Gaming

I certainly enjoyed that first hour I played through but that's still really the prologue/tutorial. I want to see what it's like in the bigger worlds/cities before I decide if I like it or not.

I did find the interface to be rather clunky. Even though I usually play Elder Scrolls and Fallout with mouse/keyboard I decided to play this with a controller as I thought there might be some spaceship shooty bits (and I was right) and those are usually easier with a gamepad. But having to go through so many button presses, long presses and stick pointing just to get to basic things like inventory was a bit too awkward. It took three clicks to do a "quick" save!
So next time I'll try it with mouse and keyboard to see if that's a bit better.

Valence wrote:

You're getting runes and trees already.
I've gone through half the game failing to see them... until now.

The Xbox app is indeed annoying but I'm playing through GFN (obviously) and that has its own screenshot thingy that works really well.
How are your framerates?
Even with using NVidia's cloud GPUs I've had a couple of moments when they've started creaking down to 20fps.
But I understand why. The lighting and presentation is sensational.
It does feel like there's less action than the previous one. Anyway I've just had a really scary bit so I'm off to try something else for a while.

The Photo thing seems to function like the Death Stranding jobby where you have to set it up then take a regular screenshot instead of just giving you a button to use. Screenshots in Steam are far simpler to deal with, and I've never used the stupid gamebar thingy, so I have no idea how to do it with that   I have to play through it again to get those pesky rune/trees anyway, so I'll take my camera with me again next time.

I haven't had the FPS on screen, but it's mostly around 60 ish I would say at 1440p with DLSS on. There have been a couple of places where the framerate tanked to a slideshow and I thought it might be about to crash. I did discover after I posted before that there were Windows updates to install after I finished playing, so I don't know if that may have been a related cause of some problems or not.

EDIT - And I was also considering trying Starfield once I am finished with Hellblade II. I don't really see much else available that I have any interest in that I haven't already got.

GFN's screenshots work just like Steam. Hit F12 and it saves to a folder. I use the Gamebar one for Death Stranding and most Epic games. That one is slightly annoying cos there's sometimes a slight delay in the first one you take plus you have to use two keys instead of just one. I have it set up for CTRL-F12.

As for the rest of the Gamepass catalogue. I'd like to also finish Plague Tale Requiem after Hellblade 2 and I may have a go at Ori And The Will Of The Wisp as I've got, and have finished, the first one. Also lots of people seem to rave about Hollow Knight but I'm not sure if it's my kind of thing. I know I won't get very far with Starfield in the time I have but I wanted to try it out just to see what it's like.

I've had Hollow Knight for a while and still haven't got around to playing it, it's sitting there taking up space on my HD with a couple of other things I still haven't started yet. 

Trying to learn anything with an impatient cat in the background is pretty much impossible
Not to mention trying to navmesh something when the cat walks across your desk every five minutes. (But now the navmeshing is done he's settling for making noise by shredding something, behind me...)

I finished Hellblade II last night, and my previous issues with the constant controller disconnect menu popping up were almost non existent (it happened once about ten minutes in). It seems likely that those background update downloads were responsible for ruining the game for me.

I'm still looking for...


I also tried Starfield with mouse and keyboard and... It's just as clunky in a different way. There are so many different keys you have to use to scroll through stuff along with that Death Stranding-style long press for things.
Also when using the keyboard toggles the running is too fast and the walking is too slow (even too slow for me!! )
I think I'll go back to the controller.

Valence wrote:

I'm still looking for...

Warning: Spoiler!

...the hidden folk.

 Starfield requires 151.95 GB to install!?!?!?!?!?  It's going to take most of my months worth of Game Pass to download it 

But then you'll probably finish it in a day or two.