Video games...what ya playing? And what are you looking forward to?

[TLEF316 4,929]

Yeah, I dont get it and never will.  Its absolute insanity to spend hundreds of additional dollars on "packs of cards" that will be useless the following year.

I'm kicking around the idea of picking up FIFA this fall because they CLAIM they've made a lot of much-needed and long overdue fixes/enhancements to offline franchise mode (not fancy stuff.....under the hood fixes like youth player development that makes sense). If that's the case and the gameplay reviews are good, they'll get my money.

I used to think that just regular old online play was the death of sports games (since when that started being a big deal, developers gave up tweaking things like AI for offline players). But man, things like Ultimate Team and MyPlayer are SOOOO much worse.

In the long run....for certain game segments, its probably a good thing for me. If big time studios are going to put out  big budget shooter titles like COD: Warzone as free to play, great. I'll get the game for free and let all the morons fund it via purchase of nonsense like weapon skins. As long as it doesn't start becoming a situation where you have to pay big $$ for stuff that actually affects gameplay, sign me up.

But sports games are basically done for me as a valid form of entertainment.  I miss the days of the NCAA football and basketball games. .

 

[Capella 29,502]

28 minutes ago, Buckna said:

Thousands is a drop in the bucket for most whales. I believe it’s something like less than .1% of gamers account for 50% of the revenue of games with micro transactions. Many are rich kids or rich adults with tons of money. Some are people trying to make it big on YouTube or twitch, etc. No one knows who many, but undoubtedly some percentage are people with gambling addiction problems.

Whole different game than I’m playing. I’m just trying to beat the saints in my next game. 

[Poke_4_Life 2,018]

6 minutes ago, TLEF316 said:

But sports games are basically done for me as a valid form of entertainment.  I miss the days of the NCAA football and basketball games. 

MLB the Show is still a great game.  They have an Ultimate team mode, but also have very polished other modes.  The only sports game I still play.  

[TLEF316 4,929]

6 minutes ago, Poke_4_Life said:

MLB the Show is still a great game.  They have an Ultimate team mode, but also have very polished other modes.  The only sports game I still play.  

Yeah, I know its great. I'm an Xbox guy though.

Had a Ps3 a while back and bought it one year. It was obviously a very good and polished game, even back then. But I didn't enjoy the actual mechanics that much. MVP 05 was my favorite baseball game even though it certainly was not without flaws (there was some weird bug where every ball hit by left-handed hitters had INSANE top spin so it was nearly impossible to hit home runs with them. And while it had minor league, the player development/progression mechanics kinda sucked). But I had it on PC, so people modded a bunch of stuff and it became an AWESOME experience.

[Insein 10,529]

1 hour ago, Capella said:

THOUSANDS?!????

Thousands. Literally. 

Here's an article from 2018.

https://www.gottabemobile.com/dark-side-of-madden-addiction/amp/

[Insein 10,529]

5 minutes ago, TLEF316 said:

Yeah, I know its great. I'm an Xbox guy though.

Had a Ps3 a while back and bought it one year. It was obviously a very good and polished game, even back then. But I didn't enjoy the actual mechanics that much. MVP 05 was my favorite baseball game even though it certainly was not without flaws (there was some weird bug where every ball hit by left-handed hitters had INSANE top spin so it was nearly impossible to hit home runs with them. And while it had minor league, the player development/progression mechanics kinda sucked). But I had it on PC, so people modded a bunch of stuff and it became an AWESOME experience.

MVP 05 was the best baseball game I ever played. 

[thecatch 2,211]

51 minutes ago, Poke_4_Life said:

Since EA is public, it's easy read the quarterly filings and watch the revenue streams which are directly attributed to what @Insein refers to.

 

EA made something like $3 billion from microtransactions last year, and IIRC that was significantly more than their revenue from retail game sales.  It's nuts.

[Buckna 1,390]

23 minutes ago, Capella said:

Whole different game than I’m playing. I’m just trying to beat the saints in my next game. 

