Action and shooter titles are swamping the market at the moment, but there seems to be a general lack of satisfaction beginning to creep in with the humble FPS. Blowing people up is no longer enough; players who want to vent frustration need to be able to blow stuff up as well. With this in mind, more games have focused on the difficult design task of incorporating destructible environments with varied success. This isn’t exactly a new innovation however, so join us as we consider the best of the past and present of destructible environments in gaming.
Xbox Cloud Gaming adapts to how you play—Touchscreen, controller, or mouse. Here’s how they’re helping devs support it all.
Microsoft is tackling Xbox Cloud Gaming latency with real testing and tech upgrades—here’s what’s working, and why it matters.
Speaking as someone who uses xcloud, i havent really noticed much lag, if at all. I have used the service on a wide variety of devices. A VCR XBO, a One X, the logitech GCloud, steamdeck and my work PC. in all cases it just works and works really well. I was not interested at first in the idea of streaming a game, but then i really started using it as a way to gauge interest if a game is worth my time of downloading/installing and I just cant help but jump into new titles when they drop. I used to do the same with new releases on netflix so i can see why they make that similar proclimation.
With Remote Play, the lag can be almost complete nonexistent too. My TV and Receiver glitched up really bad a few weeks ago and my Xbox wouldn't output through 4K 120hz for a few weird hours of power cycling these stupid devices, so I got to test this out while my Xbox just refused to output video through hdmi.
With a Backbone on my phone, and a controller connected to the console (hardwired into the modem through an Ethernet switch; my phone is connected to a Router that the modem routes to - so there is that extra network layer), I could not notice any difference. Avowed was set to the Balanced mode, maybe Performance would've exposed a lag with the extra frames but the response on my phone screen looked near exact from stick push to game response.
Cloud Gaming, playing something like South of Midnight feels responsive enough to me, and games like Pentiment you really really can't tell, and if you could, that's a game where lag would be inconsequential to the experience
I live in a city that has an Xbox Cloud server, and my local network uses Wi-Fi 6. I've used the service for quite a while. I can't really say I don't feel the latency. Some titles are completely unplayable for me, like Forza Horizon 5. But there are also many games where I barely notice it, such as A Crab's Treasure and Halo MCC.
Honestly, it's great that they're working on making it better. But the way it works right now is already pretty usable, and casual gamers, who I assume are the target audience, probably won't even notice the latency. The issue then becomes more of a commercial or marketing one, because casual gamers are either on mobile or console, and they probably don't even know Xbox Cloud exists, how much it costs, or how it works.
It also doesn't help that some of the most popular casual games aren't available on it at launch. Sports games from EA, for example, are always a couple of months late.
For World Book Day, here are 10 video games that feel like reading a good book—emotional, thoughtful, and unforgettable stories.
I would have included the Uncharted games as well. Good list though.
Haha it is not lost on me that two of the games in the top four were already novels before they were games
Black was a simple but great game. Had little story strength but its main focus was gun play and it excelled in it. It didn't have much destruction though
Worms did have some good destructible environments. haha. But seriously, Worms 3D was pretty impressive to proceduraly destroy all 3D environment models.
Ah Red Faction. So promising.
After the first level, Geo Mod was quickly cancelled for boring corridor shooting.
Crysis, Just Cause 2, Red Faction Guerilla