The morning Inbox is feeling very positive towards free-to-start games, as one reader encourages Sega to go back to the arcade.
To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk
Too many ninjas
I am getting a little annoyed with NetherRealm at the moment. Yes, in spite of all my outpourings of love for them. And I wish to tell them about it, too. Now, I'm fairly certain that even on the last gen consoles, the next Mortal Kombat is likely to be an enjoyable experience but I find myself disappointed by the character reveals at the moment, and angry that we're meant to be more hyped because of them.
First, Reptile and then Ermac. Now, there's rumoured to be another male ninja archetype by the name of Khrome – who has T-1000 style abilities, morphing his hands into blades and mallets and such. Now, that does sound fairly cool – but why another male ninja? And no, a female ninja would be no better either – there's already too many of them, too.
I get that Mortal Kombat 9 was a celebration of the glory days – so you had a great deal of nostalgia bait. But where's the new blood, Ed Boon? (ha ha) You may have been able to have distinguished all these ninjas fairly well, but it's still just as lazy as it was back in the 90s. I know Capcom are fairly guilty of this too with the Ryu or Shotokan fighters. Ooh, let's have a dark Ryu! Let's have a lady Ryu! Let's have an old Ryu! Let's have a grumpy Ryu! Let's have a dandy poet Ryu! (I actually want to see that happen, now.) We already have an American Ryu, so let's have a lady Ken! A Kendra, if you will.
But just stop it, okay? Stop it. Nobody really cares about Rain or Amusingly Named Ninja 163, or even Leather Fetish Ryu or Brony Ryu. Both of you can make charismatic characters when you want to, so get off your backsides and do so. You're making me kross. I'll get me coat…
DMR
Going back
It has been years since I last played the Metroid Prime games, but my goodness playing the first one again and it still looks as fantastic as I remember; but most of all the game runs silky smooth and I can't wait to play them back-to-back.
Just a thought that if you are going to be showing the original reviews for Wii games released on eShop then maybe writing about the experience of playing the games again and your thoughts instead on if it was easy to get back into the swing of things and linking the original review onto it.
The reason I ask is when I started playing Super Mario Galaxy 2 again the controls felt much clunkier than I remember and it has taken a while to grasp them again and for the first few levels I felt a little sick when spinning round the planets which never use to affect me. Whereas originally on Metroid Prime I struggled with the Wiimote controls, but this time around It has felt really comfortable. Which made me think it would be interesting to know if you have had similar experiences.
Terror4mer
GC: There isn't an original review for Metroid Prime Trilogy on the site, so that one will be all-new when we do it later this week. Although we didn't experience anything like you describe with Super Mario Galaxy 2.
DIY arcade
Right, I'm nearly ready to go. I've bought an old PC, three monitors, a copy of X-Wing Vs. TIE Fighter and scrounged all the cardboard boxes from my local supermarket. Just need to pop down to the scrapyard for an old car seat, collect a few empty washing up liquid bottles, strip the electric motor out of the washing machine and purchase a job lot of sticky backed plastic from eBay. Project Star Wars: Battle Pod replica will commence. I'll keep you updated.
SteveR.
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Back to your roots
I'm surprised but grateful to find that companies are still making arcade games, I didn't think anyone bothered nowadays unless it was a fruit machine. But if Bandai Namco still think it's worth it to make big budget, expensive machines then couldn't this be a way back for Sega as well?
Apart from their PC games they don't seem to do anything worthwhile anymore but why not go back and start to specialise in coin-ops again? They never did make a worthwhile Sonic The Hedgehog game in arcades, so why not start there? Or come to that their Star Wars machines used to be pretty good.
I'd love to see a new Space Harrier with modern graphics and hydraulics, or imagine a photorealistic OutRun with THAT music. Or, even better, something completely new. If PC games are paying the rent then fine, but they've got nothing to do with the Sega of old and I think that's a crying shame.
Gadfly
No time to change
So… two Lego games this year. Like many I'm happy to admit I enjoy them, because they're a great game to play with by my girlfriend and her nephews but I have to say the formula is getting pretty old now. And it seems like only yesterday the Marvel Super Heroes game came out, so do we really need another one so soon? What's it going to do except use the plots of the films? Won't that actually mean less variety and surprises?
Lego Batman 3 got rid of the big hub worlds but I think the best way to go is to make the game totally open world. Like, have no separate story levels and just make everything happen in the world. Lego Batman 2 is still the best game to me because it came the closest to this idea and I really liked the, fairly lengthy, puzzles that you would just find on the sides of buildings.
