Leaning away from the gaming PC. I've been playing Apex a lot with my buddies who play on PC, and the game is just significantly more fun when I play by myself in Xbox lobbies. It's a bit easier. I don't ever come up against someone who feels like they're cheating. It's just an overall more pleasant experience. I go from struggling to get a kill and more than 200 damage to getting as many as 10 kills and over 1000 damage. But beyond it just being easier, I've also learned that PC players can do certain things that Xbox players just don't have the ability to do. For example, when you're looting someone's death box after they die, I noticed that in PC lobbies, everybody bobs back and forth while pulling items from the box menu. On Xbox, you can't move back and forth, making it easier for people to line up a head shot and mow you down while you're looting the box. It's a significant change to the dynamic of the game. It's very common for multiple death boxes to be littered out in the open at the end of a game, and you have to decide whether to risk grabbing the loot inside. But not if you're on PC. They can still shoot you, but it's much more challenging and nearly impossible to just mow you down like they can when you're standing still. You can't have legitimate cross platform play if some players can do things others can't. So as of right now, I think I'll just buy the Xbox Series X, the PS5, and probably get a beefed up laptop for the fiance so that I can play the occasional game (such as modded minecraft) on it as well.
Turns out buying an Xbox Series X isn't as easy as I thought it would be. Went to buy one off of Target's website. Apparently the only option they have available requires you to finance the damn thing. Literally cannot pay for it up front, which is pretty [uck fay]ing maddening. Just let me give you the $500 cash and go play my games. So then I went on Microsoft's website. It said they would send it with free "expedited" shipping, meaning it would be here in 2-3 days. Thought that sounded great. Once I purchased it, they gave me a delivery date of June 16th. That was incredibly irritating, so I reached out immediately and told them to give me my money back. Not super pleased with Microsoft/Xbox as of late. My Xbox One X disk drive broke about a year and a half after I bought it, which just feels unacceptable. They won't fix it for free, so I just play digital. I'm on about my 4th or 5th controller because they're garbage and break too easily. If I can just avoid them altogether, I might.
I still blows my mind that Microsoft still hasn't figured out how to make a decent controller. The Series X/S controllers are garbage. Lightweight, feel cheaply made, and are annoyingly loud when playing games. I've had my Series S since Christmas and the controller is already [uck fay]ed on it. One of the joysticks is already loose and drifts a bit and one of the buttons has started sticking. I prefer the layout of the Xbox controller, but they are terrible compared to the PS5 controller.
I agree. I've had buttons stick before, which is killer for some games. Nothing like double jumping over an easy goal in Rocket League because your A button sticks. Right now, I've got series drift on my right stick that is causing all kinds of issues. I'll look down to do something with my phone, look back up at the TV screen and my dude in Apex will just be staring up at the sky. It's worse in rocket league because it drops the camera down directly behind my car. I've read rubbing alcohol can fix the drift 85% of the time though, so I'm gonna try that this evening. Only reason I even bought the Series X was because I didn't want to drop the money on a new controller for an old system. But if I can get it working again, I'll be fine.
The Series X? I got a refund. I didn’t see them on sale at Walmart. Will give it a look. Can you link?
Says $120 shipping lol I found one on there that’s free shipping but doesn’t get here til next Wednesday.
Boys still can’t stop my heupel on the ball offense and hot routes in Madden. Vert routes or crossing from gun with 1 back, read the d. Picked em apart at olb. Send TE on a seam and rb angle route at the olb. Make a choice. And if you pull the safety over to help on the TE I have single coverage wide. Is there an ncaa game? Playing as UT would be fun
Ah dang sorry dude didn’t realize. They’ve been much more available lately supposedly so hopefully you can snag one soon. If you get the target app and check stock every now and again I’ve seen them at targets near me available for pickup, but it’s been a bit since I checked.
Supposedly summer of next year! With how much turbulence there is in college football right now, I wouldn’t be shocked if something causes hiccups with it as far as NIL and NCAA bylaws go, but we can dream.
No worries man - I appreciate the effort. Targets around me have them, but only if you’re willing to finance them, which is still one of the most absurd things I’ve ever seen.
Doing another run through RDR2. I don’t like the Saint Denis part as much. Ain’t where I want to be. I guess the gang feels the same way
I’m looking at gaming laptops. I plan to continue playing most games (Apex, GTA V, Rocket League, etc.) on Xbox Series X and PS5. The gaming laptop would serve two real purposes: • Allow me to play certain games that are only available on PC (modded Minecraft, Age of Empires, maybe modded GTA V, etc.). • Allow my fiance to use certain software for some of her work stuff and some of the crafting stuff she does as a hobby. She has stated that the specs I’m looking at will be more than enough to cover what she needs it for. I’m trying to learn the jargon and have a couple software engineer buddies trying to advise me on what to get. They’re suggesting 64 GB Ram and 2 TB SSD. To me, that seems like overkill for what I’m trying to do with the laptop. Would 32 GB RAM and 1 TB SSD not be more than enough for me and my purposes? Aside from that, I’ve been looking at 3070 minimum, and 8 cores minimum (if that makes sense?). Are there any brands in particular to avoid or that stand out as better right now? We were looking at Gigabyte Aorus, but after reading how terrible their customer service can be, we started looking elsewhere.
I personally prefer Dells (XPS line specifically) even though they are a little more expensive just because their support is pretty good in my experience. 32GB of RAM should be more than enough for what you want to do, but may want to get a laptop that is expandable if you need more later. If you think you'll install a lot of games especially newer ones I'd opt for the 2TB drive as games are getting a lot bigger.
How do you know if a laptop is expandable? What about them can be expandable? From what I read/understood, laptops seem to be more of a "you get what you get" situation, with limited opportunities to upgrade moving forward (as opposed to PC's, which can be upgraded more easily and frequently).
I'm also trying to understand how much I truly need to future proof the machine. They were suggesting that if I went 64 GB RAM and 2 TB SSD, I was probably looking at a machine that would last me 5-8 years. But do I really need something that will last that long? Seems like other tech within it would get outdated much faster, plus, with it being a laptop, it's always going to be subjected to more destruction opportunities. The fiance spilled nail polish remover on the last one, which is part of the reason we are getting this new one (the keyboard no longer works on the current one, and she's tired of using the external keyboard/mouse). I know there was also at least one other situation where it was in a backpack that was hung up and fell to the ground, leaving some denting. Just seems like there's a somewhat high likelihood it breaks before it reaches 8 years of life.
Also, I looked at the Dell options but they all seemed really expensive despite none offering the 2 TB SSD option. It was kind of a turn off early on. I don't think we want to be much above 2 grand, if we can avoid it.
This was one I was eyeballing: Could bump up to the 2TB SSD for $2,119. Buying from Amazon also has the benefit of 5% cashback based on our Amazon credit card. EDIT: can we not share Amazon links? Not sure why it isn't showing up. It's this: HP OMEN 15 RTX 3070 Max-Q 8GB 15.6" 300hz FHD Gaming Laptop Computer, Intel Hexa-Core i7-10750H, 32GB DDR4 RAM, 1TB PCIe SSD, WiFi 6, BT 5, RGB Backlight keyboard, Windows 10, BROAGE 320GB External HD $2000
