I have some thoughts about my series x experience, and to be honest I'm only posting because the power is out and I'm being baked alive.
The controller takes some getting used to. I went through the same thing when I went from an Xbox 360 controller to a PS4 controller. I am still convinced that the Xbox controllers feel more solid and a better quality. The Xbox controller is like holding a tank. But at the same time, the menu / share buttons on the DS4 feel better placed. I can't comment on the dual sense though. Fire the most part, I am over the learning curve of the repositioned dpad so the Xbox controller is starting to feel normal.
I am still undecided on the battery choices both went with. I thought the DS4 going with the built in one was lame when I got it. But now I realise that plugging in a controller is a tiny bit less work than removing batteries, placing on charger, and then putting them back once they've charged. It's real nitpicking here. Far from a deal breaker. The play and charge kits would solve this of course, but I have spent enough for now, so maybe one day
On the quick resume feature, I wasn't really blown away when MS brought out info on it, and reviews appeared mentioning it. On the one hand, I kind of feel like fast loading is an expectation when it comes to this sort of hardware. But after a week or two of switching between many games, some just loading fast, and others actually supporting it properly, I get it now.
Perhaps I should have mentioned this earlier, but I have played very few series x enhanced games. I went in knowing I'd be playing older games to start with, but I do look forward to some new titles that'll show the true power of it one day.
A game that really impressed me is Star Wars: Squadrons. It's a series x enhanced title, and you can play a bit of the campaign with EA play. It looked absolutely gorgeous. It boggles my mind how a console can target 4K60 and still have visuals that look so good. I never thought I'd be keen on that sort of game, but I see me buying it in the near future.The flight controls really take some getting used to. I had to tweak things a lot, but ended with a pretty good setup.
If you have played the campaign of Battlefront 2, the flight controls are much the same. But they have really improved it in squadrons. So much so that I find it difficult to compare. And that sort of gets me into the back compat thoughts.
Things obviously run well, and load times are quick. It's pretty safe to say that most of my experience at the moment is with back compat games (battlefront 2, battlefield v, Jedi fallen order, doom eternal, man of Medan). I am quite impressed that they managed to pull off that level of graphics with the one X, assuming that most are one X enhanced anyway. There are telltale signs of it being back compat in some games though, like arb pop in on Jedi fallen order.
Some brief reviews of some games:
* Jedi fallen order: the bomb, and I'm sad that it's over
* Battlefront 2: bit of a drag, maybe I'm too early in the campaign to get a good idea of it
* Battlefield v: campaign is a drag. Is it just me or were the stories in battlefield 1 better?
* Doom: FFS more ammo please
* Man of Medan: very much in the style of Until Dawn (which was a seriously messed up story). I am waiting for people to start dying. I am not sure why I'm playing this because I can't stand horrors
* Gears 4. Oh gosh, I am reaching my limit of how many hoards of enemies I can handle.
* Tetris effects: now this was fantastic. It's a serious in betweener game. Also played a bit with a friend.
* Call of the sea: too early to give an opinion
Now my plan with gears was to watch recaps of the first 3 games, get through 4 because of it being fairly new, and then enjoy 5. I tried the first game way back when on my 360 and got bored. They have certainly improved the entertainment value, and things graphically aren't near as dull (I am still wondering why older games thought that dull orange tint wasa good style), but it is a bit of a struggle. I am plodding on though. The characters are quite likeable and the story has potential.
Now I want to mention my experience with Tetris and it'll lead into a bit of a complaint. But I can't blame Microsoft here. I don't really know who to blame really. A mate on PC with gamepass discovered we could invite each other and jam Tetris together. We wasted many hours competing against each other. It was great. Things went pear a few days ago when it stopped working, and I'm not sure what's up there but by then I was pretty over it.
Now, gamepass has some great co-op games such as A Way out, and unravelled 2, the latest Wolfenstein game (forgot the name). But cross play is questionable. I spent many minutes looking into what is cross play and my conclusion is: very specific games I'm not interested in.It seems to be games like BFV (multiplayer), Fortnite, etc that are the chosen ones. This is hugely disappointing if I'm honest. Most of my friends are hardcore PC gamers, so being able to jam these together would have been epic. Either my Google foo is off, or information on cross platform games is very thin. I kind of expected it to just work for some reason, because of the whole play anywhere philosophy they have. I am putting it down to expecting too much.
Something quite small but really impressed me was that screen in the settings that shows if your TV is setup with your Xbox properly and what the TV supports. I thought that was a nice touch.
Something I found odd was Microsoft's choice of interface layout. I think I'm too much used to all my games being on one line with the PS4. The layout of the Xbox dashboard I find quite odd, even now. The recent menu is handy. And I frequently visit the apps and games section. Adding stuff to the home screen, which effectively makes it one long list if you want to pin many games, is just weird. It is not for me. I have grouped all my streaming apps though, and that made things a bit convenient. What I find odd is why they add a shortcut to groups as the first item.
I must also say that the most noticeable thing after the power and speed difference compared to my old PS4 Pro and laptop is the noise. This thing is absolutely dead silent. If it were not for the led in front I wouldn't know it was on. My old Pro sounds like a turbine. My laptop is even worse. I have only ever heard it once when I mistakenly put pieces of paper on top of the vent when doing stuff. It made an odd whirring sound. Felt like a tit when I realised what I'd done
My next mission is to get a remote that'll work with the Xbox. I'm going to look at some suggested in this thread. I am hoping to have one remote to rule them all, and retire my TVs smarts, because Samsung has abandoned updating the firmware and it's getting a bit slow now.
So to end off, there are absolutely no regrets. I knew what I was buying into. There is the odd minor disappointment here and there, but there are nothing more than that. For me, it is a fairly high end gaming pc replacement, at a much more reasonable cost, and it feels very much like that.
