Xbox One

An unhappy day for new console owners

Posted on by GumballsPlaysGames

xbox-live-ps-plus-cards

I noticed after we came home from breakfast with family yesterday morning I was unable to sign into Xbox Live. We only had a few hours before we had to head out again for another family gathering so I didn’t think too much of it. I did notice throughout the evening I was unable to view my friends via the SmartGlass app on my phone. I had been looking to see which of my friends had upgraded from the 360 to the Xbox One this Christmas.

It was then I was first made aware of the mass outage affecting both Xbox Live and PSN. I saw a series of tweets mentioning the outages and found confirmation on both IGN and CNN. When I saw that the outages were thought to be a result of DDoS attacks I felt quite a bit of anger. Why would someone be so cruel on a holiday that means so much to so many people? I could imagine the thousands of gamers, the young especially, trying to boot up their new consoles only to be met with nothingness. From what I understand many were not able to play at all as the games or consoles themselves required updates and were not able to receive them.

I was away all day so the outage didn’t affect me, but the fact that it was disrupting the Christmas joy of thousands of others saddened me. Did the outage affect you? Is it still affecting you? Xbox Live seems to be working as advertised right now for most people (including myself), but PSN is still mostly down.

What happened (in a brief, barely informed nutshell)?

The nuisance group which calls themselves The Lizard Squad apparently took both networks down yesterday. They were demanding retweets in exchange for releasing their grip on the networks. In the end Kim Dotcom seemingly single-handedly ended the attacks by offering Lizard Squad members premium MEGA accounts.

A group called Finest Squad spent most of yesterday and today countering Lizard Squad’s efforts, and has been working to bring the “hackers” to justice. Their efforts are greatly appreciated, and will hopefully deter future “pranks”.

https://twitter.com/FinestSquad/status/548525839844118529

Telltale Games Collection $55 on Xbox One

Posted on by GumballsPlaysGames

Whether you’re a new Xbox One owner looking to add to your game collection, or simply new to Telltale games, there’s a great deal going on right now! You can get FIVE Telltale games for the price of two!!

Telltale games are usually about $25 a season if you buy the season pass (they’re games released episodically), however for the price of two season passes you can get five of their games.

Telltale games collection xbox one

$55 gets you:

The Walking Dead Season One (plus the epilogue)
The Walking Dead Season Two
The Wolf Among Us
Game of Thrones Episode One (plus the season pass which gets you the future episodes as they’re released)
Tales from the Borderlands Episode One (plus the season pass)

What a monster deal! I just finished episode one of Tales from the Borderlands tonight and it’s absolutely amazing, I can’t wait to see the rest of the season. Game of Thrones was a little slower paced but ended on a bombshell that has me anticipating what comes next. I wasn’t a huge fan of the Walking Dead games and didn’t finish either, but now I’m tempted to give them another try. Lastly, The Wolf Among Us was absolutely amazing and I’d love to give it another playthrough.

I highly recommend picking this up while it’s on sale right now, especially if you’re already thinking of getting the season passes for Game of Thrones and Borderlands. Why not pony up five more bucks and get three more games thrown into the mix?

A look at Pure Pool on the Xbox One

Posted on by GumballsPlaysGames

Pure Pool

I’ve enjoyed console billiards games since Side Pocket on the NES, and Pure Pool is the first pool game available on current gen systems. On the 360 I enjoyed Pool Nation quite a bit, and hope it’ll make its way to the Xbox One, but for now Pure Pool will have to do.

The first thing you’ll notice with Pure Pool is that it looks quite good. Pool Nation was very flashy and overly shiny, so it’s nice that Pure Pool sticks to more lifelike visuals. The balls, table and backgrounds all look nice and they aren’t trying to be too fancy.

The game plays quite well and making shots feels great. You have to aim from behind the cue ball (you can’t aim from an overhead view) which makes across the table shots a little difficult to sink. This makes the game a bit more realistic when compared to other pool games which make it too easy to line up shots that should be difficult to make.

The career mode is enjoyable with some side objectives along the way that keep things interesting. For example in the speed mode you’ll be given a time in which you have to sink all the balls to gain 3, 2 or 1 star. You use those stars to unlock more tournaments along the way where you’ll face more skilled opponents and more difficult challenges.

I attempted to try out the multiplayer, however didn’t have much luck so far. I got into one game of 8-ball but my opponent left the game less than a minute in (giving me a win). After that I was unable to find a match. After about 30 seconds of searching the game says there’s no one else looking for a match and suggests I play against an A.I. opponent. Hopefully there will be more people playing Pure Pool in the future, as I’d like to go head to head with challenging opponents over Xbox Live.

The only thing I can say I don’t like about the game is the mellow music that most pool games over the years seem to have. Pure Pool is a great game to play casually while listening to a podcast or watching TV on the side, however, so I can’t fault it too much for the uninspired soundtrack.

For $12.99 Pure Pool will easily sate your appetite for billiards.

