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konnichiwa on 31 December 2021
Barozi said:

Played about 10 hours of Assassin's Creed Valhalla so far and I think I can share my first impressions. I had a lot of fun during the opening of the game when I was still in Norway. At that point, I totally forgot that the majority of the game is set in England. That was the point when the game got worse.

- They need to improve the engine for the next game. Environments are still nice looking but the face models are definitely outdated. They look identical to Odyssey and they have like three different kind of haircuts for each men and women. The animation of some birds are updated at about 15 FPS, some banners at 30 FPS. Those really stand out when the rest is 60 FPS.
Furthermore, I've noticed screen tearing every now and then. Unacceptable for a cross gen game.

- Not the biggest fan of the new fighting system just yet. I'm not even 100% sure what's different from the predecessors but it doesn't feel as fun.

- The way the game is designed, there's basically no need to go for a stealthy approach. There are so many opportunities to raid a place or you get backup during a mission that there's barely a reason to use stealth. You can ignore all enemies as they are busy with you comrades and straight up loot the place and do whatever the mission tells you to do. Even when I was all alone and got noticed inside an enemy's stronghold, I could easily kill 30-40 guards and eventually left because I was bored of the continuous reinforcements. The other games were way harder than that which resulted in stealth being necessary to clear out a place or kill your target.

- I've not uncovered the whole map just yet but England seems way way more boring than Greece and Egypt. Not only does everything look the same (haven't come across any unique sight yet) but the way the whole map is riddled with rivers, it feels like everything is located on small islands.

- All the golden, white and light blue spots on the map and in you're navigation bar at the top of the screen piss me off. Also why does the map have icons that aren't explained in the legend? I've already come across three symbols that don't appear there and I have no idea what they mean.


So yeah the story, dialogue and mission design is probably still the best part of the game and the reason why I'll finish it. But so far I'd definitely put it below Origins and Odyssey.

10 hours is low, especially when it is not just england/Norway.   

The technical issues is kind of funny because the game was fine but updates made it worse and a lot of the technical issues appeared later.   I searched for everything and collected all, I just did not finish the main story, always disliked doing the main mission in AC games.

The dots are locations of items, think yellow ones for treasures, blue for side quests.  I think you can turn them off because the game ask you if you want to see not discovered locations on your map when you start the game. (I liked that it let you discover for yourself and is an option that I would like in the next ES game).

I enjoyed the game and in the end it is probably ranked close to Odyssey but that's also because of the climate.  I prefer warmer climates in real life but also in game. 






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G2ThaUNiT on 31 December 2021

It reminds me in the documentary when the Windows team didn’t want to collaborate with the Xbox team, so the team had to literally steal what they needed in the middle of the night lol. Perhaps similar tactics need to be made because the Windows team still have the “we’re the best and the most important” mindset.



DroidKnight on 31 December 2021



...to avoid getting banned for inactivity, I may have to resort to comments that are of a lower overall quality and or beneath my moral standards.

DroidKnight on 31 December 2021

About to be 5 pm where I'm at.  This is my first beer in ages.  Plan on several more, gonna play some Assassin's Creed Origins and probably pass out before New Years.  Gotta cook tomorrow, so can't party too hard.

Happy New Year!

Last edited by DroidKnight - on 31 December 2021

...to avoid getting banned for inactivity, I may have to resort to comments that are of a lower overall quality and or beneath my moral standards.

DroidKnight on 31 December 2021
SegaHeart said:

Anybody still play Phantasy Star Online 2 on Xbox series X and S? 

After spending almost 2 1/2 years playing ESO, I've sworn off MMO's for now.  My backlog grew by over 70 games during that period.



...to avoid getting banned for inactivity, I may have to resort to comments that are of a lower overall quality and or beneath my moral standards.

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Angelus on 01 January 2022

Happy new year everybody. Onwards and upwards!



Zippy6 on 01 January 2022

Finished Halo Infinite campaign yesterday, shorter and smaller world than I expected but it's the best Halo Campaign for me. Still the writing is a bit weird I don't get Cortana's journey from Halo 5 to the events of Infinite at all.

Spoiler!

It seems like they regret making her a villain so just wiped her out after the backlash of 5. IDK how she lost when she had those guardians that could literally destroy a planet, but weren't mentioned once except for that scene. Also in the final goodbye scene with her why is it treated like she is good and all is forgiven. She killed millions of people but the last scene with her is like none of that ever happened.

Of course I didn't listen to every audio log, but if the major over-arching story only really makes sense if you listen to optional collectibles I don't think it's a very well written story.

Last edited by Zippy6 - on 01 January 2022

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Zippy6 on 01 January 2022
Ryuu96 said:
Zippy6 said:

Finished Halo Infinite campaign yesterday, shorter and smaller world than I expected but it's the best Halo Campaign for me. Still the writing is a bit weird I don't get Cortana's journey from Halo 5 to the events of Infinite at all.

Spoiler!

