Started Breath of the Wild yet? Such a crazy good game. Since I have MS Gamepass, I decided to go back through the Halo series (The Master Chief Collection is part of Gamepass). With the new one coming out, I figured why not?
No, haven’t played Zelda yet, I could only afford a couple games so I got Mario Odyssey and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Zelda is on the list though, I’ll play it eventually. Regarding the Master Chief Collection, it holds up incredibly well IMO. Halo 1 remains one of my favorite games of all time, I think the remaster looks great and the gameplay remains brilliant. Halo 2 was never as good, but it looks gorgeous now, and I still love the Flood sections. I have a hard time picking which I prefer between 3 and 4, 4 is probably more polished, and I love the return to a driving sequence to end the game, but 4 feels very unique for sure. Oh and ODST is under-appreciated, it’s a really fun side game with a totally different feel as you’re not a spartan, but instead a regular soldier, so the enemies feel tougher.
So while playing Halo CE (the very first one) I noticed something on The Master Chief Collection. You can hit the back button (the one with two little squares on it to the left of the guide button) to toggle between the new enhanced version and the original version. Wow. The difference is huge. This wasn't some minor upgrade where they smoothed out some lines. It's a huge difference.
interesting note on that, when you switch between the 2 I believe the old one you’re seeing is the PC port which was horrible. The original Xbox game did not look that bad, Xbox had its touted “bump mapping” and it actually made wall, ground, and other textures look pretty damn good. So if you played Halo 1 on a disc on an Xbox it would look muuuch better than what you see when you switch to the “old” version on the MC Collection. All that said, it’s still amazing what a great job they did with the remaster, it looks beautiful. The Halo 2 remaster was done much later too, so it looks even better, with especially improved lighting effects like when you use the alien weapons.
Another thing I wanted to add about the original Halo. The "twist" was so well done. You spend 2/3's of the game fighting aliens in what you believe to be an Alien vs Human matchup. I was playing close attention and there wasn't even a hint that the Halo was a weapon, especially not a last resort type weapon against an uncontrollable parasite.
The Last of Us Part 2. Loved it. Masterpiece. Some of the best storytelling in any medium over the last several years. Arguably the best graphics in a game. Gameplay is incredibly fun and built upon the last game. I’m actually blown away that I was able to take my time through this game and go several weeks without it being spoiled for me on the Internet, or getting a feel for the general sentiment about the game and having it influence my opinion. So of course right after I beat the game and am excited to finally gush about how much I love it, I find that there is a loud vocal online fanbase that HATES the game. The game’s own subreddit is basically just memes trashing on it. And not sure I understand why. Anyone else play it yet? If so, what did you think about it?
Most of the hate towards LOU2 is story related, not gameplay,graphics or anything like that. Its subjective but I didnt like the story or what did to the beloved characters either.
A lot of people are comparing it to The Last Jedi. I know nothing about the Last of Us (Not a PS user), but people seem to be making some sort of correlation between what they did to Luke and what they did to one of the characters in LOU2.
Yeah, that’s what I’ve gathered, a lot of people are upset at the story choices. I think TLJ is an interesting comparison. Ras, it’s unfortunate that you didn’t like the story. I’m now understanding what was so controversial so I get where you’re coming from. As much as I loved the game, I’m envisioning a scenario where the story didn’t connect for me and thinking of how disappointed I’d be, because the first game was so great. But personally for me the story was excellent. I think it even enhances the plot of the first game. And yeah, the graphics/gameplay were excellent. I honestly wouldn’t even mind a similar game that didn’t have ANY story, just various gameplay segments where you have some unique level design that you have to navigate through with varying levels of stealth/combat options, looting equipment along the way to upgrade yourself. The level design itself telling a mini-story seeing how all the buildings decayed, reading notes from the houses you’re going through, etc. That itself was such a blast even aside from the main plot.
