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Weekend Gamer: Game Pass is still amazing

Read More Xbox So, I joined Game Pass. There are two price points, the $10 per month pricing is strictly for Xbox games, and the $15, called Game Pass Ultimate includes PC, EA and Xbox Gold (you need this to play online Xbox games) …

One and a half month into Xbox Game Pass, I’m happy to report that it is an insane deal. It doesn’t even make any sense how MicroSoft is even making money off Game Pass… the value is just that good! Sure, some games do rotate out, but there’s still enough there to keep me in the service.

I’m not at all worried about Sony’s PS Plus service (coming in June 2022), which is basically their answer to Game Pass. As I previously pointed out in last month, they’re not going to include downloadable PS3 games. This is because the architecture is so different, that the PS5 or PS4 cannot run PS3 games. Sony’s solution is to let you stream those PS3 games - which is not an option for me. My internet is not great, and I think it’s a poor solution to Sony’s PS3 problem.

Anyway, back to Game Pass. I have so many games (it’s about 400 games available on Game Pass Ultimate), that I finally got around to trying Game Pass on the PC recently. While the experience wasn’t amazing: the Xbox App on the PC that I was under the age of 18 and put restrictions on what games I could download. That was an easy fix (but why was this a problem before?)

Then the Xbox App would not sign me in, no matter what I did. After rebooting my computer, it seemed to sign in fine now. Again, why was this a problem? I see that others experienced similar problem, especially after the App updated.

So… when you get the Xbox App to actually work, it’s pretty amazing! There are certain games that are available on the PC only, such as the latest Age of Empires IV, that I need the PC App to run. Again, I’m impressed that I’m playing these $60 games, for basically free… so long as I pay for that service.

I knew that MicroSoft said that my Xbox games will be available on the PC for free, if I purchased them, but I never looked into this as I didn’t really care that much. So imagine my surprise when I see that my Xbox games that I bought showed up on the Xbox App for the PC… meaning I now I have access to the PC version of some of these games. Now, that’s cool.

Going forward, I think I’ll only buy Xbox games, as it’s somewhat of a “two-for-one” deal for me (since the games will be available for me in two places).

One final thing about Game Pass that I didn’t know, until after I joined… it’s that you actually get to keep one or two games forever. Whatever the Xbox 360 games Game Pass/Games with Gold offers for the month, after you click on get for free, it’s yourself permanently. Seriously, I didn’t know that.

Sure the 360 games aren’t amazing (or are available for cheap), but I feel it’s such an added bonus, that I am more than happy to remain on the service for the time being.

Yours,

- Weekend Gamer

vu (vu@weheartmusic.com) ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ twitter.com

PlayStation Game Pass

Read More Xbox So, I joined Game Pass. There are two price points, the $10 per month pricing is strictly for Xbox games, and the $15, called Game Pass Ultimate includes PC, EA and Xbox Gold (you need this to play online Xbox games) …

Sony’s answer to Game Pass is finally here… at least in a pricing leak. According to Venture Beat, the new PlayStation Plus will include elements of PlayStation Now elements, with the three different tiers: Essential ($10), Extra ($13), and Premium ($16).

For the lowest priced, PS+ Essential, you only get three or four “free” monthly games… and the ability to play online games, just like the original PlayStation Plus.

For $3 more, you can get PS+ Extra, which includes the monthly “free” games and a game catalogue of “hundreds of older, downloadable games.”

For PS+ Premium, you get everything in Essential and Extra, plus the ability to stream PS Now games and access to “game trials” and “classic games”. To me, I read the game trial as simply a timed demo, so, to me, it’s a useless “feature”. I don’t know what the classic games will get you… maybe PlayStation One games?

The service hasn’t launched yet, but I’m curious to see how many games you will get compared to Game Pass. Currently my $15 Ultimate Game Pass gives me access to about 400 games. I don’t believe PlayStation will offer as much, but we’ll see. We do know, based on previous interviews and attitude, that new games won’t get day-one release on the PlayStation Plus service…. And that’s a real bummer. That just means that you only have access to old games.

