UESP Forums

Instead of having to make a new thread just for the odd question about games in general (ones that don't have their own dedicated thread), I thought a general thread might be easier.

My question:

Anyone know any casual, no-stress xbox one games?

Something along the lines of Grow Up, for example
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grow_Up_(video_game)

So just something fun, light-hearted, and relaxed.

Rime, and Ori and the Blind Forest look good.

I've read Rime is short though, and I begrudge paying so much for a short game.

After listening to the soundtrack and reviews, Ori sounds really good, but it's storyline has a lot of feels. I don't know if I can take them feels.

Assuming this is just a general games thread(E.g. anything goes for games that aren't worth their own thread), I have a few thoughts.


Aarah, it depends on what you are after and what you define as casual gaming. It may be worth using the Marketplace for some indie titles as they seem to cover that very well. I'm unsure if it is on X1 or part of Backwards Compatability but any of the Burnout games is worth picking up if you fancy arcade racing.


I've played Driver:San Fransico. Tis a very fun game but tis repetitive in side content though it does ensure that the main side bits have different narratives. It's a shame that Driver seems to be dead as a series though i suppose, after Driv3r, we're lucky that San Fransico exists. Driv3r was an awful game and it really tried to be a GTA killer. Instead, it sucked. Shame as i recall the plot being fairly decent and it had quite the amazing cast. Mickey Rourke(though that is likely to be pre-comeback), Michelle Roudrigouz are two names that stick out.


It's a real shame that Max Payne did not do well in film format despite it being perfect for a Noir film with action. How? How did they mess that up? Heck, Die Hard was more Max Payne then Max Payne the film.

Am I the only one who misses proper manuals? The "Manuals" nowadays are often two pages long and just mumbo jumbo about stuff instead of the game.

I'm not a fan of racing/driving games.

I define casual/relaxing as something that's light hearted, so no guns, aggressive enemies, sustained peril, jumpy moments, that sort of thing.
Just a game where you can wander round, or get from A to B without having to look over your shoulder.

I'm not too fussed about manuals. They are nice to read and have a look through, and they are handy for teaching you the basics before you play, but seeing as the start of games usually act as a sort of interactive manual, I don't mind.

So walking simulators?

As manuals, it used to be that a lot of effort went into them, some explained characters, some acted as a psuedo tourist guide(The PS2 GTA games did this and it was wonderful) etc.. I dislike electronic manuals as it just isn't the same and can be a bit slow. I mean, pausing, looking it up, selecting the section can take a minute or two. A physical manaul? a few seconds.

I used to collect manuals before I was a teenager. When I would bring games back to GameStop for trade, I'd keep the manuals, because they look nice and they hold a lot of nostalgic value. I'll have to take a look at my drawer at home and post a picture of the sheer amount of PS2 and N64 manuals I have lying around, but the prime subject of my collection is my Super Mario World manual which is literally older than I am. It's a little torn up and wrinkled, but still awesome to have.

That being said, I'm glad the industry is moving away from them. Doing anything in paper nowadays is a huge waste of paper and I'm a total hippie so recycling is good.

Speaking of recent releases, anyone here play Elite Dangerous? Baloth has been telling me about it, but I've been way too sucked up into XCOM 2: War of the Chosen to play literally anything else lately; except the android port of XCOM: Enemy Within when I'm not near my PS4 because I have a problem.

^I bet some of those manuals could be worth something now/in the future.

I agree about saving the paper. Packaging as a whole still needs to be so much less than it is.

Nope, I've never played Elite Dangerous. Looks like it would be quite fun, but maybe less so if you're just playing solo?
(Boo to not having xbox console game friends)

They're definitely not worth anything damaged as they are. Anything collectible is typically only worth something if it's relatively well preserved.

That's what I understood from looking at ED too. Probably why he recommended it :P

That's a shame. Thought you might have a few good condition ones in your collection.

Maybe it's something that Moon and Star could stream some time in the future?

When I have the time, money, and internet connection? Absolutely. We have some stuff lined up but things are heavy right now because I'm in my last semester of classes/have zero privacy most of the time.

