Personal Gaming Thread

[Jason]

My Samsung T7 SSD arrived today and I just realized the Xbox can have more than 1 external drive attached at a time, so I'm moving my Xbox One games to the SSD and keeping my Xbox 360 games on my regular external drive.

Transfer speeds between the internal SSD and Samsung SSD topped out around 2.5Gbps. Transfer speeds between the standard external drive and the Samsung SSD were between 450 - 750Mbps.

[Jason]

I'm loving my new SSD so far. I'm able to transfer games between SSDs in around 2 to 3 minutes. The same transfers were taking up to 20 minutes on my standard external drive. My Xbox One games, especially Forza 7, load lightning fast off the external SSD too. I really hope Microsoft adds external SSD support for Xbox Series X/S games in the future. I'm also debating if I should buy another SSD while they're on sale.

Now that I freed up space on my internal SSD, I was finally able to install NBA 2K22 and play a few games last night. This is the first NBA 2K game I've played since NBA 2K15 on the PS4. The one thing I remember about 2K15 was being bombarded with VC in every aspect of the game, including navigating the main menu, so I was shocked to see that this has been toned down in 2K22. To my surprise I didn't see anything related to VC in the main menu, settings, loading screens or Quick Play games. I was able to do everything I wanted without any crap getting the way.

The game itself looks amazing and plays great. The slipping and sliding from previous versions, which I saw in videos, has been completely removed. The controls are responsive and don't seem to be locked into long animations like in the past. The basic controls are the same as NBA Live, so I immediately felt conformable playing. The only area I need a lot of work on is the post game, which plays differently than NBA Live. I don't usually use a lot of the advanced controls (See this thread: Advanced Controls) in any game, so I'm not worried about learning every move in the game. I feel like I have a full arsenal of moves with what I can do.

So far, I have no complaints with the game and I'm looking forward to playing it a lot more.

[Jason]

I think I figured out why my post game is so bad. Apparently the controller settings don't save, so I was playing with "Absolute" instead of "Camera Relative". For now, I guess I'll have to remember to change the controller settings every time I play. Strange that they can't fix a simple issue especially with all the complaints about it online.

[Jason]

I've been wanting to check out NASCAR Ignition 21 even though it's not supposed to be a good game, so I was glad to see that it was available for free this weekend as part of Xbox Live Gold. The graphics are probably worse than Heat 5, which is surprising considering the game made the jump from Unity to the Unreal 4 engine. The frame rate is locked at 30fps, even on the next-gen consoles, and the options and features are extremely limited. For instance, there's no rear view mirror, track map or ability to turn off proximity indicators, yet I can't stop playing the game.

The car handling is excellent and the racing itself is a lot of fun. This is the first NASCAR game where I can hold a clean line around a turn using a controller. It's so much fun racing inches away away from another car around a bend and not running in to them. A new patch was just just released on Friday which supposedly fixed a lot of issues with the game, so I'm not seeing a lot of the bugs mentioned in all the reviews.

The best part is that a free next-gen upgrade is going to be available in April. They haven't given exact details, but I'm assuming better graphics and 60fps gameplay will be included. Because of that, I decided to buy the game while it's on sale this weekend. If it's this much fun now, it can only get better once the new update is available. It's definitely not the deepest game and doesn't have a lot of bells and whistles, but it's fun and that's all that matters to me.

[Brad Company]

I'm glad you're having fun, but what you describe is unacceptable for a full-price title these days.

[Jason]

I'm glad you're having fun, but what you describe is unacceptable for a full-price title these days.

I agree. I'd never pay full price or recommend anyone else to either. I'm surprised I was willing to pay $35 for it (I also had $10 in Microsoft credit from Bing rewards). I usually wait for NASCAR games to drop under $20. I just didn't want to lose access to it tonight and felt the free next-gen upgrade justified the purchase at a slightly higher price.

[Jason]

I picked up F1 2021 on Xbox for $15 to hold me over now that my GRID Legends trial has finished.

[Ted]

I'd really love for the F1 franchise to move into VR.

[Brad Company]

I only dabble, but the F1 games always seem the same to me year after year

[Jason]

I only dabble, but the F1 games always seem the same to me year after year

They are. I just wanted one for my Series S that runs at a steady 60fps with no screen tear. For $15 it was a no-brainer.

[Brad Company]

Yeah, that's the sweet spot, price-wise. I've got 19 and 20, might get another one if it's 120fps.

[Jason]

Looking forward to this.

[Brad Company]

Dropping back into Destiny2, man it's a different game on PS5, so much better now as far as QoL. Got the latest expansion and got right back into the swing. Nice change of pace from CoD, which I have regained a good bit of my " skillz" in, lol.

[Jason]

I'm on race 11 of 24 in F1 2021 and it's kept me more interested than I expected. I have no interest in the story mode (Braking Point) or even the standard career mode, so I just created a custom Grand Prix with a race weekend (practice, qualifier and race) at each track.

[Ted]

Lots of hours in Mount & Blade Bannerlord lately.  I'm currently the hobo king of the Khergits (Mongols).