There’s a Marvel mobile game that used to have a thread on here - horrible company that just rapes their players over and over again via money grabs. I played for a while because it was fun and it was Marvel, but eventually wised up and quit a few years ago. Extremely difficult and basically downright impossible to be in the upper echelon of players without spending gobs and gobs of money. The top players would spend thousands every week buying crystals with small percentage chances to get a new character when new characters came out to make sure they had them. Anyway, there was supposedly a confirmed story that one of the top players was the CEO of a tech company and actually had an employee on the payroll to play the game for him all day long. Top competitor teams got outed that they would recruit someone with actual great gameplay skills and share logins across all team members having the one player play for all of them (it’s a turn based game so doable.)

I am sure there are even crazier stories out there.

[Todem 4,674]

14 hours ago, Insein said:

Madden 21 - same as 16-20. 

Nothing has changed. EA won't stop until people stop being stupid and giving them money. EA is a crack dealers at this point. 

https://youtu.be/UX5_6M5LLwA

Worst game ever acco ding to Metacritic user score. 

https://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/madden-nfl-21

I am going to have to disagree here.

 

Madden 16 IMO was the best playing Madden they ever made. CPU QB AI was pretty on point. Fatigue and auto subs worked really well. It played a very good game of football. I still play Madden 16 with some classic rosters sets, 1986,1990, 1999 (32 team control with me creating the coaches for those years and using generic playbooks for offense and defense). I have a blast with that game. The Franchise mode though had some fatal flaws (The XP System on this one was not well done and player confidence was far too OP to have a multi year franchise).

 

Madden 17 they began adding good features to franchise mode (Full player editing, XP sliders, practice squads, more streamlined and better draft scouting, confidence mechanics reeled in, better XP player development). However the gameplay went 5 steps back.....Madden 18 gameplay again...not good. Madden 19....massive mess with patches and updates breaking the game.

 

Madden 20 made some nice strides adding superstar and X factor abilities to give the star players true ratings differentiation. They also added ratings spreads, and proper rookie ratings spreads. They really improved the fictional draft classes (and Madden 19 finally allowed custom draft classes BTW which some people love). They also really improved the playbooks to reflect the modern day game with a full array of RPO’s and they added a nice scheme system that you can match up with your personal. They also improved the depth charts and adding specialists (power back, scat back, return, pass rushing LB, DT slot WR etc etc) They added coaching adjustments which are really nice to use and work. 

However Madden 20 still had a crappy ### CPU AI which never was the same from Madden 16 (CPU AI and CPU QB’s in particular were great on Madden 16) They also lost the player movement and tackling from the Ignite Engine when they went to the Frostbite Engine. I hated the move to Frostbite from Ignite.

Madden 21 however is killing it. The CPU QB AI has never ever been this good. I am telling you the QB;s act and play like their real life counterparts. Scramblers scramble. Pocket passers step up in the pocket. Even QB;s who are not considered mobile but have great pocket presence move in the pocket and have far better awareness of the pass rush. Also they added a new “Throw out of sack” mechanic which works amazingly well. QB's now flutter balls when being hit, have higher rates of inaccuracy under pressure or while being hit etc.

RB’s and WR’s feel weighty, have foot planting, change of direction ratings.....they don’t simply glide on a dime lie they Traditionally did. 

The crying is from all the so called sim heads (and I am a solo offline franchise player BTW) who moan and complain about franchise mode not being touched. That may be true.....but I don’t need endless menus and text menus inside franchise mode to have fun. I want gameplay to amazing. And Madden 21 does a great job of gameplay this year. Best since 16 hands down.

 

Now of course they are already deploying a update on 9/10 that will change up the “throw from sack” mechanic because all the E-Sport players are moaning incessantly about how they cannot get as may sacks and fumbles anymore....it is a joke. Twitter is raging from this amazing new simulation like feature. 

 

That is the problem. EA does not cater to offline franchise players....they moved on from them after Madden 16. If any complaints come from the competitive online players....they are heard and patched. Period.

