Brian AlbertHalo fans: You can cheat time.
Replaying classic games – and yes, Halo now counts – can be both a wonderful reminder and a disappointing eye-opener. Most of the great stuff is still great, but technical seams can worsen with age. With the new updates to Halo 1, 2, 3, and 4 in The Master Chief Collection (let’s shorten that to MCC), you get nostalgia with none of the side effects. You can have the Halo experience you had two consoles ago, without the wrinkles.
The newest From Software game is just around the corner. These are five excellent games to play while waiting for Armored Core 6.
With the release date being just a little over a week away, it may not be a good idea to burn yourself out on mech games until then.
Surprised that the article didn’t mention Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries if we’re talking about mech-related games.
It was an odd article imo. Like why are games that feature a handful of mech themed levels in there. When I think of mech games I don't think Halo and Wolfenstein no matter how fun those levels were.
These are some of the best and most popular video game franchises now owned by Xbox Game Studios and Microsoft.
Microsoft was involved with Halo, Gears, Forza, Ori, Flight Simulator and Fable from early development, I will give them credit for those franchises. Fallout, Elder Scrolls and Doom were established franchise before being acquired by MS.
Exactly. They had nothing to do with their most popular franchises now.
Their old franchises are dwindling and pretty much non-existent.
They've had perfect dark in the chamber this whole time and haven't done squat...that tells you the kind of company they are. Fable is another franchise that's been destroyed and ignored...let's see how the new game turns out.
Yeah perfect dark, banjo conquer ms seems to kill more franchises then they like to admit while pretending to care about others like hexen
Given the article specifically says "now owned", what made you feel the need to do a break down?
Sit-down,
Because it's N4G and any opportunity to shit on MS is never missed.
Ah yes, feels like forever ago since Microsoft created Skyrim. So much so, I had actually forgotten they had created it and the other Elder Scrolls games! 🤔
*They really shaped my preteen years w the original Doom too!
I fully expect all these popular franchises to be killed off by Microsoft. Just a matter of time.
Unless they take a huge distance approach which pretty much means they don't ba e anything to do with the games being made ...in that case the franchises should be fine. But then...they shouldn't really get credit.
"I fully expect all these popular franchises to be killed off by Microsoft. Just a matter of time."
Based on what?? Microsoft usually gets stick for releasing too MANY games in their franchises, to the point where it's quite a long-running joke - one I'm sure you've partaken in before.
Pretty much all of their major IP has had releases in the last five years or have upcoming releases scheduled so I see no evidence whatsoever for this claim.
"Unless they take a huge distance approach which pretty much means they don't ba e anything to do with the games being made"
But.. They HAVE been very hands-off for a long time and have drawn lots of criticism for it?
I really wouldn't say that MS have let Rare franchises die. They've just had the freedom to create new IP in Sea of Thieves and Everwild. MS are currently developing a Perfect Dark game, licensed Killer Instinct out, Rare themselves released several compilations and several Banjo games as well as PDZ in the past.
I'm not sure what else you could want. They can only make one game at a time. You can't say MS let all their franchises die but also be annoyed that they allow their studios to make new IP.
If that's the case where my banjo or conquer sequel why didn't I get sunset overdrive 2 oh yeah not enough bro in those games
EA is a good example of what can happen to a franchise when a larger corporation buys up studios from a smaller corporation. Quarterly earnings should never matter more than quality.
@Crows that is the case , Zenimax is operating independently of MS and have full creative freedom to do what they want. Zenimax games aren’t being published under XGS ,
Soon Microsoft will be known for making Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Candy Crush, Call of Duty etc. Lmao they know what they're doing. Especially with the archiving issue the gaming industry has.
Microsoft built the game industry. Microsoft invented games. Didn't you know? ;)
**What a bizzaro world we live in where the losers can become the winners overnight.
@ravens52
What are those franchises you're talking about?
Activision/Blizzard only makes Call of Duty and Bethesda has Elder Scrolls and Starfield only, stop making it seen that is much more anti competitive/consumer than it actually is.......
Zero creative vision and the ability to bankroll it by purchasing everything that everyone else had success with even Halo wasn't technically theirs Bungie had to sell it to them to become independent
You mean any studio Microsoft could acquire to flog last gen games on game pass ... What happened to HD-DVD that Microsoft pushed so hard ...
Non-playable characters in certain games are meme material, thanks to their foolish behavior. These are the big-budget games with the dumbest NPCs.
Bethesda makes the most consistently stupid NPCs, like really bad... yet I still can't help but love playing their games. Guilty pleasure, I guess. *sigh* 😩
Every Bethesda game and Every Halo game. This list needed to have Cyberpunk somewhere.
I still think they should have dropped the original engine from this game. It's a remastered game, so play the remastered version. Had they just done that, the game could have run at 1080p / 60fps. Instead, now they have to take a hit.
Sure it's nostalgic to include the original engine and give you the ability to swap on the fly, but 99% of people will be playing it on the newer, upgraded engine.
Halo 2 Anniversary is basically the Halo 2 (PC) version that was released in 2007 isn't it. Sure seems like it because that game was pretty badly optimized so I am guessing that is why Halo 2 Anniversary is having problems rendering at full 1080p.
"Here's an explanation from 343 executive producer Dan Ayoub: “During development we were really pleased with the way the engine and buffer allowed us to switch instantly between classic and Anniversary engines that are running simultaneously – however that, as you might expect, put a hit on resolution. The campaign of Halo 2: Anniversary looked fantastic at 720p with the level of detail and clarity it gave us, but like every other aspect of the game and tech, we wanted to push it further. So in the last weeks of development, our teams were able to meet a stretch goal and the campaign of Halo 2: Anniversary now runs 60 fps at a crisp resolution of 1328x1080, which is a significant and meaningful boost in image quality we think fans are really going to appreciate. All of the other games across the entire package of The Master Chief Collection run 60 fps at 1920x1080 native.”
Sounds like a good trade off considering (60fps, two engines for instant switch,audio) but some people would probably would have liked the option of just running the one at 1080p without the instant switch stuff.
...... that sucks for those expecting/wanting it.
Not stopping my purchase.