All Things Videogame Related: EXTREME VS!!

[mikeszekely]

  On 11/10/2020 at 11:15 PM, Tking22 said:

Found one at Walmart, not a planned purchase, I was going to definitely grab one eventually, but it was there so I nabbed it.

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Like... just on a shelf?

Maybe I'll be visiting a Walmart soon.  I didn't really want one of the new Xbox consoles, but the price hike on Game Pass for PC means Game Pass Ultimate is only $5 more now.  And with the addition of EA Play on top of already including Game Pass for PC and console plus Xbox Live Gold, Game Pass Ultimate is looking like a no-brainer.  And if I'm going to buy Game Pass Ultimate, I might as well buy a new console to play on... and you see where this is going.

EDIT: Stopped at my local Walmart on my way to my dad's, none there.  Then I took him to his local Walmart, none there either.  Oh well, no biggie.

Edited November 11, 2020 by mikeszekely

[Tking22]

  On 11/11/2020 at 12:35 AM, mikeszekely said:

Like... just on a shelf?

Maybe I'll be visiting a Walmart soon.  I didn't really want one of the new Xbox consoles, but the price hike on Game Pass for PC means Game Pass Ultimate is only $5 more now.  And with the addition of EA Play on top of already including Game Pass for PC and console plus Xbox Live Gold, Game Pass Ultimate is looking like a no-brainer.  And if I'm going to buy Game Pass Ultimate, I might as well buy a new console to play on... and you see where this is going.

EDIT: Stopped at my local Walmart on my way to my dad's, none there.  Then I took him to his local Walmart, none there either.  Oh well, no biggie.

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Yup, just on the shelf. It was crazy, I had to stop and grab a few things and decided to go check the electronics section, the video game stuff is always in sections based on platform and there they were among Xbox One and One S, two Series X and one Series S. Totally unexpected, once again, just sitting there. I'd been reading the horror stories all day about online orders, and scalpers, and people hunting store to store to try and get one, so I asked the guy stocking behind me if they were for sale and yes indeed, I wrung up one Series X. 

From what I read there's a number of factors at play, first off was that Walmart apparently wasn't supposed to sell these in store, apparently the in store stock was for online orders only. Problem with that was that Walmart.com was a mess all day, orders didn't go through, orders were cancelled, so apparently a number of Walmarts all over the country saw they had stock that wasn't getting picked up and said screw it, and just started selling them. I also read that a few Walmart employees were told in store stock was for Black Friday only, which I doubt. Who knows really, it seems it was a mess overall, most Walmart employees had no idea the Series X and S even came out, and every store, early in the morning, had lines of people trying to grab one. 

Only thing I've been thinking about is if some poor sap put in an online order and something got messed up, allowing me to grab someone else's already paid for Series X. Honestly though, it was such a mess I doubt anyone got screwed that way, it seems most people getting screwed just had their orders cancelled a few minutes after ordering, Walmart's servers were a mess yesterday. 

[mikeszekely]

I'm very familiar with Walmart's inability to properly manage their preorders. They've never filled any of my store-exclusive Transformer preorders. Luckily I've been able to find them in stores.

[ErikElvis]

Anyone putting work in on the series x yet?  Mine comes tomorrow and while I’m not a big cod guy picking that up as well.  Not expecting much on the graphics front but wondering about load times and such. 

[mikeszekely]

I've been playing a ton of AC Valhalla... on PC. I haven't been able to get a new Xbox or PS5.

[TangledThorns]

  On 11/14/2020 at 3:27 PM, mikeszekely said:

I've been playing a ton of AC Valhalla... on PC. I haven't been able to get a new Xbox or PS5.

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PCs will always be in stock

[JB0]

  On 11/14/2020 at 8:18 PM, TangledThorns said:

PCs will always be in stock

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Unless buttcoin surges again. Friggin' video card droughts...

Edited November 14, 2020 by JB0

[Tking22]

  On 11/14/2020 at 8:03 AM, ErikElvis said:

Anyone putting work in on the series x yet?  Mine comes tomorrow and while I’m not a big cod guy picking that up as well.  Not expecting much on the graphics front but wondering about load times and such. 

