Games Inbox: Dead Space at EA Play Live, PES Master League free-to-play, and Metroid Prime Trilogy

Today’s the day – unless it’s not (pic: EA)

The Thursday Inbox looks forward to seeing more of Battlefield 2042 at EA Play Live, as a reader is impressed by the Skyward Sword remaster.

To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk

Do or Dead
So Thursday is EA Play Live, the last sort-of E3 event. I’m looking forward to seeing more of Battlefield 2042 but with no Star Wars or BioWare it seems like it’s going to be short on surprises. I don’t think they’ve ruled out Titanfall 3 but I sincerely doubt that will happen, which means the only new game will be whatever they do to Dead Space.

I do realise Dead Space is not confirmed and it might not be there, even if the rumours are true they could end up with a last minute delay – because we’ve had a lot of those in the last year or so. But I’m going to guess it’ll happen because they’ll want to have something unexpected at the show and I don’t see it being anything else. Especially given how detailed the rumours have been.

My personal hope is that it’s a remake. I think a sequel would be too confusing for anyone coming into it new, unless they ignore the DLC, in which case why bother? A remake would be okay, but the original wasn’t perfect and there’s certainly things I’d change, while keeping the best set pieces – which is basically exactly what reboots do. We’ll find out soon enough but after all this time I hope it’s not a disappointment.
Garo

The devil in the detail
I think its obvious that Konami was going to go the free-to-play route with PES and I think that’s definitely a good idea. There’s clearly no way they can compete with FIFA on an equal footing, so something had to change. Getting rid of the name seems a bad idea though. eFootball seems super generic and while new players aren’t going to care whether it’s called PES or not, existing fans are going to be upset it’s not.

The more important stuff though is the small print as to how many modes you’re going to have to pay for as DLC. Is it just going to be 1v1 matches you get for free and everything else is paid-for? That may be fair but a lot of people are going to complain anyway, I can guarantee it.

And are we even going to get offline modes like Master League and Become A Legend at all? There was no mention of them and I could easily see them disappearing entirely, so they can concentrate on online and esports. The number of teams is also a worry as it sounds like maybe online nine at launch, which is kind of pathetic. If you can still edit and create your own then I guess but… there’s a lot of details here to be worked out and a lot of them could turn out pretty bad.
Baker

Originally trilogy
I saw another report the other day that Nintendo has Metroid Prime Trilogy already completed and just refuses to release it. I remember a similar story at least a year or two ago, which suggests it was originally planned to coincide with Metroid Prime 4, which got restarted from scratch. I can understand the reasoning but it’s still as shame for me as I love those game.

But based on what they’ve done with Skyward Sword, what do we think they’re going to do about the motion controls? Metroid Prime 3 always had it, that was the only way it worked, and they were added to 1 and 2 with the original Switch Trilogy collection. I have to say I never liked the new motion controls though and much preferred the originals.

I really hope that whatever this Switch collection is they include the original games exactly as they were because I would say that Metroid Prime 1 is still one of the few perfect video games and I’d hate to see Nintendo only offer motion control options to play it. Which unfortunately I can easily see them doing.
Austin

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Maturing assets
A couple of the Kickstarter/Fig games I have backed are coming to fruition now, I will be getting Psychonauts 2 next month at no extra cost, as I backed it, and also I have just had to confirm which version of The Good Life by SWERY I want, so have chosen the PlayStation 4 digital version. They also asked me for my name so I could appear in the credits!

Normally with Kickstarter games I have backed I don’t appear in the credits, as you have to pay more than the cost of the game to be in the credits, but this is not so with The Good Life. Hoping my name will be
at the top of the list as my first name begins with an ‘A’.
Andrew J.
PS: Defense Grid: The Awakening and Verdun is free on Epic Games Store at 4pm on Thursday, 22nd July. Defense Grid has been given away before by Epic Game Store.
Just completed: God Of War (2018), I’m ready for Ragnarök now!

Battlefield Live
Interesting to see all the positivity around Battlefield 2042, compared to how poorly Battlefield 5 went down. That really was a low point for the franchise but it looks like they’ve bounced back and everything they’ve been saying so far sounds like exactly what’s needed. Especially no wasting time with a story mode.

