Xbox Series S/X: Thread 03

[nonny]

Atomic Heart looks very bioshock meats fallout, could be a really good narrative shooter not super sold on some of the weird costumes and art on show but if it plays well it could be something really interesting. Likewise Stalker 2 looks like it could be lots of fun love the setting and the lore so will be picking this up.

It starts to go really downhill from here though most of what we have seen of new IP is CGI trailers, i still don't know what sort of game Starfield is Sim like elite or more arcadey like No mans sky can i explore planet is it purely space? theirs a few interesting indies and then things like Scorn that wholesale rips off H.R. Giger's work and looks flat and boring from the gameplay we saw. Redfalls cgi looked generic replacing vampires for zombies dosent make a good game. what sucks is Psychonauts 2 just look so Brown and last gen, in a world where Sony and Nintendo are giving massive amounts of love to 3d platform games with things like Mario Odyssey and Ratchet and Clank you need to bring more than nostalgia, sadly it looks more Balan Wonderworld than the former.

As for the tent poll stuff Horizon 5 looks like it plays identically to the excellent 4 but in a worse setting and I'm yet to see 404 Industries produce a really amazing Halo so id like to be proved wrong. Age of Empires IV is PC only too in a weird twist maybe it just that it needs a pc and mouse and plays poorly on the big screen when your sat away from the action.

Psychonauts 2 is too brown and like Balan Wonderland? Did we watch the same trailer?

[Cassius_Smoke]

IF (big if) Psychonauts 2 is meant to be Xbox equivalent of R&C or Mario it's way below the mark.

[Neon Ignition]

Psychonauts 2 seems stuck between the position it now has as a notable MS owned title and the truth beneath the surface being its kickstarter basis. It's kind of been thrust from underdog for fans to limelight title.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021-06-14-microsoft-has-a-follow-up-xbox-games-showcase-event-on-thursday

Second showcase announced where devs will talk notably several who failed to show up for the main event

[Lebowski]

Psychonauts 2 is too brown and like Balan Wonderland? Did we watch the same trailer?

Its a very muddy looking game, it could be down to the blurry foggy skyboxes and low poly looking levels. I'm comparing it to the concept of Ballan wonderland a game that is trading fully on nostalgia but mises the mark on what made previous games special. nothing they have shown looks very special.

[Neon Ignition]

https://youtu.be/b-JgLkBJ6gE?t=1603

Everwild rumoured to now be targetting 2023/2024

[EvilBoris]

Its a very muddy looking game, it could be down to the blurry foggy skyboxes and low poly looking levels. I'm comparing it to the concept of Ballan wonderland a game that is trading fully on nostalgia but mises the mark on what made previous games special. nothing they have shown looks very special.

It was a Kickstarter game for PS4 , so yes it was 100% trading on nostalgia

Although I don't really know what Balan wonderWORLD was targeting.
Somebody accidentally signed a cheque for Yuji Naka again.

[Neon Ignition]

Media engagement was an interesting metric and somewhat reliable in the console launch build ups. So far only one title has broken 1m views which is Forza Horizon 5, STALKER 2 is next and will likely break that threshold soon. Halo Infinite is trailing quite heavily in the 300K views region with most other games struggling to get out of the 20-50K views (all this from the official channel). Xbox's most viewed reveal? The Series X Mini-Fridge

Humorous but likely telling.

[nonny]

IF (big if) Psychonauts 2 is meant to be Xbox equivalent of R&C or Mario it's way below the mark.

Why would you even draw that comparison? It's meant to be what it is. Which isn't a high cost triple A title...

I mean if they want to give Tim Schafer a blank cheque and say, make it Series SX only and make it look like a Pixar movie then maybe the third outing in the trilogy would be something to compare.

Seriously wtf.

[Cassius_Smoke]

Why would you even draw that comparison? It's meant to be what it is. Which isn't a high cost triple A title...

I mean if they want to give Tim Schafer a blank cheque and say, make it Series SX only and make it look like a Pixar movie then maybe the third outing in the trilogy would be something to compare.

