Series X version is equally flashy, by the way, and also on Game Pass.
Gar as the Microsoft shill, me stanning for Playstation. Never saw this plot twist.
I realised I had the Ratchet and Clank reboot available on disk (the PS4 one). I noticed it had a 60fps boost on PS5 so gave it a shot. I know Rift Apart is supposed to be a generational leap for the series, but this one is still incredibly impressive and the smoother framerate really improves the feel of it. My only issue with Rift Apart is that it's sometimes a bit busy (it flings the kitchen sink at the screen) so I'm half wondering if I should finish off R&C first as a more sedate, boomer choice.
Also continued with God of War. It really takes the piss. It's a good fucking game. It has the brass neck to now only spew insane graphics on the screen but also be fun to play?! I think when it started I assumed I'd be in Order 1886 territory, but the boss fights so far have been really good and challenging. Also, it has genuinely good acting. Not videogame acting. But good actual acting and a story I'm…. invested in?! Really glad I didn't let it pass my by (and a good example of how next gen systems can help you re-evaluate previous gen games you might've missed).
I also grabbed Control while it was on sale. While I started it on PC, it's a bit of a mess on mouse/keys and I wasn't that fussed about the ray tracing (literally every surface is reflective so I found it a bit distracting). 60fps with ray tracing off is fine. I still don't know what to make of the game, it has a weird Kojima-esque veneer to it, the acting is weird, the setting is weird and I think it just relishes being weird for the sake of it. The combat is fun (This is one game where I found the weird triggers on the PS5 pad seemed to be adding something), but a bit 3rd person flaily, and navigation is annoying (everything is a featureless grey room with 7 doors, only some of which open). It's also suffering a bit in contrast to God of War, so I think I'll focus on getting a RnC and GoW done, and then move on.
I played the first couple of hours of Control, but I didn't really like it. I don't generally gel very well with wEiRdNeSs, and it somehow managed to be both over- and under-written. And yeah, a lot of samey rooms, but with freaky non-euclidian brutalist architecture. Combat was… fine? Dunno, just not my thing.
It's a game about urban legends, unexplained events, and anomolous artifacts, so of course it's going to be weird, but that wierdness is very tongue-in-cheek. It doesn't take itself seriously, and becomes one of the funnier games in it's genre. The environment is just offices to start with, but that's for a very specfic reason, to give you that feeling of being trapped in a massive, sprawling, faceless office block. The spaces get much more varied as the game goes on. It's a bit "FF13 only gets good after the first 35 hours" but you don't get any impression of what the game becomes from the first couple of hours. It's really worth carrying on.
The shooting is fine, but I used the powers more than the guns generally. There are some VERY difficult fights and sequences later on, but even with my limited old man skills I managed to complete it and both bits of DLC, so you two should breeze through.
I'd bet on myself on mouse keyboard (indeed, according to AimLabs I'm pretty poggers) but my pad skills have degenerated so much I'm a flailing mess on a console now.
I was scrolling through the store in "new console mode" and saw Greedfall for a tenner. A janky Focus RPG set in a weird world with PS5 enhancements?!? YES PL0X. I lasted 5 minutes in game until the irritation set in and I wished I hadn't bought it.
I'm sure this will have its detractors because it'll be the biggest thing in the world for a while, but I think the GTA remasters look genuinely brilliant. That art style is wonderful, like the original box-art come to life.
No real interest personally but apparently the remastered version of San Andreas is coming to Game Pass on day one so I’ll probably stick it on for a quick 30 minutes’ nostalgia.
I never got on that well with GTAIII, and skipped San Andreas entirely, but I spent a lot of time in Vice City. Did I see they're asking £55 for it, though? That feels a bit steep.
I really enjoyed GTAIII at the time, I think it's probably the high point of the series for me. Never clicked with Vice City, and actively hated San Andreas' city design.
That's cool and all but I don't remember really remember them having an awkward control scheme, are we getting stuff like a more fluid free aim from GTA4 onwards? Gonna' guess no?
I managed to finish the story in GTA 3 using touch screen buttons so it can't have been that hard. I did skip a bunch of non-essential missions though.
I gotta' say the idea of playing 3D GTA at all on a Phone seems pretty hardcore, props. I'm interested in going back to these after 4/5 because I remember when we discussed on here how the series started to curtail the freedom to do some missions your own way in favour of cinematics and Rockstar wanting them to be all done one way (leading to the brilliant screenshot of Red Dead 2 where you can fail the mission to kill that guy…by killing that guy). So I'm looking forward to seeing how far I can go.
