Video Game Thread v. Series Xbox One X Series Switch S 5

[El Barto]

So it seems that at 125gb I'm going to need a new hard drive just to play Starfield. 

This whole thing's kind of got me in a conundrum. For one thing, I really want to play the stupid game but I also want to wait a while for it to get stabilized. Bug fixes are part of it, but also a never-ending string of forced updates that keep breaking STSE and thus half the mods you have installed. I recently switched over to Skyrim SE and it's still a huge PITA with various version numbers. I'm certainly content to play without mods, it's a new game, after all, but even the UStP will almost certainly require STSE.

The other thing is that I'd be perfectly happy to pay for this one. Bethesda's earned a chunk of my money, after all. There's not really a good way to do that, though. I despise Steam and won't play games through their front end. I have a feeling the MS Store will be even worse. Most likely I'll just buy it through Steam and actually play a pirated version, but that's going to open up a different can of monkeys. I kind of miss the old days of just going and buying the game on a CD and owning the stupid thing; DLing updates as you see fit.

[cramx3]

Why do you hate Steam?  I love that platform

Another option, and the route I likely will take, is getting the game through gamepass. 

[El Barto]

Why do you hate Steam?  I love that platform

Another option, and the route I likely will take, is getting the game through gamepass.

Partly on principle; I don't like needing somebody else's permission to use software I purchased. Partly for practical reasons. Too many times I've slept in on a Saturday morning, looking forward to drinking coffee and playing a game, only to find that the thing corrupted itself and the solution is verify integrity of game files. I spend my hard-earned Saturday morning watching a stupid progress bar as it re-downloads the damn game. Pirated games don't bork themselves and don't require me to get Steam's permission to play.

[cramx3]

Why do you hate Steam?  I love that platform

Another option, and the route I likely will take, is getting the game through gamepass.

Partly on principle; I don't like needing somebody else's permission to use software I purchased. Partly for practical reasons. Too many times I've slept in on a Saturday morning, looking forward to drinking coffee and playing a game, only to find that the thing corrupted itself and the solution is verify integrity of game files. I spend my hard-earned Saturday morning watching a stupid progress bar as it re-downloads the damn game. Pirated games don't bork themselves and don't require me to get Steam's permission to play.

Pirate games come with their own issues though.  Granted, free is free.  I haven't pirated a game in like 10+ years though so maybe they are better than they used to be. The corrupt game thing happens from time to time.  It's basically the only time I really hate that I have cheap home internet at 50mb so doing something like that or downloading a new game can take awhile.  I feel like stuff like that always happens though in the PC gaming world.  My buddy couldn't play COD for awhile because of some weird issue that seemingly only affected his PC. 

I just think, Steam is a better platform than the others for PC like battlenet for example.

[El Barto]

Why do you hate Steam?  I love that platform

Another option, and the route I likely will take, is getting the game through gamepass.

Partly on principle; I don't like needing somebody else's permission to use software I purchased. Partly for practical reasons. Too many times I've slept in on a Saturday morning, looking forward to drinking coffee and playing a game, only to find that the thing corrupted itself and the solution is verify integrity of game files. I spend my hard-earned Saturday morning watching a stupid progress bar as it re-downloads the damn game. Pirated games don't bork themselves and don't require me to get Steam's permission to play.

Pirate games come with their own issues though.  Granted, free is free.  I haven't pirated a game in like 10+ years though so maybe they are better than they used to be. The corrupt game thing happens from time to time.  It's basically the only time I really hate that I have cheap home internet at 50mb so doing something like that or downloading a new game can take awhile.  I feel like stuff like that always happens though in the PC gaming world.  My buddy couldn't play COD for awhile because of some weird issue that seemingly only affected his PC. 

I just think, Steam is a better platform than the others for PC like battlenet for example.

I'm pretty sure Steam is the best of any of the platforms. I just don't want to have to use any third party platform to play a game I paid for.

Also, games shouldn't corrupt themselves at all. That is inherently a middle-platform issue. I have never had to reinstall a game because it suddenly corrupted itself overnight, unless Steam did something to it.

And keep in mind it's not necessarily about free. I've got games on Steam that I own, but prefer to play pirated versions of simply to avoid the hassle. Like I said, I'll probably buy Starfield on Steam and simply never install it. While there can be issues going the piracy route, they're almost always related to the initial install. Once you get a game up and running it's invariably much smoother sailing than dicking around with Steam.

