Games Inbox: The PlayStation 1 is 30 years old today-GameCentral-Entertainment – Metro

30 years old today (Sony)

The Tuesday letters page thinks the GTA 6 Trailer 2 date was obvious all along, as one reader is upset the Lego James Bond game got cancelled.

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

Three decades
I don’t know if it’s just me, but I feel like the PlayStation being 30 years old this week is actually less than I’d have thought. I guess games are only about 50 years old, so it is a lot, but I can’t remember a time when there wasn’t PlayStation and the way the industry is organised, and has been for years, it feels like PlayStation is such an integral part of it.

It’s hard to pretend that Sony is at their best at the moment, which makes the anniversary kind of awkward, but there’s no doubting the significance of that original console and Sony’s contribution to gaming as a whole.

Hopefully the last two years will be seen as a minor blip in the future and we’ll start to see Sony get back to their old self next year. I don’t want to see the PlayStation 6 yet, but I’d be lying if I pretended I wouldn’t get it anyway. For me PlayStation is video games just as much as Nintendo is, and they’ll always have my attention, if not my loyalty.
Pr0metheus

Many happy returns
Happy birthday PlayStation! I had the original console as an early birthday present (I can’t remember exactly when, but it had been out for a few years by that point) and I’ve loved gaming ever since. It didn’t make me a super fanboy – I’ve also owned Xbox and Nintendo consoles – but for me PlayStation is the face of gaming and everything else is basically a side order on top.

I really couldn’t begin to imagine where they’d be in another 30 years, or even just five at this point. Things are changing quickly in the games industry and I have a feeling Sony will be facing some tough times soon but it’s really hard to imagine them not always being on top or at least close to it.

I know they can be arrogant and very distant seeming, particularly at the moment, but I think we could do a lot worse than PlayStation being what everyone thinks of first when the word video game is mentioned. I think they’ve been good ambassadors and they’d have to do a lot worse than have a couple of quiet years to lose my loyalty.
Chris

Obvious answer
So, in the end the truth about the second trailer for GTA 6 is going to be the most obvious guess you could possibly get: exactly the same as what happened last year. I know obviously people were hoping for it earlier, and a full year is a weirdly long gap, but once we started to get into the autumn I think it became pretty obvious what Rockstar are doing.

I say that and now I’ll look an idiot because it still won’t be until next year now, but I’d be surprised if it wasn’t this week or next. Although I’m a bit confused as to why Rockstar don’t say when it is, given they announced the last one basically a month before it hit.

What I will say is that if you apply the logic from the reader talking about a delay of the Switch 2 then the same must follow for GTA 6. If we don’t get a second trailer this year I would begin to seriously doubt if the game will be out until 2026.
Kosm

Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk

Spot the difference
So, an early Christmas bonus last week convinced me to upgrade my PlayStation 5 to the PS5 Pro. Using it on a 55” OLED the visual improvement in resolution is significantly noticeable on the likes of Gran Turismo 7. However, the biggest upgrade I have seen is on Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 in multiplayer.

That thing runs so smooth and fast it’s incredible. Played a few games then jumped onto my Xbox Series X just to see if I could see a difference and it really is night and day. The Xbox Series X feels half as slow and almost jerky in comparison, even though that is running at 120Hz too.

Would I have noticed it before? Probably not. But once you have experienced gaming running that fast and smooth you really would struggle to go back. Of course, it’s a luxury over and above the standard one but emperor’s new clothes that machine ain’t!

I dare anyone to play the two side-by-side and not see what benefits the Pro hardware brings to the table.
Saints Stickman

What will the Switch 2’s Joy-Cons look like? (Nintendo)

Ultra Pro
I would love it if the Switch 2 Joy-Cons had analogue triggers because, in my view, that is the only real flaw with the Switch. The Pro Controller is almost the perfect low cost gamepad but because it only has digital triggers it will always be lacking.

This latest leak is all very believable, but it will make me laugh if it and the others are fakes and the real Switch 2 is something you have to stick up your nose and play with a piano keyboard to control. Because who wouldn’t put it past Nintendo to come up with something crazy again?
DaleL

Encountering the vampire
I was seeing the reviews for Nosferatu by Robert Eggers and getting very exciting about the movie and then I realised that vampires are actually kind of badly covered by video games. Apart from Castlevania and Vampire Survivors I can’t think of anything that has them in much and those are both straight action games.

There’s Vampire: The Masquerade but that is super old and beyond that… V Rising? Which I haven’t played but looked kind of janky. It’s not like they don’t turn up as enemies but nothing I can think of really focuses on what they are and the usual plot elements of a vampire movie.

There’s Blood Omen, but that doesn’t really feel like a traditional vampire game to me and I’m not sure what that leaves. Probably the way they were handled in Skyrim was better than something like Redfall.

Maybe there’s something I’m forgetting though, if a reader can recommend me what they think is the definitive vampire video game. Time for Eggers to make a video game?
Waxman

Nobody does it better
It’s a shame that the Lego James Bond game isn’t ever going to be released. The trailer you shared on the site looks like a great fit to me.

TT Games have always managed to make a serious affair into a laughing matter, and it appears quite friendly in that short trailer. It’s a shame. I for one would have liked to have played that.
Nick The Greek

GC: TT Games are British too, so you know it would have been a labour of love.

A simple victory
Most games have it these days, especially Nintendo, but completing a level/mission/race isn’t as simple as getting to the flagpole or crossing the finish line first, like in the 90s.

You now have to either find the three/five/ten, etc. collectibles or finish the race before an extremely tight time and then you get the three-star rating to say you’ve ‘truly’ completed it.

I ‘completed’ Forza Horizon 4 (not the DLC) earlier this year and last night (Sunday) I decided to try to 3-star the Stories races but found doing that was 2Hard4Me so I gave up and re-decided that the 1-star and 2-star completion awards I had will have to do.

Princess Peach: Showtime! is another one I ‘completed’ earlier this year.

Well, I’ve beaten all bosses but not found all the collectibles.

I really don’t find re-doing levels/missions/races over and over and over again to be enjoyable.

Battlefield Hardline is another game I completed this year (yes, I’m late but it was on Game Pass) and that was done fully, within one or two tries, after arresting key characters and finding all evidence.

I didn’t need to worry about doing each mission in a certain time limit or to get a certain number of headshots to get a gold rating, etc.

This game is ‘done’ now, with no real need to go back.

I’m guessing this is done to pad out the games, but I find it unnecessary and wish we could go back to the time when getting to the flagpole/crossing the finish line first meant you had truly finished that event.
LeighDappa

GC: We’re not sure you can call that sort of thing padding. Padding implies you’re artificially extending the length of a game and the things you have to do to complete it. What you’re describing is mostly optional to improve the replayability.

Inbox also-rans
Not quite Inbox magic but the request for RoboCop VR has already been fulfilled, kind of, via the Praydog UEVR mod injector on PC. Most games can be turned easily into VR games, with varying levels of success.
Mark Matthews

That PS1 start-up routine for the PlayStation 5 is pretty special, I’m not gonna lie. Sony hasn’t done much of interest for the 30th anniversary but that was good.
Glottis

Email 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.

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