The Friday letters page tries to work out if the Persona 6 leak is real, as a reader details his encounter with Forza Horizon 6’s bowie knife99.
Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk
Another year
So Activision has unveiled this year’s new Call Of Duty and… I feel nothing. I get that they haven’t had the time to make something that’s a response to the unpopularity of Black Ops 7, and Modern Warfare 4 is just whatever random game was going to come out this year anyway, but that’s their fault.
Any sensible publisher would take a year, or two, out to fix the problem and come back with something that fixed the issues, or at least tried to. Even Ubisoft did that, with Assassin’s Creed. But because Activision has wasted decades of success, by not having any other games to fall back on, if Call Of Duty ever flops, they can’t do anything. They have to release a new Call Of Duty game this year, and every year, or their profits take a tumble.
Like another reader said, I don’t know why they didn’t do something simple like change its name to something other than Modern Warfare 4, but I guess if it’s got Captain Price in it they’re kind of stuck with it. From what they’ve said so far I don’t see this turning anything around for Call Of Duty. If anything I think it’s going to sink it even further.
Suggs
GOTY bait
Considering how many highly-rated games we’ve had this week I can’t help wondering what would happen if GTA 6 didn’t end up as the accepted Game of the Year. I can’t see it happening, as I think most sites would be too scared to mark it at less than 10/10, for fear of what angry fans would do.
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I doubt it will be actually bad but there’s a formula to Rockstar games and I feel it’s getting a bit old. Ironically, the exit of Dan Houser and the other high-up people over the last decade is probably the best chance, I feel, that it will do something new or interesting.
I personally would never give any GTA or Red Dead Redemption game more than 8/10, but obviously I haven’t played GTA 6 yet. But of all the things we’re expecting from it, I don’t think radical reinvention is top of the list.
Kemp
Nightmare driver
Yeah, we’ve all been taken out by that bad boy on Forza Horizon 6 over the last week or so. He’s dreaming himself into a lot of the cars that come around the corners for the kill, usually when you change car and try and move off! They need to add a black and red stripey sweater to the costumes and a sharp baseball glove.
I wrote in a couple of times about Yellow Magic Orchestra being the daddy of computer games tunes music. Low and behold, they have got a track on the Japanese radio station there and it’s awesome.
Take a bow please Playground Games, take a bow, son!
Nick The Greek
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Movie magic
This week’s release of 007 First Light got me thinking about movie licensed games. Which film/film franchise has spawned the most games and how many of those games have been any good? The answer that first came to mind was Star Wars and despite the quality of the films notably dropping after the initial trilogy, that series has inspired some classic or at least good games.
Alien and Aliens have inspired a fair amount of decent titles also. If we can conveniently forget about Colonial Marines, there’s been Alien: Isolation and Alien Resurrection on the PS1. I recall an enjoyable Alien 3 title on the Game Gear and there was a good Aliens game way back on the ZX Spectrum.
I’ve always been wary of games based on films, since the use of a well-known movie license is no guarantee of a game’s quality, so it’s nice to see that First Light has reviewed well. I’ve played a few Bond games over the years, although I can’t remember any of them being amazingly good.
Michael Veal (@msv858)
GC: You never played GoldenEye 007?
Summer gaming
Lovely weather and even lovelier to play the bright vibrant Pokémon Pokopia in, but I find I have the urge to build something nice or epic every time I boot it up now… Oh well, worse problems to have I suppose.
Anyway, was just an excuse to share some of my complete and ongoing builds, Psyduck is a very lucky ducky!
big boy bent
Three bad games
Just managed to get myself a physical copy of Starfield on the Xbox Series X. I have avoided everything about it and just remember it scoring mediocre scores on release. Have the updates improved on it since release?
I’ll get round to it at some stage, so it would be nice to know that it’s something to look forward too.
I’m currently slogging through Darksiders 3, which isn’t anywhere near as good as 2 but it’s still OK, on story difficulty.
I’ve also started The Surge 2 as I got it for three quid. It’s OK so far. Still die a lot, just like the first game but progress is made inch by inch.
On the plus side, I got Resident Evil 4 remake, so it’s not all bad. I’m liking it more than I thought I would.
Bobwallett
GC: Nothing is going to improve the intrinsic faults of Starfield. Even one of the designers admits it’s not very good.
Suspicious concept
I hate that one of the explanations for the Persona 6 leaks probably being AI is that Atlus may have actually used AI to make some of the concept art. Even if they haven’t other developers have, they’ve admitted it.
How is that saving any time or money? AI can’t invent anything new, it can only rehash (aka steal) what already exists. Were these companies paying their artists so much that getting rid of just a couple of them – the ones that used to make the concept art – had a massive effect on their bottom line? Somehow I doubt it.
For what it’s worth I think the leak is fake just based on the fact that it all seems too neat and perfect in terms of including character names and super generic locations. Pretending to point a camera at a screen seems suspicious to me too, since that’s an obvious way to try and obscure the images a bit and hide anything obviously fake.
Korbie
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Familiar gameplay
Forza Horizon 6 and 007 First Light. Released within a week of each other, both scored 9s, deservedly so. Stellar reviews everywhere. But, it has to be said that, although some new stuff is in there, most of the gameplay mechanics have been seen and done before. Still, they are great games nevertheless and quality usually sells.
GTA 6, coming late November. The most eagerly anticipated game ever. Bigger, better? Hopefully, yes. Innovative? Probably not much. Might well fry the servers when it kicks off, though. I do sincerely hope that it lives up to the hype and expectation and turns out to be one of the best games ever made.
And this is a bit of a problem for the video games industry. Most everything has been done to death. Not a great deal turns up that I haven’t seen somewhere else already and I’ve been playing since Space Invaders. Having said that, it has been a good year so far, with more to follow later on.
If they keep making games of this quality then I’ll keep buying them. Unless I get priced out of the next gen market. And therein lies another problem for the gaming sector. Rising hardware prices. 800 or 900 quid for a PlayStation 6/Xbox Next? If that turns out to be the launch price for this new round of consoles then it looks like I’ll be going retro and backlog.
Paul C.
PS: Looking forward to the, ever so slightly derivative, Assetto Corsa Rally and Le Mans Ultimate on Xbox Series X in late 2026/early 2027.
PPS: Any concrete news about the more than likely a bit derivative Splinter Cell game that is supposedly in development? Haven’t heard anything about it for ages.
GC: 007 First Light might not be very innovative mechanically but the mixture of component parts, and how they’re presented, is very unique. There isn’t a new Splinter Cell game in development, as far as anyone knows, but a remake of the first game was announced five years ago and apparently isn’t cancelled… yet.
Inbox also-rans
I was going to say I don’t see why Rayman Legends needs a remake but I guess adding 3D is a big change. It’s a big step though and it’s going to look bad if those bits are worse than the 2D sections.
Focus
I never had any intention of getting a Steam Deck but a £200 price increase is insane and makes me very worried about the price of the PlayStation 6. Especially as a new PC is now also out of the question. Could be a good time for streaming to step in though…
Zeiss
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