against his top-of-the-line rig and
specialised hardware while I’m
basically playing a YouTube video.
But video is definitely one area
where Ian will always have me beat.
Forza Horizon 5 can look beautiful
over Xcloud, but the comparison
between my streamed image and his
proper download is night and day.
Colours are washed out by the time
the image beams through space back
to me and it’s not abnormal to see
fuzzy pixels and artifacting.
Xcloud’s artifacting is most
noticeable on objects and edges in
darker areas. Mexico’s jungles started
to look a bit muddy for me with
overcast skies, so I’ve been naturally
sticking to the brighter desert roads.
That said, I’d still say Forza on the
cloud looks ‘good’. The cars are
gorgeous and the exceptional
framerate smooths out the stream’s
rough edges. I’ve snapped a few
screenshots of the game and, at least
if I squint my eyes and don’t blow it
up too large, I can barely tell it’s
captured from a video stream.
Visual nitpicks be damned, Forza
on Xcloud has gone beyond my needs
by not making me sacrifice another
slice of my hard drive to play a new
game. And if I ever want the full
experience, the option is there.
All this beautiful desert is
taking up none of my hard
drive, but a lot of bandwidth.THE GAMES WE LOVE RIGHT NOWNOW PLAYINGOK, so the game is actually pretty
well-written on the whole. But the
stripey boy’s words... they hurt.T
ime is tight – we’ve
only got one ‘rotation’
(however long that is)
to explore this
graveyard of derelict
spaceships. Rocket points out the
best way forward, and warns
against a dead end path. Of course,
ignoring all dramatic tension and
logic, I go down the dead end first,
seeking collectibles. But then, a
surprise – Rocket actually calls me
out, directly reacting to my
time-wasting with a bitter
wisecrack. Ha ha, ho ho, see how
my gaming habits have been
delightfully skewered.Guardians of the Galaxy has been
widely praised for this reactivity, with
loads of dialogue triggered by the
player’s actions – but my experience
has been that it’s almost all been
along these lines. I go off to explore,
and some grumpy aliens call me a
jackass for doing so.Maybe I’m the grumpiest alien of
all, but this kind of gag does bother
me. The reason I wander off
exploring every nook and cranny
instead of role-playing my character
is because thousands of games have
trained me to. Including this one.
There are collectibles at the end of
those dead ends – upgrades,
costumes, and even entire, easily
missable story sequences – and,
because of the game’s linear nature, if
you don’t find them right away, you
can never go back for them.DEAD WRONG
So what do you want me to do, game?
If I go with the flow then I miss out,
but if I poke around then I get jeered
at, often even interrupting more
interesting dialogue. Believe me,
developers, I don’t want to ruin the
pacing of every story-driven game for
myself – it’s not particularly fun,
constantly trying to figure out what
the wrong way to go is all the time.
This is what you’ve trained me to do.
Instead of having your cake and
eating it too, why not actually get rid
of this now tired trope? Ditch the
dead ends, stop making fun stuff only
obtainable by un-fun behaviour, and
I’ll cheerfully follow the path you
want me to follow. With a bit less
grief from a talking rodent, please.Dead ends in MARVEL’SGUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY“Some grumpy aliens
call me a jackass”
ROBIN VALENTINE
THIS MONTH
Got my jetboots upgraded to
max, at least.ALSO PLAYED
The Ascent,
Genesis Noir