefore the hiding of items feels arbitrary. Item collecting also feels more like a hold-over from 2016's design and doesn't mesh well with DE's pacing. It also takes longer for DE to hit its stride, which is around Super Gore Nest/Arc Complex.

That being said, the encounter balance, combat design, and mechanical level design are masterful on a level I've never seen before, and I think The Ancient Gods - Part One is quite possibly the greatest piece of DLC ever made. Starting with a fully loaded Slayer and going nuts in the wildest and toughest combat encounters they've yet created made DE click for me. No hunting for items allows the momentum to not lose pace and focuses the player on the real star of the show: the mechanical depth of the combat encounters.

I totally get why the narrative and atmospheric changes had to happen for the kind of game they wanted to make, but I can't help but miss them. And while 2016's combat encounters pale in comparison to DE's insanity at their peak, 2016's combat is still rock solid, frenetic, and stands above its peers (DE excluded).

Also, the menus and fonts in DE suck by comparison. I'm just not into that more "comic book-y/heavy metal" aesthetic. A small grievance, but worth mentioning.

Both are fantastic games and among my favorite ever made, but I have a little more fondness for 2016's overall experience over DE's unflinching focus on game mechanics and lack of subtlety.

That's just my opinion, of course. I believe anyone who prefers DE over 2016 still has fantastic taste in games. Which did you prefer?

EDIT: Whoa, that was a little overlong. Sorry!

On the subject of a Medieval Doom slayer, it seems fitting for Doom (2016) 3 to model Army of Darkness, considering Hugo Martin already compared Doom (2016) to Evil Dead and Doom Eternal to Evil Dead 2.

As much as I ultimately prefer Doom (2016) to Eternal, I really praise Martin and the Eternal team for not being afraid to take Doom and make it their own. Eternal is still a fantastic game with perhaps some of the tightest game design I've ever seen, and I'm excited to see where they take the franchise in the future.

Is there really enough demand for this game to necessitate such an expensive collector's edition?

Outsource MGS to Yoko Taro. Tell him he can do whatever he wants with it. Good or bad, whatever game that comes out will likely be crazy enough to honor the legacy. The series needs another auteur to be successful.

I can't see this not costing an arm and a leg unless there just aren't that many games on it. Also, Xbox Live was such a big deal; it's hard to imagine putting some of the heavy hitters on a classic console without some form of internet/LAN functionality.

I bet Shadows of the Damned looks particularly great with auto HDR

Liking this game so far, but I'm playing the One S version. Performance could be a lot better, though. Playing with HDR, but some scenes (especially dark ones) look super washed out. Any tips for getting the settings right or is it just the One S version?

Great news, but I'm still disappointed it's not Gestalt.

I will be shocked if this game comes a day earlier than 2023. The trailer was absolutely nothing and this is a new studio (for Fable) handling a beloved and ambitious franchise. In fact, I would be thoroughly unshocked if it misses Series X entirely.

Did they ever fix the checkpoints? I beat this game, but not without contemplating snapping the disc in half. Easily the worst experience I had with a game last year.

@Mckilmer I lol'd

$180/yr or $60/yr to play online games? Not a hard choice.

I personally don't like Game Pass. It's cool getting to take my pick of a huge library, but it just doesn't complement the way I play games.

Games aren't movies. If I find out a movie I want to see is going to be delisted on Netflix tomorrow, I watch it quickly and enjoy it fully. No big deal. When I find out a game I want to play is going to be delisted, I either have to rush or drop the current game I'm working on, then rush the game to be delisted. It's stressful. I get that it's an incredible deal, but it's just not compatible with the way my brain works. I'll be damned if I'm going to be forced to pay extra for something I don't want in the first place, just to get online access.