A quick google looks like pre-owned (refurbished or not) 1TB from a retailer is going about $40 cheaper than brand new ($359 vs $399)

I'd personally be wary of going previously owned from an individual on somewhere like eBay but YMMV. The pricing will vary more there obviously and you could get one noticeably cheaper I imagine, but whether that's due to someone needing quick cash vs someone not knowing the market value vs someone looking to rip you off would be hard to know without pulling the trigger.

fwiw, here's a rundown of the differences between the Xb1S and the Xb1X, mostly internal things so depending upon how much use and what games specifically are of interest, a 1s might be sufficient, with probably $100 - $150 lower price

And just beware, as I noted, the next gen is coming out this Oct/Nov and likely will be the same $399 price or just a $100 more (and will last much longer). So if you can wait 4 months or so...

Thanks, this is helpful.

I'm excited as well, although I've purchased consoles since the Atari days. :D

Though no impact on me, I do think it's interesting that Epic basically just announced that they're all but killing Save The World (the original Fortnite game mode).

It will remain premium, never to be free-to-play. Development will be scaled down with occasional new semi-annual "seasons" and the old locations/enemies going into "rotation".

Those who played it are (and moreso, those who spent money on it) are, umm, unhappy based on their social media reaction.

edit to add: How dead are they killing it? They even announced that future BR cosmetic purchases would not be supported in STW. Anybody care to set the over/under on how long before STW is shut down completely? Does it last more than a year from now?

Very disappointed to see this happen to STW, but just felt there was never the same dedication to it that there was with the battle royale. I think I'd rather see them just wave goodbye right now then extend something they are never going to commit to. Like you Jon I don't think it lasts more than a year.

TWO Victory Royales in one day? For ME?

I screwed up.

I shoulda played the lottery instead of playing Fortnite.

I guess the nice thing about being slow to play games is there are some great deals on games from a couple years ago. Many from your list.

I bought New Dawn because it was on sale for $15 and I enjoyed FC5. Really liked it. Thought some of the changes were nice although both the stories sucked.

Picked up Assassin's Creed Odyssey for $15 last night also (was the last night of the deal on the PS store). Will get around to that soon.

Still can't believe some of the deals out there on games.

In cleaning out my garage I found my old XBox360 and started searching around for the last NCAA football game on the internet and the cheapest I could find it was for $150!

I'm about 15 hours into it now. So far, it is a very well done game. I'm loving it.

Guess I need to hold onto mine for a bit longer. :D

I need to see if my PS3 copy of NCAA14 is still in good condition!

I'm going to make a few offers on eBay for $75 and see if anyone bites. The frustrating part is that is the only NCAA Football that I didn't buy. :banghead:

Gonna make a halfassed prediction that if COVID-19 fucks with the college football season at all, that $150 price is gonna jump as people try to get their fix however they can.

No doubt about it.

I decided to download the rosters for this season and started up a Mizzou dynasty. Boy am I rusty! I won against some no name team 42-7 but could not throw the football much at all.

It was fun playing again after all these years, I forgot just how great of a game this is. Excited to dive in some more!

Bama lost to Virgina to open up their season and Clemson crushed Georgia.

For Xbox 360 the gamertag you want for rosters is irish2018. Mizzou was near perfect so I'm assuming the rest is just as well done.

Damn NCAA Football 14 plays better than Madden 20. Beat Toledo 42-17. I know it's been years since I've played but passing and running are great.


I forgot about the game breaks while they show you scores around the league.


Oh yeah and Bama gets shutout at home 34-0 by Texas Tech.

Sure would like to play. Unfortunately I don't have the hardware to run the game.

So, IIRC, Microsoft has basically said that any Xbox game ever will be backwards compatible with Xbox Series X. Which means finding old NCAA games is more fruitful.

I have my Xbox 360 disc and it's also downloaded on my PS3. Good to have redundancy built in.

I wouldn't bet on super old games like NCAA Football. Since it's not bc with Xbox One, I would be surprised if it would run on Xbox Series X unless they have some sort of emulator or something.

If so... that would be awesome.

Some of it may be difficult (and perhaps not everything will be able to), but that is their intent:

Xbox Series X backwards compatibility explained by Microsoft: what you need know | TechRadar

That would be incredible.

All right, fess up!

Which one of you made the winning bid?:D

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/11/us/su...rnd/index.html

On the final day of the Steam sale, the offspring bought a few odds & ends, including FHM6.

Historical replays are always tempting to me, for the nostalgia alone, though I have to confess that I can't really be nostalgic for the early 1920s since I'm actually not quite that old.

That said, after starting in the earliest year possible, I feel like I have a better understanding of the hockey decades prior to the Original Six than I ever had before. And having gone through just a handful of seasons now, I'm already developing a much larger sense of amazement at how much time will pass between the Original Six official beginning and the major expansion 25 years later (which occurred the year I was born, so it's really largely been what I've known and understood). Arguably the most educational/enlightening sports game experience I've had I think, at least in terms of feeling like some things clicked in my head.

edit to add: Oh, and a game-specific hat tip: the what-changed snippet that arrives in your game inbox before the start of a new season is, IMO, concise enough to avoid TLDR but also provides adequate explanation for the upcoming season. They're absolutely vital to playing in this sort of universe.

MSFS 2020 Pre-Order Trailer

I give to you ... Sex In the Air.

100% not my thing as a gaming experience, but it's visually stunning. Probably worth watching the trailer for that reason alone, regardless of game interest.

That is...wow...

