The Wednesday letters page has more complaints about Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, as a reader pits The Game Awards vs. the Oscars.
To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk
PLEASE NOTE: We are currently preparing our content for over the Christmas period and will need a number of Reader’s Features, so if you’ve been meaning to write one but never quite got round to it we could do with as many as possible before Monday, December 23.
Cast your vote
There’s been so many pictures of the Switch 2 looking almost exactly like the current one I don’t think any reasonable person can doubt that’s what it looks like. Maybe they’re prototypes, and the final version is slightly different, but it’s pretty clear it’s not going to look like a starfish or something else weird.
In a way that’s a disappointment, but really it’s only the Wii and Switch that were radically different. The Wii U as well, to a degree, although it was an extension of the Wii and the GamePad was never used for anything interesting outside of Nintendo Land.
But I do wonder if this mysterious ‘C’ button does stand for ‘cast’ and that it will turn the Switch into a GamePad, as well as letting you play games on the TV without using a dock. I think that would be really neat and it would allow Nintendo to have another crack at asymmetric multiplayer games and other weird uses for the screen, as the Wii U was really cut short before they got a chance.
The button is very prominent, and kind of ugly, so it must be for something important. I can’t believe it’d be just ‘chat’.
Onibee
Instant sellout
So are the next few years just going to be Xbox pretending it isn’t giving up on every market except the US and, maybe, the UK? We just got a report saying sales are down 29% in America, when they were already a disaster last year, and yet we’re supposed to believe they’re apparently flying off the shelves in Poland?
I guess if they only had a few in stock then it’d be easy for them to sell out, but come on. Microsoft might be embarrassed to admit they’re giving up on the current gen already but by dragging things out and refusing to just admit what’s going on all they’re doing is making themselves look bad.
For anyone not locked into their ecosystem the Xbox brand looks like damaged goods at this point, why would they ever buy into it? It’s not just this particular console that’s got bad word of mouth, it’s the whole concept of Xbox and Microsoft really needs to set out a vision that’s something more than streaming on your phone, because that’s not going to move the needle on anyone.
Focus
So-called rivals
So in the US, Nintendo has the best and second best-selling consoles of all-time? That is some achievement. I know everyone praises their games, but I really do think Nintendo themselves are underrated sometimes, from the perspective of being the dominant force in the industry. I know sometimes they can have an off generation, but when they’re firing on all cylinders there’s nobody that can stop them.
Console wars are always PlayStation vs. Xbox but really it just seems that they’re a tier below Nintendo, at least since the Wii came out. A lot of people don’t seem to recognise this and it kind of skews the whole way they think of the games industry. I hope the Switch 2 is a hit as well, as frankly Nintendo have earned their success a lot more than their so-called rivals.
Bunsen
Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk
Better than the real thing
So the last week I have been playing Indiana Jones And The Great Circle. It is a fantastic adventure game and captures the feel of Indiana Jones without shoving it in your face, in my opinion. I was hesitant when they revealed it was first person but it works.
The voice-acting is amazing and the story (so far) has been an entertaining Indy romp. The vistas are beautiful and lots of variety to tackle a situation. There have been a few times where you see Indy’s famous shadow and in those moments, you feel like Dr Jones.
It is so much better than the last two films. There has been very little love for it on here so if you want a game to play over Christmas, try this! Is on Game Pass too, so what’s not to like!
Merry Christmas all at GC and keep up the great work.
Will
Award Ceremony of the Year award
Crazy to think more than 150 million people watched The Game Awards and yet only 19 million watch the Oscars. I think that might only be the American figure, it’s hard to tell, but I can’t imagine it’s that much more worldwide, considering the time of night it’s on.
Whatever the actual figure is, it’s obviously much lower than The Game Awards, which is wild to me. I know it’s kind of like E3 crossed with an awards ceremony but for me the thing only really became watchable this year and even then I was just putting up with it to see the next trailer.
I’ll be tuning in next year and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the figure get to 200 million. Remember when games were only for nerds?
Leto
900 reasons and the console ain’t one
I’ve not long since spent £550 on a 2TB Xbox Series X special edition. It won’t be long before I have a collection of 900 games across four generations, thanks to backward compatibility.
I have not played the majority of these titles, or at least spent very little time on many of them, so I’m heavily invested in them and also want to revisit games I have completed in the past. I’ll keep buying Xbox consoles as long as Microsoft keep making them.
Regarding Sony, I haven’t had one of their devices since the PlayStation 3. A strong motivation for getting a PlayStation 3 were the games from Japanese studios that I really enjoyed on PSN.
PlayStation 4 or 5 had nothing to offer me. I’m genuinely not interested in any open world game or anything that drags on significantly past 10 hours or so. I just don’t have the attention span anymore. It might help if my doctor would prescribe me some ADHD medication (no joke).
Charlie
Party’s over
I was so excited when the Switch was announced and couldn’t wait to have rooftop gaming parties on my penthouse roof. With all the leaks suggesting Switch 2 is very similar in design I don’t have that same excitement, sadly. I hoped it would be something completely different and reinvent gaming again.
I can understand why Nintendo don’t want to mess with a winning formula but I can’t see Switch 2 being anywhere near as successful. Too many people have only just bought Switch 1 to consider upgrading. I hope there’s some great games or hidden features that prove me wrong.
Mark Matthews
GC: Well, we still don’t know what any of the games are or what that mysterious ‘C’ button does.
Title mismatch
I am also confused about the subtitle for Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet and what we were show in the reveal trailer. From what I’ve read the story is about people being indoctrinated into a religion and what goes wrong from there. That matches with the name but absolutely none of that was in the trailer.
The story description sounds like the usual grimdark stuff from Naughty Dog and yet the trailer was clearly mean to be a sassy Guardians Of The Galaxy type thing. Now, are they just doing that for the trailer but are they going to try and tell a serious story with that kind of atmosphere.
I don’t mind one or the other but I don’t feel it can be both. So while I agree there’s not enough information to judge the game on yet I also feel that it has not made a good impression. It’s failed to properly explain its world and story and it’s not shown enough gameplay to get you excited about playing it.
I’ve also seen a lot of debate over whether the game is actually running on a PlayStation 5 or not. I have no idea about that but I wouldn’t be surprised to find it only looks that good on a PS5 Pro.
Lemon
Inbox also-rans
An Alien VR game is not an obvious thing to end the year on but at least it sounds pretty good. Goodbye 2024, you were pretty awful overall but at least you had some good games!
Gantz
So I see that Secret Level Amazon TV show has got a 53 on Metacritic. I guess that makes Concord’s failure complete. What a disaster.
Pepper
Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk
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