Ocarina Time
Nintendo is usually the best of the three at having livestreams at reasonable times for the UK, so I don't know what's going on with the Star Fox one being so late. And 10 minutes warning? There comes a point where Nintendo crosses over from being charmingly weird to just plain annoying. It's a good job for them that they make such amazing games. That said, I'm not a super fan of Star Fox 64, although I will look to see how expensive this remake costs. What I will say is that this is the first time in pretty much forever that I remember a Nintendo rumour coming true, even if they never got the remake angle right. So what I'm thinking is: does that mean the Zelda: Ocarina Of Time remake is real as well? If there was a time to release one, it'd be now, with the long wait for the next mainline entry. Could it be out this year, with a reveal in the summer? That seems to be the rumour, and I think there's now a much better chance of it being true than before, which I am very excited about.
The Wrong Remake
So it's happening! Star Fox/Lylat Wars has returned. I bought Star Fox 64 on import from Japan via an ad in the local paper. The guy who brought it over was a proper 80s style yuppie, perfectly coiffured beard, floppy hair, even a knee-length flashes mac! 90 quid that cost me. But I was young, stupid, and impatient; it was 6 months before it was coming to Europe and I simply could not wait. Well, what a game that turned out to be! I played it continuously over and over, learning all the secret routes and shortcuts, even sent a highly detailed scribbled map to one of the mags of the day, before they'd even reviewed the Western release. They never did print it, but I bet they used it to beat the game though! However, this remake: in my opinion, the more realistic they make it, the cheaper it kind of looks, as in the world seems empty apart from the immediate enemies, so it looks kinda barren and cheap. And the characters are nightmare fuel. I'll of course see how it reviews and the price, but my feelings right now are: thanks for the nostalgia, but I'll look forward to the ultimate remake of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time instead.
Daily Update
If you could talk your way to success, then Xbox would have dominated the games industry years ago. Every day, it seems, you get them flapping their lips about one thing or another, and I still don't see anything that's going to change people's minds about them, let alone convince them to buy an Xbox console again. This whole Copilot thing seems especially bad because I don't believe a word of it. They're definitely just going to have AI anyway, and just not call it Copilot anymore, because that's something they've already done with Windows. And all these ex-AI people taking over exec roles. While I'm sure some of it is jobs for the boys, I'd be willing to bet they're going to be using their AI expertise on Xbox too.
League of Their Own
I would love to see a new DC fighting game that wasn't Injustice 3, but wouldn't it have been best to wait until Batman and Wonder Woman, at the least, were cast for the new movies? Otherwise, what are they going to do? Have the characters that were in Superman act that way but just try to guess for the rest? Most of the movie characters did act like their comic book selves, so you could make some fairly accurate guesses, but there's a billion ways to play Batman, let alone anyone else, so it would seem odd to have him super serious or campy or whatever in the game and then completely different in the DCU. Ultimately, it doesn't matter as long as the game is good, but the lack of synergy between DC games and films has been very odd given the same company owns the developers, the comics, and the film company. If even they can't organise a match-up properly, no wonder nobody else ever manages it.
Top Two
Very interesting feature about the 'second death' of the PlayStation 4. I didn't realise they'd stop making it so long ago, but it will be sad to see the end of what I agree is the best PlayStation console. You could make an argument for the PlayStation 2, but while it's definitely a classic, there are very few of its games that I would want to play today without a remaster or remake. I agree with those that say Sony should never have even released the PlayStation 5. The PlayStation 4's graphics were perfectly good, and as we now know, the economics of it worked perfectly, unlike the PlayStation 5. With the PlayStation 4, you got great-looking games coming out at regular intervals; with the PlayStation 5, you're lucky to get one Sony game a year.
Luxury Item
I am not in the least bit surprised that most gamers don't buy full-price games, considering how much they cost. I'm also not surprised that it's older gamers who have given up the most, because we remember the days when they were not only cheaper but could be traded in and didn't have so much DLC that it'd cost them the same again to experience it all. This is, of course, the fault of publishers, but not in that they're being unreasonable with the prices, so much as they refuse to do anything about the rising cost of making games and all the other related problems. As GC said in their excellent article on the PlayStation 4, Sony has made absolutely no attempt to change their approach now that games take so long and cost so much to make. The only thing they've done is make fewer games. They're not the only ones; all the publishers are like that, and so here we see the natural end result: nobody is buying their games, at least not at full price. A game would have to be incredibly anticipated for me to ever consider getting it day one, not only that but a guaranteed classic. GTA 6 fits that bill, and certain Nintendo games if they ever get around to announcing them, but that's about it. Other than that, it's just waiting a few months for the sales and reading reviews carefully. And to be honest, that works out fine for me, and I've had few problems. It's actually quite a sustainable system, as long as you accept that buying a full-price game is a one-off luxury.
One More Roll
Obviously, I've not played it or anything, but in what world does the idea of Assassin's Creed crossed with Fall Guys seem like a good idea? I really have to wonder how some of these companies make their decisions, but at a guess, I'd imagine it involves rolling a dice. I assume it's meant to be free-to-play, so once again Ubisoft are trying to get that live service hit they so desperately want, even though it's been so long coming that the company is half ruined now. I think they'll complete the job before they ever give up completely.
PS2 Upgrade
I had a feeling a Star Fox Direct would arrive at very short notice, and after all this time, I thought it was a bad Direct delivering bad news. The fact it's a remake of an N64 classic that already got a good remaster on 3DS – and there's very likely to be another one fitting that exact same bill in just a few months – is a disappointment. The graphics aren't even that good. It obviously looks a lot better than the original, but I'd argue Rogue Leader on GameCube over 24 years ago looked better than this mostly on-rails Switch 2 game. It certainly doesn't look like something that couldn't run well on Switch 1. I don't know why they didn't just make a new game by reshuffling the levels and have it work the same way. The cut scenes are presumably meant to add value, but the voice acting and dialogue are clearly pretty poor, so that aspect seems like a complete non-starter. It would be a bad idea to charge more than about £45 for this, and I think they're being hugely optimistic if they think the multiplayer is going to be taken up widely and for any meaningful period. To think this game could well be what steered Nintendo towards shoehorning Fox McCloud into the Super Mario Galaxy Movie. I imagine they had the same idea with Yoshi And The Mysterious Book, given that character also seemed to just... be there. I'm so glad I've still got Pokémon Pokopia to try as a 2026 Switch 2 game. Nintendo seems to have fallen into the exact same first-party stop-gap pitfall as with most new generations. Their big stuff is taking too long, so they're chucking out things like Star Fox and Splatoon Raiders as schedule padding for a console that's not yet a year old. I'm now half expecting Zelda: Ocarina Of Time to compete visually with an upscaled late PlayStation 2 era game at best, just because they needed to put something out.
GC: We don't disagree with some of what you say, but we think you're being unreasonably harsh on the graphics.
Inbox Also-Rans
- Just watched the trailer. It kinda looks like the director has confused Resident Evil with The Evil Within. Anyone else? - Bobwallett
- Never mind that dumb-sounding Assassin's Creed spin-off, I'm just glad there's a new Worms game coming out. And it's a bit like XCOM too! - Clifron
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