~The Game Pass Thread~

Wasn’t Dragon Quest XI supposed to come out today as well? The new version which has worse graphics but better music?

Yes. It’s supposed to be out today for both PC and console Game Pass.

It doesn’t say what time today though.

Check to see if there isn’t a window underneath awaiting input. Happens to me all the time with this.

Oh wait, are you talking about the pulsing xbox heart thing? Yes, I see that when I open the app and it has turned to a BLACK HEART. But also when I closed and reopened to confirm, DQXI popped up in the Recently Added row!

LeSigh Xbox app - turning it off and on again is the most reliable way to update things…

Yeah, I’m arguing with it as well. Been trying all week to Fallout 76 re-installed. Tried installed to D: drive. Download was RIDICULOUSLY slow, despite having a speedy connection at home. Game wouldn’t run, kept giving an error, was advised to install it on the same drive as the OS. I kinda remember seeing this when it first came out. Oops.

Uninstalled, and for several days now have been trying to get it on the OS drive. The app has completely crashed on me twice, at like 76%, and then had to start over when it came back up. And twice this morning it’s locked up requiring a restart, and had to start the download over (although I’ve only been like 5% in, so not a huge loss…just an annoyance.)

I wanted to check the game out again because I heard it had come a long way, but…this is frustrating.

Although maybe installing games is the metagame? A lot of times I’ll download things and not actually open them (also in Steam) … Goodbye Gears Tactics, I downloaded you in hopes of giving you another shot but you’re gone because I feel I have more of a chance of trying out Dragon Quest… Although I also don’t feel as bad about doing things like uninstalling Wolfenstein Youngblood because it keeps crashing with Vulcan errors - too bad I needed an excuse anyways to move onto DOOM …

If you have Ultimate, you could try out the cloud version on an Android device.

I do! I may do that. Hopefully I’ll be able to get the damn game installed soon, though. Fingers crossed!

I just much prefer playing with mouse and keyboard.

That’s super weird, given that the app on an Android phone seems to be perfectly snappy.

My opinion on Haven: one of the worst mouse implementation I’ve seen in years. First, “Invert y axis” works in normal gameplay but it doesn’t in the scenes inside your base, the game has some weird negative acceleration (moving fast the mouse turn me less than moving the mouse slowly!) and the combat UI is weird in how you have to hold keys or press buttons in specific moments, it was really designed for controllers.
And even forgetting that, I don’t like the jrpg style of combat AND the game already started to be repetitive, with the current quest of ‘collect 25 doodads’.

The couple is cute, but not enough to support the game. And apart from cuteness, I would care more of them if I knew their backstories more, but it seems the game is going to need a good number of hours to get to that.

Awe, that is too bad. My expectations were a lot higher for this game based on the interviews with the developers which seemed to exclusively focus on the relationship and interpersonal dynamics with the couple and didn’t talk much about the open world repetitiveness. Seems like this idea would have worked better without an open world tacked on.

Turns out I had an update that needed to be installed for Gaming Services from the Microsoft Store. That update wouldn’t install correctly until I restarted the PC and tried again. Then the Doom Eternal install worked…

…and I played 10 minutes and decided it is both too retro and too fiddly for me. I really liked the Doom reboot from 2016, and I get the appeal of Eternal’s retro aesthetic, but it’s not for me at this point. (And I really hate the weapon customization. Why make old-school demon killing the center of your game and then throw a bunch of inventory and customization screens in my face when all I want to do is cut demons in half with my chainsaw?

Oh cool. I actually refunded it when I bought it, but this time it’s going a lot better.

I agree it seems fiddly early on. I’m assuming that goes away with familiarity.

I find if Game Pass is acting a little wonky there are several things that help (which you did)

  • Make sure you have Windows up to date and check Settings->Updates for any additional things.
  • In the Microsoft Store go to your library and click on the ‘Get Updates’ which will update Game Pass games, the Game Pass App, and other connected Services.
  • Finally, do a restart.

Some combination of the above usually sorts out most issues.

To be fair to Microsoft, Steam had the same behavior for over a decade.

Is the EA Play with game pass ultimate live on PC yet? I can’t figure out a date or how to turn it on.

No, think it’s supposed to to be Dec 10th.

Yes, it is.

Soon after I got Game Pass, I added 2TB of storage just so I could install every single GP game I might want to try. Then I got into sorting and arranging and resizing and rearranging all the game icons on my Start menu because it’s fun to do and they look awesome.

So then wtf is up with Dragon Quest XI and Halo: Master Chief Collection not having a game icon for the Start menu?? They’re just blank, off-white, square tiles and they look like crap on my otherwise strikingly beautiful Game Pass library mosaic. Imagine a gorgeous model with a gap-toothed smile. That’s what I’m dealing with.

I tried repairs and re-installs and nothing worked. Apparently it’s a known problem with a handful of games, also including Don’t Starve and FTL. I have to mouse over the blank tiles to get a tool tip reminding me what game it is. BOLLOCKS, I say.

I know, I know, who gives a shit besides me and a handful of Start Menu freaks… it just seems like a stupidly careless oversight and an easy fix.

One way you know Game Pass is phenomenal is how much crap we happily put up with!

I actually think its December 15th.

I do think they have moved that date up a few times, though.

I have this problem with many gamepass games when creating their standard desktop shortcuts. The icon looks normal, then sometime later or upon reboot it is just blank. And it happens only with some games (but many). For example I just had it happen with Halo and Tetris Effect.
So I just create my own icons instead. It is kind of a ridiculous problem though. One would think desktop shortcuts are a solved problem. But as long as MS insists on this game file encryption nonsense, I guess we will see these issues.