I mean, it's not like any of us are going to be getting in airplane anytime soon so it's the next best thing, right?

SI

Though I have a feeling I could buy an actual airplane for what it'd cost to render the game anywhere close to the demo.

Holy crap, that is visually stunning. Makes me salivate about what MLB The Show might look like on PS5

Guessing you'll need one hell of a video card to play that.

They figured out a novel way to do it. The scenery is dynamically downloaded as you fly - otherwise you'd be talking literally thousands of terabytes of scenery data. The drawback is you need a beefy internet connection to get that level of hotness.

The fact that it renders in the different seasons though ... fucking incredible.

Ok I've played The Forest over the weekend and it is a ton of fun. Really challenging solo and feel like it would be a lot more fun with a friend or two. One of those games you could probably play through a dozen times and have a unique experience with each one.

It's like $12 on PS4 store right now so I recommend it to anyone who likes survivor games.

Yeah, that is spectacular for sure. I won't buy the game, but I would watch videos of others playing it LOL

FS is gonna give my 2080Ti a workout

I remember playing the first MFS in CGA graphics so many years ago. Yeah, playing this one on my 2080 is going to be quite different.

I'll go back to streaming flight sims if ya'll raise enough money for me to get a 2080. :)

:lol: :popcorn:

From what I know of modern technology, it really isn't even possible to stress a 2080 with a game because the CPU not the GPU is the bottleneck. So it might be more of a case where you need the latest overclocked whatever to achieve this.

I went into Georgia, 5-0 in NCAA 14 and got throttled, 48-14. Up next is #7 Florida.

Next gen NCAA football would be so awesome.... maybe someday.

Just had an absolute awesome game in NCAA 14. #7 Florida is just crushing me, 41-13 as the 3rd quarter is winding down and we get a pick 6 to make it 41-20 as time runs out. Somehow in the 4th quarter we get another INT and then score to make it 41-27. We stop Florida and have nice drive, make a crucial 4th down and then later would score to make it 41-34.

Florida is driving and they make a big 3rd down catch that gets them into FG range and I'm thinking he was out of bounds when he caught it. I challenge the play and it gets overturned so now they have to punt. We have another great drive and on a QB run, score the tying TD, 41-41.

We stop Florida again and with under a minute left, we have the ball on the 50 yard line. We miss on 3 straight pass plays and with the last play of the game, I see their safety leave his zone and now my #1 WR is one on one with their CB so I launch a pass. My WR jumps up, catches the ball and then as the CB is trying to wrap him up, he regains his balance and scamper into the endzone for the game winning TD!!!

Over the years I've had some fun console sports gaming moments (many with NCAA 14), but this has to be one of the top 5 for sure. I never use our x360 although my daughter and her friends prefer it to the xb1x. Kind of funny that a 7 year old console sports game still plays a damn fun game of football.

I'm trying my best to get into actually playing Kenshi after finally breaking down and buying it.

It will run -- though a bit precariously -- on even my computer (but I do have hopes that a declutter mod will help with that). So far my problem is getting my head around the camera controls.

WASD is not compatible with my brain apparently, and even the mouse movement leaves me moving incorrectly almost half the time. It's going to be really frustrating if I'm ultimately sunk on a game that has a lot of complexity and nuance by something as ostensibly simple as the camera controls.

Kenshi is probably one of the most interesting, frustrating, and amazing games I've ever played. The stories that come from it are things no other game can match. It's a unique experience.

Are you new to WASD? I keep telling myself I need to learn how to play games that way but can never do it. Decades of using a controller and not sure my muscle memory will ever pick it up.

I might as well be new, I'm pretty sure the last thing I played that way -- so long ago I don't even remember what it was -- would have been before Will was born, so at least 22 years ago.

I could live with a certain amount of "no, not toggle maps you idiot" mistakes, the thing that frustrates me to tears is when I find myself unable to see my character/his surroundings because I somehow managed to rotate the camera to the wrong side of a wall and I'm suddenly staring at stone from two inches away.

The mouse option for the camera does work, but I seem to make the same mistakes with it so that ain't helping much.

I've seen enough YT of it to know how remarkable it can be, hell I spent more than an hour trying to decide which start to use for my first actual attempt to play. (would a solo character be better for my control wonkiness? would a multi-member party accelerate my learning curve with the controls OR frustrate me to tears? Decisions, decisions)

The basic premise, for those unfamiliar, is "you're nothing special at all, everything skill starts at Level 1 and you can become whatever you work at" opens up a lot of possibilities.

And the base game has exceptional replayability, combined with some "world state change" mods and it seems almost limitless.

Really interested to see how you get on with it. It's something that I've looked at so many times, and thought it looks intriguing, but ultimately something in a review I've read has left me thinking it's not a game I'd enjoy.

I'll give you some idea of how the learning curve goes.

My first session lasted about an hour. In that time I managed to stay alive, figure out how to pick up items (I already knew how to move, from watching YT). That took most of my first in-game day cause I kept forgetting to pause time while figuring out shit.

A couple days later, my second session lasted a couple hours. During that time: I passed another two in-game days, figured out how to mine basic resources, made it to another town, avoided multiple bandit packs and most importantly: learned THREE keyboard shortcut commands

Of all that, the three shortcuts were by far the most important accomplishment (though knowing to run like a scared rabbit toward the nearby town AND MAKING IT was second place)

Fired up a Banished campaign. Such a beautiful game.

Golf topia is out on EA today. I just picked it up and hope to give it a spin here soon