Just an assortment of moments from the recent season of Rainbow Six Siege.

So anyone that knows me, knows I gave up on Destiny a while ago, but recent developments saw me with access to a copy.

Let me start with the reasons I liked playing Destiny – playing with my mates, the challenges we faced together and the mutual sense of accomplishment when completing a task/raid/strike. What drove me away was the constant financial investment for a month or so of content coupled with carrying players through the game that didn’t put in the same effort on raids/strikes as others (reading the shared guides, understanding techniques to pass elements, and following strategies).

Let’s start with the into to Destiny 2, like most sequels, after an initial intro where you kick arse, the game strips you of the abilities you acquired in the previous game that made you the powerhouse you needed to be to complete the game. From here begins the levelling up required to become the powerhouse again. There is a lot more variety available now in terms of content for leveling that it does not seem like a grind at all, and add to that the included story elements that a lot of people lampooned the first game for missing, they seem to have listened to a lot of the criticisms of the first game and developed an enjoyable experience to play whilst reaching the levels required for the more challenging aspects of the games.

The multiplayer, Crucible, seems to have had some tweaks that have made every one on one contest seem like an unfortunate turn as opposed to being dominated, which is a big change from my impression of the games previous incarnation. You end up finishing a multiplayer game not really feeling the sense of wanting to rage quit you can experience when being decimated by opponents of superior skill.

Lastly, Bungie have included all the little aspects they are known for, where they include easter eggs and items to hunt down and search for purely for the fans and those that are the fan of game lore.

Again, not being a fan of rating systems, I can say that this game, upon release is definitely enjoyable, especially if you have the right people to play with. I am concerned going forward about the spend of additional DLC and content, but the launch is a solid offering from Bungie, and one I am enjoying.

You need only take a look at my youtube feed to see that in recent years I have been favouring Rainbow Six over Halo, something that no other game has achieved since I first steered the Mjolnir-suited hero around.

Now I have been playing the game on an almost weekly basis, at minimum, since it’s troublesome launch. I will admit, I did give up on the game in its early stages, the networking issues, the various glitches and not forgetting the spawn killing.

Now I will admit, I have not seen a team put more into its post-launch efforts since the Mass Effect 3 ending debacle, but it has been a steady road to improvements and balancing to make it into a game with a lot of tense and absorbing moments with quite a lot of replayability. So much so, that though disappointing, a hard fought loss still has a sense of accomplishment.

Now I have been enjoying this game to the extent that I have paid for the bonus content, and as you can imagine, I have been looking forward to a new content release as it does several things, it adds another dimension to the gameplay, injecting fresh strategies, and it brings an increase in the player base, the increase consisting of semi-regular players. The other thing it brings with it is a reset to the ranked playlist, this brings about more competitive games, where we are matched up with players of similar rank and skill. This is beneficial as casual usually has no comparative skill rating and presents inconsistent match-ups (I say usually as there is currently a temporary system in place basing matches of ranked ratings).

My disappointment comes as I was looking forward to the change in dynamics to the game, and the addition of the new characters and map, content paid for with the season 2 pass, and the 3 month delay that comes with it. Having said that I can’t deny the focus on improving the back end is not something that is needed. But why not implement the changes with the content, instead of banishing an entire season of DLC, why not distribute the DLC and health content over a 6 month period instead (character – patch – map – patch – character – patch).

Ultimately I can understand such a decision to improve the technical side of the game, but I feel it is at the expense of DLC that we have paid for. I just hope that we still see the additional content that we have paid for, and that the game does not suffer in the meantime.

So for anyone wondering where I have been for the last few weeks, I have been travelling throughout the Andromeda galaxy.

Let’s start with the elephant in the room. When this game was released, there was a lot of negative views going around about poor animation and issues with game itself, to that end I will state this: In my 65+ hours of campaign (and countless more in multiplayer) I have encountered the stated issues, BUT in my experience and the experience of those I have discussed it with (majority on Xbox One), those issues are comparable in quantity to other games where the campaign would be 80-100 hours and upwards.

For those of you wondering, there have been multiple reported issues of animation (facial and character movements), loading glitches and issues with texture mapping. I have experienced them throughout the game, some frustrating, some hilarious, in fact, I wish I had captured the occasion where an NPC had a conversation with me, and the only animated part of her face was her upper lip.

Having said that, though present, these glitches have no more effect on the enjoyment of the game than the glitches in games such as those from Fallout or The Elder Scrolls series.

