The Thursday letters page reacts to the 007 First Light unveiling, as one reader argues that Microsoft and Sony are pushing people towards the PC.
Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk
No verdict
So, are there not going to be any Hollow Knight: Silksong reviews this week? I know it’s probably going to be good, but I don’t really like the idea of buying anything blind, even if it’s cheap.
I usually think of indie developers as being the good guys but Team Cherry making things difficult for other devs, because they announced their release date so suddenly, and encouraging people to just trust them on a purchase is rubbing me up the wrong way. I also don’t like that there’s still no official UK price yet.
I see that it’s on Game Pass, which must’ve cost Microsoft a fortune, but I sold my Xbox ages go so that’s no good to me. I’m sure it is worth getting but I just don’t feel like taking a chance, especially as there’s not really any spoilers to worry about.
Lighter
GC: They haven’t sent us a copy and from what we understand they’re not intending to send them to any reviewers before launch. So we wouldn’t believe a word of any reviews you might see this week.
Dr Maybe
I guess 007 First Light looked pretty much like what I was expecting, knowing what the Hitman games are like, but something seemed a bit off. I liked your interview and funnily enough I liked the Moonraker knock-off bit the best as well. The rest was fine but even just looking at it, you can tell the car sections are no good. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’d bet not.
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I like the idea of there being a lot of interaction and dialogue and everything, but I never heard anything that was interesting or funny. If this was a movie trailer they’d try and find something that made Bond look cool or clever, but I don’t remember a thing he or anyone else said.
I could say the same of the Hitman games too, and I usually like them, so I worry that IO Interactive haven’t really upped their game very much. But we’ll see. I’m not put off entirely but I’m not super hyped either.
Taylor Moon
Out of the loop
The console wars are not over, it’s just sleeping at the moment, until Xbox/PlayStation bring out their new consoles and the beast wakes up. Xbox will be fighting to get people back on its platform and before anyone says Phil Spencer has said this, he changes his mind so often you can never believe what he says.
And as for PlayStation, yes, they have gone cross platform but only on PC, as far as I’m aware. I mean, could you really see Phil Spencer saying to someone, ‘No mate, you want to buy a PlayStation.’ Or Sony saying, ‘You really should buy an Xbox’, because I can’t. The beast is sleeping and when it wakes up it’s going to be in a bad mood.
David
GC: We think you’ve missed some memos. Sony released two games on Switch recently, with another due this week. They also released Helldivers 2 on Xbox last month.
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Funniest Zombies U Know
Can I reassure Jager, who wrote in concerned that the new Resident Evil movie might not have any humour, that writer/director Zach Cregger has a background in comedy, being part of the comedy troupe and sketch show Whitest Kids U Know (I can’t say I’ve seen it, but it ran for five or so years).
I’d also argue that Weapons and Barbarian definitely had their moments and the ending of Weapons, while very macabre, was also very intentionally funny.
Anyway, I know this is GameCentral and not MovieCentral, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
As someone with a soft spot for Resident Evil: Welcome to Racoon City and hasn’t seen any of the Mila Jovovich ones beyond the first, I’m looking forward to seeing what he does with one of my favourite gaming franchises.
ANON
GC: Surely you’d admit Welcome to Raccoon City had a really bad version of Leon?
Dear Mean Machines…
I’ve just played Probotector on the Mega Drive for the first time. If there was ever a game that showed the limitations of having a paltry three buttons, that the original Mega Drive controller had, then this is surely it.
I guess it was always going to disappoint, after recently playing the (still) fantastic Super Probotector on my SNES Mini with its timeless six button controller.
Adams6legend
PS: Sorry about this letter being about 30 years too late!
HD hater
Hang on, Octopath Traveler 0 is a mobile port?! Way to make it seem even more uninteresting. I’ve had it with the HD-2D concept. It was only ever play in my book. I liked it at first, but the weird lighting and blurry effects are pretty ugly a lot of the time and you can’t help thinking there must be a lot better ways to do the same basic idea.
It kind of works for the remakes (I wouldn’t mind a Final Fantasy 6 remake that looked like that) but for newer games it just feels like it’s trying too hard.
There’s got to be a way to make role-playing and similar games cheaper, but I really don’t think HD-2D is it. I’d much prefer a way to make everything look like it was made out of 3D pixels, more like 3D Dot Game Heroes. That game wasn’t very good but I’m sure Square Enix could do better with a similar idea.
If not that then try and dial things back to somewhere around the PlayStation 2 era. Games could still look decent then and while going as far back to PS1 is a bit too fugly I’m sure you could make new games that looked like PlayStation 2 games and just pass it off as being nostalgic.
I’m also sure there’s a ton of ways beyond just that but at this point practically anything except HD-2D would be a good idea.
Bosco
Never-ending generation
I would also favour Sony creating a PS5 Pro++ rather than a PlayStation 6. Neither is going to have any great leap forward in graphics, let’s be honest, so it seems to me it would be better just keeping this generation going and slowly upgrade it over time.
There doesn’t seem to be any chance of this happening but I’m not sure why as It would surely be easier for Sony to maintain their dominance that way, rather than let Xbox have a new roll of the dice with a new gen console. Or maybe it’s because they still fear them that’s making them think they have to go through with it.
Gonzo
Reverse magic
I’m not sure if it counts as Inbox magic for a new, worse, version of the PlayStation 5 to be announced, just a day after a reader asked when there’d be a price cut. I guess the answer to that is never and we should just feel lucky there hasn’t been another price rise.
If Capcom are upset about the price of the console, then I’m sure all other publishers are too, because who wouldn’t be concerned about such a huge barrier to entry? Of all the things I imagined Sony doing once they won the console war against Xbox, jumping off a cliff is not one of them.
I imagine the problem is the stupid US tariffs, and Sony making everyone suffer a little bit, instead of putting all the price increases on the people whose fault it actually. So thanks for that one America.
Despite all the sales that Sony gets to brag about, this generation does feel like the end of an era. Consoles have gone as far as they can and the only thing left for them in the future is higher prices and smaller improvements in power.
Everything Sony and Microsoft are doing right now is just pushing people more and more towards the PC and I really don’t know why, considering how many profit angles that kills for them. The future of gaming is not what I expected.
Pr0metheus
Inbox also-rans
I see Resident Evil Requiem is rumoured for Switch 2 (and PlayStation 4). It might not be true but that does kind of imply the game isn’t that big a technical leap after all.
Roland
Really interested in Silent Hill f now but I am a bit worried that it doesn’t seem that scary. Silent Hill 2 remake was really unsettling and I already knew what was going to happen, so that’s what I’m looking for from the new game too.
Phoenix Wrong
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