Red Dead Redemption as you’ve seen it before (Picture: Rockstar Games)
The Tuesday letters page worries that buying an Xbox Series S was a mistake, as one reader offers a free copy of Forgotton Anne.
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Minimum effort
So it seems Rockstar is almost as bad as Sega when it comes to looking after their legacy games. All that build-up for a new version of Red Dead Redemption and it’s the laziest port imaginable. So completely lacking in new features that they aren’t even bothering to release it on Xbox or PC. It’s more an advert for Xbox backwards compatibility than it is one of the greatest cowboy games ever made.
I cannot see how this Is going to be worth it at all and I don’t think many would bet against me if I said that I’d be very wary about how it ran on Switch, given Rockstar’s history with this sort of thing.
What I don’t get though is that if they’ve got an outside developer doing the port why not just get them to do a proper remaster? It surely can’t be a question of money but if it’s literally just getting the thing running on PlayStation 4 surely Rockstar could do that themselves in an afternoon?
If they get even more bad publicity as a result of this they’ve no one to blame but themselves.
Temid
Same old story
Baldur’s Gate 3 outselling Spider-Man 2 is not a headline I ever expected to see, although I will say it’s obvious that the interest in Spider-Man 2 is clearly not what Sony hoped. I read someone, maybe it was on here, say that one of the problems is that we’ve seen the Venom story multiple times and this doesn’t seem to have any interesting twist on the formula, other than who the human host is – and the trailer already seems to have given that away.
Hours of Peter Parker talking in a gravely voice, followed by his shocking turn into an angry bad person, before finally rejecting the symbiote goes beyond predictable and is just a dance I don’t want to see again. Especially as Kraven is a lame villain. He was in one good story in the comics and that was only because it was a story with an actual ending for him (which quickly got reconned).
I also agree that it’s a mistake setting this in New York City again. The recent movies have made sure to avoid this and yet here we are again with just a slightly better looking bunch of skyscrapers. I hope there’s a twist we’ve not seen yet, but I have my doubts.
Ollie
The only winning move is not to play
Read your story about Monopoly. Sorry but auctioning off does not save time, it makes the game longer. But there is a way in the rules to speed things up.
You deal out the properties after a good shuffle then all of the properties are already gone, this can cause immediate monopolies. A version of this is to roll a die and go in order of lowest to highest in picking properties and you continue until they are all gone. This way no monopolies will be gotten at this stage for obvious reasons, your opponents will block you from getting them.
This method makes it a fast game and gets the real fun started right off the bat by being able to trade properties. When we play, we hide all our properties so it makes it difficult to look and determine if a person can make a monopoly by trading with yours.
Try it!
Anon
GC: You can’t make us!
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No choice
I read the feature this weekend about Baldur’s Gate 3 and its inability to run on Xbox Series S and just wanted to put my own twopenn’orth in. I don’t think the hardware is the problem. The Xbox Series S is more powerful than the minimum specced PC. The minimum specs require nine-year-old hardware with a less powerful CPU and GPU and 8GB RAM. The Xbox Series S has much better clock speeds and overall more efficient than the minimum specced PC.
The game also runs on the Steam Deck which is also about 2x slower than the Xbox Series S (granted with lower resolution). If I had to guess, I’d say that Microsoft or Larian are demanding a certain quality for their console port. One that is similar to the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 version. The minimum specs require you to lower model quality, texture quality, draw distance, etc. The game looks like a PlayStation 3 game and I’m guessing Microsoft won’t allow that. I really think they should give gamers the choice.
Rob Taylor
GC: There’s not any mystery here. Larian can’t get split-screen running on the Xbox Series S and Microsoft are trying to help them get it working.
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Three threes
You can almost hear the crickets chirping during that Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 teaser. I know it’ll still sell more than almost anything else this year – maybe the most if EA Sports FC takes a while to get up to speed – but the whole thing seems so tired and desperate.
I think it would be in the exact same place as Battlefield now if Activision didn’t have Warzone to fall back on. I mean, good on them for having the foresight for that but I used to look forward to the yearly Call Of Duties and bought most of them up to about Black Ops 3.
