Expected Dom to be back, guess paduck/Skorge/ make it in aswell. Don't recognize the map. Oh last shot is blooddrive?

Guys you won't believe it but I just beat Halo 4 for the first time.

Only played it up to mission 5 on 360 back in the days, then a few years later up to level 4 on Halo MCC (co-op) and dropped it again.
Recently decided to finish the fight (pun intended). I guess there was a reason why I never finished it. I liked the visuals but the game didn't feel as great as the previous ones. After finishing it... I can only confirm that feeling.

It only has 8 levels which is a little short. From what I remember Halo games usually have at least 10 levels. Therefore it's not surprising that my campaign playtime according to the in-game stats is sub 5 hours.

There was barely any climax (or story) to speak of. I didn't even realize how close I was to finishing the game. Just "is that really the last mission?" (thanks MCC for spoiling it)

The ending was terrible. That's not a boss fight, that's just a QTE cutscene. Felt like I was playing the last level of a CoD game. Halo games aren't really known for great endings (escape sequences aside) but this was pathetic.

Level/mission design were hit and miss. Some were pretty bad, not quite like The Library or Cortana but not that much better either. Some acceptable and a few were good.

I felt like the game lacks music in some places. There were fights without any kind of music in the background and other times it was there but very quiet. I remember the great times in other Halo games where the Halo theme kicked in and you immediately know that some awesome action is going to happen.

On the positive side, I liked the new enemies they introduced. Visuals were fantastic for the 360. Gameplay is good enough. Fun in co-op.

I think many won't like that opinion but I think Halo 5 is far superior in every regard (except for local co-op).

8/10

Dont understand how discounting the next gen version is much different than selling it as a DLC.

Like if the dlc was initially going to be $20 for a next gen version and MS blocked that couldn't they just charge $30 for the next gen version and discount it to $20 for those that already own the current gen version basically making it the same thing 

Now there's some news I can get behind. There more platform holders discourage these kinds of business practices, the better.

@shikamaru317 Yo, I saw one of your comments in an article about FF 16 being exclusive to PS possibly? Where did you get that from? Gonna be annoyed if it is lol. I can deal if it's timed and just wait, but damn..

I hope they won't spend a lot of time on Psychonauts 2, Wasteland 3, Grounded and Flight Sim. Even though Microsoft announced this event as "Xbox Games Showcase" which is pretty clear what it exactly means, it would still be seen and expected as "Series X Game Showcase" by general public. So, the majority of what they'll show there will have to be a new stuff, not the old one. Otherwise they would fall for the same mistake they did with May event when they knew what the people were expecting to see at that event but showed something completely different.

No difference at all. It just means that MS doesn't allow devs to sell a next gen upgrade as a DLC for a game. So, the devs are either forced to use single SKU approach of Smart Delivery (with free upgrade), or sell Xbox One and Series X versions as separate SKUs.

This has been brought on several forums even before Sony event and was actually expected to be shown there. I think I can believe this because it makes a lot of sense for both Sony and Square. Sony knows that timed FF game exclusivity will be huge. Square doesn't lose that much by skipping Xbox for one year because FF XV sold poor on Xbox compared to PS4. It also seems like both sides are satisfied with how FF7R exclusivity went. Also, when FF XV launched, it was on PS and XB1 at launch with PC version coming later. I think Sony will agree on console exclusivity this time which means that FF16 will be PS5/PC at launch. And considering that FFXV sold better on PC than on Xbox, it's a huge win for Square as well as it will possibly result in a better launch compared to FF XV.

WHAT’S NEXT IN GEARS 5?
When we launched Gears 5 our mantra was “Challenge Expectations.” This mindset helped us create the biggest Gears of War game in history. The scale of and scope of the campaign was unprecedented. We added two new modes: Escape and Arcade. We evolved PvE with addition of Hero abilities. We adopted a tile system to change how we create maps. We changed how we delivered content. While we believed strongly in these decisions, it’s clear some didn’t land as well as we hoped.

With new leadership in place, we had the perfect opportunity to take a good look at the state of Gears 5 with a specific focus on what’s working and what needs improving. Over the past few months, the team responded with new, bold ideas and a significant investment into content, gameplay, and features.

You have already seen some of these changes. We have updated the weapon and movement tuning. The online experience has improved by modifying our available playlists. The new developer’s playlist allows us to respond to community feedback quicker and innovate more often.

We’ve rebuilt the Ranked system to make it more clear and fun. We understand how valuable a player’s time is so we’ve reworked the rewards in Tour of Duty and overhauled the store so nearly all content can be purchased or earned by playing. And this is all happening in Operation 4.

We will delve deeper into the major Operation 4 features every day this week. And we will cover the Operation 5 features as we get closer its launch date.

But at a high level, here is what you can expect in Operation 4 & 5:

OPERATION 4
New Characters and Maps
New Ranked System
New store including an earnable currency
PvE updates
Ongoing quality of life improvements
OPERATION 5
New Characters and maps
Complete separation of characters and classes
Improved quitter mitigation
Ongoing quality of life improvements
We know there is a desire for transparency and, now that we’ve mapped out our priorities, we want to keep you in the loop on what we’re working on and what’s coming up. So, every day this week we’re going deep into the big features in Operation 4 with a blog post and a dedicated stream:

What’s Next in Gears 5, Tuesday, July 7 at 2:30 pm PT
New Ranked System – Wednesday, July 8 at 3:00 pm PT
New store including an earnable currency – Thursday, July 9 at 3:00 pm PT
PvE updates – Friday, July 10 at 3:00 pm PT
Before we end, there are a few areas we want to address:

Characters and abilities in Operation 4: Practically every character in Operation 4 will not have a corresponding hero ability. We made this choice to increase the amount of characters we could deliver in Operation 4 but, as with the Carmines, this means PVE fans will have to wait to use these characters in Horde and Escape. Hang in there PvE fans, in Operation 5, players will finally be able to choose the character and ability in any combination they want.

Amount of Maps: We know we haven’t delivered enough maps in Gears 5. A few months ago, the decision was made to pause production of tiles in order to completely focus on getting more maps in the game. The good news is maps are coming in Operation 4 and 5. The reality is it won’t be until Operation 5 that we can deliver a higher volume of maps. As we’ve said, new maps take upwards of 6 months to complete – from designing to adding art to playtesting – every map goes through hundreds of iterations until they are ready. Even maps from Gears 4 aren’t a simple copy and paste, they take time and effort to make them work in Gears 5. We know this isn’t ideal, but we wanted to be upfront with you.

We’re excited about the direction of Gears 5. We have some big changes coming. We believe that true change comes from bold moves – that’s our commitment to you and we will commit to listen to the response.

– TC Dev team

Series X preorder thought is cancelled 😔

Thats a huge bummer if that’s the case

If Squeenix does decide to drop Xbox support for one year, it's probably because TR and NA made them realize people will still buy the game after a year anyways, and they get free money from Sony for delaying ports that are not going to sell worse just because they arrived some weeks later. 

Essentially, more money they can put into making a good game and the people who want it on different systems will still get it even if they wait.