The evening Inbox emphasises the importance of good facial animation, as one reader compares Sea Of Thieves to Animal Crossing.
To join in with the discussions yourself email [email protected]
Unwanted generation
Am I the only one that is just uncomprehending of why we are talking about PlayStation 5 and Xbox Two already? At first I thought it was just clickbaiting websites, but it keeps coming up and seem to be taken as read by those in the industry that it’s going to happen in around two years. But why? Who asked for this? Who does it benefit?
And before you say the console makers, I don’t think even that’s true since they famously don’t make any profit on hardware. Has everyone started complaining that current graphics aren’t good enough and I didn’t notice? Have recent games been struggling to run properly on current hardware? If they have I’ve never noticed.
Why is this happening? Just out of a sense of tradition? It seems madness to me. Those tech demos for Unreal are nice and all but we all know the games won’t really look that good, they never do. And definitely not at first. I’ll be honest I think a new gen, especially if it has to begin with two years of bad releases and remasters, may well put me off gaming for good. This seems like a crazy idea and I hope, somehow, it’s not true.
Dalglish
End game
While I haven’t bought the game myself, it’s interesting to read people’s comments of player progression in the game, or lack thereof. It seems you can’t unlock more powerful weapons and upgrades, etc. but only cosmetic items which have no bearing on the basic gameplay.
Though I’m in two minds about this being good or bad, I’m sure there are plenty of other games that follow this pattern of playing more to only unlock more weapon and character skins (Gears Of War 4 comes to mind). Also, some games never really have an ‘end game’ and the whole premise is to collect more items to expand a catalogue (Animal Crossing is a big example).
The only reason I’m holding off buying it for myself, is that I probably won’t have a regular party to go online with, and don’t want to rely on random strangers to work together!
ttfp saylow (gamertag)
Now playing: Resident Evil Revelations 2, Gears Of War 4, FIFA 18
GC: We’re not sure it’s useful to compare Gears Of War 4 with a persistent online game like Sea Of Thieves. Animal Crossing is a good one though, and a comparison we actually made to Rare when we met them.
New ownership
RE: Olliephant’s lamentation for the British game industry. I actually remember writing to GC back when Eidos was bought by Square Enix, asking for (commissioning?) a mid-week feature on the state of the UK games industry. At the time, that procurement left Codemasters as the only British publisher of any real size; sadly they are no longer independent either, being a subsidiary of an Indian company. Even then, ‘Codies’ is small-fry in the modern world of billion-dollar multinationals like EA and Ubisoft. Almost all other British publishers, and even developers, are either tiny operations or wholly owned by foreign companies.
‘So what?’, the average gamer might ask. Well, it wasn’t always this way. The early-to-mid ’90s had a number of British games companies making waves globally. Carmageddon, Tomb Raider, Grand Theft Auto, Dungeon Keeper, GoldenEye 007… all these were British games. The UK was a globally important developer and publisher of video games. It was a creative industry in rude health, creating jobs and helping push the envelope in terms of new technology.
Just as Japanese games have traditionally had their own cultural style, British developers could also express themselves in ways that weren’t the focus-grouped homogeneity found in most games today. More’s the pity. It’s also worth remembering that, as most UK games companies are now subsidiaries of foreign owners, should said owners hit financial troubles the first place jobs will go is at the UK offices.
There are still a lot of very talented people working in the games industry in this country – but almost none of them are in control of their own destiny.
Woolie Madden
AdvertisementAdvertisement
E-mail your comments to: [email protected]
Avoiding the crowds
Great to hear that Super Smash Bros. is going to be at E3, sounds like Nintendo is going to make it one of their biggest games of the year, which hopefully means it’s a proper sequel and not just a reboot or enhanced reboot. Although it’s all a slippery slope and in the end I was perfectly happy with Splatoon 2 being what it is.
I guess the whole tournament thing is because E3 is open to ordinary people now? Doesn’t that make your job harder getting around and playing the games? E3 always looks so busy anyway, it must be crazy with even more people.
A part of me really wants to go to E3 at least one but I’ve got a feeling it’s just going to be like going to a really bad theme park where the queues are even longer and the rides are even shooter. I think I might try and go to EGX this year though.
Craigor
GC: We didn’t find it made things much worse last year, but then we already know all the shortcuts and back stairs to get around the crowds. Plus, for Nintendo, and most other big publishers, there’s always separate press areas for previews. To be honest, we wouldn’t particularly recommend it as an ordinary visitor. The queues are horrendous and it’s very expensive.
