Hey what do you know! Earthfall (Steam key) happens to be $7.50 for the next 12 hours at chrono.gg. The promise of L4D gameplay and that enticing price had me bite.
Bit of a bummer, some folks seem to be experiencing problems trying to play games they actually own if those games are on Game Pass, and they aren’t subscribed. Looks like MS acknowledges the issue and is investigating -
Also, apropos of very little, I hit 200,000 gamerscore last night. I mean damn, even I’ve got to shake my head at that.
I can’t even fathom that. Been playing since the original Xbox and later the introduction of gamerscore and I’ve got about 20K.
My gaming time is somewhat limited and I have 4 kids keeping me busy. But I have to say grinding achievements for GS has never been an aspiration of mine. I do enjoy seeing them pop up. That’s about it.
All right, some clarification may be in order. I’ve had this gamertag since mid 2007, when I joined Microsoft and everyone I knew had one. I’m weak that way. I actually had a different gamer tag during the time of the OG Xbox, but I canceled my subscription and wasn’t able to recover that one.
So, anyway, a little over ten years of gaming there. And as I mentioned over in the Witcher 3 thread, I am a gaming completionist. When I play a game, I play the hell out of it, like Bob Dobbs would. That tends to get you most of the achievements right there. And I don’t mind going a little out of my way for collectibles and such. You know all those glowy orbs in Crackdown? I got ‘em all. Crackdown 2 also. And I would have done that even without achievements, because that’s how I roll. If it can be collected, I will collect it.
So I’m just kind of naturally hard wired to get achievements. I really like them, I consider them collectively to be a scrapbook of a big chunk of my gaming life. So I even like them in and of themselves.
Plus I play stuff like Telltale games where all you need to do to get achievements is play the game through. A decent chunk of games I play just throw them out like candy. I’ve played some tough games too - kind of proud of the achievements for beating Reach on legendary solo, and for beating Witcher 2 in dark mode.
Now, that said, while I dig achievements I don’t care too much about gamerscore. It’s actually a little embarrassing at this point, considering I’m not even a video game streamer. But to that end, I have a rule that I won’t play a game just for the score or to get the achievements - there was a time when everyone played that Avatar game for the easy 1,000, but I passed. Didn’t look like fun. But if I do play the game, yeah, I’m going to aim to get as many achievements as possible.
I searched for the last one all over the city 20 times. I could never find it. It made me very sad. Not for the achievements, just because I really wanted to find the last orb.
I’ve had mine since the original XBox released (Live was a thing on release for Halo, right?). But I believe achievements were introduced on the 360 a few years later.
I remember how weird and novel that system seemed at the time. Getting points and little pop ups while playing games? How quaint.
I like the rare achievements system MS has nowadays. Kinda neat when you get an uncommon one.
Wendelius
I don’t think the original Halo was Live-enabled, you had to link your systems together physically to do multiplayer. Halo 2 used Live though. In my mind I associate Live with Mechassault, because I believe I bought them together.
Oh yes! That rings a bell. That or play split screen, which was awesome.
You’re probably past caring, but when I got down to just a few I cranked up the volume as high as I could and listened for their distinct sound as I leaped all over the city.
I can’t remember how long it took me to get the last few but I nailed them all also. Loved that game…of course I had a lot less responsibility in life back then so had more time to achievement hunt!
Yow. Just got to 150k myself.
I did try that too, I remember. I still couldn’t find it.
So you can file this in the sort of uninteresting and extremely late to the party bin.
I’ve been seeing mentions of Scavengers in the news a lot recently. Seems like former 343 devs want to make a new version of Halo’s Warzone mode with their own IP.
I realized that while I’ve owned an Xbox for a few years now I never really played much Halo 5 except for a little of the campaign. I played Halo: Combat Evolved religiously on the PC way back in the day and loved the PVP matches; even was part of a semi-competitive clan for a while. Then I never played another Halo again except for a tiny bit of 2. I didn’t own any Xbox system until the One.
So with the Warzone-like Scavengers in the news I thought I should try Halo 5’s Warzone and see what it was all about. I fired it up this weekend and fell in love. I haven’t had such a purely fun gaming experience like this in a while.
I’ve been trying a lot of the big shooters lately (Cod WWII, Battlefield 1, Battalion '44, Black Ops III, PUBG, etc.) and while many of those were aiming for nostalgia they all missed the mark for me. I loved CoD 2 back in the day but the new WWII just fell flat and lifeless for me. I thought the same would happen with Halo 5, but I was entirely wrong. That tickled my nostalgia for Halo:CE just right and even though I haven’t played Halo in over a decade it felt like getting back on a bicycle.
I know for many Halo just seems so generic now with a bunch a dudes running around in the same power armor, red vs. blue, with most of the same weapons since the first game. Probably because I missed most of the series that doesn’t bother me and actually kind of effects a clean aesthetic that stands in contrast to the cluttered and busy character models covered with hats, cosmetics, skins, and loot of today’s offerings.
I loved the larger maps and grander scale of Warzone along with the PVE, objective-focused gameplay that doesn’t rely entirely on twitch shooting skills. I could jump in games and feel like I was contributing without having a great K:D ratio. I sort of wish there were more support roles here, but not a big deal. I even enjoyed the whole REQ system even though I know that is just a subtle (or not) back-door to encouraging microtransaction purchases.
So I will definitely be playing more Warzone for a while (I need to try the purely co-op version yet) and my experience here makes me quite excited to see what Scavengers looks like.
OK, back to 2018’s games. :-)
Thanks for the write-up.
I only played through the Halo 5 campaign, and found it to be the most disappointing Halo campaign since Halo 2. I never tried Warzone though, since I only played the campaign during their various free preview weekends for Halo 5.
I know Halo 5 is part of the Game Pass. And thanks to your praise, Warzone is on my radar now for when I get Game Pass.
Not sure if there’s value in rolling Game Pass news into the main Xbox thread or if there’s much interest but, at least this post should be easy to ignore if not -
Looks like some games are rolling off Game Pass as of March 31. For the Xbox One, Kyub and Roundabout are leaving and for the 360, A World of Keflings, Comix Zone, Hexic 2, Jetpac Refueled, Ms Splosion Man, Stacking and The Maw will be leaving the service. If you’re playing these or we’re planning to, you’ve got a little over a week.
We know Cities Skyline is coming to Game Pass in April from the Inside Xbox video but no other new additions for the month have been announced yet.
They’re just throwing that out there without even a teaser image? Like a stack of game boxes all turned around except one where you can make out that it says “Hexic 2.”
Missed opportunity there.
I really enjoy Warzone. It’s the only Halo 5 MP that I play. Especially Warzone Firefight.
The nice thing about the Xbox achievement rarity is it is dynamic as I understand it. They calculate rarity based on the number of people who have earned any achievement in the game vs. how many have each one. You see the percentage listed in the toast notification.
I was really into getting achievements in the 360 days. I topped out around 90,000 though. Switched to PS3 to play exclusives and went to the PS4.
Back in Xbox land now though. Xbox One X is the best way to play many games (HDR support on PC is nascent still) and Play Anywhere appeals to my PC Master Race side.
Looks like they’ve revealed the new Game Pass games for April. We already knew about Cities: Skyline but i think the others are new info -
Xbox One
Cities: Skylines
ClusterTruck
Kingdom: New Lands
Late Shift
Portal Knights
Robocraft Infinity
theHunter: Call of the Wild
Xbox 360
Sacred Citadel