Entertainment
Games Inbox: Halo Infinite verdict, Guardians Of The Galaxy love, and Ubisoft Quartz defence
Halo Infinite – has it worked out? (pic: Microsoft)
The Thursday Inbox is not entirely sympathetic to the production problems of Battlefield 2042, as a reader asks if GTA 5 has a canon ending.
PLEASE NOTE: As we get our own Christmas and New Year content ready for the end of the year, please consider sending in your own festive Reader’s Feature to run over the Christmas break. It can be on any subject but if there’s something you’ve been meaning to write in about, but never got around to, now would be a good time for it.
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Unavoidable problems
Interesting stuff about what went wrong with Halo Infinite. You could tell it was meant to be a massive open world game from that first E3 unveiling, then they basically didn’t show anything again for a year or two, until we got Craig and then finally the release.
It’s obvious they’ve managed to pull something good out of the whole mess but it’s also obvious the game’s been saved by the multiplayer and the campaign is only as good as they could manage in the circumstances. That’s a shame but I’m still looking forward to it and I’m far more sympathetic to the problems than I am with Battlefield 2042.
What worries me though is what this means for games going forward. Considering the pandemic is still going on, and in fact getting worse in terms of restrictions, are we now doomed to several years of disappointing, compromised games? Through no fault of their own developers may be working with their hands tied for years and years to come. It’s not a good thought.
It is what it is though and I’m now off to see if my Halo Infinite download is finished. I definitely think it’s worth getting, based on what I’ve played of the multiplayer and the reviews, but I hope the next one gets the chance to be even better.
Catron
Behind schedule
I think we all assumed phrases like just ‘copy what’s popular’ where how big publishers did business but I’m not surprised to find it’s EA that have been confirmed as actually doing it. All the more hilarious that their attempt failed, which seems especially weird given what Battlefield is and how even tiny indie developers have managed to make their own battle royale.
I haven no idea whether Battlefield 2042 has turned out okay despite all this but I have little interest in finding out given the lukewarm response and the talk of bugs. A good game, at least a AAA, takes a bare minimum of four years to make so one that’s only been in the oven for a year and a half… I’m automatically not interested.
How much of this is the fault of Covid I don’t know but I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the company most affected is EA. Especially as it proves they were lying about the game being ‘ahead of schedule’ all that time. (Yes, they really said that.)
Carpo
PlayStation minus
I expected Sony to rip-off the public with the Uncharted 4 remaster collection, as they’ve refused for too long to upgrade it; so it seemed likely they were up to something. However, I’m fuming that Mortal Shell is only the PlayStation 4 version on this month’s PlayStation Plus.
The so-called PlayStation 5 game is a desperate attempt to get people to purchase a full price game via a demo, that’s not a demo. Sony are inconsistent, incoherent, and just plain despicable this generation with their policies.
Kiran
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Blockchain reality
Just read your article about Ubisoft Quartz and have to say the general dislike for NFTs is short-sighted. Yeah, they seem stupid and I often screenshot them to annoy people who paid for them but the concept of being able to prove you own something digitally and then have the ability to resell it is fantastic.
Imagine a version of Steam where you can resell your game? (There is one in the making called ultra.io but who knows if that will ever go live.)
Lay off the NFTs, eh?
TommyFatFingers (Quest2)
GC: No. Regardless of what they could be, the current reality is that they’re going to encourage a whole new generation of children, and the easily influenced, to waste money on expensive cosmetics that somehow manage to make loot boxes and horse armour seem like worthwhile purchases.
Infinity Gem
I picked up Guardians Of The Galaxy on PlayStation 5 in the Black Friday sales and have been pleasantly surprised with it. I knew from the reviews that it wasn’t the disaster I feared when it was first announced but was still a little wary.
Turns out I had no reason to be. The combat is great and I like the writing even if the Guardians do never shut up. I have thoroughly enjoyed it so far and definitely recommend it to anyone who is on the fence.