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

This seems strange to me, since I've never once had to verify files on steam to get a game to work again. I've been using Steam since it first released and played hundreds of games on it. Perhaps I've just been lucky, but I also run a pretty tight ship on my PCs

[cramx3]

This seems strange to me, since I've never once had to verify files on steam to get a game to work again. I've been using Steam since it first released and played hundreds of games on it. Perhaps I've just been lucky, but I also run a pretty tight ship on my PCs

It happens, but it's overall fairly rare.  I think I've done it like 5 times total out of the 100 games on steam I have from the last 15 years. And come to think about it, I think of those 5 times, 3 of them were likely actually on battlenet and not steam.

[El Barto]

Maybe I've just been terribly unlucky, but that's a bit of fortune I shouldn't have to be subjected to in the first place.

[Dublagent66]

Not a PC gamer and not a fan of streaming either.  Everything I own and play is local on my console or in my PS library.  No problems. 

[Herrick]

Herrick too misses the days of buying a game and just running it or installing it without downloading stuff. I think it really hit me when I bought Skyrim back when it came out, brought the game home and still had to fucking download it.

[cramx3]

Not a PC gamer and not a fan of streaming either.  Everything I own and play is local on my console or in my PS library.  No problems. 

Definitely the positive of console gaming, stability and ease.

[El Barto]

Not a PC gamer and not a fan of streaming either.  Everything I own and play is local on my console or in my PS library.  No problems. 

Definitely the positive of console gaming, stability and ease.

Yeah, but with the tradeoff of no mods and plenty of other PC stuff. My PC does everything, so spending money on a console would only piss me off.

Also, while it's been a while, I seem to recall plenty of times when I put a game in and try to play it only to have my Xbox tell me that it has to DL patches/updates before I can play. That's why I always left it disconnected from the internet.

[cramx3]

Not a PC gamer and not a fan of streaming either.  Everything I own and play is local on my console or in my PS library.  No problems. 

Definitely the positive of console gaming, stability and ease.

Yeah, but with the tradeoff of no mods and plenty of other PC stuff. My PC does everything, so spending money on a console would only piss me off.

Also, while it's been a while, I seem to recall plenty of times when I put a game in and try to play it only to have my Xbox tell me that it has to DL patches/updates before I can play. That's why I always left it disconnected from the internet.

Yeah, I'm with you.  I'd trade in the simplicity of a console for my PC any day.  Also, I have an old xbox one and the last time I powered it on, everything needed updates.  Haven't touched it since because by the time those updates were done, I was long out of time to actually game.  The new consoles definitely aren't quite as plug and play as they used to be and have their own issues as well.

[Dublagent66]

Not a PC gamer and not a fan of streaming either.  Everything I own and play is local on my console or in my PS library.  No problems. 

Definitely the positive of console gaming, stability and ease.

Yeah, but with the tradeoff of no mods and plenty of other PC stuff. My PC does everything, so spending money on a console would only piss me off.

Also, while it's been a while, I seem to recall plenty of times when I put a game in and try to play it only to have my Xbox tell me that it has to DL patches/updates before I can play. That's why I always left it disconnected from the internet.

Seems like just another reason not to own an xbox.  Never had problems like that with PS4 & PS5 if I'm understanding you correctly.

[El Barto]

So Playstations never update games and never update firmwares? That seems unlikely.

[Dublagent66]

Of course they do, but system and game version updates can be done in rest mode when you're not playing.  So, when you come back, everything is updated and ready to play.

[El Barto]

Of course they do, but system and game version updates can be done in rest mode when you're not playing.  So, when you come back, everything is updated and ready to play.

OK, that makes more sense. Like I said, I haven't owned a console since my 360, so maybe MS has resolved that. I also left mine unplugged most of the time, so that didn't help matters. Still, I don't want my shit updating at all unless I tell it to, but that's just me.

[XJDenton]

The only issues I ever had with steam past 2010 ( early years were a shit show) was when I was using it on Linux. I get you with regards to DRM, I am also against it on principle but tbh with most games I will never replay them or feel the urge to so I realistically don't care if I lose access to them in 30 years or whatever. If there's a decent DRM free option like GOG for purchasing something though I will do so.

[Herrick]

Of course they do, but system and game version updates can be done in rest mode when you're not playing.  So, when you come back, everything is updated and ready to play.

Xbox doesn't do that?

[Stadler]

Of course they do, but system and game version updates can be done in rest mode when you're not playing.  So, when you come back, everything is updated and ready to play.

OK, that makes more sense. Like I said, I haven't owned a console since my 360, so maybe MS has resolved that. I also left mine unplugged most of the time, so that didn't help matters. Still, I don't want my shit updating at all unless I tell it to, but that's just me.

I'm not too diligent about it, but I agree with you in that I don't necessarily just let the updates happen.  Some on SONY are necessary to log into the PSN, but I also know there are games that have patches that aren't strictly necessary.  Injustice comes to mind.   There's one patch that makes the last couple of "levels" (I forget what they are called) almost impossible; I would have to make sure that patch wasn't installed to even have a shot at winning some of the later matches.

