ShreddieMercury

I recently took apart and cleaned out an old Dreamcast controller that I have, and it was really fun and rewarding to get it clean and functioning again. So, I then bought an old 1st generation Xbox, some thermal paste and torx wrenches and cleaned it up inside. Not sure if I'll ever get to the point where I can solder things or do any serious repairs, but it's really fun to take apart consoles and learn how things are put together/clean them out and restore the parts that you can. It sounds from reading a bit about it like I should mod my Xbox because it's a v.1 with a supposedly unreliable DVD drive, but I'm pretty intimidated by modding overall. Anybody have experience doing this stuff or enjoy it? Also, maybe this should go in Retro Gaming?

Bumping this because I played guitar on this track: Brandi Carlile and Renée Elise Goldsberry Cover ‘I Put a Spell on You’ for the ‘Social Dilemma’ Soundtrack (EXCLUSIVE) VARIETY.COM Variety has the premiere of Brandi Carlile and Renee Elise Goldsberry doing "I Put a Spell on You" for the new "Social Dilemma" soundtrack.

Basically Eurogamer is it. USGamer was awesome, but as already mentioned they are sadly no more. It actually blows my mind how bad games journalism is on the whole. Either you have to watch an inexplicably long youtube video that has about 2% of interesting content throughout, or you have to read poorly written short articles that are basically summaries of tweets. Popular podcasts like Giant Bomb also seem to just boil down to "this was good, this was bad, holy shit this snack is awesome". There is nothing of any critical substance in most anything game related in my experience.

Microsoft buying Sega would be amazing, and might make sense given Sega's adoption of the first Xbox when they got out of the hardware business. If MS did that, then all of those amazing games could hopefully be added via back compat. Stuff like JSRF (still unlikely due to music licensing, unfortunately), Outrun 2, Gunvalkyrie, Otogi, etc. I'd say Nintendo announces new docked-only switch model (this is what the "Pro" is). Sony releases a new stand and differently colored plates for PS5. MS announces some sort of VR support to capitalize on the lack of clarity on the future of PSVR.

Holy shit this was so cathartic and amazing.

Personally I'm very excited for Third-Person Open World Game, Another Metroidvania, and Indie Rogue-like 1-100.

Ok yes, great, but where is Wolfenstein III??

My pandemic has been primarily spent revisiting old games, which has been wonderful. I've gravitated towards nostalgic experiences that feel comfortable and remind me of less disruptive and intense periods of my life. At the same time, playing lots of older games is really illuminating and has helped me understand why so many new games leave me cold. Playing Mario Galaxy in HD was an absolutely magical experience, pure gameplay and moment-after-moment of creative genius. After getting a Series X, I've spent all my time guffawing at the upscaling and HDR applied to games like Ninja Gaiden, Panzer Dragoon Orta, and SSX3. And then other stuff that isn't enhanced but that looks mind blowing with HDR, like Jet Set Radio and Geometry Wars. So I don't have a specific game that's defined my pandemic, but my preference for games has definitely been altered by it.

I debating whether to get this on PS4, because it looks like it has interesting PSVR support, or on Series X due to graphical enhancements. I'll probably wait and see what people say about the VR portion.

My wife had a reaction to her second shot. She had a fever, aches and chills, but only for about 24 hours. It subsided pretty quickly and wasn't too severe.

Agreed. I haven't played Evolve, but understand it to be a mess.

My wife was vaccinated at her hospital this morning. She has the second dose scheduled three weeks from today.

Looks pretty disappointing from what I've seen, but I'll hold off judgement until I can play it. The UI sucks, the pacing of the hordes and special infected seems way off, and the stats/items/cards seems needlessly complex and only included to ensure that they can monetize the game into the future.

While you can definitely play offline with bots, it's preferable to play online, especially at higher difficulties. That said, the online stuff is certainly tolerable if you're like me and mostly avoid online shooters. It's cooperative (unless you want to play the vs. mode), and most players know what they're doing. Make sure to get Left 4 Dead 2 since they ported all of the Left 4 Dead 1 maps into the game along with all of the bonus DLC and such. I still prefer the first game for some key balancing reasons (and the maps are much, much better), but the second game is the one with the largest and most active community. I consider it one of the best, most fun, simple, and tightly designed games ever made.

I don't have the hour count, but I think Left 4 Dead might be my single most played game of all time. What's surprising about it is that I continue to this day to just play the campaign mode on expert, on consoles and without mods where there's really not a whole lot of content to begin with.

Schadenfreude intensifies.

CNET with the best list since Super Mario Galaxy in HD is GOTY.

A few notes on the Series X since I played with it for a few hours yesterday: - I mentioned this in another post, but the set up was the smoothest and easiest I've experienced with almost any electronic device. It took about 5 minutes using the Xbox app, and all relevant settings/profile info were immediately transferred over flawlessly from my One S. - Download speeds are much, much faster. I was hitting a little over 200 mbps over wifi, and was able to download Halo: MCC, Skyrim, Control, Mirror's Edge Catalyst, Dead Space 3, Geometry Wars 3, Left 4 Dead 2, and Jet Set Radio within a little over an hour. - The loading times are extremely fast. I know this has been demonstrated a lot with both the Series X/S and PS5, but seeing it in action is pretty amazing. You can get into a game in about 20 seconds from the menu screen, and games that used to take minutes to load (Control for example) take about 5-10 seconds now. - Auto-HDR is maybe what's impressed me most so far. My TV isn't considered a "true" HDR display even though it supports HDR-10, but it still has made a huge difference in every game I've tried. It was flawless in the backward compatible games that I ran, and I think this has the capability to genuinely transform the experience of playing older games. - It is completely silent so far. I've not put a disc in yet, but it's almost unnervingly quiet in comparison to my PS4 Pro. All in all, it feels like much more of a substantial upgrade than I was expecting. It might be because I'm coming from a One S, but the jump to 4K with HDR and lightning speed loading times makes games (even ones I was just playing a few days ago) feel different, new, and exciting. My only complaint so far is that the controller's home button feels a little stickier than the one on my other Xbox controller. It doesn't register every click unless you really make to sure to press it firmly.

Thanks! I was luckily able to get it from the Microsoft Store on launch day, but it took until today to be delivered.

Just plugged it in, the setup was completely painless through the Xbox app. I was genuinely amazed by how easy it was.

Wow how punk!

@Keyser_Soze

My issue is the opposite! I don't think it'll fit horizontally in my entertainment center. I can probably put it either way next to the TV though. I'll have to see how large it is.

My Xbox Series X is being delivered today. Should I stand it up or lay it down?

Some great recs in this thread, thanks everyone. I have played a lot of the games referenced so far - Hades, Control, Mirrors Edge, Shadow of Mordor, Last of Us, Spider-Man. I think Ninja Gaiden Black is highest on my list now, especially because it's backwards compatible and enhanced on Xbox. Wish I could play God Hand, but I don't have a PS2.