The evening Inbox wishes Telltale Games had been able to escape from its bad management, as one reader admits to not enjoying World of Light.
To join in with the discussions yourself email [email protected]
PLEASE NOTE: Were currently preparing special content to run over the Christmas and new year break, and as usual wed like this to include a number of Readers Features. So if youve been meaning to write one but never got round to it, now would be the perfect time. The topic doesnt have to coincide with the time of year, just anything video game-related that youre interested in and which you think others might be too.
Deserved winner
With all this talk about whether Red Dead Redemption II is or isnt a great game I think theres one thing we can all agree on: Arthurs voiceover actor is fantastic. He rightly won his award at The Game Awards and he didnt look at all like what I expected. I guess I know he wouldnt look like Arthur himself but still he looked too young and ordinary.
The accent he uses for Arthur just sounds really old fashioned. Like the effort theyd make in a BBC costume drama versus just dropping in anyone that happens to be American in a western. But on top of that he really gets the range of emotions and I think its purely down to him that Arthur works as a character, considering he can go from psycho to concerned citizen at the drop of a hat.
Its easily my favourite performance of the year, although most of the actors in Red Dead Redemption II are great. That includes Dutch although I have to admit I was sick of the sound of his voice by the end. But I think that had more to do with the plot than the actor.
Royston
Free for all
Just to let everyone know but Celeste is going to be one of the Games with Gold titles next month, so that means you can get what I think is probably the best game of the year for nothing. The other two are just old AAA games (Far Cry 2, WRC 5, and Tomb Raider And The Guardian Of Light) so hopefully them being so boring will mean people will be more inclined to give it a go.
For those who dont know Celeste is an indie platform thats a bit like Super Meat Boy, but its got an unexpectedly good story where you slowly realise that its all about the main character coping with depression and anxiety. I know that sounds a bit heavy but its done really well and its not at all heavy handed. Id recommend the game to anyone, but especially anyone thats suffered from any similar problem.
Hothet
Leave it to the fans
That Sonic The Hedgehog might be going ahead (unbelievably, I cant believe its not some kind of joke) but theres some good news that Shawn Levy has dropped out of making the Uncharted movie. You know, the one where Nathan Drake was going to be played by Spider-Man out of the Marvel universe. Because when I think Nathan Drake I think dorky teenager.
I think we should be very grateful we got that fan-made short with Nathan Fillion because I have zero faith that Hollywood do anything even half as good. Especially given the story descriptions they keep giving out sound so completely unlike Uncharted. (Yes, I know there were a couple of levels with him as a kid, but were they seriously anyones favourite bit?)
Anyway, heres that fan film again. Lets hope that if Sony do insist on getting a new director in he at least watches this.
FOM
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Ultimate mode
Im loving Super Smash Bros. Ultimate but weirdly my least favourite part is World of Light. Its basically a souped-up version of the old event mode which is still fun but not really that compelling so far. I guess if you like collecting the spirits itd be more interesting but Im not really into the museum side of the game. I actually prefer the revamped classic mode. Its brilliant each character has their own theme for it and a completely unique boss (well at least for all the characters I finished with so far). Links boss was a particular delight as I had no idea about it beforehand.
The best mode though for me, as with all beat em-ups, is the multiplayer. Fighting human opponents is always the best. Unfortunately I havent got to play local multiplayer yet but the online has been mostly excellent (there have been a couple of laggy matches). Ive had some absolutely amazing fights, theres nothing better than four evenly matched fighters going all out at each other.
I cant help wondering how well Im doing in the grand scheme of things though. There doesnt appear to be a leaderboard of any kind for the game. My main characters online scores are around 1.25-1.4 million mark which sounds impressive but maybe the experts are on 50 million or something? Does anyone know what the scale is? How is everyone else doing? Whats GC online score?
Ryan OD
GC: Youd think thered be some kind of fan website keeping track of things but after a quick google we dont see anything. Not that wed expect to be anywhere in contention.
Horrible bosses
The more I hear about the collapse of Telltale Games the worse it sounds. Im stuck between great pity for those that had to work that and fury at the terrible sounding management. Im honestly surprised that anyone stayed at the company and I wish theyd all run off long ago and tried to form a new business that wasnt run by monsters. But then I guess the old saying about anyone that wants to be in charge should never be probably applies across the board.