How to play local multiplayer on Tetris Ultimate on Xbox One

Posted on by GumballsPlaysGames

image (1)

So yesterday I downloaded Tetris Ultimate on the Xbox One with the hopes of playing some Tetris with my girlfriend. However, I found it incredibly difficult to figure out how to start a local multiplayer match. The menus say to add members to your party to start a Versus or Coop match, and there’s a box on the right with “friends” in it (it only lists AI players for me right now).

Even though my girlfriend was logged in, she didn’t show up on that list. I tried starting a party via Xbox with her in it, and she still didn’t show up. It turns out, any additional local player needs to press the Menu button (“start”) and then they’ll be asked to select a profile and they’ll be added to the game.

There’s no prompt for this at all that I could find, it was just by dumb luck that we finally figured out how to get her in the game. Hope this helps!

EDIT (25 January 2015): I’ve created a video now if you prefer to see how to add a second player.

RISK and Trivial Pursuit were mistakenly available on Xbox One (now removed)

Posted on by GumballsPlaysGames

image

A few days ago I happened to check out the games store on the Xbox One and saw the Risk store page. I could watch Twitch streams and view clips from people playing, and it seemed like the game was in a releasable state. I didn’t try to purchase it right away, but figured I’d probably end up buying it this weekend.

Well it turns out the game was mistakenly released early and has since been pulled from the games store. It was announced on Major Nelson’s blog as being released on December 16, however there is now an updated announcement before the post:

Update: Risk and Trivial Pursuit Live!, from the Hasbro channel, was downloadable on Xbox Live for a short period of time in error. It has since been taken down from XBLA and will be available again early 2015 for the official launch.

I’m not quite sure what that means for those who already purchased it, but it seems like the rest of us will have to wait until early 2015 to get our hands on Risk and Trivial Pursuit. Bummer.

My ‘Halo and Brews’ Twitch Broadcast from last night

Posted on by GumballsPlaysGames

Last night I celebrated the return of the SWAT playlist to the Master Chief Collection with a ‘Halo and Brews’ Twitch Broadcast where I enjoyed a couple Square Mile Ciders and saw my performance get worse and worse through the night. Enjoy!

(Apparently Twitch muted the second video due to copyright, so there’s that. I guess I’ll throw some YouTube music into it or something in a bit)

 

Fantasia: Music Evolved is more fun than I expected

Posted on by GumballsPlaysGames

Fantasia_Music_Evolved_artwork

Yesterday I rented Fantasia: Music Evolved (Xbox One) with very little in mind other than to use it as a background activity while having some beers. It turns out to be more fun than I initially expected, which is a pleasant surprise. Coming from Harmonix (of Rock Band fame) I guess I should’ve known up front it would be a quality experience, but Fantasia never really ended up on my radar.

The first thing I noticed about Fantasia is that it seems quite responsive and not at all unpleasant to play (something the 360’s Kinect was somewhat notorious for). Performing the motions feels smooth and enjoyable, and I can’t get enough sweep cues and punch cues. I just enjoy doing the hand motions. The visuals are also pretty superb, and I absolutely love the effects on screen as you perform.


I apologize for the rough cut between songs in the clip above, it’s a bit jarring. 

I’m quite early in the game and it’s not overly challenging, but I assume the performances can be made to be more complex as you progress further into the game. I haven’t yet been able to check out the multiplayer mode and I haven’t unlocked composition spells yet, but I’m excited to dive deeper into the Fantasia experience. I’m just hoping we’ll continue to see some quality Kinect games now that Microsoft has unbundled the Kinect.

If you’re looking for a fun family friendly Kinect experience this holiday season, I highly recommend checking out Fantasia: Music Evolved. If you want some more great Kinect experiences, both Just Dance 2015 and Dance Central Spotlight make for an enjoyable time.

Where is Telltale’s Game of Thrones on Xbox One?

Posted on by GumballsPlaysGames

GoT-Telltale

If you’re an Xbox One owner and were looking forward to checking out episode one of Telltale’s Game of Thrones adventure game today, you might be slightly disappointed. Although it’s been released on PC and PS4 today, it won’t make it to the Xbox One until tomorrow, December 3rd. It’s not too long to wait, but it’s unfortunate that we have to wait awhile longer to play the highly anticipated game.

Game of Thrones will also be released on iOS on Thursday, the fourth.

In case you were hoping to play Halo: It’s still broken

Posted on by GumballsPlaysGames

I have many fond memories of spending Thanksgiving nights playing Halo with family members, and if you were hoping to relive your own Halo festivities this Thanksgiving with Master Chief Collection you’ll probably be disappointed.

Despite yet another patch getting released yesterday, I am STILL unable to get into any Master Chief Collection matches. I’ve been trying for the last ten minutes (entirely too long) and have gotten nowhere.

I did however get stuck with the Connection Failed message that is now appearing behind all of the menus and won’t go away, so there’s that.

Master Chief Collection Connection Failed