I am making sure I will not DL any gameplay updates for Madden 21 from this point forward. 1.04 is the last patch I DL (no gameplay fixes, strictly stabilization fixes etc).

The game is far from perfect. The presentation....SUCKS BALLS. No NFL Authenticity what so ever on that department. They have ESPN and NFL Network and refuse to use it. The broadcast team is crap with the same old tired lines, no tv style lineup intros....it is bad.

But I can look past that because the gameplay this year is so very good. Best I have ever played. And I have played Madden since Sega. I am a OG Madden player.

So play it for yourself. Because right now it is so trendy to bash EA....and I do not cut them a lot of slack. But I also will credit them when they get it right.

 

Gameplay for solo offline franchise players has never been better. Franchise mode works well and is good enough for me to have a lot of fun in my virtual football universe. 

[Capella 29,502]

12 minutes ago, Buckna said:

There’s a Marvel mobile game that used to have a thread on here - horrible company that just rapes their players over and over again via money grabs. I played for a while because it was fun and it was Marvel, but eventually wised up and quit a few years ago. Extremely difficult and basically downright impossible to be in the upper echelon of players without spending gobs and gobs of money. The top players would spend thousands every week buying crystals with small percentage chances to get a new character when new characters came out to make sure they had them. Anyway, there was supposedly a confirmed story that one of the top players was the CEO of a tech company and actually had an employee on the payroll to play the game for him all day long. Top competitor teams got outed that they would recruit someone with actual great gameplay skills and share logins across all team members having the one player play for all of them (it’s a turn based game so doable.)

I am sure there are even crazier stories out there.

Holy crap

[Todem 4,674]

30 minutes ago, Insein said:

MVP 05 was the best baseball game I ever played. 

I played it for 5 years. Loved it.

 

MLB The Show smokes it. Not even close.

[STEADYMOBBIN 22 3,981]

10 hours ago, DJackson10 said:

I was never a big 2K fan of their NFL game honestly. Yeah they had a HT show and such but the gameplay and online play was horrendous (Just like any other 2K online game over the years). They had better graphics but really their franchise mode was not deep at all. 

2k5 is still better today. Right now. Better animations, better gameplay and yes, the graphics hold up on everything except the field. It’s not even close. The players play realistic and react the way NFL players are supposed to react. 
 

I’d challenge anyone to play 4-5 games of the franchise mode of 2k5 and report back. I think you’ll be astonished at how great a game that was and still is. 
 

ETA -Online play was atrocious? Waaaaaa? You musta been on a PlayStation cause the online play was flawless. A friend and I played almost 20 consecutive seasons - all online.

 

The player profile aspect still to this day hasn’t been replicated. This was where I could download your profile and play against a virtual “you” - and the CPU would play me almost exactly like you would. Incredibly fun to practice before a big game against my friend.

 

Edited September 2, 2020 by STEADYMOBBIN 22

[Todem 4,674]

45 minutes ago, Poke_4_Life said:

MLB the Show is still a great game.  They have an Ultimate team mode, but also have very polished other modes.  The only sports game I still play.  

The very best console sports game out there today.

MLB 20 is fantastic. A offline Franchise players dream. And the classic roster community is incredible. 

I have a year 4 Yankees franchise I stated on MLB 17 still going on MLB 20. Carry over franchise saves is a fantastic feature and no other sports game does it.

[Capella 29,502]

4 minutes ago, STEADYMOBBIN 22 said:

2k5 is still better today. Right now. Better animations, better gameplay and yes, the graphics hold up on everything except the field. It’s not even close. The players play realistic and react the way NFL players are supposed to react. 
 

I’d challenge anyone to play 4-5 games of the franchise mode of 2k5 and report back. I think you’ll be astonished at how great a game that was and still is. 

Man we ain’t living 15 years in the past. No way the graphics even look half as good as they do now and I’m not interested in playing with Jeff Garcia as my QB. 

[need2know 6,181]

I said it before but I gotta give another shout out for prey.