'Welcome to GTA Mobile. Press 1 to make an offensive hand gesture, 2 if you want gun down innocent civilians or 3 for driving like a maniac. If you wish to swear profusely at an operator, please hold.'
Microsoft have added 75 more Xbox and 360 games to its BC list, for anyone who's been desperately waiting to play Oneechanbara in 4K HDR.
For some reason the official blog post only included the list in an image (fuck anyone with visual impairments, I guess), but thankfully someone on Reddit typed it out so I can copy/paste it here:
50 Cent: Blood on the Sand
Aces of the Galaxy
Advent Rising
Adventure Time: The Secret of the Nameless Kingdom
Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? Make the Grade
Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Burning Earth
Bankshot Billiards 2
Beautiful Katamari
Binary Domain
Black College Football Xperience: Doug Williams Ed
Cloning Clyde
Conan
Darwinia+
Dead or Alive Ultimate
Dead or Alive 3
Dead or Alive 4
Death by Cube
Disney Universe
Disney’s Chicken Little
Elements of Destruction
F.E.A.R.
F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin
F.E.A.R. 3
F.E.A.R. Files
The First Templar
Gladius
Gunvalkyrie
Islands of Wakfu
Lego The Lord of the Rings
Manhunt
Max Payne
Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne
Max Payne 3
Mini Ninjas
Mortal Kombat
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe
MX vs. ATV Alive
MX vs. ATV Untamed
NIER
Novadrome
Oddworld: Munch’s Oddysee
Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad
Otogi: Myth of Demons
Otogi 2: Immortal Warriors
The Outfit
Outpost Kaloki X
Quake Arena Arcade
R.A.W. - Realms of Ancient War
Red Dead Revolver
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City
Ridge Racer 6
Rio
Risen
Risen 2: Dark Waters
Rock of Ages
Sacred 2: Fallen Angel
Scramble
Screwjumper!
Secret Weapons Over Normandy
Skate 2
SpongeBob SquarePants Underpants Slam!
SpongeBob’s Truth or Square
Star Wars Starfighter: Special Edition
Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast
Switchball
Thrillville
Thrillville: Off the Rails
Time Pilot
TimeSplitters 2
TimeSplitters: Future Perfect
Toy Story Mania!
Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgment
Viva Piñata: Party Animals
Warlords
I'm not sure I give a shit about any of them, which is kind of impressive for a list that long, I have to admit.
Alan Wake
Assassin’s Creed
Binary Domain
Black College Football Xperience: Doug Williams Ed
Darksiders
Dead Space 2
Dead Space 3
Disney’s Chicken Little
Dragon Age: Origins
Dragon Age II
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
F.E.A.R.
F.E.A.R. 3
Fable Anniversary
Fable III
Fallout 3
Fallout: New Vegas
Far Cry 3
Final Fantasy XIII-2
Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII
Gears of War
Gears of War 2
Gears of War 3
Gears of War: Judgment
Gears of War: Ultimate Edition
Kameo: Elements of Power
Lego The Lord of the Rings
Medal of Honor: Airborne
Mirror’s Edge
Nier
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City
Rock of Ages
Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed
Sonic Generations
Sonic Unleashed
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgment
From that list, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is an absolute must, it's a brilliant racer that always had a terrible frame rate on console. I might give Gears of War another go, maybe it'll click eventually. I can't ignore the Final Fantasy XIII games any longer. Isn't Binary Domain something of a lost classic? And maybe it's time for that playthrough of New Vegas I've always promised myself.
Good work all round from Microsoft, I'd say. Apparently though this is going to be the last ever drop of backward-compatible games, which means there are still some notable gaps in the catalogue, especially from the OG Xbox. I guess the number of people desperate to play obscure Xbox titles (outside of the obvious big hitters, which are mostly there) is probably very, very low.
And maybe it's time for that playthrough of New Vegas I've always promised myself.
I'm making my way through this at the moment – it's very good, but it's very brown. I've also hit a number of severe crashes in one of the sidequests, where going through doors too often leads to a stuck loading screen with an ear-splitting buzz that requires a full restart of the game. Thankfully the autosave is pretty generous so I've not lost much progress to it, but doubling back through this Vault trying to find the quest-giver to hand it in is getting real old.
Apparently though this is going to be the last ever drop of backward-compatible games
I'd been holding out hope for Alpha Protocol – especially with Obsidian owned by Microsoft now – so colour me disappointed with that decision.
