Gaming

Games Inbox: PS5 survival horror comeback, modernising Sonic The Hedghog, and Nioh 2 story trailer


The Evil Within 2 – not the saviour of survival horror many hoped (pic: Bethesda)

The Friday Inbox thinks Cyberpunk 2077 is trying to follow the GTA 5 release model, as one reader offers their theory about the Switch Pro.

To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk

 

Return of the living dead
All this talk of Silent Hill coming back and other survival horror games sounds too good to be true to me. I remember when Alien Isolation and The Evil Within were going to start a new renaissance and they were both flops and nothing else happened.

The difference this time round is that Resident Evil is back to being super popular and Konami presumably realises it’s make or break this time with Silent Hill. It’s also good to hear Sony might be interested in making new games and I had no idea about that Suda51 and Swery65 crossover game, that should be great (and utterly weird on ever level).

The problem with survival horror is that not everyone likes to be scared and they don’t make for good multiplayer, so you’ve got big problems trying to convince publishers putting money behind it. Although now that digital is so big, and people sell on games less often, maybe they’ve got a better chance than they have in a while.

Would love to see scary games become big again, they’re always my favourite.
Stanz

 

Mr Sheen
I would easily believe that the problem with Cyberpunk 2077 is that it doesn’t run properly on current consoles. The same basic thing happened with The Witcher 3, which suffered a major downgrade relatively soon before it was coming out. I don’t think they ever said but I would assume it was for the same reason.

I don’t know that that’s anybody fault, although the way they’ve not allowed any hands-on and have only ever shown the PC version was always suspicious. I mean, c’mon you don’t delay a game for almost half a year just to add some polish.

I’m not complaining at CD Projekt or anything really but this does seem like it should have been a foreseeable problem. Although as another reader said the other day you’d think that about most problems in the games industry, especially release date.

Seems to me they’re trying to copy the GTA 5 model where the game comes out at the tail end of one gen and then a year later is released, even better, on the next gen. Thing is though that GTA 5 ran well on all its versions…
Plimsoles

 

Hard deadlines
Like any big projects the only easy thing to predict about game completion deadlines is that they will likely slip. The increasing time and cost of developing games is a possible reason for both clashing, nonsensical release dates and also the increasing reluctance of the big developers to show off their stuff at E3.

E3 is a hard deadline, and one you have to commit to. If, for example, Nintendo aren’t quite ready for their Nintendo Direct, they can always change the format, or knock it back a few days. You don’t have that flexibility with E3, though I suppose that’s traditionally been offset by the greater exposure. I wonder how long that will continue to be the case.
Matt (he_who_runs_away – PSN ID)

GC: You’re right on both counts. Many companies dislike having to stop work for a few weeks in order to get a demo ready for E3, especially if their game is out that Christmas.

 

E-mail your comments to: gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk

 

Beyond power
Since that rumour about the Switch Pro not being more powerful than the old one makes no sense I’m going to assume that it has the best chance of being true out of all the recent Nintendo rumours. I reminded me a bit of the Game Boy Color, which was a bit more powerful than the original but not much. It had some exclusive games, but only a few, and the main selling point was a big gimmick (colour, obviously) that wasn’t really anything to do with power.

I wonder if the Switch Pro is going to be the same. I’m not sure what the gimmick would be, but perhaps a new controller system or that it embraces streaming or something? Maybe if I was more technically minded there’d be an obvious guess to make but I feel certain that whatever the main draw is it’s not raw power.

That’s just not the Nintendo way anymore and they know they’d be going up against the next gen consoles, so there’s no way whatever the Switch Pro can do is going to look impressive in terms of comparing teraflops. Whatever’s going on I wish they’d hurry up and announce something. With all three keeping secrets combined with all the delays it’s hard to know what to look forward to at the moment.
Radish

 

The aqueduct
At the risk of looking like John Cleese in Life of Brian, when it came to Imperial Rome’s accomplishments, I have to wonder if it is a case of arrogance with Sony not turning up to E3 for a second year running.

I’m not sure it’s a case of Sony saying to themselves, ‘We don’t need it,’ and perhaps more ‘How do we benefit from this?’ Don’t get me wrong, it is a shame to see E3 become irrelevant, but I think it kind of is. I mean, who is E3 good for nowadays? The big-name publishers? Well, more and more they’ll be taking a leaf out of Nintendo’s playbook and do their own Direct style streaming events.

Okay, what about the smaller guys? The indies? Is E3 still a good place to network? Catch the eye of a big executive who could be willing to open their chequebook? I’m not so sure, it could still be – I would have no idea.