Played the mooncrash dlc and its one of the most unique things I have ever seen for these types of games

Edited September 2, 2020 by need2know

[belljr 10,736]

4 hours ago, Todem said:

I played it for 5 years. Loved it.

 

MLB The Show smokes it. Not even close.

High Heat was my go-to.

I can't time the throws as a fielder in the show :lol:.  I might need to turn of the meter throwing

Edited September 2, 2020 by belljr

[Todem 4,674]

1 hour ago, belljr said:

High Heat was my go-to.

I can time the throws as a fielder in the show :lol:.  I might need to turn of the meter throwing

Turn that crap off. Best way to play is allow the ratings to matter most vs stick and button skills.

Button throwing no meter

Auto fielding (you make all the throws though with button no meter throwing). The animations you will see are amazing. Smooth as butter. Ratings based fielding. 

Timed/directional hitting

Classic pitching

no visual aides what so ever. Clean screen simulation  style.....it is glorious. 

Edited September 2, 2020 by Todem

[STEADYMOBBIN 22 3,981]

2 hours ago, Capella said:

Man we ain’t living 15 years in the past. No way the graphics even look half as good as they do now and I’m not interested in playing with Jeff Garcia as my QB. 

Look, I don’t want to get into a smarmy back and forth because I appreciate all your smarmy-ness when it isn’t directed at me- But I very clearly stated that graphics “hold up” to today’s games with the exception of the field. I didn’t say they were close or better.
 

This is why I challenged you to play it for 4-5 games -cause if you don’t- then you really can’t comment. It’s that damn good. 

With all that said- the point is that if you slapped today’s graphics on that game it would demolish today’s games. 
 

That and old Jeffie Garcia was a helluva QB. 

Edited September 2, 2020 by STEADYMOBBIN 22

[TLEF316 4,929]

Garcia will forever have my respect because of this

[belljr 10,736]

2 hours ago, Todem said:

Turn that crap off. Best way to play is allow the ratings to matter most vs stick and button skills.

Button throwing no meter

Auto fielding (you make all the throws though with button no meter throwing). The animations you will see are amazing. Smooth as butter. Ratings based fielding. 

Timed/directional hitting

Classic pitching

no visual aides what so ever. Clean screen simulation  style.....it is glorious. 

Button or button accuracy?

[Todem 4,674]

6 hours ago, belljr said:

Button or button accuracy?

Button

[Foosball God 2,901]

23 hours ago, Capella said:

Holy crap

Marvel Contest of Champions.  I still play 

[need2know 6,181]

any avengers reviews?   I'm reading alot of negative things about it on metacritic.   It sounds terrble 

[Buffaloes 2,970]

On 9/2/2020 at 8:45 AM, STEADYMOBBIN 22 said:

2k5 is still better today. Right now. Better animations, better gameplay and yes, the graphics hold up on everything except the field. It’s not even close. The players play realistic and react the way NFL players are supposed to react. 
 

I’d challenge anyone to play 4-5 games of the franchise mode of 2k5 and report back. I think you’ll be astonished at how great a game that was and still is. 
 

ETA -Online play was atrocious? Waaaaaa? You musta been on a PlayStation cause the online play was flawless. A friend and I played almost 20 consecutive seasons - all online.

 

The player profile aspect still to this day hasn’t been replicated. This was where I could download your profile and play against a virtual “you” - and the CPU would play me almost exactly like you would. Incredibly fun to practice before a big game against my friend.

 

iirc online play on PS2 was on point in 2k5 as well. better than any other football game that I remember.

 

[IvanKaramazov 21,223]

Microsoft coming in strong with the Series S at $299.  Series X allegedly at $499.  Good pricing, and the S is a nice budget entry for folks who are looking for an upgrade but not ready to drop a lot of money on a full-priced launch console.  Looking good.

[hagmania 8,791]

On 7/6/2020 at 9:00 AM, hagmania said:

After the patch coming this Wednesday, I'm going to go full tilt grinding to Diamond in Teamfight Tactics. My favorite autobattler by leaps and bounds.

