The Monday letters page gets a reader’s review of the Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds network test, as one reader is upset about the NieR: Automata anniversary. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk. Double the pleasure. I really don’t think Nintendo has much to learn from Astro Bot. All the 3D Mario games sell far more than Sony’s games and the only one that Astro Bot is better than is Super Mario Sunshine.
For my view I think that the next game should try and make itself as different as possible to Mario, because the déjà vu is the worst thing about the current game. Which is a shame, because the controls and graphics are really good. I think it’s great that Sony is going back to make more family friendly games, instead of just endless grimdark, and I hope they do not just try the Rare approach, of making exactly the same games as Nintendo but with better graphics – that’s such a waste.
At the moment, there’s no question that Mario games, in general, are a lot better but that could change in the future. The best thing is for Sony to try and do their own thing and beat Nintendo that way. Then Nintendo would have some decent competition for once and that would spur them on, which is good for everyone.
Time flies. Someone just told me that it’s the eighth anniversary of NieR:Automata on Sunday and that blows my mind. I can’t believe it’s been the best part of a decade since that game came out, I would’ve put it at four or five years at the absolute most.
More bizarre to me though is that we’ve never heard any word about a sequel. Not even a hint that there might be another one, let alone a trailer or anything. I know Yoko Taro is an oddball but some kind of reassurance would be nice. It’s now been longer since the release of NieR:Automata than the gap between the original NieR and Automata and that is just straight up crazy, considering NieR was a flop and Automata was a surprise hit that sold over 9 million copies.
Never-ending fad. I do find your comments about old companies like Disney and Hasbro, that were around before video games were a thing, never really engaging with gaming to be interesting. I’ve never really thought about it before, but it seems that rather than getting in at ground level, and using their money and experience, they just sat back and did the bare minimum, as if they expected games to be a fad – which I guess they probably thought it was after the American crash in the 80s.
That doesn’t explain modern times though and I’m not sure how Hasbro manages to publish something as bad as Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance (the new one) and Baldur’s Gate 3 within just two years. It’s like they have no quality control and no real idea what makes a good game, so even the hits are just accidents.
Disney gives the same vibe and it’s a shame, but it makes me wonder what amazing games were probably canned over the years. Oh well, for the record I’d love to see a new big budget Transformers. Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk. Best in class.
Just thought I’d write and say that I’m still playing and enjoying Destiny 2. Even after all these years, the gunplay it still best in class and they keep trying to iterate, to slowly improve things. Arguably there are a few more bugs with the reduced QA testing, but given how cheap everything is now I’d still thoroughly recommend it to gamers that haven’t tried it before. I’m also very much looking forward to Indiana Jones And The Great Circle on the PlayStation 5 – how have other readers got on with it?.
As an aside, I’m still not convinced that it’s not From’s reluctance to reproduce an existing IP and not down to Sony. On the one hand we’ve got Miyazaki saying ‘FromSoftware and myself together want to aggressively make new things in the future… I believe that FromSoftware has to create new things.’ and on the other – err… do we have anything? I’m happy to be persuaded that Sony is holding it back for some reason, but I’ve not seen much to evidence that.
Matt (he_who_runs_away – PSN ID). GC: There are three Dark Souls (the first of which also had a remaster) and six Armored Cores (which is Miyazaki’s pet franchise). Bloodborne hasn’t had so much as a PlayStation 5 patch. The Eldest Scrolls. I almost feel like The Elder Scrolls 6 is going to arrive too late at this point. It’s already 14 years old but it feels much older than that to me. And it’ll be 17 years old by 2028, which is when most rumours seem to think it’s coming out.
There have been later franchises than that before, but I can’t think of anything where there was no reason for the delay and the previous game was super popular and everyone was excited about getting a new entry ASAP. What worries me, and it’s borne out by this new rumour, is that with that big a gap Bethesda are going to be tempted to make it a half-remake of Skyrim instead, with lots of similar parts in it, that were originally supposed to make it unique, like dragons. It’s Star Wars syndrome where they waited too long to do something new and now just want to remind people of what they liked about the original.
