Games Inbox: Has EA Sports FC been a failure?

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No competition
For myself, I have been very disappointed by EA Sports FC. We’re only two games into the ‘new’ franchise and it already feels like a lazy crash grab. I don’t feel the first one made any special effort, that wouldn’t have been in FIFA 24, and this year’s is right back to feeling like a DLC upgrade.

I really wish eFootball or some other rival could give EA some real competition, because at the moment they have absolutely no reason to do better, since people will line up to buy their games either way. And I admit I’m one of them. I want to play as my favourite teams so what am I going to do? Dig out my PlayStation 2 and go back to PES? (Not that that had the teams anyway.)

I have very little faith that FIFA know what they’re talking about when they say they’re going to make their own game, but I think the only real hope for shaking things up is if they team-up with 2K and make a whole new series. It’ll mean microtransactions and other scummy practices but it’s not like EA Sports FC is much better as it is.

I just hope they give it a decent name, apart from anything else. EA Sports FC is so lame to say and to type out.
Monson

Under the radar
I don’t shirk away from saying I’m a gamer, as no one outside our bubble knows how bad some people that game and use social media can be. We seem to be insulated by the lack of interest from the outside world. All of the drama and death threats seem to go unreported by the mainstream media.

I only hear about that stuff on this site. It must be years since I’ve heard games mentioned negatively on any TV-based news outlet. Usually, it’s a murder-based mention but even then it’s still rare.

So chill out, no one else knows how awful we really are.
Bobwallett

The one and only
Absolutely loving Silent Hill 2 at the moment and I take back everything I ever said about Bloober Team (except for them having a terrible name). I’m nearing the end now, but it’s got me wondering whether they’re going to do remakes of any of the other games?

Silent Hill 3 might not be as good as the second one but I’d still say it was a superior survival horror and in the top three of the series. The other one is the original but the problem there is it would end up looking very similar to Silent Hill 1 but with a different, and not as good, story.

I think that probably rules them both out, which is a shame in a way because now we’re back to having no good Silent Hill games to look forward. Perhaps it should always just have been the second one and nothing else.
Lempton

Pro fence sitter
I’ve been on the fence regards the PS5 Pro. Whether I’d get it or not.

I just wondered if you will be getting one to review as I’d really like your opinion on it?

Loved the Mike Bithell interview and I’m super interested in his Tron game. Will be keeping my eye on that one.

What an incredible gesture from Julian. If the N64 hasn’t been taken I sure would love to ask for it. My nephew missed the N64 era. Happy for you to send on my email.

Keep up great work GC.
Bertie1 (PSN ID)

GC: Thank you. We assume Sony will send a PS5 Pro, but we’ve not heard anything yet. As you can imagine, we’ve had many people asking after Julian’s retro collection, so we’ll send them on to him later today.

The Suffering key art — The Suffering – do you remember it? (Midway)

You were right to bring up that survey about co-op and single-player games in the review, as I’ve thought about that a lot recently and how companies just aren’t making the games people want or enjoy. They’re just trying to get the next Fortnite and they literally don’t care about anything else.

You can see it also in the Bandai Namco news, where they were throwing everything at mobile and online games and letting single-player games suffer for it, even though they were the popular ones. This has been going on for a while now and I still don’t get the sense any of the publishers are learning anything.

Publishers aren’t fulfilling audience demands they’re all just trying to be the one unique case that makes easy money, rather than just settle down and do something more sustainable.
Bailey

The day the music died
On the commute home from work I was listening to the soundtrack for Final Fantasy 7 and reading some gaming news. A very sad coincidence then that I read that Nobuo Uematsu is retiring from composing for video games.

Fanatasian: Neo Dimension will be his last game related project. Truly a sad day. Hopefully he’ll still compose the odd track here and there but what an indelible mark he’s left on video game music. A true giant and we should all be grateful for his output, even those who may not enjoy the games he’s scored.
Sill82

New old ideas
Like any fan I’m trying to stay optimistic about the thought of more Halo, but I don’t know how realistic that is given it’s still basically the same developer. My big advice though (as if I should be listened to!) is that the next game should be a full reboot.

Not a modern soft reboot, where it’s more like a sequel, an actual reboot where nothing else that has come before counts anymore. They can still start with a remake of Combat Evolved if that’s the way they want to go but you should be able to play the next game with absolutely no knowledge of any other Halo game.

I’ve played them all and even I’m not sure what was going on in Halo Infinite, which is terrible given that was supposed to be a soft reboot. No half measures this time, start from scratch and try and rebuild the game’s reputation. For me the success of the new game will be based on how much distance it puts between it and what’s come before.

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