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Games Inbox: Xbox Series X in stock, Sonic Mania 2 hopes, and Call Of Duty fatigue-GameCentral-Entertainment – Metro
The Friday letters page still thinks Fallen Order is better than Obi-Wan Kenobi, as one reader hopes Obsidian makes Fallout: New Vegas 2.
Xbox Series X – available now (pic: Microsoft)
The Friday letters page still thinks Fallen Order is better than Obi-Wan Kenobi, as one reader hopes Obsidian makes Fallout: New Vegas 2.
To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk
Beginning of the end
It could change, but it seems Xbox Series X stock is now readily available and has been for weeks. Smyths is not available for home delivery but most of their stores have stock, the one a mile from me has five.
It’s in stock at Amazon, Very, Currys, and the Microsoft Store and has been for weeks. Argos has them for collection at my local store.
Hopefully we’re not too far away from the PlayStation 5 being in stock for more than a nanosecond but in all honesty, with the semiconductor shortage and general instability of current times, it feels like dry spells could hit at any point.
Simundo
GC: It is still in stock at all of those retailers as we write this, although Very classifies it as ‘low stock, selling fast’.
No holding back
So that Japanese list for PS Plus is looking a lot better but it’s still not great. Some of the names aren’t clear but it doesn’t seem as if there are many more PlayStation 2 games than before. I don’t know that there would be any technical reason for this, so I’m very confused and disappointed as this was the format I was most looking forward to playing again (there also don’t seem to be many PSP games but I don’t personally care about that).
I’m not sure this is one of those cases where you don’t want to go for a slow but steady approach, you want that list of games to as big and impressive as possible from the very start. Add more as you go, sure, but if they’re purposefully holding things back I think it’s a mistake.
A lot of people are going to be trying it for only a month and if that month is a bit me they’re not going to come back. Plus they’re going to tell all their friends it was no good. We’ll see what the American line-up is like next but I’m already prepared for use to have to put up with the PAL versions, which is an insult really. Especially as the UK doesn’t need extra language options anyway.
Cbora
Too many Warzones
Am I the only one that feels completely indifferent to Call Of Duty at the moment? Both the new Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2. I don’t really care how many maps the new Warzone is going to have, I just want to know if they’re going to fix the bugs and stop the cheaters. In my experience that’s all fans actually care about at the moment and yet while I’m sure they’ll say they’ll fixing all that, if asked, nobody’s going to believe it until they see it.
This isn’t a problem unique to Call Of Duty, it’s basically any game that allows cross-play with PC players, but it’s made works for Call Of Duty because of how popular it is and how it attracts louts as well as normal players.
Maybe the Modern Warfare 2 reboot will be good but if it’s not going to have a similar story I’m not sure why they’re reusing the name. I bet they’re kicking themselves for not making the Russians the bad guys now.
Coco
E-mail your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk
Sequel Mania
Count me as one of those people that is not at all convinced by Sonic Frontiers. At least a bit of money has been spent on it this time but for something to look so derivative of another game – especially one that is in no way similar to it – at this early stage is not exactly encouraging to me.
I would have been far, far happier to hear about Sonic Mania 2. I know it’s probably not as flashy, or as big a seller, as the 3D games but the original is literally the only decent Sonic game in the last 20 years. Like, a couple have been okay but none of them have been actively good, and Sonic Mania was actually amazing.
I know it was basically a fan made thing, so maybe they can’t get the team back together, but if I was Sega I would be doing everything to make that happen rather than relying on Sonic Team suddenly turning competent after all these years.
Doshin
New creed
I know GC was just name-checking their biggest franchises but I really hope it’s a long time till we see another Assassin’s Creed or Far Cry. I’m so over both series and Ubisoft really need to find another formula. I get the feeling they know they’ve hit a wall in terms of the quality of their games and their public perception but whether they’re really going to do anything about it I don’t know.
