A poor state of affairs (pic: Sony)
The Friday letters page picks through the ashes of another underwhelming State of Play, as one reader wishes Sony would buy Metal Gear.
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When the love is gone
In the words of Krusty the Clown: what the hell was that? I actually put some time aside to watch the State of Play last night and good heavens, what a complete non-event. Five cheap looking VR games that underline GC’s point that Sony isn’t marketing the headset properly, a bunch of games we already knew about, and then 20 minutes of Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, which looked terrible.
Maybe not terrible exactly, but it looked like some mid-budget PS4 game from eight years ago, not the work of an acclaimed developer who’s been working on the game for that long. I particularly love how they’ve got the worst of both worlds: four street level villains with no powers, who spend the whole time flying around the screen like Superman and using ridiculous overpowered guns even though one of them is called *checks notes* Captain Boomerang.
I don’t know what’s happening to Sony lately. God Of War Ragnarök was good but everything else just seems so half-hearted and unexciting. It’s like Sony are caught in some loveless marriage and they can barely bring themselves to get out of bed in the morning. If they don’t want to make and sell video games anymore, I know a couple of global mega corps who would happily buy them out and put them out of their misery.
Cubby
Future bargain
Ah… is it me or was that State of Play actually pretty bad. People don’t ‘win’ E3 anymore but in the battle of the winter showcases Sony came dead last by a mile (and weirdly Nintendo walked home with the best one).
The whole thing seems so low energy and completely lacking in hype. I don’t see it as doing anything but damaging Sony. If Warner wanted to do a Suicide Squad preview event they should’ve done it self not convinced Sony to make them their centrepiece. Especially as the game looks awful.
I can only imagine how worried Rocksteady got when everyone turned against microtransactions and Avengers flopped but they should’ve scrapped the whole game or turned it into a story game or something because it looked really bad. I might pick it up for a tenth of the price on Black Friday though because that is so very obviously the future it’s looking forward.
Diesaster
Glass half full
Trying to be positive about this but at least Resident Evil 4 remake looked good in the State of Play? Seriously, it looked absolute perfect, with great graphics, hopefully good gameplay (GC said it was good), and cheesy dialogue. I am 100% sold.
It’s not my thing but Street Fighter 6 also looked good so we can at least say that Capcom had a good night. The rest of it though? Maybe Sony shouldn’t have had a new showcase after all, if they had nothing to show. Especially after wasting so much time on Suicide Squad, which really did not look good at all.
Cranston
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Wanted list
Great to see GC so enthused about the PlayStation VR2, after the disappointing launch games. I agree that it is strange that Sony is not emphasising things like Gran Turismo 7 and Resident Evil, instead of all those other random indie games I’ve never heard of. It sounds like they’re better tech demos for the headset than Horizon Call Of The Mountain and they’re proper games as well.
I still find it weird that game turned into a climbing sim, seems so unexciting for what should have been the PlayStation VR2’s big exclusive. Not an idea that should have made it out of the meeting room really. (Why not let you control the robots instead? That would’ve been a cool spin on the usual gameplay and you could’ve made it first person too.)
I can’t pretend I’m going to walk out and buy a PlayStation VR2 right now but it is definitely on my wanted list now. I’ll be looking to see what else Sony announces in the future.
Casper
Maybe next time
I feel like I’ve been reading rumours about Metal Gear Solid remasters and collections for the best part of a decade now, since Hideo Kojima left I guess, and still we don’t have an announcement. I can believe that Konami keeps changing its mind about what it wants to do but I really don’t think most fans would have any problem with a remake, as long as it stuck close to the original.
New games, sure, nobody’s going to care about those without Kojima but making it easy to play new, good looking versions of the original classics? Nobody’s going to complain about that. If they end up having a big reveal at E3 then fine but I have no more faith in that happening than any of the dozen times it’s been rumoured before.
Best case scenario would still have been selling the IP to Sony (and Castlevania to Nintendo). If they don’t want to, or can’t afford to, do the job themselves they should let someone that can take over.
Jugo
Physical obstacle
I’m wondering if the wonderful people from the Inbox and Underbox could help with an Xbox upgrade question.
