The evening Inbox wonders if Cyberpunk has killed the chances of a new Deus Ex, as one reader is glad that Nintendo delayed Animal Crossing.
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Busy summer
Anyone notice that there isnt really much of a summer games drought this year. As far as I can see were actually over the worst of it and theres at least something vaguely major out each week until the late summer: Super Mario Maker 2, Dragon Quest Builders 2, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Wolfenstein: Youngblood, and so on.
All games that wouldve got lost in the Christmas rush but should hopefully do well at this time of the year. Except… its been so warm today the last thing I want to talk about is playing video games. I just want to relax with a frosty cold one and sit in front of the fan (I wouldnt mind but its not even sunny out!).
Assuming this wont last though I am hoping to make some inroads into my backlog this summer and also play some of these games. I fancy all the ones I mentioned and since I havent got time for them all Im going to be spoilt for choice. Which is a nice problem to have.
Danse
Second lap
It is surprising how well Activision has done with this PS1 era remakes, now you come to mention them. But then the Skylanders games were always surprisingly good too and I always enjoyed playing them with my boy.
I imagine a new Crash Bandicoot platformer will be the first to be announced but I hope that Crash Team Racing doesnt get forgotten. As GCs review pointed out it was only really the failure to follow up the original with good new sequels that stopped it from becoming as popular as Mario Kart. If they follow up the remake with a proper sequel then theres no reason for it to go away again.
Gifford
Bad impressions
I think theres probably a reason that Shenmue III was made a big thing of at E3. The few sites that do seem to have gone hands-on said it was looking pretty bad. Not only bad graphics, with very little animation, but bad combat that isnt even as good as Shenmue II.
Thats not completely unexpected given how its looked up to this point but it does explain all the delays. I think the worry that they havent got the budget to do what people want is going to be proven true and the whole thing is going to be a disappointment. Oh well, at least Bloodstained turned out all right…
Kingo
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Change of scenery
Im really enjoying Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night too but I know what you mean about the game never being able to do new ideas. We saw what happened with Igas games on the DDS, where they had a few new ideas each time but were basically the same game each time. The problem is they cant really do it 3D without having a massively bigger budget, so I think the obvious ways to go are changing up the art style and setting.
I agree with GC that the art is not that great and I would much rather it looked like the Ayami Kojima artwork from the earlier games. The bland anime style stuff is presumably easier to make but I really cant get excited about it at all.
Id also try and get rid of the castle as much as possible. I get that Ritual Of The Night had to do it because its purposefully old school but the older Castlevanias werent always set in the castle and were actually pretty diverse in terms of location so I really dont see why they keep restricting themselves so much. So there is stuff they can do, I guess we just have to wait and see though.
Balm
Change of plans
So a see a number of developers are saying that the reason for their delays is because theyre trying to avoid a crunch situation for their employees and maintain a good life/work balance. Nintendo, of all people, said it for Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Bungie also said it for their new Destiny 2 patch.
I am, of course, totally fine with that but it begs two questions: does that mean you were going to work them like dogs to make the headlines, until you saw all the negative headlines on the subject, and why cant you predict release dates better? No game would be delayed if they just gave them sensible goals in the first place.
Mori
Happy balance
I too was impressed by Square Enixs conference at E3, especially as the company had kind of gone down in my estimations in recent years and I got the impression they were on hard times. But Final Fantasy VII Remake looked a lot better than I expected and Im at least cautiously optimistic about Marvels Avengers. (Felt bad about that new shooter game though, when even Americans wont whoop and clap at something you know its underwhelming.)
It was also good that it was almost exactly 50/50 between Japanese and American stuff, which I think is a balance theyve struggled with before. It does make me wonder what theyre going to do next year though and I hope to god were not going to see a Just Cause 5 or some other waste of hard drive space.
But what about Tomb Raider? Presumably its only a matter of time till that comes back? Except I dont think the reboot trilogy was that big so are we looking at another do over? They must be hating on Cyberpunk 2077 too because that suddenly makes Deus Ex even more difficult to bring back and I think theyll probably want to leave that alone for a long while now.
Lato3573
Guilt relief
RE: Royston. No lies detected when it comes to EA. They do a lot of awful stuff, and I cant remember the last time I bought one of their games, but theyre not really much different to any other publisher – especially big ones like Activision and Warner.
Theyve just become a convenient scapegoat for everyone to complain about, so if we think were clever enough to have a go at them we can conveniently ignore or the rest and just consume their products without any feeling of guilt.
Jaegar
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Different worlds
In regards to re-usable landscapes in gaming, though not exactly the same, Id like to mention a minor irritation I have with many Zelda games – a lot of them are set in the same place, the Hyrule Kingdom, and its environs, Read More – Source
