The morning Inbox offers some advice on buying a new PC monitor, as one reader asks for Forza Horizon 4 to be set in the UK.
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Predicting failure
Maybe it’s a bit of a morbid topic, but with the recent talk of Sea Of Thieves I was wandering what everyone thought would be the biggest flop of 2018? I don’t actually know enough about Microsoft’s pirate game to comment but the obvious one that came to mind for me is Dead Stranding. Ignoring the fact of whether it comes out this year or not I just don’t see the game appealing to a lot of people.
It’s not as if Metal Gear was ever that big, and this is much weirder. I don’t use this as a knock against the game, because that’s why I like it, but I can’t ever see it making its money back. It’s just good luck that Sony took it on as a vanity project and doesn’t seem to be interfering.
My other prediction, which definitely is out this year, is also Kojima-related: Metal Gear Survive. I don’t think anyone is looking forward to this and no matter who’s making it the idea of a zombie Metal Gear game set in an alternate dimension is just stupid.
And finally, I don’t see Detroit: Become Human being anything other than a failure. It’s got a stupid name, it’s not clear what the gameplay is like, and it’s got tons of bad publicity from the child abuse stuff and the studio being accused of being sexist and racist. Anything else I’m missing?
ZeroPain
Special edition
If EA aren’t even going to announce what the changes to Star Wars: Battlefront II are until March that has to mean they’re going to be something major. My hope is that they completely rip out the current progression system, remove the reliance on loot boxes, and make it like a proper game. But not only does that sound like more effort than I’d expect from EA but I don’t know how current players who have put dozens of hours into it will feel about it.
Although I have nothing but contempt for the suits in charge I do feel sorry for the developers who made the game because there’s a lot of good stuff in there, particularly the graphics and everything to do with the spaceships. I’d love to see Battlefront II be saved from itself and turned into something that’s genuinely entertaining, but I think it’s just too broken at its core. Maybe we could just skip ahead to the next one quicker than expected?
Topol
PS: Just realised I could swap Battlefront II for The Last Jedi in that last paragraph and it’d make just as much sense!
Accelerated death
I love the idea of a Netflix for games, and I can see Microsoft’s initiative being a roaring success. However, I fear it will be another savage blow to the high street and physical copies.
I am amazed it has taken this long to get to the next level in games distribution terms. I would imagine it was probably the apathy shown by a large amount of gamers towards the digital market which held off this avenue for all this time.
I know Sony have their PlayStation Now service, which I did dabble in thanks to my fast connection speeds. I didn’t carry on using the service because I felt the price was prohibitively expensive for an experience that was inconsistently entertaining, due to a lack of support and intermittently reliable due to the nature of streaming on a non-wired connection.
Unfortunately, one cannot ignore the alarming lack of first party exclusives. My wife often comments on my lack of enthusiasm for the Xbox and I will politely point out that there is no real need to. Only the Forza Horizon games have ever tempted me in any tangible way.
Don’t get me wrong, I still consider the Xbox One a great piece of kit, with the still market-leading controller and online service.
This though will never be enough. My head turned at the end of the PlayStation 3 era due to the more diverse range of exclusive content and the pattern has only got more noticeable this generation.
baby machine-5 (PSN ID)
GC: It’s really just broadband speeds. We’re sure Microsoft would rather be streaming the games, rather than have you download them, but that’s just not feasible yet.
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Bare-naked cheek
Having just finished Doom on my Switch I have to say it was absolutely sublime. The shooting and full-blown action is up there amongst the best.
What to play next? My thoughts ultimately fell on PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds on my Xbox. I decided to take the plunge and download it. I’d heard the stories about graphical glitches and I have to agree that this game is a hilarious mess. Obviously, being an absolute novice, I died immediately on my first three or four goes.
However, hilarity ensued on my next go. I parachuted into a little hamlet and proceeded to search one of the houses there. Found lots of backpacks but no weapons. An important detail I feel should be known is that my character was in nothing but a pair of white pants. After a few more seconds of mindless ambling and getting lost in this little house, I hear footsteps.
Immediately I turn around and walk out of the room I am in, into the corridor. I come face to face with an intimidating figure armed with a pistol and supporting some kind of gas mask on his face. There I am in nothing but my pants, stood in front of this masked killer, ready to meet my maker.
Rather than accept my fate, I run at him with my bare fists. It’s me or him. Still adjusting to the controls I run in zig-zags. I take him by surprise. He fires and misses. A few punches land on him. I never knew I had it in me – not since slappers only on GoldenEye 007. My psychotic attack confuses my enemy. He struggles to reload and take aim, slaps and knuckles coming from every direction. I take him down. The feeling is incredible.
I loot his body and take his gun, ammo and an energy drink and think about stealing a ride out of here. I can only imagine what that guy is thinking though… ‘I got slapped to death by a half-naked guy in dirty white pants’. I hope he laughed as much as I did.