To be fair, they said that before, and then suddenly pulled another 75 out of nowhere yesterday, so I wouldn't entirely abandon hope. Although most of the big stand-outs (PGR, Jet Set Radio Future, Outrun) now seem to be stymied by licensing, rather than technical issues. Does Alpha Protocol have any notable licensed music in it?
There are a handful of games on there that have been made backward compatible even though they are no longer on the store (Driver: San Francisco is definitely one) - you can play them if you have the disc. But I'd imagine there's very little justification in MS's eyes for putting any effort into doing this, as by definition they are never going to make any money out of it.
Well, New Vegas is noticeably smoother with the frame rate boost, but I can't help but feel that it actually looks worse overall. At 30fps, I feel like there was a blurriness that hid some of the grubbiness of the textures (my 10mm pistol has some particularly bad smudging around the hammer) but it's all laid very bare at 60 (my TV doesn't go higher).
It always looked, on Series X, like an 11-year-old game running on modern hardware, but now it looks like an 11-year-old game running on modern hardware.
You can disable the FPS Boost if you prefer it the old way - just go to the Manage Game menu from the dashboard and it's under Compatibility Options.
Some of the FPS Boost games drop to a lower resolution when the feature is engaged. I don't know if New Vegas is one of them. Star Wars Battlefront 2 can hit 120fps but it drops to Xbox One S resolution to do so, and looks far, far worse. It's not quite a no-brainer option for every game just yet.
Checked out a few backward-compatible additions yesterday:
Beautiful Katamari looks and runs amazingly well. It must have had an unlocked frame rate on the 360 because it hits 60 with ease now. Amazing to just be able to go in and with a few clicks download all the DLC I bought about 15 years ago. It's my favourite in the series (of the ones I've played) so I have no doubt I'll be having another run-through of this one.
Timesplitters 2 looks surprisingly decent with a great low-poly style and fantastic animations but oh my god the controls are super-twitchy. Aiming at anything at all is a nightmare. Running around with a shotgun is as much fun as it ever was though.
Sonic Generations now looks like a native Series X game, it's completely insane. At 4K, 60fps and HDR, it's become the poster child for what Microsoft can achieve with their backward compatibility programme.
You might be asking yourself "why would I want to stream an Xbox game to an Xbox" but there are some very happy Xbox One owners out there right now streaming Series versions of games to their consoles.
I hope they carry on making hardware once all games go cloud-based. Or they solve input lag. It’s a brilliant idea but in practice I can never get over the increased input time.
I just realised I could literally attach the USB drive attached to my PS4 to my PS5 and all the games on it were there immediately. Fairly obvious once I thought about it - but now I can offload all my BC titles onto it and save the (somewhat small) space on the NVME drive for PS5 native titles. Poggers.
I'm thinking of joining you in the new generation of consoles. I've got £450 to spend, so I could buy a Series S and have money left over for games or I could gather some other funds and buy a PS5 or a Series X. I'm not convinced that I'd see the benefit though. I do have a 4k TV, but I still think Switch games look good so I expect the series S will be fine. Also are there any PS5s in the shops yet?
Series X plus Gamepass would be the obvious choice. £450 for the console. Then a quid for the first month and use the usual tricks to get it cheap for a year after that. You can also give your time for free to the Microsoft Rewards program to pay for it and insist you're only wasting 5 minutes of your life every year and how it's absolutely no trouble and it's absolutely great.
I wouldn't totally write the PS5 off, there is a Gamepassesque service slated for next year, and there's 50% off PSPlus for the year at the moment, making it 25 quid. You get a decent library of titles for free from a curated library and obviously the free ones each month over the 12 month period. Out of the two you might find it easier to find a Series X though.
If it boils down to exclusives, there's not exactly hundreds of them screaming for attention, Returnal and Ratchet and Clank, plus 60fps versions of PS4 games like God of War and Last of Us 2. Xbox brings Halo Infinite and Forza 5 (and maybe Psychonauts 2 at a push). PS5's pad is arguably slightly more interesting, Xbox is probably a bit slicker and less wacky overall. Unless you're Digital Foundry they're pretty much identical in terms of performance. X looks understated and professional, the PS5 looks ridiculous.
I wouldn't go for the Series S, however good it is at the moment. Cross-generationally it's doing fine, but once we're into the mid to end stages of this gen I suspect the X will either have exclusives or significantly better versions of cross platform titles. So yeah, I'd probably go X with Gamepass. if you have a gaming PC then go PS5.
I wouldn't totally write the PS5 off, there is a Gamepassesque service slated for next year
From what I've read, it appears to be an amalgamation of PS+ and PS Now rebranded under one banner with a few extra bits. That sounds a bit shit. We'll see, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