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Yup, got one on launch day, I've got 20 hours into AC Valhalla, it's really smooth in 4K 60fps. I don't like COD so I passed on that, I got Gears Tactics, that game also looks fantastic in 4K 60fps. I'm going to grab Yakuza LAD eventually, it's just too similar to Gears Tactics to play right now as well.

I installed Doom Eternal and GTAV on the internal SSD and, no surprise, load times are far faster. Anything with a capped 30fps stays floored at 30fps, no dips. Anything installed on the SSD flies, Series X enhanced or not. 

The SSD on these new consoles is a game changer, from PC gaming's perspective it's about time, for console players it's a night and day difference.

[Chronocidal]

  On 11/14/2020 at 10:39 PM, Tking22 said:

The SSD on these new consoles is a game changer, from PC gaming's perspective it's about time, for console players it's a night and day difference.

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Now if only the manufacturers would pick up on how important bigger storage has become, and start giving you enough space to install more than three or four big titles at once.

Or, alternatively, game developers re-discovering the lost art of optimization.

[slide]

  On 11/14/2020 at 11:00 PM, Chronocidal said:

Now if only the manufacturers would pick up on how important bigger storage has become, and start giving you enough space to install more than three or four big titles at once.

Or, alternatively, game developers re-discovering the lost art of optimization.

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how big are the new CoD's on the consoles? the install is MONSTEROUS on PC...

[mikeszekely]

For the rest of you playing Valhalla, what are your thoughts?  I'm enjoying it, but in an effort to keep things "fresh" I feel like they watered down some of the RPG stuff I really liked in Origins and Odyssey, and subsequently is one of the better AC games when considering the franchise as a whole but worse than the last two.

[kajnrig]

  On 11/15/2020 at 1:14 AM, slide said:

how big are the new CoD's on the consoles? the install is MONSTEROUS on PC...

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Apparently ~150-200GB, which is exactly as stupid as I'd expect.

[David Hingtgen]

Gotta have several dozen 4096x4096 textures for each type of ammo, so that individual rounds in a clip are all unique...

[Chronocidal]

  On 11/15/2020 at 4:21 AM, kajnrig said:

Apparently ~150-200GB, which is exactly as stupid as I'd expect.

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And don't forget, the OS takes 198 gigs right off the bat, so you're not even starting with 1TB out of the box.  Could be worse though... the Series S starts with 364 gigs out of its 500.

Can always install an external drive, if you don't mind shuffling your games back and forth off the internal and external, since it won't play games off an external drive, or pony up another half a console for the expanded drive.

I think the message here is loud and clear: "Sit down, shut up, and forget local gaming, because we want you subscribed to our cloud service."

Edited November 15, 2020 by Chronocidal

[ErikElvis]

  On 11/14/2020 at 10:39 PM, Tking22 said:

Yup, got one on launch day, I've got 20 hours into AC Valhalla, it's really smooth in 4K 60fps. I don't like COD so I passed on that, I got Gears Tactics, that game also looks fantastic in 4K 60fps. I'm going to grab Yakuza LAD eventually, it's just too similar to Gears Tactics to play right now as well.

I installed Doom Eternal and GTAV on the internal SSD and, no surprise, load times are far faster. Anything with a capped 30fps stays floored at 30fps, no dips. Anything installed on the SSD flies, Series X enhanced or not. 

The SSD on these new consoles is a game changer, from PC gaming's perspective it's about time, for console players it's a night and day difference.

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How’s gears tactics online. I’m assuming it has online multiplayer. I think I played them all but the one before it. Have the same feel as the older gears?  I was always more of a gears fan than cod. If you got pissed off enough in gears you could just chainsaw  the hell out of people to make yourself feel better

[Tking22]

  On 11/14/2020 at 11:00 PM, Chronocidal said:

Now if only the manufacturers would pick up on how important bigger storage has become, and start giving you enough space to install more than three or four big titles at once.

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I think both new consoles using SSD will lead to both bigger and cheaper SSD in the future, it may take another year or so, but being the new standard for consoles now as well should push competition.

