Yearly Archives: 2019

XBox Game Pass For PC Review

By Terris Harned (NWOrpheus)

The “Games as a Service” business model isn’t anything new. There are a few different ways this model has been exercised, such as DLCs, year or season passes, and the recurring subscription fee. Many in the industry see the “Games as a Service” model as exploitative, and many gamers are resistant to jump on board for a variety of reasons, which have mixed validity in my opinion.

Whatever the case, they’re making developers, from Indie studios to the big AAA’s, considerably more money. I personally don’t see an issue with this, especially because the consumer base, gamers like you and I, seem to have it set in our minds that should the MSRP of a new release game ever rise above $59.99 (barring special and collector’s editions) that the very sky will fall from the heavens, and the end times will begin.

I won’t get overly into the politics of certain companies’ CEOs having a salary in the upper $35 million range in 2018, while the company pays zero federal taxes (just one example), but I will say that rising industry wages suggest that the revenue is going to have to come from somewhere. Without an increase in industry wages, we’re not going to see experienced developers working on projects, and that means a lack of quality increase in games.

So, politics and economics aside, I decided to bring you readers a little glimpse into my thoughts of the XBox Game Pass for PC, which debuted during the Microsoft conference at the 2019 E3 showcase. For one thing, when I got it, it was a buck. That being said, it’s also in beta currently, so technically this should be a preview? But whatever, we’re going to just roll onward.

When my $1.00 subscription (plus sales tax where applicable) runs out, and the beta continues, the price will be $4.99 per month, and when it releases it will be $9.99. XBox Live Gold is an additional $5.00 per month if I want to play online games with other XBox members, which I personally don’t. That being said, for $14.99 per month there will be an XBox Ultimate pass which will include XBox Live Gold, and the XBox Game pass for both XBox One and for PC, all for one price. Thus, the best value package for the service would definitely be for those who own both a gaming PC and XBox One console, and wish to play online games.

Back to economics for a second: Let’s talk about that $14.99 price point. This seems to be a sort of magical number for monthly fees. It’s the base subscription rate for World of Warcraft, and for Final Fantasy XIV (well, 12.99 for a single character account). This is an interesting point because this is the same price as a subscription for EverQuest in 1999, 20 years ago. To put things in perspective, movie tickets in 1999 were $5.08. The average movie ticket price in 2019 is $9.01. An increase of 80%. If video games had followed this same trend, new releases would be about $110 and subs would be in the range of $27 per month.

All of this is relevant because what it really comes down to when considering things like a game pass is ultimately value. Is what you pay worth what you get out of it? So let’s talk about what you actually get. According to the conference at E3, Microsoft plans to have over 100 games available on the game pass by August of 2019. Hand curated games, mind you, and not the piles and piles of trash that Steam has. And speaking of Steam, Metro: Exodus is on the XBox Game Pass for PC, which is something Steam cannot claim. Forza Horizon 4, the Borderlands Handsome Collection, Into the Breach, Imperator: Rome, Slay the Spire, Wolfenstein II, Football Manager 2019, Gears of War 4, Everspace, and Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice are just some of the examples of what’s available, and all of which I installed since getting the app. And if you’re bored, or overwhelmed, and not sure what game you want to play, there’s a handy dandy little randomizer to help you out!
 

 
Feature wise, the XBox app isn’t quite as flush as Steam, but it does have a bit more than the Epic store currently does. It would definitely be well served with more features, but at least it does have a search function, friend list, and the ability to sort games by genre.

One prominent dislike that I have with the XBox Game Pass, compared to say the Origin pass or Ubisoft’s recently announced Ultimate Game Pass, is that it only includes the base game for most titles. Forza Horizon 4, for example, only includes the standard edition, which means that I would have to pay extra for the LEGO DLC announced at E3. Minor bummer, there. And then if I do buy a DLC, but I cancel my game pass, I’ll have to buy the base game anyway or lose function with the DLC.

To test download speeds, I compared the one game that I have both on Steam and that is available on the XBox Game Pass, Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden. On the XBox Game Pass, I downloaded the 6.9GB game in 15 minutes, with an average download speed of 9.4 MB/s, and a peak of about 13 MB/s. Conversely on Steam it took me about 3 minutes with 32 MB/s download peak and an average of 30 MB/s. While this is hardly scientific, as it was only one example, it was such a large disparity that I considered it fairly telling: Download speed isn’t a deciding factor in favor of XBox.

I will say that I found the interface easy to use though, and in fact I prefer it to Steam. It felt overall cleaner, and the games that I have installed appeared on the left side of the app for quick access. Mind, this is going to come largely down to personal preference, but I just have a general dislike of Steam’s layout, and have for years. It was also very easy to navigate to my account and cancel the recurring subscription. Not only that, but I was given the option for a full refund if I wanted to end my subscription now, or to simply cancel the recurring charge and keep using XBox Game Pass until my time runs out. I’m not exactly sure what the criteria is for the refund, but I found it very refreshing.

Xbox Game Pass Do not renew

 

So, do I think that the game pass has value? I do. I think it could even be worth as much as the full $9.99 when it releases. If I had an XBox One I would likely find that value to be increased exponentially. That value to me comes from my tendency to spend at least $14.99 per month on niche and indie games, though. There are several games on the XBox Game Pass that were on my Steam Wishlist that I just didn’t have the desire to devote the money to just yet. Now, however, I’ll get that chance. Games like Vampyr, State of Decay 2, and Astroneer.

My fiancée on the other hand has a much smaller game library, though she’s every bit the gamer I am. Her style consists more of finding a single title she loves, and then putting thousands and thousands of hours into it, such as Crusader Kings: II and The Long Dark. For her, the value just isn’t there, and she’s not interested, and I respect that.