With Game Pass, I have previously mentioned that there are only a few old games that I’m interested in checking out, the main draw for Game Pass are the new games, like Halo Infinite. I’ll be brutally honest, if Game Pass took away the new games, I know I wouldn’t bother with the service, that’s how important it is for them to include new games. If PlayStation Now Premium won’t include any new games, then I think it failed out of the gate.

There are so much we still don’t know about the new service - like will gamers have access to their PS3 games ? I still own some PS3 digital and disc games, and from what I know, I cannot play them on the PS4 and PS5 currently. With the upcoming service, I wonder if Sony will finally allow us access to our games? I hate to say it, but seeing as they up-charge $10 for PS4 to PS5 games, I wouldn’t put it pass greedy Sony to charge you $10 extra so you can play PS3 games you previously paid for.

That is the biggest difference that I’ve seen in this console generation… while Xbox won’t charge you for access to all your games (going back to the original Xbox). In fact, if you pop in an Xbox 360 disc, the new Xbox Series X will automatically download a playable version of that game (using Smart Delivery) and won’t charge you any money to play your game.

Don’t get me wrong, I would love to see Sony do better. I do still own a PS4 and PS3, which are both currently de-powered as I haven’t used them for over a year. The way I see it, if I get a PS5, I don’t want to pay $10 for each PS4 games I own… and my PS3 games, that’s up in the air (as it’s currently not compatible with PS5).

I don’t even know why I’m so interested in the new PlayStation service, I guess what I’m more interested in is competition to Xbox Game Pass. It’ll be good to see what PS will bring to the table… and how Xbox can improve their service by seeing what PS has to offer.

Yours,

- Weekend Gamer

vu (vu@weheartmusic.com) ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ twitter.com

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate

Read More Xbox Since owning the Xbox Series X, I had to do a lot of research to see if I made the right decision. It’s still hard to get your hands on the latest gaming consoles, but it seems like I am seeing the Xbox Series S …

So, I joined Game Pass.

There are two price points, the $10 per month pricing is strictly for Xbox games, and the $15, called Game Pass Ultimate includes PC, EA and Xbox Gold (you need this to play online Xbox games). Between the two prices, I thought the $15 was the better, considering you get much more for only an additional $5 extra.

Right now, the price is very good, but I’m seeing the writing on the wall that the price may go up late this year or next year. If you look online, Netflix and Amazon both raised their subscription prices, it just makes sense that MicroSoft will soon follow, especially since they just announced that massive buyout.

Anyway, shortly after subscribing to Game Pass, my measly 50 games went up to 480 games… which is so amazing. I can see how this is a must subscription for gaming fans on a budget or it’s something you want to give to your children.

Like Netflix, you don’t really own the game. So when you cancel your service, your Game Pass games will no longer run.

Sony’s version of Game Pass is called PlayStation Now, which ended in 2020… and they are planning on relaunching it this year under the code name Sparticus. Competition is good, but between the “stream only” PS Now and Game Pass, I would go with Game Pass any day, based on more titles and the ability to download your games.

Speaking of more titles… The 480 games sounds really impressive, however, I would say that I’m only interested in about 5% of those games. That’s because the majority of games are much older games or game genres that I don’t care for (for example sport games). Plus, some games will only run on the PC (such as the new Torchlight 3).

Regarding the older games, if you have never played them, then you’re not going to have a problem with Game Pass. In fact, I downloaded some old games, just to see what it is like on the new Series X console, and I have to say that seeing these games in upscaled 4k resolution, it’s like experiencing the game for the first.

At the end of the day, if you only play one game in Game Pass, then it’s worth it.

My plan is to keep Game Pass Ultimate until I’ve exhausted all the games I wanted to play, and then unsubscribe. We’ll see if I do unsubscribe when the day come, because I get the feeling that I might just stick to the service, because of all the perks.