  On 11/15/2020 at 4:13 AM, mikeszekely said:

For the rest of you playing Valhalla, what are your thoughts?  I'm enjoying it, but in an effort to keep things "fresh" I feel like they watered down some of the RPG stuff I really liked in Origins and Odyssey, and subsequently is one of the better AC games when considering the franchise as a whole but worse than the last two.

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They definitely seem to have dialed back on some of the RPG stuff, the new assassination options are interesting, you can run off the numbers and not always get the kill or you can just set it to always kill. Also, there's far, far less gear, it's now more about upgrading existing stuff and occasionally getting a new piece of a set in a chest, then getting piles of new stuff to sort and optimize.

  On 11/15/2020 at 7:23 AM, ErikElvis said:

How’s gears tactics online. I’m assuming it has online multiplayer. I think I played them all but the one before it. Have the same feel as the older gears?  I was always more of a gears fan than cod. If you got pissed off enough in gears you could just chainsaw  the hell out of people to make yourself feel better

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Gears Tactics isn't a cover based third person shooter like the rest of the series, it's a turn based strategy game like Xcom. Gears 5 is still the current mainline Gears game, I restarted the campaign with the Series X enhancements and it's amazing, 120fps multiplayer isn't too shabby either.

Gears Tactics is a ton of fun if you like turn based strategy games, I've played a lot of Xcom and the like so I'm really enjoying it, even though it's more zoomed out it's still a really polished Gears game.

[ErikElvis]

Oh I see. So gears 5 is prob what I want. Still a good following online?

[JB0]

  On 11/15/2020 at 8:02 AM, Tking22 said:

I think both new consoles using SSD will lead to both bigger and cheaper SSD in the future, it may take another year or so, but being the new standard for consoles now as well should push competition.

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Flash drives have been getting steadily larger and cheaper anyways. If anything, game consoles using relatively large, high-speed flash drives will drive prices UP, since there's now much more demand for a limited production of high-capacity, high-performance flash memory chips.

[no3Ljm]

 

[Tking22]

  On 11/15/2020 at 8:33 AM, ErikElvis said:

Oh I see. So gears 5 is prob what I want. Still a good following online?

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Yup, still lots of people playing, there's crossplay between PC too, so there's even more people to play with. I think Gears 5 is in season 3, maybe 4, so there's lots of maps and content. 

[no3Ljm]

Just want to share this. Because, well... that’s 24 years too late for me. Hahaha!  Esp on times where I do some trial and error moves or choices and delete lots of saved games to free up space since acquiring multiple Memory Cards back then for me was expensive. And sometimes realizing that I have deleted the correct ones. 

But I do miss that ‘chime’ towards the end of the video.

 

Edited November 19, 2020 by no3Ljm

[Gerli]

Tomorrow starts the Free-Flight Event in Star Citizen and you can test all the ships for free across the weekend.

 

[davidwhangchoi]

[no3Ljm]

  On 11/20/2020 at 4:04 AM, davidwhangchoi said:

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[mikeszekely]

  On 11/20/2020 at 4:04 AM, davidwhangchoi said:

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Congrats.  I tried again with Walmart today but they keep advertising when they're going to open sales without the backend to deal with scalper bots and server load.  I managed to get one in my cart but then I got their "oh deer" page they put up when they're overloaded and the console was sold out before I could get to checkout.

I hope no one's buying on Ebay or StockX, and come spring the scalpers are sitting on a pile of unsold consoles they sell below retail just to cut their losses.

[no3Ljm]

  On 11/20/2020 at 5:54 AM, mikeszekely said:

Congrats.  I tried again with Walmart today but they keep advertising when they're going to open sales without the backend to deal with scalper bots and server load.  I managed to get one in my cart but then I got their "oh deer" page they put up when they're overloaded and the console was sold out before I could get to checkout.

I hope no one's buying on Ebay or StockX, and come spring the scalpers are sitting on a pile of unsold consoles they sell below retail just to cut their losses.

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Same here. As much as I’m excited with this new console, I’m really not that ready to upgrade. And besides we all do know that in a year there will be a slim or upgraded version, so I’m looking forward to that one instead. And this is after I saw how big it was compared to the PS4.  

By the way, I’m pretty sure that’s not @davidwhangchoi‘s room.