I disagree that manuals are a waste of paper as it is part of the product and sadly, the entire purpose of scrapping them is undone by the tendecy of most games having that two page booklet that says nothing but techincal, legal stuff along with promotional crap. That said, manuals did get less effort put into them every year until they became crap during the last generation so perhaps, tis for the best that they've moved it to electronic ones. Even Rockstar didn't do that much with GTAV and they were the best at doing manuals imo. However, I do hate games that have their manual be a link. Why would I need to go onto a website to read it? Why?

One can never play too much XCOM. Because XCOM sure as heck, won't show mercy on one's self if it is in a really foul mood. No, XCOM! I did not miss at point blank range! That was a 99% shot! You [&@%!]! Hopefully, I can get XCOM 2 within the next two years though it apparently being timer heavy kinda sucks as I kinda like to take my time but at the same time, it also adds tension.

Oh and yeah, I'll get the original, no holds barred, the no [&@%!] given, the player hating, the original grandaddy of them all, the potential to lose the entire battle within one turn, UFO:XCOM! Seriously, that has a reputation for being a brutal game that will take cheap shots and can turn into slaughters without even taking a turn.

Assassain's Creed is now 10 years old. I would lve to see another Black Flag type game but one that is more Assassain Oriented. BF is not really Assassain oriented. It's more of a Pirate heavy game that features Assassain's. Rogue was interesting as a concept but they didn't put much effort into it and the whole being a Templar aspect is not really taken advantage of. That and I am really hating the modern day plots due to it being bare bones. Yet, I kinda enjoy getting the small bits of information. Shame that Rogue wasn't the game they focused on as a fully fledged AC:Rogue could have been a superb sequel.

It absolutely is a waste of paper. Why print a 40 page booklet when you can slap 20 page booklet into the game virtually? When you've got thousands of plastic cases going around with thousands of paper books that will be discarded in time... That's not good for the environment. I like the whole feel of manuals but this isn't hard to figure out.

With War of the Chosen XCOM 2 has an option to double time length, and with beta strike (soldiers + enemies have double HP) they are extended even further. I don't worry about timers anymore.

The entire original XCOM is playable for free online.

I still hold that the only good Assassin's Creed games are the AC2 trilogy. Everything is subpar at best, bad at worst. How do you take such an intriguing story concept of possessing your dead ancestors and living their lives, and somehow make it boring? I don't know, but Ubisoft sure as hell succeeded.

Manuals are a waste of paper?

Oh my friend, you have never read a GOOD manual. Great manuals give you the basics to control, while giving the basic story AND some NICE lore tidbits. WoW had this, some old Battletech manuals have this, and many older manuals do too. Good manuals have become rare.

And the five page manuals that have become the norm are the actual waste of paper. Everything in THOSE manuals you figure out in the first five minutes of the gameplay.

Of course I've read actual good manuals. I have the Baldur's Gate manual, the original from 1999, and it has an ENTIRE novelization of the game's story in it.

I'm just saying that it's nothing you can't do online or digitally. There is no advantage to it in my mind to do it physically. Either way you're taking time to read.

Mmm. I grew up with physical media, I could have done it digitally too, but my family was not doing good when it really became a thing.

Simply stated, I got used to holding books, versus a tablet, or on the computer. GRANTED, I'm used to it now, the computer bit, but I only read on the computer if it is a forum, e-mail, Facebook, or miscellaneous reasons. I don't associate it with leisurely reading.

Anyway, to keep this rolling.

I started playing Divinity: Original Sin 2

Ok, I LOVE the narrator bits when interacting with NPC's and events. Hearing the extra details is amazing, and I can't wait to see how they incorporate it into quests at some point, if they do. I know not everyone likes constant narration, but I do. Other than that, it just feels like a more polished and fleshed out Original Sin 1 game. Which is remarkable, because the first game was damn fine!