Yours,

- Weekend Gamer

My Game Library with Game Pass

vu (vu@weheartmusic.com) ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ twitter.com

Genshin Impact

Read More Games When The Witcher television show came out last year on Netflix, there was a massive uptick on newfound fans playing the game again. That’s because, like the game, the show was very well done and had a compelling story. …

According to some people, Genshin Impact is the biggest game in the world.

I don’t normally play “phone games”, but I recently upgraded my iPad and wanted to check out the game that everyone is talking about. I remember hearing about how much this game was a clone of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (which was my favorite game of 2017).

So, you know what? Genshin Impact is pretty good! They basically took the best part of Zelda, such as cooking, gliding, climbing, and sense of discovery. And the best part is that the game is free. There are some “free-to-play” mechanics, like loot boxes, disguised as “wishes”… but it’s to be expected when you play these sort of games. However, from what I’ve experienced so far, you don’t really need to spend any money to enjoy the game. I’m sure as I progress further in the game, that might not be the case.

Also, there are some things in the game that I wish I understood better when I started playing the game. I started leveling up as fast as I could, only to realize that I can’t go beyond level 20, unless I “Ascend”. This ascension requires some resources that can only be earned by doing all the quests in the Adventure Guild… If I had known this, I would have had started on this path. I guess making mistakes is part of the game. If I had known, I would have taken a different approach.

Another thing I wish I had known was that you really need certain characters (with different powers), in order to unlock some dungeons. The game does give you certain characters to keep as an introduction, but you can also unlock various characters by redeeming “Wishes”. If you do 10 wishes, you’re guaranteed a 4-star character… so, in my experience, I just save up my 10 wishes and do it all at one time.

The only negative that I can give is that the game requires you to be online all the time. This means if you disconnect with its server, your progress won’t be recorded or the game won’t work. Since it’s a popular online game, they’re subject to hacks. Recently, the game publisher miHoYo announced two-factor authenticity (which as of this writing did not work for me).

Since my iPad had a faster processor and updated internals, playing Genshin Impact on a touch screen is pretty good. Trying out the game on Android, on my aging Moto Z4 (from 2019) proved disastrous. My phone could play the game, but it had a lot of lagging and various issues that I did not experience on my iPad… it could be that the game was not optimized for Android.

Surprisingly the game is not available on the Xbox or Nintendo Switch yet, but it’s available on all major platforms, including Windows, iOS, Android, and PlayStation 4 (available on PS5 as backward compatible). It’s free, so give it a try, if you think this might be fun.

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Xbox Series vs PlayStation 5

Xbox Series vs PlayStation 5 Read More Xbox One As a weekend gamer, I’ve been following the Xbox One X (formerly known as Xbox Scorpio) for a while. Over the E3 gaming expo weekend, Microsoft … Playstation 4 Last week my PlayStation Network account got hacked/compromised. The person removed my email and added his or her email and took $50 from my bank account (that is tied to my account …

With the console war coming up this Holiday 2020. Let’s talk about the new Xbox Series and PS5… and possibly the dark horse in the race, Nintendo Switch.

The exciting news is that both MicroSoft and Sony have unveiled their pricing: Xbox Series X is $499, Xbox Series S is $299, PS5 is $499, and PS5 (Digital Edition) is $399.

Breaking it down, and looking at the specs on paper, it clearly looks like the Xbox Series X is the winner. There are some major things to consider: it promises backward compatibility with previous software and previous controllers and accessories. That means, if you already own the Xbox One controller and want to use it as a second player controller, you can do that with the S and the X.

The other secret weapon is that Xbox has Xbox Game Pass, which is the “Netflix of Gaming”, where you pay $10 a month and can play over 100 games on its service (including new games). For the price-conscious, particularly with the $299 S model, it’s worth looking into if you’re on a budget.

While the S model does not keep up with its more powerful big brother X, I feel the $299 will be fine for any gamers. For serious players, you’ll probably need to look at the X or PS5, because their games will supposedly run on 4k.