Edited November 20, 2020 by no3Ljm

[davidwhangchoi]

yeah, thats a meme

dirty room but the guy has priorities straight.

i cant get a preorder in for either ps5 or series x, keep getting cart jacked

Edited November 20, 2020 by davidwhangchoi

[Chronocidal]

I feel like this console generation is just too meme-able for its own good.  

 

Edited November 20, 2020 by Chronocidal

[ErikElvis]

Been trying to get into cod  Cold War. I’m just steady getting wrecked though. I’m real sick of seeing replays of someone with a sniper just lifting the scope and one shotting me. 

[davidwhangchoi]

Buy Now!

[Gerli]

Time to burn a city 

 

Edited December 10, 2020 by Gerli

[kajnrig]

Can I ask: What exactly is it about Cyberpunk 2077 that has everyone so excited? Is it mainly the devs' pedigree, ie Witcher 3? Does it stand out amongst cyberpunk media? I remember the hype was already through the roof the moment the first announcement was made, and I just don't get why.

[Gerli]

I enjoyed DeusEx A LOT so this game is a MUST for me 

[Tking22]

  On 12/10/2020 at 3:45 AM, kajnrig said:

Can I ask: What exactly is it about Cyberpunk 2077 that has everyone so excited? Is it mainly the devs' pedigree, ie Witcher 3? Does it stand out amongst cyberpunk media? I remember the hype was already through the roof the moment the first announcement was made, and I just don't get why.

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It's mostly The Witcher 3 thing, Witcher 3 was widely considered one of the best RPGs ever made, and easily one of the best games of last generation, if not the best RPG of last gen. Witcher 3 was pretty phenomenal, it set a huge standard for open world, third person RPGs, the Assassins Creed series and many others have taken many, many, many different cues from Witcher 3 and blended it into the blood most of their newer games. A lot of RPG-lite games these days are built around Witcher 3 tropes. 

Onto Cyberpunk, I did the New Zealand switcher-roo on my Series X yesterday and played for about 13.5 hours, yes, almost straight. It's pretty amazing, it's huge, and open-ended, and there's a ton of options for building and playing your character. Even though the "real" PS5 and Series X versions don't release until next year, the Series X still had an option for "performance" or "quality" mode, basically capped 30fps at 4K or 60fps with a scalable resolution, mostly hovering at 1080p. I'm on performance mode, and it runs very solid for the most part, but there are plenty of bugs to go around, better hardware can't change that. 

Poor base Xbox One and PS4 look and run like absolute garbage, which was to be expected but still, they're pretty bad. Review code was only for PC, not a single reviewer got console code, seems obvious why, if you're not on one the new consoles, you're going to have a rough experience. The resolution alone seems to drop to 720p for both consoles, and seems to hover around 15-20fps, yikes. 

The game is amazing so far though, I don't think it's the second coming of Christ like some gamers have made it out to be, but I think it's really, really good. The world is beautiful, and believable, I feel I am fully in charge of every aspect of my character, what I say, do, how I engage situations, it's a full RPG through and through, I'm pretty happy so far. The bugs I've run into haven't been game breaking either, mostly annoying or humorous, lots of T-Pose NPCs standing around in larger areas. 

[Drad]

  On 12/10/2020 at 3:45 AM, kajnrig said:

Can I ask: What exactly is it about Cyberpunk 2077 that has everyone so excited? Is it mainly the devs' pedigree, ie Witcher 3? Does it stand out amongst cyberpunk media? I remember the hype was already through the roof the moment the first announcement was made, and I just don't get why.

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Because it's an opportunity to play in a cyberpunk setting made famous by Blade Runner that until now we haven't had the technology to adequately experience. That and it's the video game version of Mike Pondsmith's Cyberpunk tabletop RPG that many of us played back in the day. For me it was high school. Good times.

That's why it's a big deal.

I'm playing on PC (Ryzen 5 3600, RTX 2060S 8GB, 32GB RAM at 3200, SATA SSD) and it's running great with the latest drivers. Optimized with RTX/DLSS performance getting 55-85 FPS on high/ultra at 1080p. Haven't run into any bugs yet. Been really smooth.

Edited December 10, 2020 by Drad