The Thursday letters page is generally impressed by the recent State of Play, but one reader has had enough of Horizon Zero Dawn remasters.
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Shared problems
It sure has been a disaster for Ubisoft this year. First, they manage to score a miss with a Star Wars game that is, by all accounts, at least pretty decent. Now their bizarre decisions with Assassin’s Creed Shadows have caused it to be delayed, so that it’s coming out the same year as a new Ghost Of Tsushima game. That’s quite the miscalculation.
I have nothing against Yasuke being in Shadows, but Ubisoft has been so hesitant to defend it that it’s giving the scent of blood to trolls on the internet. I’m certain they don’t care about historical accuracy in a game about Japan but the way Ubisoft keeps tiptoeing around the issue is just making things worse.
Ubisoft need to come out and defend the decision and tell people to put up or shut up, anything else is just going to see more and more criticism that they never properly defend. They can say the delay is about learning from Star Wars but learn what? If Shadows is already finished, what are they suddenly going to add to it at the last minute, except maybe making the stealth easier?
It’s a shambles although hilariously it is kind of an admission that all Ubisoft games are the same, in terms of flaws and how they’re fixed. I don’t think there’s any doubt that Assassin’s Creed Shadows was delayed because Ubisoft got worried about all the online trolling and are trying to reset the marketing and the pre-orders to compensate.
Gordo
Second gear
A couple of years ago Tuesday night’s State of Play would’ve been considered very uneventful, with Ghost Of Yōtei the only standout news, but in today’s world it was a lot better than I was expected. I didn’t bother watching it live, just because I assumed it would be a wash. And to think, I used to stay up into the small hours watching Sony’s E3 presentations.
The question is whether this was a sign of them slowly getting back into gear or just a minor blip and we’ve got another six months of no news or new releases to look forward to. I’m mildly hopeful to see rumours of more games than we know about being planned for next year, so perhaps there is reason to be hopeful, but Sony are going to need much more than one half-decent livestream to convince me they’ve crawled out from under their rock.
I have to say though that I did like that indie game The Midnight Walk, which I have since learnt is published by Sony. I’ll give them one thing over the last few years, they do know how to pick their third party exclusives. Even if that’s not what they should be relying on.
Clawdog
Future Ghost
Ghost Of Yōtei may have been mostly a pre-rendered trailer but I thought it looked good and got you hyped about the new game. I’m really not sure why Sony has gone off making such things, because for me they absolutely work.
The only frustrating thing about them is you’re left with so many questions, the primary one for this being is it a spin-off or a sequel? If it’s a spin-off does that mean they’re going to go back in time for Ghost Of Tsushima 2 and have Jin as the main character again?
My guess is that this is intended as a true sequel there never will be a Ghost Of Tsushima 2. I expect that the new hero will be inspired by legends of the original ghost and/or pretending to be them. Maybe that’ll be the only connecting tissue between all the sequels in the future.
Scholey
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Faith restored
Smashing news about Legacy Of Kain being re-released for PlayStation. That’s a move in the right direction by the executives. I wrote in the other day about prohibitive costs regarding the DualSense Edge controllers. I’m glad that Sony have fed us PlayStation 4 underlings a few scraps from the big table. I can’t wait to get stuck in again. The best news this year gaming-wise.
Nintendo, I feel, will top this but Dino Crisis and Soul Reaver are absolute diamonds to me. Rose-tinted spectacles? No. I’m about to shed another few evenings of my life on the bad boy Raziel and the Crisis Crew. I’m cock a hoop with this news.
Just when gaming seems to be getting worse and worse. You totally redeemed yourself! That’s why I love being a gamer. Bring this on!
D Dubya
Familiar fantasy
Dragon Age: The Veilguard did look good in terms of graphics and everything but I can’t put my finger on why the whole thing looks so bland to me. I think, for me at least, the whole dragons and mages and fantasy thing is so played out now. All these different games and they all have near identical dragon designs, as well as zombies, elves, dwarves and all the rest of it.
The original Dragon Age was a completely original universe, and they could’ve made anything up but instead they went for a really generic fantasy world that could’ve easily been any of about a hundred other, similar games.
I know a lot of sci-fi is very generic too but at least they have to make up new aliens and planets. Although it made me laugh how Starfield didn’t have any aliens and yet still manged to have giant spiders and crab monsters that looked like they’d come out of some kind of sci-fi clipart compilation.
Lossy
Mii like
Whatever form the next Nintendo console brings, I’d love to re-see and, even better, re-use the Mii characters.
I used Miitomo every day back when it was available but admit I did get a bit bored of it near the end of the game’s/app’s life, where the same daily questions were being rotated a bit too soon after they were asked.
Miitopia is my favourite 3DS game, so of course I rebought it on Switch. I was a bit disappointed it wasn’t a sequel and that I couldn’t transfer my characters and data from the 3DS version but I still had fun playing through it again.
For the Swiitch TwU, I would love an MMO-style game but instead of creating a load of Mii characters, you create only one (yourself) and it goes on online adventures where you can pick which skill (called Jobs on the game) you want to level-up in, like in Miitopia.
I know I can’t be the only one who likes the Mii characters so surely it’d sell.
LeighDappa
Revolving Horizon
I was interested to learn that the new joint boss of PlayStation worked at Guerilla Games, who make Horizon, and that’s why it’s being pushed so much at the moment. I’m not sure I’d go so far as to call the games mid but they’re hardly the best Sony has ever come out with.
A new sequel every four or five years is fine, but this year we’ve got a remaster, a Lego game, and a think a PC port as well? How many times do we have to see the same games going round and round. It’s especially bad because apparently the Lego game is the same story as Zero Dawn, it’s not even an original story or anything. Yeesh.
Donald
GC: The Horizon Forbidden West PC port was this year, yes.
The future of Zelda
Very glad to see Zelda: Echoes Of Wisdom get good reviews, although it’s interesting the difference between a game Nintendo has made themselves and one they’ve only overseen. Their A-team is only ever going to be working on the next mainstream game though, so I don’t know what else they can do beyond having half of Nintendo working on Zelda games.
I will be getting Echoes Of Wisdom but the GC review reminded me of Capcom’s Game Boy Color games, which were good but not great. Echoes Of Wisdom seems better in that it’s got a cool new idea as well, plus the novelty of being Zelda. Although I’m not sure that really makes much difference, as I wouldn’t really say she or Link had anything you could call a discernible personality.
I would be open to see a 3D game starring her, but I think the echoes system would be too complicated to do without making it a big budget game. What I’m surprised has never happened though is a spin-off game starring Shiek. Maybe it’s complicated because the Shiek disguise is supposed to be a man but I’m sure there must be way to make an action stealth game out of the whole concept.
Maybe it’s a bit late now but if it’s going to be six years before the next mainline Zelda there’s going to end up being a lot of spin-offs between then and now, to keep things ticking over.
Grackle
Inbox also-rans
But seriously, where is NieR 3? After so many flops I would’ve thought Square Enix would’ve greenlit it immediately but we’ve not even had rumours about it. Such a shame.
Gooseprint
The stupidest thing Ubisoft did with Star Wars Outlaws is release it in late August. Everyone knows it’s going to be at least a third off on Black Friday, so of course people are just going to wait a couple of months to get it. We’re not idiots.
Sustain
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The small print
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