Now I just couldn’t care les about it. Maybe I’ve just grown out of it but it all seems so uninspired. We’ve had Modern Warfare 3 twice now, how long until the cycle begins again?
Lentil
Single example
This news regarding the Xbox Series S holding back certain has me feeling slightly conned.
I had been receiving adverts through daily usage online constantly from Microsoft, about purchasing an Xbox Series S and the reviews online were brilliant, so I purchased one last week and too be honest I love it. Now this news just makes my console feel outdated already, when it is advertised as a next gen console. I do like the console but if I’d had known that the Xbox Series S was holding games back, I wouldn’t have brought it.
My son will be getting a new console for Xmas so it’s no major issue for me but I can imagine a lot of people out there who did the same as me but can’t afford another console will feel as fed up as me. I sort of feel guilty myself, owning a console that is holding other gamers back from enjoying new games but, like I mentioned, I do feel a bit conned regarding my purchase.
Thanks for taking the time to read my mail, I just wanted to show my concerns for gamers who have purchased, after hard graft, just to see their money has bought a console that is slowing down games. Now, what’s it going to be like next year with even bigger releases?
P.Booth
GC: Although concerns have been raised about the Xbox Series S for a while, Baldur’s Gate 3 remains the only clearcut evidence of it holding anything back. And they’ll still probably get it working eventually.
Don’t forgot
I am a backer of the Forgotlings game on Kickstarter, by the developer who made Forgotton Anne. I have included the Steam key for one reader to have from my Kickstarter pledge, because I have already bought and platinumed it on PlayStation 4. Please give to anyone who would like it and sends in an Inbox letter.
As I said before, it is a puzzle platform game with a strong narrative which looks like a Studio Ghibli production, although it is isn’t! It’s very good though.
Andrew J.
GC: Yes, it is. Thanks for that, that’s very generous.
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A good year
Am I just easily pleased or is 2023 starting to look like the best year of releases, maybe… ever?
I don’t want to count my chickens, but, and this is just off the top of my head, Zelda, Baldur’s Gate, Diablo, and Starfield. Street Fighter sticking with the ‘even games are good’ philosophy, Metroid, Resident Evil 4, System Shock, and Dead Space all being fantastic remakes.
We have amazing licensed games like Hogwarts and Jedi, random surprises like Hi-Fi Rush and Exoprimal, graphical showstoppers like Final Fantasy and Spider-Man 2, A next gen racer in Forza and a face-off between a 2D Mario and Sonic game… and Switch owners can play both.
We’re even getting another Alan Wake, that won’t sell… and of course, topping it all off, we were graced as gamers with Redfall…
Maybe it’s not the best ever, but it’s looking pretty good nonetheless.
DarKerR (gamertag)
Inbox also-rans
I’m not trying to stealth brag here, since I’m actually a massive coward, but The Last Of Us is not a scary game, what’s it doing at a Halloween theme park? Anyone that finds it freighting would have a heart attack with Resident Evil, let alone something harder like Silent Hill.
Gumph
Waiting till 2025 for an Xbox Series X without a disc drive sounds a bit extreme. I’m still surprised they didn’t make it an option from the start, like Sony.
Whatsit
This week’s Hot Topic
The subject for this weekend’s Inbox was suggested by reader Lombert, who asks what game would you rate as 10/10?
For most reviewers 10/10 games are rare but we’ve already had one this year, in Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom. But not counting that (because we don’t want everyone giving the same answer) what game would you give top marks to and why?
What does being 10/10 mean to you and how many flaws can a game have before you discount it? Although you can mention more than one game please try to avoid just sending in lists of titles.
E-mail your comments to: [email protected]
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.
You can also leave your comments below and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.
MORE : Games Inbox: Baldur’s Gate 3 being too lewd, Halo revival, and Marvel’s Midnight Suns love
MORE : Weekend Hot Topic: Best video games with no sequels
MORE : Games Inbox: Fantasy vs. sci-fi video games, Super Mario Odyssey 2, and The Elder Scrolls 1 remake
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The Tuesday letters page worries that buying an Xbox Series S was a mistake, as one reader offers a free copy of Forgotton Anne.