It’s a shame Michel Ancel left as I would’ve liked to have seen him get a more important role. He didn’t have a formula, he just came up with ideas he liked the sound of and made them. That’s the kind of people Ubisoft need more of. And EA and Activision for that matter, as all the big companies are just as bad.
Janson
Shortening the wait
It seems really weird to me that we won’t be getting a new Fallout 5 for maybe five, even 10 years by the time Bethesda get round to it. If they were left to their own devices maybe that would’ve been how it played out but I can’t believe that Microsoft would want the franchise to lay dormant for that long. Fallout 4 wasn’t perfect and Fallout 76 was terrible but I don’t believe the brand is that damaged.
I think they must be intending to give it to someone else to make. Maybe they won’t call it Fallout 5 but I expect the New Vegas remake rumour is true and that that will be followed up by a brand new sequel.
That’s what I’d do anyway. The only problem is that the obvious candidate to make the games is Obsidian but they’re pretty tied up at the moment. Until they get at least Avowed finished I doubt they’d have the time to do even the remake. So I hope that is out soon, not because I have any real interest in it but jus because I’d rather see them work on Fallout instead.
Luka
All’s fair
I just read Evil Moomin’s letter and his want to bait Nazis. You can do that in Sniper Elite 5. I’ve only seen it on yellow alert, not red. I want to say it was possible on the older games too but I’m not sure.
Anyway, two days ago I was taking pot shots at them and incapacitated one. I couldn’t finish him because I had to reload. While he was laying there bleeding, another soldier went to him, picked him up and was shot down because I’d reloaded.
Handsome Dan Wolfshead
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Exit stage right, pursued by a wampa
I have to agree with the reader yesterday that the Star Wars game have been doing a better job of keeping the style and tone of the series than the Disney+ shows. They also look really expensive, whereas the TV shows look several steps below things like Game of Thrones or other AAA series. My only problem with the Fallen Order plot, which I didn’t understand even when I was playing it, let alone what I can remember of it now.
The main thing seemed to be protecting Force sensitive children from the Empire but there was also something about an ancient alien race? I never got what that was all about or how the two things were connected.
Sort that out and some of the other issues (those ice slides!) and I think the sequel could be a genuine classic. What also gets me about the comparison between Fallen Order and Obi-Wan Kenobi is that they’re actually quite similar stories in a similar period of time. Except, one is a big budget epic that looks good and is tons of fan and the other one… has Ewan McGregor wandering round a landfill and some of the worst editing I’ve ever seen in a major TV show.
Seriously, that bit where he runs away to the right of the screen and then suddenly reappears from the right again, I thought he was in the same spot and he’d just come back. It was like something that had been shot to be a comedy but wasn’t. Needlessly to say there’s nothing like that in the games.
Pkbane
Inbox also-rans
Wolfenstein: The New Order is the free mystery game on the Epic Games Store, it has not been given away free by Epic before.
Andrew J.
I was all ready for that story about the phallic looking pokémon to be silly clickbait but, err… that is either totally on purpose or the person who designed it has some real issues they need to work out from their unconscious. Yeesh.
Combi
This week’s Hot Topic
The subject for this weekend’s Inbox was suggested by reader Carter, who asks what is your favourite sci-fi game?
The genre of the video game doesn’t matter as long as it can be described as science fiction in some way, but which is your favourite and why? How much do you enjoy sci-fi as a setting, and do you prefer it to be more serious or more fantasy led?
Are there any concepts or licences you feel haven’t been done well before and how would you handle them? Which games do things like spaceship combat and futuristic weapons best and what concepts, like zero gravity and alien planets, do you feel remain underexploited?
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 via email or our Submit Stuff page, 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.
MORE : Games Inbox: Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order vs. Disney+, Sonic Frontiers confusion, and Fable concerns
MORE : Games Inbox: Nintendo Switch 2 power, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor theories, and Elden Ring defence
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