[El Barto]

Of course they do, but system and game version updates can be done in rest mode when you're not playing.  So, when you come back, everything is updated and ready to play.

OK, that makes more sense. Like I said, I haven't owned a console since my 360, so maybe MS has resolved that. I also left mine unplugged most of the time, so that didn't help matters. Still, I don't want my shit updating at all unless I tell it to, but that's just me.

I'm not too diligent about it, but I agree with you in that I don't necessarily just let the updates happen.  Some on SONY are necessary to log into the PSN, but I also know there are games that have patches that aren't strictly necessary.  Injustice comes to mind.   There's one patch that makes the last couple of "levels" (I forget what they are called) almost impossible; I would have to make sure that patch wasn't installed to even have a shot at winning some of the later matches.

In Skyrim one there's one specific mod that is what allows half of the other mods to actually work. Skyrim Script Extender. SKSE is specific to the version number of the main game, right down to the 4th decimal point. Going from 1.274 to 1.276 might not break anything, but there will be a new update anyway. Going to 1.28 will cause your game not to launch, and in the case of the final update (from SE to Anniversary Edition) writing the new SKSE took time (even though Bethesda was kind enough to give the author early access to the new release). The good news is that most mods don't care which version of SKSE you have; only that you have it. Generally it's just a matter of updating that one .dll.  There are some exceptions, though. That "upgrade" from SE to AE was something that few actually wanted (it merely added some Creation Club content) and became known as the Modpocalypse because of the grief it caused everybody. It's not that your mods won't work, but rather that the game can't be launched with any of them active, and you can't temporarily disable a mod without wrecking your save. Bethesda eventually created a Steam patch to allow Skyrim to be downgraded back to the last stable version, which was honestly pretty decent of them. Still, it's something that would have been avoided had updates simply been optional.

[ReaperKK]

For resident evil fans there is a good sale going on with Humble Bundle:

https://www.humblebundle.com/games/resident-evil-decades-horror-village-edition?mcID=102:902699e81ad9d0a8eb181849b077dc7f:d230809:56e84e16733462ca899aba0b:1691611132094&linkID=64d3ea0028ce2909f00dcf58&utm_source=Humble+Bundle+Newsletter&utm_content=subs&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20230809_ResidentEvilBundle_WinterExpansionCoupon

[Stadler]

Of course they do, but system and game version updates can be done in rest mode when you're not playing.  So, when you come back, everything is updated and ready to play.

OK, that makes more sense. Like I said, I haven't owned a console since my 360, so maybe MS has resolved that. I also left mine unplugged most of the time, so that didn't help matters. Still, I don't want my shit updating at all unless I tell it to, but that's just me.

I'm not too diligent about it, but I agree with you in that I don't necessarily just let the updates happen.  Some on SONY are necessary to log into the PSN, but I also know there are games that have patches that aren't strictly necessary.  Injustice comes to mind.   There's one patch that makes the last couple of "levels" (I forget what they are called) almost impossible; I would have to make sure that patch wasn't installed to even have a shot at winning some of the later matches.

In Skyrim one there's one specific mod that is what allows half of the other mods to actually work. Skyrim Script Extender. SKSE is specific to the version number of the main game, right down to the 4th decimal point. Going from 1.274 to 1.276 might not break anything, but there will be a new update anyway. Going to 1.28 will cause your game not to launch, and in the case of the final update (from SE to Anniversary Edition) writing the new SKSE took time (even though Bethesda was kind enough to give the author early access to the new release). The good news is that most mods don't care which version of SKSE you have; only that you have it. Generally it's just a matter of updating that one .dll.  There are some exceptions, though. That "upgrade" from SE to AE was something that few actually wanted (it merely added some Creation Club content) and became known as the Modpocalypse because of the grief it caused everybody. It's not that your mods won't work, but rather that the game can't be launched with any of them active, and you can't temporarily disable a mod without wrecking your save. Bethesda eventually created a Steam patch to allow Skyrim to be downgraded back to the last stable version, which was honestly pretty decent of them. Still, it's something that would have been avoided had updates simply been optional.

Do you know, briefly, what Creation Club is?  I THOUGHT that was sort of a way of getting mods onto the console, but I'm not 100% sure that's right.

[El Barto]

Of course they do, but system and game version updates can be done in rest mode when you're not playing.  So, when you come back, everything is updated and ready to play.

OK, that makes more sense. Like I said, I haven't owned a console since my 360, so maybe MS has resolved that. I also left mine unplugged most of the time, so that didn't help matters. Still, I don't want my shit updating at all unless I tell it to, but that's just me.