It seems like they regret making her a villain so just wiped her out after the backlash of 5. IDK how she lost when she had those guardians that could literally destroy a planet, but weren't mentioned once except for that scene. Also in the final goodbye scene with her why is it treated like she is good and all is forgiven. She killed millions of people but the last scene with her is like none of that ever happened.

Of course I didn't listen to every audio log, but if the major over-arching story only really makes sense if you listen to optional collectibles I don't think it's a very well written story.

Spoiler!

Once The Weapon locked her down she lost control over her Promethean army which includes Guardians.

I think the final scene depends on how you see it, I don't see it as her being forgiven or trying to be painted as good, at the end of the day, she only surrendered and did this one last sacrifice AFTER she had already lost, Cortana was arrogant to the end and didn't expect Atriox/UNSC to beat her, despite everything, even evil Cortana cared about John in her own twisted way, she knew she would never be accepted back by the UNSC and that Atriox in control of Zeta Halo ruins all her plans and puts everyone in danger, evil people tend to be hypocrites, despite Cortana also putting essentially everyone in danger, she sees herself as a saviour of the galaxy, she doesn't see Atriox that way, it also most importantly puts the person she cares most about, that being John, in danger, she also realised The Weapon was better for John as she wouldn't hurt him.

Despite all that, it doesn't change what Cortana did, it is her simply having a little bit of clarity in her final moments and doing one good thing, like Darth Vader saving his son, it doesn't absolve them of what they've done, they aren't good or forgiven but it's a final moment of goodness for someone they care for, at the end of the day, John was always prepared to kill her too, ain't no chance Cortana is forgiven in the larger lore with everything she has done.

Hmmm, I think they should have done a better job of explaining what happened between the events of Halo 5 and Halo Infinite in the main story, I'm sure all the information is there if you search for it but it seems like some pretty vital information is missing without getting into the audio logs etc.

Spoiler!
I just find it a very weird choice to go from the end of Halo 5 to where Halo Infinite begins. I definitely don't think it was originally planned that Cortana would be dead at the start of Halo 6 when they were writing the fifth one. I don't think it was necessarily the wrong decision but I think more care could have been given to filling in the events in the time gap for people who didn't want to have to hunt down information. I think Darth Vader is more of a redemption than Cortana. Vader hadn't lost, Vader turned on the empire to save his son. Cortana had already lost everything so doing the right thing at the end cost her nothing.


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Zippy6 on 01 January 2022
Ryuu96 said:

Spoiler!

This is all ruined if The Weapon calls herself Cortana...Would be an absolutely stupid decision.

Thankfully Steve Downes said that they left it open on purpose and they haven't made a final decision, I like the theory from others too that it can be interpreted not as The Weapon asking Chief if it's alright to call herself Cortana but asking Chief if it's alright for her to give herself a name, as she was never intended to be this kind of AI, it's against her programming, she wasn't meant to be named and personalised, she was meant to just do her job and die, hence why she is asking Chief if it's okay.

That's a bit of a stretch but I think we can make it work, I would much rather that than her asking Chief if it's okay to use Cortana as her name, it's dumb as shit, I hope she calls herself Joy.
Spoiler!
The way she asks "Do you think it would be ok? you sure?" the tone of voice. There's no way she isn't asking if it's ok to use Cortana's name. Far too much emotion and worrying about hurt feelings in that line. The tone/emotion doesn't line up with just asking if she can name herself. So that's 100% the intention when they made that scene.
https://youtu.be/Njj5tqIOEOk?t=827


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derpysquirtle64 on 01 January 2022
Ryuu96 said:

Was looking forward to the Xbox App update which allowed files to be downloaded wherever but from everything I've heard from users in the preview, it's garbage.

This is like the 5th update which is meant to fix the Windows Store issues, years now, I've given up, they should give up and get Game Pass on Steam instead.

I'd like to know how much Windows Store is used for Apps, I am confident in believing that a competent Gaming focused store would make them more money than whatever Windows Store is now, the entire thing should be rebuilt by Team Xbox.

Nah, they should just build a separate app completely independent from Microsoft Store content delivery backend. Yes, it's not gonna be easy because I think current Xbox Store also uses it, so they will have to rework it as well. It's always the easiest way to do - just to dump everything on a better competing service and give up. But it's always a bad thing to do from the long-term strategy perspective. In the last Xbox Two podcast Jez brought up a correct argument that I was saying here a long time ago - that Microsoft struggles with xCloud on mobile right now because Apple and Google have a lot of limitations on their platforms and Microsoft has to make some workarounds over this limitations. Something that could have been avoided or at least minimised if Microsoft had their own mobile platform in Windows Phone. But well, a few years ago they shut it down for a short term gain in focusing on selling software and services on more popular iOS and Android. The same thing here - you need to understand that if such decision is made - to put GamePass on Steam, there would be no way back. They can simply shut down Xbox app on PC altogether as nobody's gonna use it after that. And who knows how it can backfire in the future.