But… if they're pumping these out two a year are they ever going to have time to do anything different?
Dingle
Good and succesful
Just wanted to say that I am really enjoying playing through Resident Evil, after having not seen it since the original PS one game. I would love it if Capcom did a new game in this style and to me that seems a far more logical response to Resident Evil 6's failure than Revelations 2.
I know pre-rendered backdrops are time-consuming and expensive to make but I'm sure something that looks almost as good could be done in real-time today. Or get some indie team or something to make it and sell it as a downloadable game. Anything to give the series back its rep and show that it doesn't have to be an action game to be good and successful.
Negator
Mass Effect inquisition
Does GC have any idea when BioWare is going to properly announce the new Mass Effect? I know they weren't going to do anything with Dragon Age: Inquisition just out but I'm really hoping that we'll hear something in the next few months. In fact Inquisition turning out good is one reason I'm so hyped, but I'm hoping that Mass Effect now being next gen only will make a big difference to the graphics and the size of the game.
It's definitely my most anticipated game at the moment and I hope that EA don't give it less attention just because they've got the Star Wars licence now.
Kory
GC: It could be at any time, we don't think there's any particular pattern to BioWare's announcements – or at least not that we've ever noticed. They've used both E3 and Gamescom for debuts in the past.
Catch up on every previous Games Inbox here
The future works
I think free-to-start is a fine idea. As an existing EA Access customer, I have used this feature on a number of occasion. Notably for Dragon Age. Large open world games have never been a genre I have pumped loads of hours in to. But after a six hour trial, which I thoroughly enjoyed, I bought the full version and all the work I had put into it was transferred to the full version. I even have a couple of Achievements for games I haven't gone on to buy.
So why do I think it's such a fine idea? Simple, if after six hours I have decided I like it I can buy it, if it's pants I walk away in the same financial state as I went into it. If it's bug ridden I can wait a few weeks and make a far better informed decision. Win-win I say for casual and serious gamers.
It also puts a lot of pressure on developers to make sure games are ready and that the content is good from the start, not just the last few levels which they show to reviewers. Also, is this year's sports franchise an improvement on last year's to warrant the investment?
It's also far better than a demo. No more repeating the boring tutorial levels and listening to awful cut scenes and background stories. Demos had a place back in the day when gaming was establishing itself and games were harder to access.
I certainly won't be buying another EA game until I have taken advantage of this. So that puts a lot of pressure on EA to deliver good games. Could this be why Sony won't have EA Access? It puts pressure on their developers to deliver from day one! Or is it PSN can't cope with the downloads?
Dirtystopout
Inbox also-rans
Great review GC, of Life Is Strange – that was off my radar until now. I was wondering though whether there was any indication as to how long we will have to wait between episodes?
Kurt Lewin
GC: March is what we're hearing at the moment, which does seem much too long. We'll try and do an interview with the developer soon though, and get an update then.
For anyone who's recently bought a Wii U and needs their survival horror fix I can definitely recommend picking up ZombiU. I got it recently for £7 new and am thoroughly enjoying it. Good tense game with great use of the Wii U pad. It doesn't reward rushers!
Bruisemonkey
So Saturday comes around, your sixth number on lotto comes up… what's it to be, a pile in the country surrounded by luxury cars? I don't think so, Star Wars: Battle Pod anyone?
Outspokenyeti
In your recent Witcher 3 hands on did you get a sense of the inventory system? I could not fathom the inventory system in the second one on PC. It put me off the game and I gave up early on.
bigdaddy watt
GC: We've seen easier to use ones before, but we did okay with it. But as you can imagine we didn't pick up an awful lot new in the first three hours.
This week's Hot Topic
The subject for this weekend's Inbox was inspired by reader StalinsEpicTash, who asks what's the worst section in a good game you've ever played?
It can be a whole level, a boss battle, a story cut scene, or just a small section of a larger stage or open world; but we want to know exactly what went wrong and why it seemed so out of place compared to the rest of the game. Was it a mistake the game kept making or did it seem even more out of place because the rest of the game wasn't like that?
How much did it affect your opinion of the game as a whole and how much better do you think the game would've been without it? Do you think a game can still be considered a classic even with such problems and how tolerant are you of drops in quality if the overall experience is good?
E-mail your comments to: gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk
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The post Games Inbox: Mortal Kombat X hype, DIY Star Wars: Battle Pod, and Metroid Prime Trilogy appeared first on Presshook News.