Priceless.
Dj Kj
Budgetary constraints
Reader bobwallet wrote in asking about monitor advice. FreeSync only works with AMD GPUs, so that’s no good. And G-Sync monitors are pretty expensive, way more than the £150 he’s willing to spend. The GTX 1060 he is using is more suited to 1080p, and you would struggle to get a good 1440p monitor for any less than £300. So with the price he’s willing to pay 1080p is his only real bet.
bigdaddy watt
To the chap asking about monitor upgrades, I recommend looking into 21:9 ultrawide screens. The extra screen real estate at each side adds a lot to the sense of immersion, and most games seem to support it, even old ones. If you come across some that don’t, there are community made fixes or you can alter the .ini files too sometimes.
If you stick to 2560 x 1080, a GTX 1060 should cope with decent settings on games, even though you’ll be rendering approximately a 1/3 more screen more than a 16:9 1920 x 1080.
If you want, you can play at 16:9 windowed on an ultrawide, and have spare screen space at the side to have a guide, a video running, monitoring software, or chat log. You get the gist.
You might need to stretch the budget a little, but once you’ve tried one, you won’t look back.
Dan
Can’t let go
In regards to meddlingmonk, who wrote in the other day about never selling their games. I too have that problem. Typically, I hang on to games for ages just on the off chance I’ll play them again (which I know I won’t). I finally had to sell a bunch the other day, mainly because I don’t have the shelf space for them anymore with my small apartment.
There is one game I’ll never get rid of though and that’s Fable: The Lost Chapters for Xbox. The sad thing is my Xbox that I originally got just to play it has long since died and I have the Anniversary Edition too, so I don’t even need it. It’s just too important to part with. One game I wish I held onto was Super Smash Vros. Melee, that had a lot of sentimental value too.
I wonder, do any other readers have games they will never part with or wish they held onto?
KeeganatorPrime (PSN ID)
Second chance
Just thought I’d let you know that next month on Games for Gold On Xbox Live, amongst other games, they are giving us Split/Second!
Almost makes up for the fact that Psychonauts became available through backwards compatibility several months ago but was region locked to America only! I am a bit surprised and disappointed that no one else has mentioned this before.
Wonky Donkey
Catch up on every previous Games Inbox here
Too realistic
Having played a lot of it recently, I’m looking forwards to the next Forza Horizon – on the basis that it is out this year with what is supposedly happening with Fable IV and Playground Games.
The issue is, I don’t really know where they would go with the next one. They covered just about every clime in Forza Horizon 3 and then some. There weren’t any mountains or snow, but then came along the Blizzard Mountain DLC. Then there were the extreme tracks in the excellent Hot Wheels DLC.
One suggestion is it would be good to see them look out the window… and then recreate the British countryside. You could have the main capital cities represented, plus racing in-between around the aforementioned countryside, lochs up in Scotland, through the valleys in Wales, etc. The game could even have realistic weather effects where it rains 95% of the time and you can get stuck behind rail replacement buses because of a strike.
DLC could include an M25 simulator including where you have to merge from four lanes into one when there is an accident. Style points could be awarded for accidentally driving into foxes and double XP awarded for any drifts initiated by spinning after running over a pothole. Microtransactions for driving in London’s congestion charge zone would be welcome as well. A free loot box could even be thrown in where you can win virtual screen wash. I should add that the screen dirties up unless you pay for virtual screen wash throughout the course of the game anyway. EA might be available if Microsoft need tips on how to implement loot boxes properly.
I swear this email started off seriously and I really would like to see Forza Horizon 4 take place in the UK, just maybe not include the latter half of my ideas! Anything else you can think of GC?
NatorDom
GC: Current rumours suggest Japan is the next setting, so less rain and more cherry blossom.
Inbox also-rans
I still have loads of Commodore 64 games in my loft and I haven’t even got a machine now. I find it hard to part with them, and I have been like this with every machine I’ve had since. Not sure why I keep them, good memories I suppose. I know I will probably never play any of them again.
Shaun
Apologies if this has been asked before, but I want to take my Switch out and about more and I’m looking for a good screen protector. Do GC or any readers have any recommendations? Thank you in advance.
Jamie G
GC: We use the one we got with this carry case, and it’s been fine so far.
This week’s Hot Topic
The subject for this weekend’s Inbox was suggested by reader Cranston, who asks what is your favourite ever sequel?
It can be any game for any format, but we want to know why you like it so much and what it did right to improve on its predecessor. Was the sequel very different from the original or was it just a minor improvement on an already great game? Did it fix problems in the previous games, or add much wanted new features?
How does your favourite sequel compare to other entries in the same series and do you expect it will ever be bettered?
E-mail your comments to: [email protected]
The small print
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