I disagree that the AC2 trilogy is the only good trilogy in AC. I feel that Black Flag was the last superb game(Admittly, Ubisoft(Oh, Ubsioft, ya gits) locking the naval minigame(which is kinda crap tbh) to online only is [&@%!]) and even then, that is more Pirates then Assassains. For me, AC2 is the best out of the Ezio Trilogy. I found Brotherhood to be a bit of a chore to play at times but that was years ago when i last played it so my opinion could change on it when i get around to playing it again in the future. Revelations is too clunky with it's combat. Black Flag is my favourite AC game and that is because of the naval combat. Edward Kenway is a superb replacement for Ezio and he does have a lot of development. The modern day stuff is crap though. It's interesting to see and read but to play? Urgh. The "Hacking" minigames are tedious and really, as meh as Desmond was, the player avatar is really [&@%!]. It's a real shame that Rogue was just an expansion(i know it's a full game but it feels like an expansion and even then, it's bare bones). AC3 really messed up with the long intro then changing to Connor. Oh and what a bloodly let down of major battles in the game. Seriously, nothing in AC3(if memory serves me correctly) stands up against the Battle of the Assassain's Villia in Brotherhood. Granted, it was short in brotherhood but the scale, the personal touch to it and Ezio being caught off guard was interesting.

Black Flag is the one game i would recommend people play if they are looking for an AC game post AC2. 3 can be a bit dull and Rogue is bare bones. Unity, well, let's say that they pulled a Bethesda. You never go full Bethesda. But yeah, Unity was a buggy mess and it seems to be a massive letdown due to Black Flag setting high standards.

Regarding game manuals, again, i disagree as it's part of the package. I'm probably ol' fashioned but i prefer physical media and books. I loved reading the manuals and used to do it a lot when i waited for stuff to install on the PS3. Nowadays, it is impossible to do so and as i mentioned(I think), reading an in game manual can take a lot longer then a physical one. But the age of manuals has passed us. It is a bit surprising that despite their reasons for getting rid of it, they continue to do large cases. Granted, it is likely a Sony,MS,Nintendo decision but still.

UFO:XCOM defense is free!? Where!?

I've not really heard much about Divinity Sin but i will admit, other releases have overshadowed it and well, apparently, it's for BIG BOYS ONLY! In fact, why do some folks feel that they have to protect the game by attacking/putting down others because they play it a different way? It's a game. Not like "Causals" are gonna to form a mob, drag you out and beat you up for being part of the "elite." That stuff is toxic for all gamers and really harms everything.

I would love to see Second Sight get remastered. It was quite good back in the day. It dealt with hmm... how to describe it? Timelines and the present affecting the future and being supernatural. This explains it better. Oh and spoilers, i suppose.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sight_(video_game)

It is really shocking that we have yet to have a game that deals with the same amount of destruction as Red faction 1 or Red Faction Guriella. The consoles are a lot more powerful then the PS2 and 3 yet for some reason, no bugger wants to do it.

I will reiterate that physical manuals are great and nostalgia is a helluva drug, but it's just not green to mass produce them like we used to.

I'd love for gaming to go completely digital honestly, but that comes with a set of problems all on their own. DRM being chief among them, market tendencies, storage space technology still lagging a bit behind, etc. But besides that, it'd cut out a lot of the problems I have.

Black Flag was one of the most disappointing game experiences of my life. I was excited to try out the pirate stuff, a combat system that was more than "tap counter every 3 seconds", a more fiery protagonist than Ezio or Connor (AC3 is its own dumpster fire but you don't need me to tell you that); what I got instead was the same mass-market produced crap that made 3 so terrible.

Also, tailing missions should be removed from video games entirely. Walking behind an NPC and listening to their dialogue is not a well designed mission.

You know what game did ship-to-ship combat we? Sid Meier's Pirates!, which I can tell Black Flag TRIED to emulate but failed entirely to do so in their pursuit to make the ship fights 'realistic'. They added in sluggish controls and just amped up the tedium.

Yes, I get that ships can't turn on a dime like they can in SM Pirates!, but who cares? Pirates is fun game because it doesn't compromise gameplay and fun for exposition or realism.

I think regarding manuals, it is best that it's best to agree to disagree. I'm against all digitial gaming for a lot of reasons. Space, dodgy business practises and not having a physical collection are my main reasons. I just love having large phyiscal media and books that i can look at. Digitial collections tend to be mundane and I really hate the idea that one day, the game could just disappear. I'll agree to disagree with Black Flag to avoid derailing the general games topic of the thread.

AC3 had a ton of potential and really, they should have taken a year or two off after AC:R and really, the first 6 hours are a bad way to introduce the main character. They should have cut that out or do a dual protagnist approach but as you said, there's a bucket load of issues with AC3.

