Entertainment
Games Inbox: Is Half-Life 2 a bad game nowadays?-GameCentral-Entertainment – Metro
The Tuesday letters page tries to predict The Game Awards winners, as one reader looks forward to all of the Nintendo Switch 2’s third party support.
Half-Life 2 – everything ages (Valve)
The Tuesday letters page tries to predict The Game Awards winners, as one reader looks forward to all of the Nintendo Switch 2’s third party support.
To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk
The half-life of Half-Life
I was one of those thousands of people playing Half-Life 2 over the weekend. It was the first time I’d played it since it first came out and… can I be sacrilegious and say I didn’t really enjoy it all that much? It was very clever, and surprisingly modern in many ways, but it also felt very badly paced and kind of… boring.
Everything seemed to go on for too long, from the open world vehicle bits to the Ravenholm section, the headcrabs bits, the stuff on the bridge and in the facility with the human opponents. Everything just stuck around for so long. Even the antlion section, which I remember as being amazing at the time seemed very repetitive and overly long.
I also found it to be kind of a bad shooter. The gunplay isn’t very good and the AI for the enemies isn’t great. To be honest, I found all the dystopian stuff at the beginning, in the city, the most interesting and a lot of the action the worst bit.
Not a snub on the game but the number of games which can stay fun for 20 years is very small. If you’re not Tetris or Super Mario Bros. I don’t think you’ve got a half-life (do you see?) of more than a decade. But that’s fine, just one more reason to make Half-Life 3.
Tacle
Late night reveal
Even as a great fan of Elden Ring I’m not sure I agree with making Shadow Of The Erdtree eligible for Game of the Year at The Game Awards. I don’t think it’ll win, but I feel it would be kind of silly if it did. My bet for the winner is Astro Bot. I feel that has more momentum and it’s more recent than Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, so fresher in people’s minds and has had less time for people to pick it apart.
Personally, I think Rebirth is the better game, but a lot of people have complained about the open world being bloated and I think all those months of complaints are going to count against it. It is what it is though, and I’d be happy for any of the three to win really (I haven’t played the other nominees).
Not that I’m staying up to watch it or anything. It always seems silly to me that it’s on so late. I know it’s for America’s sake but there has to be a better compromise than 3am in the morning.
Mogul
A month of Fridays
I think we may be looking at a good Black Friday this year. We’ve had a cheap PS5 Pro, just weeks after it came out; some decent Switch bundles; and now Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom is cheap from Nintendo themselves. Bargain hunters are going to be eating good this month, if this is anything to go by.
The problem is that we’re still two weeks away from Black Friday and I don’t know whether things are going to get even cheaper when we get there. I don’t think that’s how it works but the problem with having this permanent Black Friday Month is that you never know when to pull the trigger and, for me at least, that puts you off. I can’t imagine that’s good for the companies either because the more you hesitate the less likely you are to do it.
Danson
GC: If it helps, it looks like it’s going to start in earnest this Thursday. But that doesn’t preclude extra good deals on the day itself.
Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk
Blood feud
Sony’s absolute hatred for Bloodborne is so strange to me. Either they loathe the game or this is the slowest build up to a remake reveal we’ve ever had. But the thing is, it didn’t need a remake when the PlayStation 5 first came out, but they’ve taken so long about it that now it kind of does.
Upping the resolution is going to do nothing for anyone now, it has to be a full remake like Demon’s Souls. That’s my opinion anyway.
I would bet everything that, based on their behaviour, Sony and From had a falling out, except Sony has shares in From, so is that even possible? Very strange, but I’m excited to see what brand new game they’re working on too. They said no Elden Ring 2 and I can’t imagine it’s Dark Souls 4, so that is very exciting to me.
Pr0metheus
Bloodborne – has Sony forgot it exists? (Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Look up
Interesting new website design, no-one likes change but hey as long as GC still exists, I’ll still be reading. Shame Metro still don’t call it GameCentral but at least the name’s there on some articles!
Anyway, onto my main question, will you be reviewing Loco Motive, which is out this week? It caught my attention and looks good but would love your verdict on it.
Stephen
PS: With all that talk of Metro and locomotives, I was going to include some train-related puns, but I didn’t want to go off track…
GC: The GameCentral name and logo is right at the top of every page? We’ve only just reviewed a detective game, but Loco Motive does look fun, so we’ll try and take a look.
Starting line-up
I like the idea of a Dark Souls remaster collection for the Switch 2. Not because I particularly want the games again, but I’d just be interested to see what kind of effort publishers are going to put into the new format. After the Wii U, everyone kind of ignored the Switch at launch, and for several years after, but I imagine that’s not going to happen this time round.
Publishers are going to want in from the start, so that’s why Dark Souls makes sense. But it probably means EA and Ubisoft as well, and every Japanese publisher. It’s got to be Microsoft too, who have been banging on about Call Of Duty on Switch all this time.
This could be the Nintendo console with the best third party support since the SNES and I would love to see that. The terrible job Microsoft and Sony has done this generation doesn’t deserve to be rewarded and I would love to see Nintendo become dominant.
Of course, they’ll then abuse that dominance, but I’d rather worry about that nearer the time. A change is as good as a rest and all that.
Gaston
Expensive project
Since I never had any intention of getting a PS5 Pro I’m not too bothered about the reports of some games running worse but I’m also not surprised that PSSR hasn’t turned out to be very reliable. That sort of advanced AI/DLSS tech is not something Sony has any experience in, and I think it’s one area where they’re going to increasingly get overshadowed by Xbox.
The more AI stuff we get in games, and when hardware is designed with it in mind, the more it favours Xbox. I guess you could say that PSSR is Sony trying to get their practice in but this, to me, is the sort of thing where money is all-important. It’s one area where outspending Sony can definitely benefit Microsoft.
Toecutter
Big and ugly
That thing about the pizza warmer was so weird I realised I’d never checked to see if the PlayStation 5 gets warm when it’s on. I don’t know that I’ll be cooking any food on it, but it definitely is hotter than I was expecting.
But the thing that got me is how unstable and rocky it is, when sitting on its stand in horizontal mode. I did notice that when I first set it up but you don’t really need to touch it again, so I’d forgotten. Easily the worst designed console I have ever seen. Ugly, dangerous-seeming, and far too big.
I’m not in love with what the Xbox Series X looks like either but it’s a hundred times better than the PlayStation 5. They’re both huge though, which is why I find it hard to believe the rumoured Xbox handheld is all that powerful – I just don’t think Microsoft has the expertise to squeeze everything into that little space.
Benson
Inbox also-rans
Does anyone else think it odd that it’s been five years since Microsoft bought them and we haven’t heard a single thing about what Double Fine is working on next? They released Psychonauts 2 but that was almost finished before they got bought.
Focus
What I want to know is how did Rockstar find out there was a stretch of road in the desert that looks like ‘VI’. Maybe if they’d spent less time messing around with Google Earth and more time working GTA 6 would be out by now!
Manning
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.
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.
ArrowMORE: Games Inbox: Is it true Xbox has never been more healthy?
Entertainment – MetroRead More