I know Telltale have been on the decline for years but I think their comedy stuff, particularly Borderlands, was still great and theres still a chance that The Walking Dead could end well. Maybe the comic guy will decide to set up a new company himself once hes done funding the last couple of episodes. I imagine hes got the money, but I dont know how likely thatd make it theyd do anything other than The Walking Dead.
Piggle
Killer app
Kiran recently wrote in response to another reader about not liking the first Red Dead Redemption and this struck a chord with me. I too purchased the first one and tried many times to get on with it to no avail, so eventually I gave up on it and filed it away.
When the PlayStation 4 era came about I decided to skip this gen and keep on with my PC and dear old Steam (which reminds me of my thoughts on physical copies and once condemning download only…) Anyway, I rarely if ever play third person and guessed this was my issue with the first one but read that a first person option was included and convinced myself I needed a new game to play. So for some odd reason I purchased a PS4 Pro and a copy.
From the moment it, eventually, booted I was hooked and have enjoyed almost every second of it, relishing in the atmosphere and exploration.
Odd thing is I have barely used the first person option and can now understand what all the fuss is about the third person thing. GOTY? Not sure, worth buying a PlayStation 4? Well… there are a couple of other games I now have the option of trying!
Have a good one and thanks for the daily read.
Wkma
GC: Thank you!
Christmas bargains
Thanks to the reader who wrote in about Hitman 2 for £20 at Argos. It has gone back up to £31 at time of writing. Which is still good but not the bargain that the fellow reader seems to have got.
Whilst browsing though I noticed Argos have dropped prices on a whole range of decent PlayStation 4 games: God Of War, Horizon Zero Dawn Complete, and Wolfenstein II are all £20, while Overcooked 2 is £12 and Doom is just £10.
Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all at GameCentral and all the readers, lets hope we all get a chance for some fun gaming!
SteJFin (PSN ID)
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Catch up on every previous Games Inbox here
Publisher logic
Since were now in the time of year when all games publishers get slagged off for their release schedule, I just wanted to ask a slightly controversial question – are they all releasing games at this time of year because they actually just make more money?
Now, I dont know the stats on this, but could see how it *might* be possible… Even a game that appears to sink without a trace in the charts at Christmas has potentially still sold more than one which is number one in a quiet time, and there are a whole lot of kids kicking about with cash to burn – more than any other time of the year. If youre not one of the massive 10 or so games from each year, it could just be advantageous to get some a smaller share of a much bigger pie, however counterproductive that might look based on charts.
Does GC know roughly what proportion of games sales are in November to January? Is there potentially any logic in this? Or are games companies just as daft as they come across? As I mentioned earlier, I have no evidence for this either way, but it just seems to me that there must be some reason why they do it every year.
codename8ball (PSN ID)
GC: That is absolutely the logic, but its essentially a gamble – that theyll be the company whose game isnt lost in the rush – and yet every year we see the casualties are exactly the games that everyone predicts ahead of time.
Inbox also-rans
Anno 1602 is free on PC on UPlay currently at time of writing this email (Thursday morning). Also, you can pay what you want for a Sonic Bundle on Humble Bundle for PC, heres the link.
Andrew J.
So I guess this Sam Raimi suit means that yet again gamers stamping their feet and whining online gets them what they want. Considering how rude they were to Insomniac I wouldve made a point of not making it, but I guess no lessons will be learned.
Dookie
This weeks Hot Topic
As the last Hot Topic before Christmas the subject for this weekends Inbox is what game have you enjoyed the most this year that wasnt released in 2018?
Well do our usual Readers Top 20 in the new year but what was your favourite game this year that came out before 2018? It can be from any time period, from this gen to the 8-bit era, but what did you enjoy the most and why?
How often do you play older games and was your favourite something youd played before, or was it perhaps part of a backlog? Or is it something you picked up for cheap and youre just now catching up on recent releases?
E-mail your comments to: [email protected]
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The small print
New Inbox updates appear twice daily, every weekday morning and afternoon. Readers letters are used on merit and may be edited for length.
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