Update: I made it to Platinum for the first time ever in a game by Riot, but not much time left to make Diamond. I have really improved in the last 2 months and look forward to gunning for Diamond in Season 4.

[Dan Lambskin 13,612]

Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes mobile game has made over $1 Billion dollars since launch all on micro transactions 

I think I read somewhere recently that if you wanted to whale out on a single new character to max them out you’re looking about $500

[STEADYMOBBIN 22 3,981]

2 hours ago, Dan Lambskin said:

Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes mobile game has made over $1 Billion dollars since launch all on micro transactions 

I think I read somewhere recently that if you wanted to whale out on a single new character to max them out you’re looking about $500

Sad and bad news for us real gamers 

[DJackson10 2,919]

On 9/2/2020 at 10:30 AM, Buckna said:

There’s a Marvel mobile game that used to have a thread on here - horrible company that just rapes their players over and over again via money grabs. I played for a while because it was fun and it was Marvel, but eventually wised up and quit a few years ago. Extremely difficult and basically downright impossible to be in the upper echelon of players without spending gobs and gobs of money. The top players would spend thousands every week buying crystals with small percentage chances to get a new character when new characters came out to make sure they had them. Anyway, there was supposedly a confirmed story that one of the top players was the CEO of a tech company and actually had an employee on the payroll to play the game for him all day long. Top competitor teams got outed that they would recruit someone with actual great gameplay skills and share logins across all team members having the one player play for all of them (it’s a turn based game so doable.)

I am sure there are even crazier stories out there.

I've heard of stories from former game partners (youtubers, twitchers, etc) who'd get the games for free and do a review for the company but you had to sign a waiver that you would only say good things about the game. The big issue though was a NBA2K dude came out and said 2K rigged their my team for him and other industry partners to get the best cards that had a 0.00001% of 99% of the players wouldn't get easily. This got players to buy more VC and such to try and get those cards/players. Its all a big happy family of scam artist and all the companies are involved. I'd love to make it illegal or at least put an age limit on who you can charge for VC. I've heard stories of young teens without money grabbing their parents CC's and using them to the digital currency. Mom or dad finds the bill and goes WTF I didn't pay for all of this. I had one friend who's kid spent over 60K on one credit card on some games nd currency. My friend he canceled the card because he thought it had been stolen. Then he was watching his son play these games looked at the bill and then started asking his kids some questions how he got those games. This was a year ago. I don't think he's letting his kid out of the house till he goes to college at this point. Luckily my friend had a lawyer buddy and went to dispute the charges. Somehow PSN was involved and deleted the games or something on his system currency and all defaulted went back to the company and everything was settled. It was mostly because my friend threatened to sue big time and he works for a major company that could've gotten major press out on the situation. 

[DJackson10 2,919]

On 9/7/2020 at 10:22 PM, Buffaloes said:

iirc online play on PS2 was on point in 2k5 as well. better than any other football game that I remember.

 

I might be one of the few in here who hated NFL 2K. I thought the gameplay was stiff and got bored on franchise mode fast. I could never run the ball either. Plus I literally had no one to play with online as most of my friends had Madden instead. I liked the NCAA Hoops and NCAA College Football for 2K was cool. I also wasn't a fan of the playbook dynamic and graphics for Football in 2K. Really weird and seemed to miss a lot of things 

[need2know 6,181]

11 hours ago, Dan Lambskin said:

Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes mobile game has made over $1 Billion dollars since launch all on micro transactions 

I think I read somewhere recently that if you wanted to whale out on a single new character to max them out you’re looking about $500

Yikes🤢

[Insein 10,529]

10 hours ago, STEADYMOBBIN 22 said:

Sad and bad news for us real gamers 

Yep. Been that way for at least 5-6 years now. The gaming companies realized you can ignore the traditional part of the gaming market for mobile and make tons of profit with minimal cost. They still make regular games for now but I wonder how long before a company like EA just goes full mobile. Madden and Fifa are basically mobile games with a $60 entry now anyway. 