My biggest fear in regards to “Games as a Service” in general is basically the same as my fear in regards to show streaming services: It’s something that everyone is going to start doing, and I’m going to have to pick between one or two services, or constantly be cancelling one service to start a different one to play the game that I want. What I’d honestly love to see most would be for Stadia to offer one big package of say $40.00/mo to have access to all games, including Ubisoft and other AAA titles, and new releases. Whether or not we get something like that remains to be seen.

Insurgency: Sandstorm Announces Six More Months of Free Content on PC

Insurgency Sandstorm Roadmap

Focus Home Interactive and New World Interactive announced today that there will be six more months of free Insurgency: Sandstorm content on PC. Much of it is from direct community feedback, as well as a multitude of surveys. This content will begin arriving in July 2019 and will include the following additions, which are not in release order. If you want the full article on the Roadmap Community Update, it can be found on their Steam Page.

  • Level editor and tools – mod support is coming!
  • Two new maps – includes a snow map and another yet to be revealed
  • Night versions of maps – this includes the release of special nighttime equipment
  • New weapons and equipment – toggleable optics, mini-shotgun attachments and more are planned, along with others based on post-launch community surveys
  • Hardcore ruleset across all modes – the option for hardcore rulesets will be made available to every game mode
  • PvP Frontline & Co-op Outpost game modes – these two new game modes were chosen in Sandstorm’s first community survey. Frontline features two teams in a tug-of-war over multiple objectives to reach and destroy their enemy’s weapon cache. Outpost allows players to go on the defensive at randomized locations against waves of enemy AI.
  • New character customization – many more cosmetics will be added, for both Insurgent and Security teams.

Re-Legion’s ‘Holy Wars’ Update Adds Skirmish Mode and More

The latest update for Re-Legion has gone live, ‘Holy Wars’, and with it comes a ton of new content. One of the big features is the new Skirmish mode, but the game can now also be slowed down with SLow-Mo Mode. The default hotkey is Left-alt. Another major change is that the game supports Autosaves, which can be turned on the SEttings, and the Minimap can be expanded. There are just tons of updates, which you can see in the video, or check this list of important changes to Re-Legion.

Re-Legion – Holy Wars Updates:

  • Using skills depends on the unit’s current Faith threshold.
  • Rally point functionality has been added.
  • Improvement of Unit Targeting and Alerting system.
  • Improvement of Pathfinding system.
  • HUD: Control Panel Update: Several functionalities have been updated, like: Font, Cooldowns & Progress bars.
  • After each game on both Campaign and the Holy Wars new Summary Screen will be displayed.
  • Keybinds are fully customizable.
  • Tooltips have been updated, and give much more information about objects now.
  • Tooltips for resources were added.
  • Saving the game is now significantly faster.
  • Active Strategy will now be highlighted in the Control Panel.
  • The look of the units health bars has been updated.
  • Building hacking update – now hacking is dependant on the number of units hacking it and it is longer.
  • Glossary name has been changed to Database and has been updated with images.
  • Unit selection update: now the player can add or remove units from his group with [Shift + Click] on UI portrait.
  • Minimap has been redesigned.
  • Citizen animation update.
    Progress Bars of buildings have been updated.
  • Action, Skill and Anointment buttons were standardized between Units and Buildings and are laid out better now.
  • Player can now cancel the anoint by using the ‘Cancel’ Action in Control Panel.
  • Better Synchronization of Damage Dealing mechanics and visualization.
  • Camera now will center on the Story Characters before they die.
  • Non-cutscene Dialog Panels close automatically along VoiceOvers end.
  • Quest notifications were visually updated, making them more noticeable and matching the rest of UI.
  • Destructible Objects now have Detail Panels and Portraits.
  • Every time you try to take action that would result in changing settings or navigating to a different part of the game the confirmation popup will emerge.
  • Clicking anywhere on quest panel (top-left corner of HUD) centers camera on Quest’s objective.
  • God is With Us skill update: visual effects for units affected by the skill, and AOE indicator.
    Language can now be set in steam settings.
  • [RU] Language has been updated.
  • [PL] Language has been added.
  • “Saving in progress” notification was added.
  • Hacking and Converting distances have been updated.
  • ‘Go to Main Menu’ Button was added to Pause Menu.
  • ‘Go to Main Menu’ Button was added to Mission Summary Screen.
  • Cult Symbols were added to Tooltips.
  • Falin – HP, and Damage rebalanced, new skills added to compensate for his hyper-aggressive behavior.
  • Penitent’s Danse Macabre is not a group skill anymore. When the skill is triggered while more than 1 Penitent is selected, only one of them will use the attack.

Pacer Reveals New ‘Sonashahar’ Track During Twitch Stream

R8 Games revealed some new upcoming content for their upcoming anti-grav combat racer, Pacer – the previously unreleased track “Sonashahar”. Sonashahar’s circuit is set in India, and showcases some truly stunning visuals, and runs at 60fps across all formats, and in on 4K on PC/PS4 Pro/Xbox One X. Sonashahar will also be playable in both day and night (like all other tracks in the game), and the night setting highlights some beautiful neon lights. This track alone offers eight different versions to play, right away.

“It’s been amazing taking this latest build of Pacer out to Los Angeles for E3 in the run up to release, and today’s stream on Twitch was something of a personal highlight for me,” says Steve Iles, Senior Producer at R8 Games. “E3 is a fitting place both to unleash Sonashahar upon the world, and kick start the pre-order process for those gamers eager to take to the track come launch.”

The Twitch stream and the Sonashahar unveiling also fired the starting pistol on the pre-order process. PC players can place their Pacer pre-order on Steam immediately at PacerGame.com to secure an exclusive in-game item ahead of the game’s launch this winter. Pacer will feature 14 tracks and five customizable craft at launch.