Is it good for the press? It’s a chance to speak to developers, have a face-to-face conversation – but it has never been the ideal setting to assess games. Then there was that controversy of the ESA leaking personal information about journalists or something? Something that they weren’t exactly very contrite over.

And as for us the public, we’ll always have teasers, trailers and big reveals one way or the other and E3 still isn’t dead yet, so there will always be that sense of occasion. But if Sony and Nintendo, to some extent, are starting to show signs that they believe it to be too costly and stressful to attend, then maybe it is…

I don’t know – am I way off, here?
DMR

GC: E3 was more popular than ever on Twitch last year, with 21 million viewers, so we’d say that was pretty relevant. Companies just don’t like paying for it or implying that they’re on the same level as rivals.

 

Black and white
Well I’ve got my 8K TV and after nojini’s view I’m over the moon. My TV is a Samsung QE55Q950RBTXXU 55″ Smart 8K HDR QLED TV with Bixby and I love it and I would of paid more if needs be. Yes, £2,500 is a lot for my TV but the picture is more solid, the blacks are black and the white is white. There is more depth, the sound from the three speakers is fantastic, far more better then on my 4K OLED.

Yes, there isn’t much content out there but I have upscaling. If it’s good enough for the PS4 Pro it’s good enough for me and when it isn’t 8K it will be just like 4K. All I know is when the PlayStation 5 is here I’ll be ready and waiting.

The way I see it, money buys quality. If I bought a £400 TV for that price they have to buy all the parts, pay some on to put them together then ship it to a distribution warehouse, which then sells it to the shop and they sell it to the customer. All them stops make a profit and if the TV is £400 the parts will be cheap.
David

GC: None of that seems to have anything to do with whether it’s 8K or not. And as we said before, the PlayStation 5 is very unlikely to have many, if any, 8K native games.

 

Thank you letter
Charlie, many thanks for generously providing tips on how to play Divinity: Original Sin 2. I’m sure to refer to them when playing the game again. I would’ve thanked you earlier were it not for a Reader’s Feature I wanted to write, but haven’t found the time to, on Into The Breach.
Ciara
PS: My top 10 games of the decade: 1. Super Mario Galaxy 2; 2. The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild; 3. XCOM 2; 4. Mario Kart 8; 5. Splatoon; 6. Into The Breach; 7. Titanfall 2; 8. Portal 2; 9. The Legend Of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds; 10. (whatever I’ve forgotten about and should’ve listed).

 

Catch up on every previous Games Inbox here

 

Pleasingly old-fashioned
I’ve been slowly going through my backlog of games on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. One of the games I’ve been slowly chipping away at is Sonic Mania.

I got the game at launch but found I haven’t been as into it as someone who had Sonic on the Master System and Mega Drive should be.

I’m currently 11 zones in but am finding the boss battles a bit too frequent. I’m not sure why they went with a boss after every level rather than each zone.

Perhaps my skills have waned, but I’ve had a game over screen a few times fighting a boss on level two of a zone, only to have to go back and do Act 1 and that boss again before getting back to where I was.

I know this sort of game design is old school and what they were aiming for, but they really should have taken a more modern approach.

With Rayman Legends (my current benchmark for 2D platformers), you start close to where you met your demise. This in my opinion makes me want to give it one more go. With Sonic Mania I end up switching to something else for my sanity.

You seemed to like the boss battles GC, didn’t any of them give you some trouble?
Commodore Fan

GC: They weren’t easy, but we’d rather that than Sonic The Hedgehog trying to modernise itself again.

 

Inbox also-rans
Turn-based football is a good idea but having played the PC version of Football, Tactics & Glory last year I can confirm it really doesn’t work as well as you think it’s going to.
Marjikfinger

The story trailer for Nioh 2 just came out so I guess that means it hasn’t been delayed? Although there’s not much gameplay footage so I’m still not convinced.
Blue

This week’s Hot Topic
The question for this weekend’s Inbox was suggested by reader Trantor, who asks which games company do you trust the most?

Who do you trust most in terms of being honest with customers and putting out a good product the majority of the time? What does that trust earn them in terms of your purchases? Are you more likely to buy their games without knowing too much about them? Will you take a chance on DLC more easily or get a new console based on your previous experience with the same company?

Do you feel your trust has ever been betrayed by a certain product or decision and how much does how you feel about companies in general influence what you buy and play?

E-mail your comments to: gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk

 

The small print
New Inbox updates appear every weekday morning, with special Hot Topic Inboxes at the weekend. Readers’ letters are used on merit and may be edited for length.

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.

You can also leave your comments below and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.

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