I don't mind tailing missions when they are done right. Sadly, most are tedious and Black Flag had ship tailing with another ship. Driver San Fransico kinda does Tailing good as most of the time, it seems that you can still drive fast and you kinda have to be to keep up with some instead of the slow as heck tailing.

Tailing missions that expect you to not fight but throws enemies in your way are utter [&@%!].

Now, Escort levels, they are always annoying to play due to poor AI, it really slowing down the game etc... The only game i've seen do escort missions right is Bioshock Infinite and that is because it's pretty much is one massive escort mission after a certain point. XCOM also does escort missions right as the NPC is always a controllable unit. Open world escorts tend to be luck based missions and just annoying. Oh and MGS 3 kinda does do the whole escort mission right due to it being shown in a narrative reason, adds a lot of tension and is fun if you're fond of stealth. That and you can always tranq the NPC, drag them.

But timed escort missions where you have to get the NPC from point A to B with an entire army is [&@%!].

Sorry to interrupt. Just wanted to ask, does anyone here use Mixer to broadcast their gameplay (or watch others')?

Never heard of it, to be honest. Twitch is your best approach. Don't use Youtube for it as it's a massive mess and i won't go into detail for fear of risking derailment of the thread.

It's something she asked, I can't imagine that's a derailment. Don't flip so much, dude.

Have you used either service personally, or are you just parroting what you've heard before? They're not that different as far as encoding and quality goes, they differ in the client-end; as in, the interface of the viewer. Easier to find stuff on twitch and probably easier for the streamer if they have Prime.

Aarah, I personally use YouTube because of video storage. Twitch allows you to save past streams for downloading purposes, but that's only if you're prime if I recall correctly. YouTube gives you that feature automatically in fact, and saves all your past streams by default I believe.

So it's a question of what you think will be bigger of an audience; live watching, or post production watching.

The channel I set up for Moon & Star actually has a dummy youtube account set up to receive streamed videos, and another one to upload the final products. Not the most efficient thing, but it does work.

Thanks for the info!

I only heard and asked about Mixer (previously called Beam) because it's a built-in live streaming platform on the xbox, so it's really easy to both broadcast what you are playing and also watch others'.

Mixer isn't the best for finding past streams that have been saved though, apparently, so what you said about Youtube being good for that, Union, is a bonus.

This article is handy to see a feature comparison of Twitch, Youtube and Mixer.
http://www.techradar.com/news/twitch-vs-youtube-gaming-vs-microsoft-beam-which-streaming-service-is-for-you/4

It's a shame that Youtube has no option to stream directly from the xboxone. Twitch is better in that regard, though if you have to get Prime for things like saving videos, it's less appealing.
Mixer, presumably, is the best for One players in terms of ease of use. I don't know anything about streaming things, but I can do so with the press of a button with that, so that's pretty neat.

Union, does your PS4 send your videos straight to your Youtube channel?
Is your dummy account empty unless you are live streaming? (Will it not let you upload finalised videos to the same account?)

If I went into detail about the current issues with Youtube, it wuld derail the thread as it wouldn't really be relevant.

That said, Youtube is not really ideal if you just want to use it as an archive for unedited streams due to copyright bots, Youtube's unfair 3 strike policy(tied to copyright bots) and it being roulette as anything can be tagged. People who literally uploaded nothing but themselves talking have been claimed by the bots. But enough about that from me.

I admit, i only recommend Twitch because it's the biggest platform that i'm aware of and you can techincally stream on youtube(some creators i've subbed to do live streams on it) but i don't know enough about that.

I have considered streaming myself(as a future goal) and would be easy games or games that i feel gives me plenty to talk about. E.g. XCOM would allow me to weaponise the UESP regulars, be dramatic,make jokes along with just speaking about the game in general etc..) That said, I used to have a dream of doing Machinima(Basically videos using the game itself, think of Red Vs Blue, stuff like that) but that's a dead dream.

YouTube strikes can be an issue, sure, but those can be repealed. Also, it's not like Twitch doesn't do the same thing (which it does). Bot systems aren't perfect but they also filter out a lot of the garbage that comes though.