Storywise Mass Effect delivers a story to encompass moving about a vast area, both in terms of space and planetfall, that won’t see you lacking for things to do. They have gone a lot less linear in the required missions as well, given that the main method to progress through any planet requires the playthrough of multiple side missions and NPC tasks in order to reach a required threshold, but not to the detriment of the game.

The game brings you into the story and objectives in such a way as to never leave you feeling overwhelmed with choices at any point, whilst still allowing you a decent number of choices to decide in which direction you wish to proceed.

Gameplay compared to previous games is a step up. Travelling and exploring is not tedious (though space travel can at times push the limit of that statement), and there seems to be the right number of fast travel points that you never have to travel too far later in the game, but also you don’t skip using them just to travel the distance quicker yourself. The Nomad does not have the tedious behaviours of the Mako from the previous games, and the players jump jets and boosting allow for much more versatility in exploring and getting around.

Combat, both in single player and multiplayer, has taken the proven system used previously in Mass Effect games and given you more flexibility in moving around. You almost wonder how you could have played the previous games without the ability to traverse the map by jumping or boosting around. This not only allows for a much more fluid combat experience, allowing for you to easily move your teammates, or yourself, into flanking positions, but also to get out of trouble quickly if your shields and health drop too low.

Adding to that an added focus on achieving combos with powers, you have a great opportunity to deal out damage in great amounts at a fast rate. Several abilities now have a listing as a ‘primer’ or a ‘detonator’, in the world of combo detonations, a primer is a fuse, and a detonator is a match. Pairing them up causes damage not only to the target but usually to an area of effect associated with the detonation causing damages to enemies close by.

I am not a fan of star ratings, but I have to say that if space faring games, with adventure, exploring, shooting, attack robots, sex with aliens and space magic are your thing, this is definitely a game to get and enjoy.

Thursday night is Rainbow Six night, and with all the second accounts going out there, we are having a hard time being matched with players that are on our correct skill level.

The end result was a losing streak coupled with rare opportunities to have good plays. This video is me doing the best I can in a bad situation.

I had been afforded some time recently to improve my Rocket League skills. Here are my five favourite clips where I did most of the work.

So with the recent additions to the PS4 and Xbox One range, I have found that a few friends have opted to start with an Xbox One this generation. Having had one for a while, I wanted to share with them a little bit of the combined knowledge my friends and I have picked up.

Installing from disk. Ok, if you just bought your Xbox, you likely got it bundled with some games on disk. For some reason, initially installing from disk takes a long time, we are not sure why, but it seems that the game attempts to install the updates first, and takes quite a while to do it. We found that by disconnecting from Live (or the internet), installing the game from disk, then going online and allowing it to get the updates, speeds up the process by quite a significant amount.

Get yourself a portable external HDD. 1-2 TB should do to start with. The reasons behind this are simple, besides additional storage, you can copy games from Xbox to to HDD for yourself or your friends. You still need a license or disk to play them, but saving yourself the time and download quota is a bonus. One thing to note, if you have a disk copy of the game, you can only copy another version from disk, if you have a digital license, you can copy any version.

Changes to the friends list. Previously you would send someone a friend request and they would either accept or deny. Now you can set someone as a friend and whether they do the same or not, you will follow them and see their activity. You can set to actively block people and how private your actions are in settings (like whether or not they can see your name). I recommend sending anyone you add to your friends list a message if you want them to add you as a friend too. It is also a good way to follow community members like Major Nelson from Xbox or even that Farreg guy…

Learn the shortcuts. Mostly everything you will need or want can be accessed from the popup guide. While the Xbox button will take you home, double tapping it will bring up a menu on the side. There is a standard list of items you can refer to, and in these you will be given a contextual option, mostly done with the X button. The most obvious ones being when you open the guide initially you will able to record the last 30 seconds of gameplay (X) or take a screenshot (Y) Note: screenshots are from when you opened the guide, not when you press Y. When navigating through your friends list you will have an option to invite them to parties, or when in notifications, you can dismiss them without checking them. I think the most commonly used one used by me (when Kinect is not connected) is Xbox Button x2 then X to record clips. This is also where you can set apps to snap to the side, like webpages with walkthroughs or if you have the TV tuner adapter, watch TV while playing games. Lastly you have the Menu (burger) button, in the dashboard in particular, it will give you a list of options to select from that are usually contextual (in much the same way a right click menu would on PC).