[towney 31]

Just bought a Logitech G923 racing wheel and wanted to know the best driving games out there for PC and the Xbox for the G923.  Also is the shifter a good or needed addition.

New the the whole racing wheel and sim so any input is greatly appreciated.

[CR69 1,388]

16 minutes ago, towney said:

Just bought a Logitech G923 racing wheel and wanted to know the best driving games out there for PC and the Xbox for the G923.  Also is the shifter a good or needed addition.

New the the whole racing wheel and sim so any input is greatly appreciated.

You want iRacing on the PC side. 

[belljr 10,736]

38 minutes ago, towney said:

Just bought a Logitech G923 racing wheel and wanted to know the best driving games out there for PC and the Xbox for the G923.  Also is the shifter a good or needed addition.

New the the whole racing wheel and sim so any input is greatly appreciated.

No shifter.  The only racing game on xbox that the wheel is fun for me is Nascar Heat and Dirt Rally 2.0 is fun.  I'm sure there are others.   I didn't find forza much better with a wheel. Pc is iracing but my pc is shot

I did buy a converter and use my G923 for Grab Turismo on my PS4

Edited September 9, 2020 by belljr

[belljr 10,736]

On 9/2/2020 at 12:56 PM, Todem said:

Turn that crap off. Best way to play is allow the ratings to matter most vs stick and button skills.

Button throwing no meter

Auto fielding (you make all the throws though with button no meter throwing). The animations you will see are amazing. Smooth as butter. Ratings based fielding. 

Timed/directional hitting

Classic pitching

no visual aides what so ever. Clean screen simulation  style.....it is glorious. 

This is more fun

[E Street Brat 1,578]

29 minutes ago, CR69 said:

You want iRacing on the PC side. 

 

Two new cars being released today, 

The Vette C8.R and the Dallara P217 LMP2

It's a little pricey to get started, but it levels off once you have the cars/tracks your interested in. 

 

 

 

[towney 31]

1 hour ago, CR69 said:

You want iRacing on the PC side. 

Any suggestion on what to start off with there.  Does it have options to drive not against others?  Looks like they have 50% off deal.

Edited September 9, 2020 by towney

[CR69 1,388]

51 minutes ago, towney said:

Any suggestion on what to start off with there.  Does it have options to drive not against others?  Looks like they have 50% off deal.

I'm not an expert by any means I've just played on my brother's setup. Sounds like @E Street Brat is pretty into it though and might be able to answer your questions better than I can. 

[DJackson10 2,919]

Ronnie2K threatened Phantoms in March of this year. another person leaked Boarderlands 3 and take2 had PI's show up at his house threatened him to take down the video leak or get a strike. He did and then Take2 gave 3 strikes to his channel which means the dude with over 100K had his channel taken down indefinitely

2K and take 2 threatening you tubers other Social media influencers reporting videos that make videos talking Negatively on their product

[E Street Brat 1,578]

42 minutes ago, towney said:

Any suggestion on what to start off with there.  Does it have options to drive not against others?  Looks like they have 50% off deal.

For online against other drivers there is a licence class system. You cant just hop in a cup car and race at Daytona, or an F1 car at Monza,

You will start as a rookie and either run oval street stocks, or road course Mazda MX5's 

They have test session, time trial sessions, open practice sessions, hosted sessions, league sessions  and they now have AI on a limited amount of cars and tracks, with more in the works. 

 

There are tons of youtube videos out there to check out, or just ask me if you have any questions, I've been racing on there for about 11 years now.

 

You can use my email estreetbrat@gmail.com as  reference if you like. 

 

 

[The Tick 628]

Looks like Witcher 3 is getting a current gen update for PC and next Gen consoles, it will be a free update for PC.  They did the same for the second game and polished it up pretty nicely from what I heard at the time.  Between this and Mass Effect, I'm going to have a lot of hours in replay's over the next year.