As for storage, believe me, 1TB is not enough for me (experiencing this on my laptop). If you install 10 games, you’re tapped out. I’ve compared speed between NVME and standard Harddrive (USB or IDE) on my computer, and I can, without a doubt, say that NVME is much, much faster (and more reliable).

The only advantage that PS5 will have is that they’ll have exclusive games only playable on their devices. With Xbox, because of its relationship with the PC, their games will always be available on computers (which I appreciate).

There is no news on the Nintendo front, but there’s rumors that they’ll come out with the Nintendo Switch Pro in early 2021. The more powerful portable console will support 4K (I’ll believe it when I see it).

Personally speaking, I will not be buying any “next generation” consoles. I think they all look ugly, particularly the PS5’s design with the fat belly of a disc drive. I hate the name “Xbox Series X or S”. It sounds stupid. Games for these new consoles will also cost $69.99 each ($10 more than previous generation). Plus, I barely touch my Xbox One or PS4 for over a year, since I’ve gotten a great gaming PC and laptop. That doesn’t mean that I won’t be following and seeing who will win this console war this Holiday 2020.

Here’s the breakdown - green is good:

Compare	Xbox Series S	Xbox Series X	PS5 (Disc/Digital)
Price:	$299.99	$499	$399/$499
Release Date:	10 Nov 2020	10 Nov 2020	12 Nov 2020
Optical Disc	None	Ultra HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray, DVD, CD	None / Ultra HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray, DVD
CPU/GPU	AMD 8-core Zen 2; 3.6 GHz, 3.4 GHz with SMT	AMD 8-core Zen 2; 3.8 GHz, 3.6 GHz with SMT	AMD 8-core Zen 2, variable frequency, up to 3.5 GHz
Memory	10GB of GDDR6 SDRAM	16GB of GDDR6 SDRAM	16 GB GDDR6 SDRAM
Storage	512 GB NVMe SSD (with Storage Expansion Card option)	1 TB NVMe SSD (with Storage Expansion Card option)	825 GB SSD (with upgradeable NVMe M.2 SSD, or external USB-based HDD)
Resolution	Up to 1440p	Up to 4K	Up to 4K
Backward Compatible	Games (limited), works with previous controllers and accessories	Games, works with previous controllers and accessories	Games (limited), does not work with previous controllers

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The PlayStation 5

Read More Playstation 4 Last week my PlayStation Network account got hacked/compromised. The person removed my email and added his or her email and took $50 from my bank account (that is tied to my account …

This is just a quick update. As you know, I used to be a big fan of gaming consoles, owning practically every console released since the Nintendo Entertain System. I retire them after the new ones comes out, and at the moment, I do own an XBox One, PS4, and Nintendo Switch. I have always had some sort of gaming PC as well, but with my ownership of my iBuyPower Fallout PC… I have practically given up all console gaming.

Why? There are many reasons why the PC is superior … first, it is because of the loading time is very fast on my PC, thanks to the ultrafast NVME storage. You don’t realize how much time you waste on a console when you’re launching a game or loading up a save file. On my PC, it’s almost instant when games launch or loading up game saves. Plus, depending on the graphic cards, my games looks a million times better on the PC than on any current console.

The other main reason is that games on the PC are much cheaper than on Xbox, PS4, and especially the Switch. In fact, Epic Games consistently gives out free games on the PC (this week it’s ARK: Survival Evolved and Samurai Shodown NeoGeo Collection).

Finally, in order to play online games, such as Fallout 76, you have to pay MicroSoft, Sony, or Nintendo, a monthly or annual fee. Sure, you get access to “free games”, but you don’t keep the games if you stop paying them the membership fee. I guess I’m just a cheapskate, but I just don’t want to pay for something that should be free.

Still, you know I’m still somewhat interested in seeing the next generation of gaming consoles… and today, Sony showed up what the upcoming PS5 will look like. And holy crap, it is so ugly. Particularly the optical disc drive looking like a belly bump. To me, it’s clear that Sony originally designed this “sleek” looking system without the disc drive and it looks uniform and centered. Then they added that drive and it just looks awful.

