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)
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’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.
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.
Searching for players…
I’m so sick of seeing that every time I boot up the Master Chief Collection and try to get into a multiplayer match. I’ve tried on and off for the last two weeks and still have not been able to reliably find matches. This weekend there has been some improvement, but the matchmaking process is still not flawless. 343 put out a patch last week that seemed to improve the matchmaking process for most people, yet I’ve found the matchmaking process still to be slower than it should be. Also, they have yet to add all of the other playlists they removed (such as Team SWAT) which is disappointing.
I’ve been able to find a few matches this evening with wait times as low as a minute (a massive improvement over launch week where I’d have to continuously back out of matchmaking and retry for 15 minutes or longer just to get into a single match).
I should be excited that I can finally play some Halo multiplayer, however with Dragon Age, GTA V and Farcry 4 now out, Halo is probably going to take a backseat for awhile. The Master Chief Collection was one of my most anticipated games of the year, but its rocky launch has soured my attitude toward the collection right now and I’m having too great a time with Dragon Age and GTA to even think very much about Halo right now.
I’ve read that Microsoft has been honoring requests for refunds for those who own digital copies of the Master Chief Collection, however I think in the long run once everything is working smoothly I’ll still be happy to own the collection. One thing I can say is I probably won’t be buying Halo 5 during launch week now.
Has the Master Chief Collection’s launch affected your excitement for Halo 5 or future Microsoft games? Are you going to be sticking with Master Chief Collection or are you have you already given up hope?
I believe I’m about 5 or 6 hours into Dragon Age: Inquisition and I’ve been having a blast. I’m enjoying the characters, gameplay and exploring the world. What’s especially fun are all the weird little things that pop up in RPG’s. For example in the video above I send an enemy flying off a cliff and to his death which is always amusing.
Also it’s fun to be able to ‘jump climb’ up mountains, something I learned from Elder Scrolls games which can make getting around the world just a bit quicker than taking the long way around.
I look forward to advancing further into Dragon Age: Inquisition and exploring the insanely huge world. I definitely recommend checking out the third Dragon Age game if you haven’t done so already. It’s a blast!
You Don’t Know Jack 2015 has made its way onto the Xbox One this week in the Jackbox Party Pack. The Jackbox Party Pack is a bundle of five party games for just $24.99 on the Xbox One. It includes You Don’t Know Jack 2015, Drawful, Word Spud, Lie Swatter and Fibbage XL.
All of the games make use of mobile devices (any phone or tablet) in place of controllers (You Don’t Know Jack can be played with a controller in single player mode only). When you launch a game you’ll see a room code on screen and anyone who wants to join in simply goes to Jackbox.tv on their device and types in the room code and their name / nickname and they’re in the game. This allows you to have as many players as you have devices since you’re not limited by the number of controllers you own. It’s a great way for anyone to join in on their own device.
The games will display questions or prompts on the TV screen while the players input answers on their device. For You Don’t Know Jack you’ll see the ABXY buttons on your device, while for other games like Fibbage you’ll type in your answer (in Fibbage you’re presented with a question and all the players must try to enter a lie they think the other players will choose. You get points when people pick your lie, and also if you happen to choose the one correct answer on the screen).
You Don’t Know Jack is a blast as always and completely worth the $24.99 price alone. The presentation is great and the game is a blast. My only complaint is it seems like there’s a minor delay during the Jack Attack section of the game. I’ve felt like I’ve tapped first only to lose out to another player a few times. Despite this the game is still enjoyable.
Fibbage is my second favorite game of the bundle and it can get quite hilarious. So far I’ve only played it with two players, and I’m sure adding additional players would increase the hilarity quite a bit.
Lie Swatter presents you with a series of statements and players must decide whether they’re truthful or a lie. You get points for answering correctly and quickly. Again the more players the better and Lie Swatter can support up to 100 players.
For $24.99 you’re getting a nice selection of party games, and I highly recommend checking it out.
Microsoft is letting all Xbox Live Gold members on the Xbox One download and play Sunset Overdrive for free for 24 hours (Nov 22). If you like the game you can purchase it for $10 off this weekend only. Sunset Overdrive is an absolute blast and a refreshing new type of shooter with an entertaining story and enjoyable characters.
I definitely recommend checking it out and playing through a good junk of a great game for free today. All progress will be saved so you continue right where you left off if you purchase the game in the future. It’s worth noting that this is not a demo, but the entire game, and you can also unlock achievements while playing!
Halo Master Chief Collection’s matchmaking issues have rolled into day two unfortunately. After I got off work and got done at the gym it was nearly 8PM (MT) and I fully expected Halo’s issues to be ironed out by now, but alas matchmaking is still not running smoothly. I was met with the error message above (“The matchmaking process was not successful. Please try matching again.”) after about 30 seconds of searching for a Team Slayer match.
The most recent update by 343 was posted nearly two hours ago (another update should be coming rather soon):
Hopefully things will work out soon. Until then we wait. I guess I’ll check out Sunset Overdrive for now and maybe get back into Destiny if things aren’t up and running by this weekend.
Master Chief Collection is live today, but not without some issues. The game is currently suffering from matchmaking issues making it hard to find and get into multiplayer matches (I’ve been sitting at the screen above for 5 minutes trying to find a Halo 3 match).
So far I’ve been able to play a handful of matches, however I’ve also noticed some of the matches have less than the maximum number of players in them (my last Halo 2 Team Slayer match was 3 vs 2). When it works the game is a blast. It’s been awesome getting reacquainted with the maps and nuances of each game and switching between the 4 Halo games with a touch of a button.
The menus are well designed and are incredibly quick and easy to navigate. You can select any of the campaigns (and any mission) in seconds or switch over to multiplayer with a flick of the analog stick and choose between a large variety of playlists spanning the four games.
There are playlists that just focus on a single game in addition to playlists that will switch you from game to game between matches.
There are also campaign playlists where you can choose to to play through a series of missions (or all of them) with friends.
I can’t wait to sink hundreds of hours into the four campaigns and hundreds of multiplayer maps! Hopefully the matchmaking issues get worked out soon, until then I’ll probably just play more of the campaign missions.
I wasn’t initially planning on picking up Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, but after seeing the early reviews and looking at some gameplay I decided by the end of the day yesterday to buy it. That turned out to be a wise choice. I’ve been having more fun with Advanced Warfare than I have with any shooter in quite awhile. The multiplayer is much more fast paced than recent Call of Duty games and it’s quite refreshing. If you take the best parts of Titanfall and the best of Call of Duty you end up with a game that feels nearly perfect, and that’s Advanced Warfare.
I want to say more, but don’t have the time just yet. I can say I played the first two campaign missions and enjoyed them much more than Ghosts and Black Ops II’s missions. I’ve played a handful of multiplayer matches and have had an absolute blast. Everything feels just right and the pace of matches is much improved over Ghosts.
I can’t wait to keep playing as the week goes on!
Not quite sure what happened there.
Gumballs Plays Games 