Almost real
Those tech demos from Epic Games do look pretty impressive, but then they are only demos and I’ve seen lots of these sort of things through the years and they never seem to work out quite that good when they get put into games. The Siren one was the most believable though, just because it looks like a more advanced version of L.A. Noire.
I liked the dig at Bethesda and would be over the moon if they used it, although since I don’t think they use Unreal Engine 4 at the moment I don’t know how likely that is.
I do wish companies would put more effort into facial animation though as it makes such a difference to a game. Even the small improvement between the two Life Is Strange games made a huge difference even though the voice-acting was equally good between them.
I think it’s still going to be at least two gens before realistic-looking humans are ‘easy’ but when that does happen things are going to get pretty weird. Especially as we’re likely to have much better VR by then.
Mr Frosty
Bad place to start
Considering Modern Warfare 2 Remastered won’t have a multiplayer option it’s a real shame Activision hasn’t (at least not yet) greenlighted a Switch version. Like Burnout Paradise it seems too much like hard work to build this game from scratch for a platform which is alien to it.
Would it sell enough to be worth it? Who knows. I would have purchased both games for Switch personally but have no intention of buying the PlayStation 4/Xbone versions.
Ste C
GC: A single-player only Call Of Duty remaster is such an odd idea we can imagine that wouldn’t be the best way to test the water on the Switch.
Not hard to replay
RE: Giddy, in answer to your question, I do (sometimes) play a Call Of Duty campaign more than once. When I had Modern Warfare 2 on my Xbox 360 I didn’t have the Wi-Fi adapter, so couldn’t play multiplayer.
I completed the single-player campaign in Modern Warfare 2 once on each difficulty, twice on the easiest difficulty. It remains the only game I have finished on the hardest difficulty (which, given how awful I am at games, probably shows that Modern Warfare 2 is really easy).
AlienBlade
AdvertisementAdvertisement
Catch up on every previous Games Inbox here
Good news
There have been a couple of good news stories that have been reported in the last couple of days.
Vivendi have now sold their 27.3% stake in Ubisoft and so the hostile takeover attempt is off – for a minimum of five years under the terms of the deal. The shares were primarily bought by Guillemot Brothers SE and so Yves will be back in control. Hopefully this will help Ubisoft to focus on game development.
THQ have revived some license titles via new partnership with Nickelodeon. Amongst others, Jimmy Neutron, SpongeBob SquarePants, and, err, Rugrats will be back. I have no idea if any of these titles were any good and given they were licensed games, probably not…
On another subject, I have been playing a bit of Sea Of Thieves and it all seems very No Man’s Sky-ey. A beautiful open world with lots of colour, but not very much to do in it. I downloaded it via Game Pass and I think it might be a game I revisit down the line when there is more variety. I quit out and started playing Rocket League triples with chat on: the same camaraderie but a much more fun game – at this point anyway.
NatorDom
GC: Yeah, we’re not sure the Nickelodeon deal is an easy thing to get excited about, considering the previous quality of the games.
Inbox also-rans
Just a heads up to say Hitman Episode 2 is free on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One for one month and it is available now. Just downloading it now, it is 12GB in size on PlayStation 4.
Andrew J.
Currently playing: the excellent The Sexy Brutale (PS4), which I am playing after the reader recommendation a few days ago.
Hang on, Cyberpunk 2077 was started in 2012 and we still have no idea when it’s going to be released?! That has got to be the longest developments ever, hasn’t it?
LavaLava
GC: It was announced in 2012, when exactly they started serious work on it though is unknown.
This week’s Hot Topic
The subject for this weekend’s Inbox was suggested by reader R1CH5TER, and asks what is your most played console or computer?
What video game format have you spent the most time on overall, over the years, and how comes? Do you count it as your favourite format and do you still have it plugged in, ready to play, today? Do you keep your old consoles and if not do you regret getting rid of them?
How interested are you in retro gaming and what benefits, if any, do you feel there are in owning the original console itself – instead of a replica or just an emulation of its games?
E-mail your comments to: [email protected]
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.
Advertisement
You can also submit your own 500 to 600-word 4Player viewer features at any time, which if used will be shown in the next available weekend slot.
If you need quick access to the GameCentral channel page please use www.metro.co.uk/games and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.
AdvertisementAdvertisement
[contf] [contfnew]
