The Monday letters page encourages Capcom to make more Resident Evil DLC, as a reader reports back on the Mortal Kombat 2 movie. Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk.
Zero Planning for PS6
PlayStation 6 can be delayed forever as far as I’m concerned. I’m a fairly keen gamer and I can tell you the last thing I’m going to spend money on at the moment is £500+ for a new console that doesn’t need to exist. I cannot believe I’m the only person in a similar situation and yet apparently they’re going ahead with it all anyway. I would be very interested to hear from anyone who is definitely planning to get one and are you saving up for one already? I know it might get delayed now but the original plan seems to have been that it’ll be out next year, so surely people weren’t going to pay for that out of pocket? You’d have to be preparing for it. Well, I can say that I am definitely not doing that. Hell, I’m having to save up for GTA 6, because I want that day one and we still don’t know how much it’ll cost (although hopefully we’ll get pre-orders this month).
Goliath DLC Forever
I definitely would’ve preferred The Mercenaries but I’m having a lot of fun with Leon Must Die Forever mode right now, in Resident Evil Requiem. I can imagine that was the quickest one to make, so that’s why it’s coming out first, and the menu option definitely gives away that there’s going to be more of them. Expert, exclusive gaming analysis Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. I like this idea of keeping single-player games going through a constant stream of DLC, especially relatively short ones like Requiem. If I were them, I’d add things to lead into Resident Evil 10 as well, like The Witcher 3 is apparently doing. They sort of did this with Resident Evil 2, by adding the Nemesis noises outside the police station, in the build up to Resident Evil 3, but that was pretty subtle. I don’t know if anything can connect Requiem to Code: Veronica or Zero but that would be neat too, especially as those two games got sidelined pretty quick the first time round. How about adding Billy Cohen into Requiem?
Orkey Changing the Schedules
Great to see Pokémon Pokopia selling so well. A 4:1 attach rate for a game after just a few weeks is incredible and shows just how popular it is. The fact that Donkey Kong Bananza is only a little bit more, despite being nearly a year old now, also says a lot about how that game has only been an average hit. I think it’s a good game, but I’d be interested to know why it wasn’t a bigger success, or at least why Nintendo thinks it wasn’t. I think the most likely option is just that it came out too soon after launch and people have only got so much money. I wonder if Metroid Prime 4 had come out in July and Donkey Kong in November or December, if that would’ve turned things around a bit. That way Metroid’s failure wouldn’t have mattered, Nintendo would’ve had a proper Christmas game, and Bananza would’ve had quite a bit of space between it and Mario Kart. It could’ve made quite a bit of difference, I think.
The Old Guard
Full salute to Takashi Tezuka on his retirement from Nintendo, it’s clearly very well deserved. Nintendo may not be on a high at the moment, but I think one they’ve always done very well is train up a new generation for when the old legends are gone. I don’t think Miyamoto has made a game properly himself since the first Pikimin and Tezuka and a bunch of others are in the same position. Despite the iconic legacy of these people, they’ve been making efforts to make sure they’re not indispensable for decades now, which is very encouraging. This strikes me as being the exact opposite of all these American companies laying off hundreds of developers at a time, wiping out all this ‘institutional knowledge’ and making anyone that’s left fearful and resentful. I bet Mario and Zelda will still be great in another 30 years, I wouldn’t bet that about any Western franchise.
May the Schwarz Be With You
As an aside to the Star Fox reveal on Switch 2, am I the only one whose ears pricked up at 10.34 to 10.47 (on the official UK Nintendo YouTube vid, immediately after the presenter’s finger click)? It sounded very much like the start of the OG Star Wars film at the end of the credit crawl, just before the ships come into frame. The visuals even have the panning down to the planet straight after, I was half expecting a Star Destroyer to come into view. GC: The whole of the Star Fox series is heavily influenced by Star Wars and whatever other sci-fi films happened to be contemporary at the time. Star Fox 64, for example, has a level very obviously inspired by Independence Day.
Men in Black
An interesting look at the way games publishers are talking about AI at the moment. The idea that they have to pretend they’re using it more than they are to investors, but less than they are to fans, almost makes me sympathetic towards faceless execs. The examples the Sony guy gives all sound perfectly reasonable, but I’ve heard Epic Games saying that AI is only there to help developers and not replace them. Except they’ve laid off nearly 2,000 people in the last couple of years so that obviously doesn’t track. For me, the Project Helix reveal is going to be the testing point for AI in gaming. If Microsoft go all in on some sort of DLSS 5 focused slop factory, as they clearly wanted to originally, then that is going to open the door for this to problem to rumble on for years. If it’s just a bunch of buzzwords and stuff like making hair easy to animate though, then we could be looking at another victory over the men in suits, to add up alongside lootboxes and NFTs. Generative AI in games isn’t any more inevitable than those other things and I feel like the tide is already turning in our favour. It seems ridiculous that we’ve constantly go to hope that companies won’t shoot themselves in the foot like this, but this is a tale as old as gaming, unfortunately. And when they give up on AI it’ll be some new scam after that too.
Flawless Victory
RE: Mortal Kombat 2 film. I just watched it and I absolutely loved it. I honestly haven’t enjoyed a film that much at the cinema in years. Everyone gets their time to shine, Shao Khan is an absolute beast, really great fight scenes, lots of nods to the games and a bit of nostalgia right at the end. Absolutely brilliant and highly recommended. It won’t win any Oscar but it’s just a fun film.
Pragmatic Response
Excellent review of Pragmata, which I did not expect to be a nine out of 10 game. When GC said no bugs were found, I did have a starting problem when, after buying Pragmata off the PS Store and downloading it, the game, after getting through the initial set-up, the game failed to load during the second bottom right loading icon and the PlayStation 5 error code appeared. So, I checked Google for a fix and after a few system setting changes and cache/rebuilding databases, etc. it worked. Never seen that happening before, something about a handshake operation or something to initiate the starting process. Either way, the game definitely is a clean and well-made experience, with the crisp graphical effects and the overall smoothness of animation in general. The music blends into the gameplay and background without being memorable overall in any way, but just what it’s supposed to do. Gameplay-wise is where it counts though and here it does the business spot on, with the two characters interacting with each other, reminding me of Midna and Link in Zelda: Twilight Princess. The mechanics and controls of the on-screen action are near perfect, with a great emphasis on style, fluidity and innovation. I was going to ultimately give this game a play check with streamers or content creators, but hung back and just trusted less of an investigation and went for it. The length of the game being of average was also within the time I could spare, without having to worry about exploration and just following a more linear path and story. Overall, a very well-produced game, which hits most things a gamer wants for a modern day experience, bringing out a vibrant graphical world with near perfect gameplay mechanics. Definitely well recommend and, for me, one of the surprising moments of this year so far, as I just never thought Pragmata would go all the way to being a modern classic. GG to Capcom and the RE Engine in general.
Inbox Also-Rans
Although I admit a Zelda: Ocarina Of Time remake does seem likely we are all going to be so gutted if it’s not true. Nintendo aren’t exactly one to do the obvious thing, after all. Just your monthly reminder that Atlus still hasn’t announced Persona 6 and we have absolutely no idea, not even a rumour, of when they will.
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