My 15-year-old owns an Xbox One and wants to join the current generation. The Xbox Series S is cheaper but digital only and he owns a lot of physical games for his Xbox One, so does this mean he would have to buy the Xbox Series X to be able to play them? I obviously know he can’t insert a disc into a console that doesn’t have a disc drive, but could he use his current external hard drive, where his games are saved at present, plug that into the new console and play the games that are already saved there via that route?
I don’t own an Xbox, so I haven’t been a huge amount of help to him. I’ve tried to find some information online and if he had bought his games digitally then he could redownload them all but as they’re physical copies then it looks as though he would have to buy the Xbox Series X so he could play them. He wants to buy this from Christmas money he still has left over but muggins here would have to top it up if he needs to get an Xbox Series X.
Thank you for any help in advance.
Torro
GC: Digital games will work fine but there’s no way to get discs to work, that we’re aware of.
Brief delay
I mentioned in a letter on Wednesday that my PlayStation VR2 hadn’t been dispatched, so probably had a few days to wait. Turns out Sony’s site was just a bit slow to update.
Got an email 11am on Wednesday – launch day – saying it had shipped and then there was a knock at the door less than two hours later with my PlayStation VR2, happy days. Seems this was the same for a few people.
Simundo
Surprise delivery
So unbeknownst to me, my family all chipped in together over Christmas and secretly ordered me a PlayStation VR2, which arrived yesterday. Initially, I was sceptical about their purchase with the line0up being average. I’ll agree about Horizon Call Of The Mountain being OK and nothing more.
Gran Turismo 7, however, is a complete revelation. GT Sport on the original PlayStation VR make me feel ill by the first lap but I was fine with WipEout, so I was semi-apprehensive going into it but I haven’t had one issue with motion sickness. Racing around the Tokyo Express track at night in a F1 car is probably the best fun I’ve had in a racing game since Burnout 3. The physicality of the opposition’s cars means you’re on your guard by default, so the driving feels super intense but tearing past them on a straight with the engine screaming is absolutely fantastic.
Yet to start Resident Evil but considering I haven’t played the original I expect that I’ll to have to change my pantaloons at some point. Lady Dimitrescu is going to be enormous (no pun intended). Hopefully Resident Evil 4 will be fully playable in VR too. I’ve been very pleasantly surprised so far by the new headset.
Now back to the Nürburgring.
Wonk
GC: A VR mode for Resident Evil 4 was announced on Wednesday.
Inbox also-rans
Everyone’s trying to buy Sons Of The Forest at the same time for the last two hours on Steam. I’ve still not managed to buy it. I will keep trying and crashing Steam.
TommyFatFingers
RE: Hot Topic idea. What about the game you liked the most that had the worst review score? If it’s been done before it’s fine. Currently playing Titan Quest. It’s in the 70s on Metacritic but I’m having a ball with it.
Nick the Greek
GC: We’ve done it before, but we’re sure it’ll come around again sooner or later.
This week’s Hot Topic
The subject for this weekend’s Inbox was inspired by reader Crombie, who asks whether you’re spending less on video games now than before and during the pandemic?
There’s been a lot of discussion recently about value for money but have your spending habits changed since the end of the pandemic and the start of the current economic crisis? Are you spending less on games overall and has that lead to you playing them less – or has that not changed?
Do you currently have a set budget for what to spend on games and how does that account for new hardware purchases and things like microtransactions?
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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 and content.
You can also submit your own 500 to 600-word Reader’s Feature at any time via email or our Submit Stuff page, which if used will be shown in the next available weekend slot.
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MORE : Games Inbox: The next big PS5 game, Kirby’s Return To Dream Land Deluxe score, and Resident Evil VR
MORE : Games Inbox: February State of Play predictions, open world Super Mario, and The Last Of Us 3
MORE : Games Inbox: GTA Trilogy still broken, Tales Of Symphonia Remastered, and Metroid Prime dissension
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The Friday letters page picks through the ashes of another underwhelming State of Play, as one reader wishes Sony would buy Metal Gear.