We've been lamenting the destruction of the game industry (for most of us) by free to play and micro transactions, but thankfully there are still guys around who put in the time and see the value (and profit) in creating great single player games.  I think there is still a large market for this stuff, and if the big producers like EA completely leave single player experience I believe guys who want to make this stuff will appear and still put out some (maybe not the quantity we have had) great games. 10 years ago CD Projekt Red was pretty much unheard of, now they have one of the best games in the last decade, and one of the most anticipated upcoming titles.

[MTskibum 394]

6 minutes ago, The Tick said:

Looks like Witcher 3 is getting a current gen update for PC and next Gen consoles, it will be a free update for PC.  They did the same for the second game and polished it up pretty nicely from what I heard at the time.  Between this and Mass Effect, I'm going to have a lot of hours in replay's over the next year.

We've been lamenting the destruction of the game industry (for most of us) by free to play and micro transactions, but thankfully there are still guys around who put in the time and see the value (and profit) in creating great single player games.  I think there is still a large market for this stuff, and if the big producers like EA completely leave single player experience I believe guys who want to make this stuff will appear and still put out some (maybe not the quantity we have had) great games. 10 years ago CD Projekt Red was pretty much unheard of, now they have one of the best games in the last decade, and one of the most anticipated upcoming titles.

Baldurs gate 3 for example should be a great single player game.

[McBokonon 2,874]

I haven’t really been reading up on the next-gen consoles, but I was just reading that Microsoft is offering an option to pay $34.99 a month for two years to get the Series X. That obviously comes out to about $840 all said and done, while buying the console outright is $499. The monthly payment option comes with access to Microsoft and EA game catalogs, though (Game Pass Ultimate and EA Play.) Is that worth what is essentially 14-15 bucks a month?

[STEADYMOBBIN 22 3,981]

1 hour ago, McBokonon said:

I haven’t really been reading up on the next-gen consoles, but I was just reading that Microsoft is offering an option to pay $34.99 a month for two years to get the Series X. That obviously comes out to about $840 all said and done, while buying the console outright is $499. The monthly payment option comes with access to Microsoft and EA game catalogs, though (Game Pass Ultimate and EA Play.) Is that worth what is essentially 14-15 bucks a month?

 

I think theyre flirting with a free model for online play but that could just be a rumor. Somebody else would know more but i think the ultimate pass with live is $14.99/mo. IIRC, EA is like $10/mo. 

 

Seems like a super smart idea by microsoft to get more gaming who cant plop down $500-$600 at once. 

[belljr 10,736]

I broke down and bought Madden for the first time in like 5 years

[Jobber 2,343]

On 9/12/2020 at 8:46 AM, STEADYMOBBIN 22 said:

 

I think theyre flirting with a free model for online play but that could just be a rumor. Somebody else would know more but i think the ultimate pass with live is $14.99/mo. IIRC, EA is like $10/mo. 

 

Seems like a super smart idea by microsoft to get more gaming who cant plop down $500-$600 at once. 

I already have GamePass Ultimate. So my Xbox, sons Xbox and other sons gaming PC have huge catalogs of games thanks to this. EA being added in at no additional cost this fall will add even more to that catalog. It’s by far the best value in gaming today. I also heard rumors that online play may become free (like you mentioned).

TL;DR : GamePass is freaking amazing

[belljr 10,736]

Ea is $30 for the year or 5 per month

Ultimate game pass is 25 a month

[AndrewClark 350]

On 9/2/2020 at 10:00 AM, Poke_4_Life said:

MLB the Show is still a great game.  They have an Ultimate team mode, but also have very polished other modes.  The only sports game I still play.  

MLB The Show is definitely one of the few games that still gets it right. I can't recommend it enough. 

[IvanKaramazov 21,223]

PS5 came in about where I expected -- $400 for digital only and $500 with an optical drive.  A little surprised at the $100 price difference, which seems slightly steep for just a disc drive.  It's kind of tempting to go all-digital since that's how I buy most games anyway.

I'm very happy to see that the Demon's Souls remake is a launch title.  I've been looking forward to that one for several years now, and it instantly makes this the best launch lineup out of the past several generations for me personally all by itself.