Games Inbox: Silent Hill remake doubt, Amiga 500 Mini console ideas, and GTA 5 next extras

Does a new Silent Hill make sense? (pic: Konami)

The Wednesday Inbox wonders what will happen if Metroid Dread is a major hit, as one reader describes Xenoblade Chronicles as un-Nintendo.

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

Break the silence
I see the idea of a new Silent Hill game is doing the rounds again and I really am in two minds over it. On the one hand I’m a big fan of the early games in the series but on the other, I think the reason it faded away was simply that all the ideas had been done, at least with the tech they had then. I really am not interested in a straight remake or a reboot that’s still very similar to the original games.

The P.T. demo had the right idea as it has basically no resemblance to Silent Hill other than it’s scary. Presumably it would’ve got into the lore a bit in the full game but the demo we got was just concerned with being creepy and it did that amazingly well.

The original idea of the game was that Silent Hill itself was a kind of dream dimension that people with heavy amounts of guilty were drawn to. The monsters were manifestations of that guilt, and they were basically in Hell.

If you’re going to do a new game you should just be taking that very basic idea and creating something new from it. Everybody’s different and so should what they find in Silent Hill be. The problem is how much it costs to make, because the more expensive it gets the more they’ll try and change it into an action game and that is absolutely not what Silent Hill should be about.
Xane

Quest for the Holy Grail
Thrilled to hear of the Amiga 500 Mini! It’s about time the European scene was served more retro goodness. What chance the inclusion of the legendary Deluxe Paint IV? Low, I imagine. Same goes for its beautiful versions of Monkey Island 1 and 2.

While we’re on the subject, it doesn’t really look like the N64 Mini is coming any time soon. I still think the holy grail of mini consoles has to be the Dreamcast – here’s hoping.
Owen Pile (NongWen – PSN ID)

GC: For us it would be the Sega Saturn. At least the Dreamcast has had some ports and remasters, the Saturn has had virtually nothing.

Dream team
I read the article about the Amiga Mini with great interest. Then I felt disappointed with the initial line-up of games. Love the design and game pad. Hopefully, with there being a mouse with it, the plan will be to release some point ‘n’ click games for it.

My dream line up for the first 12 games would be:

The Colonel’s Bequest
The Secret Of Monkey Island
Cruise For A Corpse
Lure Of The Temptress
Sensible World Of Soccer
Lemmings
Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge
Cannon Fodder
The NewZealand Story
Rainbow Islands
Batman: The Movie
Super Cars 2

Sadly none of these have been announced yet. So I won’t be planning on purchasing it for now.
Tony–1975 (PSN ID)

E-mail your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk

What to expect
I honestly don’t know what to expect from the next gen versions of GTA 5. On the optimistic side of things Rockstar has had so long to create new story content and additions to the map you’d think it was basically a given. Except things are never really that simple.

The pessimistic angle makes it easy to imagine Rockstar only adding things to GTA Online – more cars, weapons, etc. Would they add a new area of the map given the amount of work that would be, or are they devoting everything to GTA 6 and would deem that too much work? The first remaster of GTA 5 didn’t add whole new sections of the game, just new options, and I think that’s probably what we’ve got to expect here.

4K and 60fps does seem like a minimum but given the game underneath it all is basically an Xbox 360 game that should be very easy to do. It’s probably best to expect little for the whole thing and hopefully be pleasantly surprised.
Lonny7

The end of Metroid
I’m looking forward to Metroid Dread but I think it’s pretty obvious it’s not going to be that big a hit. It’s a 2D platformer that’s probably quite difficult, from a franchise most people have never heard of and probably filled with a lot of story elements that don’t make much sense if you haven’t played the other games.

But just imagine that it did sell, what would Nintendo do then? Metroid has always been a low priority for them, because it’s not a big seller but it’s kind of a Catch 22 in that it’ll never get big if they’re always niche games. Metroid Prime has always been the best bet but even they never sold that well – although you could blame that on them being on the GameCube and Wii.