Even then, it's a triple-strike for a reason; so that there is a mercy period. The people who deal with the erroneous single-strikes are not the ones who accrue 3-strikes; those are larger channels who push the boundaries of what is allowed by the terms and conditions. I love Cr1tikal (who I'm assuming you're getting these talking points from), but some of the things that he uploaded were outright [&@%!] in nature and he got strikes because of it. Yes, other channels got away with it, but that doesn't mean he should too. They should all be notated, because when you sign up for a site you agree to a set of rules just like anything else.

Not like I'm the biggest law-boy around, but it's a private service and they're allowed to dictate stuff. When you have the sheer volume of video upload that YouTube does (about an hour of video is uploaded to YouTube every second), manual search-and-takedown methods just don't work anymore. It is both physically and chronistically impossible for a human to comb through that amount of information and accurately issue warnings and takedowns.

This hardly constitutes a reason to stay away from YouTube as an archival destination, a service which in my personal experience it serves very well. It's the original home of Let's Play videos for a reason, and doing archival video upload LPs is VASTLY different from regularly scheduled streaming.

It also doesn't hurt to actually understand copyright law and why YouTube takes things down like that. Blanket licenses are weird when it comes to video streaming.

So, like, do some research or try the stuff out yourself before you go about decrying it because other people have had issues. For every major vlogger who has had strikes, there are thousands of low-level uploaders who have had a positive experience; but guess which ones you hear more about. The actual issue with YouTube mostly relates to compensation for content creation and the asinine pay rates and algorithms for view-to-pay ratios, but that is actual thread derailment because it's not exclusive to general gaming.



Straight there. The controller has a share button which presents you with three options: screenshot (duh), save video (saves a predetermined amount of prior gameplay video; the last 15 minutes by default), and broadcast gameplay (which is what Baloth and I do; live streams directly to YouTube which then saves the accrued video once everything is finished).



No, in fact we keep all the uploads that have gone there as private, unlisted videos in case we ever need them later. It WILL let us upload the finalized to the same account (it's not special or anything, it's just my designated dummy account), but I found it easier to manage if we just keep all the 'component' unedited videos in one place and all the finalized stuff in another. Plus I linked the finalized video account (Moon & Star) with my own (Unionhack), while Baloth and I have tandem access to the unlinked dummy account so we can both upload the video from our systems.

I swear, it's way less complicated than I make it sound.

Like I said, what I did was very roundabout and probably not efficient at all. No matter what, if your focus is on archival video upload as opposed to live streaming, then nothing beats a capture card directly capturing high quality, real-time video and audio from your television screen. Those things are just very expensive, which is why we stick to broadcasting for gameplay archival instead. The PS4's save video function can be a little unreliable, even if you set it to capture the last hour or so of gameplay, because certain screens in certain games will block recording and reaching one of these clears out any unsaved video you might have had. Metal Gear Solid V had a lot of those in loading screens because of product placement (Hideo Kojima's self-insert character wears JF Eyewear, which is a real brand, for example) and other reasons.

There's a bit of a difference between valid copyright infringement and fair use. Youtube's approach is to assume everyone is guilty and literally anything can be deemed as infringing copyright. There's been many stories of people literally being claimed for no reason in videos that is just them speakingn. Fair Use doesn't seem to exist for Youtube. Nintendo will straight up strike you because apparently, people speaking, playing and enjoying their games and sharing that is bad.


On a bit of a different topic, Assassain's Creed really dropped the ball. I watched the end of Revelations and what a bloody waste of Desmond. Heck, Black Flag barely continues the modern day plot(admittly, I am not fond of the modern day stuff because the gameplay is a bit dull) but man, what a waste. Worse, it seemed to be building up to a modern day AC game. Then nothing after 3 occurs. :-/ Origins is said to be looking like the best AC game in years but this is Ubisoft and they will find a way to make everyone roll their eyes and go Oh, Ubisoft.

On another different topic, Oh, Warner Bros. You greedy gits. Shadow of War is being recieved well yet they were worried that it could fail despite everyone loving Shadow of Mordor and had to do Lootbox microtransactional bs.

And on another topic, There needs to be a fully fledged Red Dwarf game. I could see it doing well in either a Telltale games format(With the writing team of the show behind it and the main cast of the show voicing the characters) or an adventure comedy game.