Anyway, I’m probably not going to buy one at launch. It really depends on pricing. If the rumors of it costing $600, it’s a hard pass for me - especially given how ugly it looks. Obviously, the disc-less version will be cheaper… but if we’re talking around $500 for that version, I still wouldn’t want it. Without the disc-drive, it means that you can’t play UHD or Blurays or DVDs or CDs! The only reason why I started collecting gaming consoles was that they also serve as a great media center, as it’s a powerful machine to play my discs.

I guess we’ll wait and see how well the PS5 performs, according to The Verge, the system will be powered by an eight-core AMD Zen 2 CPU and a custom AMD RDNA 2-based GPU. Based on Sony’s proprietary SSD, it should boost load times for games.

Even though I have no desire to buy the PS5, the main reason why I’m interested is for the new gaming technology. The PC can eventually adapt to it or offer their version of it… and that’s exciting.

vu (vu@weheartmusic.com) ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ facebook.com ♥ twitter.com/weheartmusic

Play at Home

With the current Coronavirus / COVID-19 climate of self-isolation, many businesses are offering free games and books to help keep us entertained, while we’re stuck indoors.

Read More Playstation 4 Last week my PlayStation Network account got hacked/compromised. The person removed my email and added his or her email and took $50 from my bank account (that is tied to my account …

SONY’S PLAY AT HOME
playstation.com

Jim Ryan, President & CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, is introducing Sony’s “Play At Home” infinitive. They are offering two free games: Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection and Journey, completely free from April 15 to May 5.

I already own both games (one game on physical discs), but it’s a nice and convenient way of playing these games. Also note, technically the Nathan Drake is actually three games (Uncharted 1, 2, and 3), and well-worth the price of admission (Free).

My only complaint about these free games is that Sony doesn’t exactly advertise them when you launch your PS4. You think it would be under the “FREE” section, but it’s not. You’ll basically have to do a search for these games and click on “Download” to get those games into your library.

If the shutdown continues well passed May 5th, I wonder if Sony might follow up with two additional free games.

Also worth noting, Epic Games usually offers two free games on their website, epicgames.com. This week’s free games: Just Cause 4 and Free Now. On April 23rd, you can grab For The King for free.

Bethesda is bringing their games back on Steam. As a promotion for Fallout 76 being on Steam, if you already own Fallout 76 on Bethesda’s Launcher, it’s FREE on Steam for you (plus you also get the Fallout Classic Collection for free as well). The biggest news about Fallout 76 is that it’s now worth playing with the new and free update called Wastelanders. They’ve finally added NPC (Non Player Characters) back into Fallout, and it’s awesome! Nice job, Bethesda.





MARVEL FREE COMICS
comixology.com

This is pretty impressive! Marvel Comics is offering about $100 worth of digital comics for free! I recommend just grabbing them all, even if you’ve no interest in reading them.

I can recommend X-Men: Dark Phoenix Saga, the classic Chris Claremont/John Byrne run.

Available titles:

Amazing Spider-Man: Red Goblin Avengers: Kree/Skrull War Avengers by Jason Aaron Vol. 1: The Final Host Avengers vs. X-Men Collection Black Panther by Ta-Nehisi Coates Vol. 1 Collection Black Widow Vol. 1: S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Most Wanted

Captain America: Winter Soldier Ultimate Collection Captain Marvel Vol. 1: Higher, Further, Faster, More Civil War Fantastic Four Vol. 1: Fourever Thanos Wins by Donny Cates X-Men Milestones: Dark Phoenix Saga

Also worth checking out Devil’s Due is offering their digital catalog for free on their website. If you have a My Shopify account (if you purchased anything from indie developers), you basically don’t need to sign up for a Devil’s Due account. Instead, you’ll get an email from Devil’s Due with a unique download link. The link will expire if you try to download more than 3 times, so I hope you don’t have a bad internet connection.

vu (vu@weheartmusic.com) ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ facebook.com ♥ twitter.com/weheartmusic