I’m excited to see more of it at EA Play Live on Thursday, although I’m not sure what to expect from this new mode if it’s based around old maps. Although I guess if they remaster them with destruction effects and make them big enough for 128 players that’d be pretty good.

I’m also curious to see if Activision are going to ‘do a Sony’ and watch the reveal themselves and change their plans for Call Of Duty to compensate. Or maybe they feel they don’t really have to given the success of Warzone but I think it’d be a mistake to take the foot off the pedal and hopefully they realise that too.
Dorf

Pull the plug
Reading about Skull & Bones and Beyond Good And Evil 2 I just can’t believe how long these games have been in development for. At what point do you pull the plug and say that enough money has been wasted? I mean, I’d say that point is at least five years past but I really don’t see what they’re excepting from letting these games go on.

Skull & Bones looked like a cheap multiplayer spin-off the moment it was announced and now it’s cost Ubisoft over $100 million and been made redundant before it’s even out by Sea Of Thieves. I was all for Beyond Good And Evil 2 when it was first announced but that ‘swearing monkey’ trailer was just dreadful and absolutely nothing like what I wanted from a sequel. Add to that Michel Ancel has left now and, as GC implied, it might as well be a completely new franchise.

All of this sounds like managers feathering their nests and protecting their own interests, which you see in every industry. And judging by all the stories about bad work practices and not getting rid of managers even when their exposed as toxic it sounds like something is pretty rotten at the core of Ubisoft.

This doesn’t seem to affect Far Cry and Assassin’s Creed, as I assume that’s what all the more professional people get posted on, but everything else seems like a bit of a dumpster fire.
LHD94

Second run
After playing Zelda: Skyward Sword HD for a few hours all I can say is… wow. I played the original but gave up after the first dungeon because of the controls, so when it was announced for Switch with a button control option I decided to give it a second chance.

It’s a major improvement over the original, although it can take a while to get used to and though I’m not as far yet as before I’ll be playing it for quite a while.
The Conkster17 (PSN ID)

More: Gaming

Impartial opinion
RE: Rashton. Just before I get someone claiming I’m biased, this is someone talking as a PlayStation 5 owner, with pretty much zero interest in an Xbox Series X.

It’s not just a paper advantage, you can look at multiple third party game comparison videos and technical analysis videos on the internet to see evidence that the Xbox Series X is more powerful than the PlayStation 5.

The Xbox Series X launched with poor developer tool kits, as Microsoft waited on the full RDNA 2 chip, whereas Sony went for a custom RDNA1 chip, and the early games didn’t take full advantage of either platform for sure, but this was especially true with Xbox Series X.

Third party games almost invariably have a resolution advantage and sometimes a frame rate advantage as well, and in some cases, we find additional or advanced affects being utilised too.

These differences are not monumental in reality, and the paper specs don’t necessarily give the full picture either. PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X use different approaches to achieving their goals, and each has advantages in some respects. One has higher (but variable) clock speeds and is more nimble but can’t maintain higher speeds. Whilst the other is just faster and has more compute units, but lacks some of the agility of the other. But overall the Xbox Series X is just more powerful and that will be the case till the end of days.

Is this going to be the kind of advantage that make you stop and stare in awe? Not really, with the modern era of dynamic resolutions and upscaling, etc., etc., these advantages don’t always seem as obvious on screen to the naked eye anyway, but they are there.
Kiran

Inbox also-rans
Dark Souls does have an easy mode, it’s called grinding soul levels and summoning.
Zombiekicker

I was all excited at the prospect of Returnal being 25% off and then I realised that 25% of £70 was still super expensive…
Nemo

This week’s Hot Topic
The subject for this weekend’s Inbox was suggested by reader Iceman, who asks what game do you most regret buying, or receiving as a present, during your childhood?

Kids are even more prone to hype than adults, and we all have games we’re embarrassed to remember looking forward to, but which one upset you the most? Did it ruin a birthday or Christmas or was it something you spent your own money on and bitterly regretted?

What sort of success rate did you have as a kid, in terms of the quality of the games you picked, and how did you make your choices? What advert or review do you remember as being the most misleading and did you fall for it yourself?

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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, 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.

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