Seriously wtf.

Well if that's the case MS doesn't have any exclusive platformers to compete.

[Lebowski]

Why would you even draw that comparison? It's meant to be what it is. Which isn't a high cost triple A title...

I mean if they want to give Tim Schafer a blank cheque and say, make it Series SX only and make it look like a Pixar movie then maybe the third outing in the trilogy would be something to compare.

Seriously wtf.

Exactly WTF are Microsoft doing pushing it front and center its in their E3 showcase and its sat alongside Halo as a reason to purchase game pass on their homepage https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/xbox-game-pass its an low budget indie platformer that hasn't had a mainline game since the original xbox, if they wanted to push it so much they should of thrown some money at it.

[nonny]

Exactly WTF are Microsoft doing pushing it front and center its in their E3 showcase and its sat alongside Halo as a reason to purchase game pass on their homepage https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/xbox-game-pass its an low budget indie platformer that hasn't had a mainline game since the original xbox, if they wanted to push it so much they should of thrown some money at it.

I'm sorry but are you saying if a game isn't triple A it should not be shown in a game showcase at all?

The original game was great fun back in the day and this sequel looks like it'll be fantastic as well. I don't see why a lower budget title can't get some air time if it deserves it and as to my WTF, comparing it to a massive budget platformer is a little unfair isn't it? Especially given it's cross platform on that lower budget.

Personally I want Xbox to showcase all kinds of stuff across all kinds of budget. Everything has a place. I just think of the attention Cuphead got back in the day and look at it now, coming to Netflix as well of all things.

As for throwing money at it. The game was already nearing completion when Double Fine came across so no doubt Xbox helped but it wouldn't have been for the entire development and why hold it back to spruce it up if it meets the developers original vision?

Sorry I don't get why anyone would think showing a game like that is a negative thing. If you're making comparisons to R&C I'd say that was grossly unfair.

[MartyG]

Personally I want Xbox to showcase all kinds of stuff across all kinds of budget. Everything has a place. I just think of the attention Cuphead got back in the day and look at it now, coming to Netflix as well of all things..

If the post counts in the First Play threads are anything to go by, it seems that folks spend more time complaining about games than playing them these days

[Cassius_Smoke]

When Sony did its state of play last year they had all kinds of stuff on it including indie games. I have no problem with indie games being on a showcase, why would I.
The issue I think MS finds itself in with Psychonauts is that they don't have anything resembling a platformer to go toe to toe with R&C. So the assumption is that Psychonauts fits that hole. If it doesn't, then what does MS have as competition?
In fact, based purely on what was shown what does MS have that directly competes with:
The Last of Us
Bloodborne
God of war
Spiderman
Horizon
Gravity rush

I'm trying not to be some Sony fan boy, but for the love of god MS step up to the plate!

[Lebowski]

its not just a case of showcasing games across all mediums with Psychonaughts 2 though, it has top billing this year alongside Halo and Forza when it really dosen't look like it should be up their. I'm more intrested in Sable as far as indie exclusives go it looks like a more fleshed out version of journey. its coming to game pass as an exclusive and it didn't even get a look in.

[Neon Ignition]

Really, it's all just frustration. We've experiences Microsoft and Xbox when they've both been hungry for success and also firing on all cylinders during the late Xbox/first half Xbox 360 era and we're roughly a decade in and MS is still more talk than action.

It's been around a decade of weak E3's and just under that for weak line ups from MS. There's no denying that they've clearly woken up to their mistakes and weaknesses but it remains infuriating that as time goes on it's all the more obvious how late they've woken up. It does feel like they spent years developing Series S and X then on the night before sign off went to try a game on them a realised they hadn't made one so have started panic buying everything in sight to try and claw the situation back.

I mean, looking at Game Pass and if they can get it succcessfully on everything and also purchase base release on other formats also like they have with Steam... getting really hard to see why they don't just become a third party company where they'd be a giant and be able to sell their games on much more successful platforms even if said platforms won't support GP, at least they'd save themselves the huge hardware costs.