I'm not too diligent about it, but I agree with you in that I don't necessarily just let the updates happen.  Some on SONY are necessary to log into the PSN, but I also know there are games that have patches that aren't strictly necessary.  Injustice comes to mind.   There's one patch that makes the last couple of "levels" (I forget what they are called) almost impossible; I would have to make sure that patch wasn't installed to even have a shot at winning some of the later matches.

In Skyrim one there's one specific mod that is what allows half of the other mods to actually work. Skyrim Script Extender. SKSE is specific to the version number of the main game, right down to the 4th decimal point. Going from 1.274 to 1.276 might not break anything, but there will be a new update anyway. Going to 1.28 will cause your game not to launch, and in the case of the final update (from SE to Anniversary Edition) writing the new SKSE took time (even though Bethesda was kind enough to give the author early access to the new release). The good news is that most mods don't care which version of SKSE you have; only that you have it. Generally it's just a matter of updating that one .dll.  There are some exceptions, though. That "upgrade" from SE to AE was something that few actually wanted (it merely added some Creation Club content) and became known as the Modpocalypse because of the grief it caused everybody. It's not that your mods won't work, but rather that the game can't be launched with any of them active, and you can't temporarily disable a mod without wrecking your save. Bethesda eventually created a Steam patch to allow Skyrim to be downgraded back to the last stable version, which was honestly pretty decent of them. Still, it's something that would have been avoided had updates simply been optional.

Do you know, briefly, what Creation Club is?  I THOUGHT that was sort of a way of getting mods onto the console, but I'm not 100% sure that's right.

Creation Club is for mods that people want to sell. The vast majority are free on Nexus. A small number are sold on CC, which has a portal built into the games. I've no doubt that CC mods are available for the consoles because of that integration. I've never even looked at the CC stuff, honestly, as mods for Bethesda games are almost universally free.

[Dublagent66]

Of course they do, but system and game version updates can be done in rest mode when you're not playing.  So, when you come back, everything is updated and ready to play.

Xbox doesn't do that?

No idea.  Never owned an xbox.

[ReaperKK]

I scooped up Baldur's Gate 3 last night and I gotta say I'm pretty overwhelmed. Looking forward to playing some more today.

[Polarbear]

I scooped up Baldur's Gate 3 last night and I gotta say I'm pretty overwhelmed. Looking forward to playing some more today.

I'm also pretty intrigued about it, but I'll have to wait for the PS5 release.

PS5 release should be sometime in the fall, correct?

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

I scooped up Baldur's Gate 3 last night and I gotta say I'm pretty overwhelmed. Looking forward to playing some more today.

I'm also pretty intrigued about it, but I'll have to wait for the PS5 release.

PS5 release should be sometime in the fall, correct?

First week of September.

I've already got 50 hours in it and I'm loving it!

[orcus116]

Shameless plug for my buddy but his game Deathbulge Battle of the Bands just dropped this last week. It's an RPG based on the Deathbulge web comic which went quasi defunct as he and four others worked on this game for the last five or so years. I'm not huge into RPGs but the battle system is fairly interesting and got me more engaged than the usual turn based style system. I don't think you would even need to be a fan of or really know the web comic as the game does a good job establishing the setting and characters. The whole world is charming and absolutely zany in the best ways possible and soundtrack is really, really good. It's a nice 15-20 hour game and the introductory sale on Steam is going on now so it's 15% off.

Final trailer to see what the game is like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXEP4cm7Res

[Herrick]

So who's playing what? I'm almost finished with Chrono Trigger. I don't know if it's because I'm not used to these older games but I could not finish the side quests without a walkthrough. This game is definitely good but I don't know if I'd play it again. Maybe I should keep the saved game and do a new game plus one day.

[Phoenix87x]

bombrush cyberfunk just came out. Its sweet

[Herrick]

bombrush cyberfunk just came out. Its sweet

That will be on my wish list.

[krands85]

So who's playing what?

I got a PS5 recently and am playing Spiderman Miles Morales and PGA 2K23 at the moment.  Astro's Playroom was the first thing I tried though and it's brilliant 

[ReaperKK]

I've been working through Bauldurs Gate 3 and also playing a ton of Valheim with our discord group.

[TheOutlawXanadu]

After beating FF16, I resumed my in progress NG+ playthrough of Elden Ring, and beat that fairly quickly. I don't really have another game I want to play before September, so I figured I'd go back and resume an old Demon's Souls playthrough too. Man... Going back to that after Elden Ring was tough. Both games are hard but Elden Ring is more forgiving. Demon's Souls is truly a war of attrition. I've already beaten it twice, so not sure if I really need to put myself through the pain again.