Finished all of FromSoft’s “Soulsborne” games. Dark Souls 1-3, Bloodborne, and Sekiro. GREAT games! The difficulty is often memed about, but it’s truly what makes these games so special. I’ve always been one to play games on Normal difficulty and just try to casually play through the story, but these games don’t have much of a story and the challenge is exhilarating. Fighting a boss for the 30th time, you now have a slightly better feel for their moves and can consistently almost defeat them but just not able to get over the hump, about to throw your controller in frustration. Finally you’re beating them up but depleted of health items and one hit away from dying but you pull through and get the victory. Heart beating out of your chest, pure adrenaline. Was going to go back and play their first game Demon’s Souls but at the time it was only available on PS3 which isn’t backwards compatible. So I ended up getting a used PS3, but by the time I was able to get a working controller this week now I’ve learned that the Demon’s Souls remake will be a launch game for PS5 and it looks like it might be the best launch game in terms of visuals. So now I have this PS3 I just got collecting dust, meanwhile I now have 3 pre-orders for a PS5 and Demon’s Souls remake lol. In meantime I’ve been playing the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater remake and Ghosts of Tsushima. THPS feels just like it did when I was a kid, great casual fun to pick up and play for 10-20 minutes at a time. Ghosts of Tsushima is interesting. Great graphics, and really everything about the game is well executed. But I can’t help but constantly think how I’ve played this game before. There’s nothing really unique or innovative about it, it’s the same open world action RPG that I’ve played several times this generation. Think Witcher 3, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Horizon, Shadow of Mordor, etc. Action/stealth combat with a fun skill tree as you advance through the game, cool story missions but padded out with repetitive tasks to do around the open world (get to the top of this waypoint, clear out this enemy fortress, etc). Will be getting the Super Mario 3D All Stars collection includes Switch with Mario 64, Sunshine, and Galaxy tomorrow.
As of today I have 3 pre-orders for PS5 (Best Buy, Amazon, GameStop) and 4 pre-orders for Xbox Series X (Best Buy, Amazon, GameStop, Walmart). When these pre-orders went live, the traffic crashed most of these store’s websites and you had to keep spamming the checkout buttons to eventually get through, so I tried multiple places to make sure I’d have an order that actually went through. Have heard stories of people having their online pre-orders cancelled after the fact once the store realized they oversold. So I’ll stand by for a week or so to make sure which of my preorders are still good and have the best estimates delivery, and then I’ll cancel the rest. Plan on playing Demon’s Souls and SpiderMan on PS5. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and NBA 2k21 on XSX. That second week of November should be very fun! By the way if y’all haven’t heard, Microsoft has bought Bethesda! Huge game changer for gaming IMO. The next installments of Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Doom, etc are likely all going to be Xbox exclusives.
I was thinking about the new X... but then realized, i played twice in the last year. All my console do these days is collect dust
Wow, I only managed to preorder the PS5 with Target. Was eating dinner while Walmart went live and just couldn't get into any of the others one. For a quick second there was going to drive to a Gamestop to pre-order there but heard stock was very limited so didn't even bother. Hoping the Target pre-order sticks though. Can't wait for Nov though, I have such a huge backlog to get to and my PS4 has been louder than a jet engine lately.
I think if you haven’t heard anything about your Target pre-order by this point, no news is good news. You should be set hopefully. From what I had heard about any preorder cancellations they usually come pretty soon in situations where the store has oversold. No joke, that’s one of the things I’m most looking forward to with PS5. Not having my console sound like a jet engine and heat up my room. I’m expecting/hoping these new systems will perform much better and it sounded like ventilation was a big design consideration for both companies.
Yeah I’ve been playing through this collection and having a blast. A lot of people are complaining that it was a bit of a cash grab as Nintendo didn’t really make any improvements. It’s more of a “port” of these old games rather than a “remaster” or “remake”, but I don’t really mind. I guess the one thing that would have been great would have been some improvements to the control and camera of 64. That has definitely aged a bit. So far I’ve finished 64 and Sunshine and on to Galaxy. All are great in their own right. 64 is a classic and super nostalgic, Sunshine’s FLUDD gives the most versatility to platforming, Galaxy strips away some of those platforming abilities but the level design is extremely fun and makes up for it. Now to just grind out the clock at work until my “staycation” next week with my Series X and PS5!