Consider digital purchases. The main advantage of digital purchases is the fact you can play the same game on 2 consoles at the same time. This is mainly beneficial if you have 2 consoles that you play on. For example, your ‘Home Xbox’ is the console licensed for anyone to play the installed games on, it does not matter who purchased the game as long as the purchaser has it set as their ‘Home Xbox’. You can then play any game you own on another Xbox by logging into your Live account and playing it (provided it is installed on that Xbox or HDD connected to the Xbox). I play games I have bought digitally that I have also installed on console at my work this way – the game saves are also synced with cloud storage, so my latest progress is always on hand. The other advantage is that you can play on both consoles at the same time, as you don’t need to be logged into the ‘Home Xbox’ to play games installed there. So I could play Halo 5 at work, at the same time someone is playing Halo 5 on my ‘Home Xbox’ and even play together in co-op or multiplayer.

Easy troubleshooting tip for network issues. My friends and I have discovered an easy fix for a majority of networking issues. Go to settings, network settings, advanced options, Clear Alternate Mac Address. We are not sure for the reasons behind it, but this fixes nearly all Xbox related issues (I say this as there is always the potential for it to be your modem/network). I would like to add that it resets your Xbox at the same time, but is more effective than a simple Xbox restart.

Streaming is an option. No, I am not talking about the fact the Xbox supports Twitch streaming (which it does – quite well), but the fact you can stream via network to a Windows 10 PC in situations where you can’t access your TV (for example, when my wife is watching girly movies). You will need to set this up in Game Settings on your Xbox and make sure you have the Windows 10 Xbox App, but once done, you are good to go. There is an almost imperceptible delay, but it is still there. Having said that, this can also be used to access USB devices that might not otherwise work on an Xbox One. Among the list of things that are know to work are Xbox 360 controllers, steering wheels and there are even tricks to get a keyboard and mouse working for some games. Also, you don’t need a powerful computer to do this, I have confirmed that it is possible from a Surface Pro.

Inbuilt video editing tools. If you know me, you are no stranger to me creating these, in fact, you need only look to the sidebar to see some of the clips I have made. The editing system is quite easy to use, allows you to create up videos up to 30 minutes long or made up of about 10 clips, and can upload to both Xbox, and your One Drive. In addition to this, sites like XboxDVR.com allow you to download the clips, or even upload them directly to Youtube.

Control your TV and sound system. This is a feature I use extensively. When you turn on my Xbox One, it turns on my TV and surround sound system, with no additional cables. Forgive me for not knowing the exact sequence, as I have only needed to set this up the once, but under settings you are able to configure how your TV and sound system power on and power off with your Xbox, all through your HDMI cables. I can even use the Kinect voice commands to control the devices (“Xbox Volume Up”) among other options.

Games with Gold. With the Xbox Live program, they issue free games every month. The main difference that my Playstation friends will find is that if you end your Gold subscription, you get to keep the games you have been rewarded with. It is a small thing, but it is a point of difference between the two subscriptions.

Backwards compatibility with Xbox 360 game saves. There is a growing list of backwards compatible games. If you want to bring your games saves from your 360 to your Xbox one, you can. Firstly you need to have Xbox Live Gold. Secondly, you still need your Xbox 360 with the save files. Lastly you will the game in question, either disk or digitally to be able to play it. Load up the storage option from your 360 settings, find the game you want the game save from and go into it. Find any game saves you want to keep, and select to either move or copy them to the cloud storage option. Once complete, you will be able to access them from the Xbox one when running in backwards compatibility mode. Check this list for the latest backwards compatible games.

Buying or renting movies and TV shows. If you decide to buy or rent a movie or TV show via the Films and TV app, they will be available on other platforms supported by the app. At present I have confirmed that you can watch them on Windows 10 computers and tablets, and Windows 10 Mobile.

Phone and Windows 10 Xbox App. These are worth having, because they add to the options available to you. One of the main ones I use is the fact I can Xbox Message direct from my phone, meaning that I don’t have to use the onscreen keyboard. You can also connect direct to the Xbox and use your phone as a remote. Having the Xbox App on your PC means that you can also message and join parties with your friends, or just see who is on, what they are playing, and if you want to join them.

The Preview Program. There is an option to join the preview program and take part in pre-release builds, and have access to, plus give feedback on, new features before their release. I have been a part of it for a couple of years, but a word of warning – it can be game breaking. We have found that it has quite often resulted in a number of issues, such as being unable to form parties, being unable to link up with friends that are not part of the program, communications issues, and in extreme cases, prevented you from playing games. I have reached the point where I am ready to leave the program, but if you like to play with new features before release, this is for you.

Hopefully I have covered everything, but if you find I have missed something, or you have something to share, feel free to post it in the comments below.