Pigfish2 (PSN ID)
GC: Your hesitance is perfectly understandable but, as you say, it’s one of the hidden gems of the year.
Studio reshuffle
So Gears 5 was obviously heavily ‘influenced’ by the God Of War reboot and apparently Halo Infinite wanted to be like Zelda: Breath Of The Wild? I think that reader the other day was right about Microsoft’s old school first party studios lacking imagination and ambition.
Maybe Halo Infinite isn’t 343’s fault but I would be happy to see them taken off the franchise after this tetralogy (?) is complete. Keep them on the multiplayer, as that has been generally been good, but I’ve got no confidence in their campaigns stuff. Halo 5’s was terrible and it doesn’t sound like Infinite’s is great.
It’s going to be interesting to see what happens to Xbox Game Studios over the next few years because if there’s one thing a big company like Microsoft likes doing it’s consolidating, and they won’t hesitate to shut down or merge a studio they think is underperforming. I’d be very surprised if their number of first party developers started to shrink over the next few years, as the wheat and the chaff are separated.
Cubby
Small collection
The Uncharted 4 remaster collection is such a terrible idea I can barely believe it’s real. The graphics were already amazing on the PlayStation 4 and upping the resolution a bit (very little, if you have it at 60fps) is going to make practically no difference. Nevertheless you have to pay a minimum of £10 for it! Not me, I can tell you.
At the very least couldn’t they do all four (five) games? There’s already a remaster collection on PlayStation 4 so up-res that and at least you can say there’s a lot of games.
Darius
More: Gaming
Cinematic action
Considering how Sonic The Hedgehog 2 is a pure action game and I’m not even sure it had a story, if the new movie comes out and is good, while also keeping fairly close to the original, then I think that will be a bit of a milestone moment. It’ll show you can adapt games into movies even if they’re not story based as long as it looks the part and has the same tone and sense of fun (or not fun, depending on the game).
The problem with something like Uncharted is that the game itself is trying to be a movie in the first place, so what’s the adaptation doing? Being a game that wants to be a film? That makes no sense. I don’t see the point in The Last Of Us TV show either. Are we now saying the acting wasn’t good enough in the original games or are we admitting that the gameplay was boring and it would’ve been better if it was one long cut scene.
I’d like to see something like Dark Souls made into a film. I don’t know if anyone saw the film Green Knight but it’s a fantastic movie and has some very Soulsborne style imagery, and even the same style of vague storytelling where you get the gist of what’s happening but the details are kind of left up to you. That would make much more sense to me as a movie, because there’s something to work with there, something to interpret differently. Just remaking the original game with slightly better actors makes no sense to me.
That said, if they can make a decent movie out of Super Mario I’ll take my hat off to them. The only possible point of reference I can think of is the early Paper Mario games, that were actually really funny. I’d love to think that they’d been an inspiration but I’d be surprised if they were.
Wotan
Inbox also-rans
Godfall Challenger Edition and Prison Architect are free on Epic Games Store from 4pm on Thursday 9th December.
Andrew J.
That new GTA Online DLC announcement got me wondering is there a canon ending to GTA 5? Because you can get various characters killed and I’m not sure if Rockstar considers one or the other to be the true ending?
Tiffin
GC: That’s a good question, we’re not sure.
This week’s Hot Topic
The subject for this weekend’s Inbox was suggested by reader Korbie, who asks what game have you thought about the most while not actually playing it?
While stuck at work or school it’s common to daydream about what you’ll play when you get home, but what game has filled your thoughts the most and why? Were you planning out new strategies and tactics or just imagining what it’d be like to get further?
Have you ever literally dreamt about a game and how did that go? Did the dream place you in the game world or was it something related to the reality of playing it?
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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.
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MORE : Games Inbox: GameCube on Nintendo Switch, Halo Infinite multiplayer love, and Chorus name
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