Would there ever be a Metroid that had as much money spent on it as a Zelda or Mario? It’s hard to imagine but I’ll dream about it all the same. Personally, I’m most looking forward to Metroid Dread because it’s the end of the initial storyline. That means they can go in a completely new direction afterwards, although my biggest hope is that Yoshio Sakamoto steps down from the series as I think his ideas, especially in regards to the story and Samus’ personality have been getting worse and worse and that definitely needs some new blood.
Meso

Un-Nintendo activities
Am I the only one that really doesn’t like Xenoblade Chronicles? Especially the numbered ones. They just seem so… un-Nintendo. I hate everything about the character design and story because it just seems so generically anime, like they just put a bunch of cliches into a computer and got it to spit out something that was technically new but somehow exactly the same as everything else.

The combat is at least relatively unique, if you haven’t played Final Fantasy 12, but it’s so boring! You don’t do anything and it just feels as if the whole game would be happier if you didn’t do anything and let it play itself. Which makes me think maybe it should’ve been an actual anime and not bothered with all that interactive nonsense.

The last time Nintendo decided to make their own role-playing game they came up with the wonderfully imaginative Paper Mario. Xenoblade Chronicles is such a comedown from that and I couldn’t care less about a third game.
Zeus

Second birthday
I like the idea of a GTA: Vice City, that makes total sense to me. It’s the 20th anniversary next year so I even think it’s fairly plausible. They’re clearly not going to do a remake of GTA 3 this year, on its anniversary, because it’d get in the way of the launch of GTA 5 on next gen but Vice City next year (it came out in October) seems totally plausible to me.

Only problem is we have absolutely no indication from Rockstar, one way or the other, of if this is something they’d do. If things like Mafia, which I’ve never known anyone care about, can get a high end remake then surely Vice City deserves it too?
Domino

More: Gaming

The point of no return
Hideo Kojima spitting truth facts when it comes to the now inevitable all-digital future. It was inevitable once people got used to the painful imposition of *checks notes* getting up to change a disc. For that one benefit you’re going to lose the second-hand market, games will no longer belong to you and can be taken away at any time, and as always-online requirements slowly creep back the publisher ends up having complete control of what you can play and when.

As an extra bonus modern games work as soon as their servers are switched off five or so years later and because physical copies aren’t being made any more there’s no way to ensure you can play anything anymore. The worst thing is there’s literally nothing that can be done about this now. People barely cared when it started and now it’s become the norm they’d be far more angry if it stopped.

It’s interesting that Kojima is against it and I agree with GC that it seems a good chance this is some indication of what he’s next game is about. There’s no way he complains like this and then his next game needs the cloud to work, without him directly commenting on the whole issue.
Artrum

Inbox also-rans
Free Guy looks terrible but those posters are pretty cool. I know video games back then were cheaper to make but it always amazes how bad the box art was sometimes, like they got the programmer’s five-year-old kid to do them.
Atsoc

I don’t know what’s going to happen to Blizzard in the long run but I can’t wait to see the Q&As at BlizzCon next year. They were epic enough after that Diablo mobile game so imagine what they’re going to be like this time.
Deecrane

This week’s Hot Topic
The subject for this weekend’s Inbox was suggested by reader Grackle, who asks what’s your favourite console and video game combo?

By that he means what pairing of game and console do you have the most fondness for? It can be a Nintendo console and a Zelda or Mario, an Xbox and Halo, a Sony console and God Of War – or any other combination you can think of. Which game do you think suits its console so well it seems wrong to play on anything else and if your choice is a third party game why do you feel it matches well with your chosen console and not another?

Please note that due to staff holidays we’ll be running a skeleton crew on Friday, so if you can get your responses (and Reader’s Features) in by Thursday we’d appreciate it.

E-mail your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk

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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