Games Inbox: Is the Mass Effect trilogy overrated?

Mass Effect Legendary Edition key art — Does Mass Effect still hold up? (EA)

The Friday letters page is excited about the possibility of a new Castlevania game, as one reader is surprised by the mixed reviews for Civilization 7.

To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk

Time effect
All the talk of BioWare and Dragon Age recently has seemed like good timing to me, because I’ve been working through the Mass Effect Legendary Edition recently, which I bought ages ago but never got round to. I haven’t finished 3 yet, so I haven’t got to the ending, but even so I have to say it’s not as good as I remembered.

I realise the games are old now, and back in the day you had to wait years between the games, but I don’t think they really hold up that well. The first one is really not a great game and while Mass Effect 2 is definitely the best one the story has little to do with the overall arc. You could skip it and really not have missed much.

Because of that, Mass Effect 3 seems rushed and it doesn’t make use of the decisions you’ve made up to that point at all well. The combat is fine, but it gets very repetitive over the course of the game. The characters aren’t as much fun as I remember either, especially Liara who is just kind of emotionless most of the time. And EDI the fembot is just straight up embarrassing.

It’s probably just because other games have got better over the years but while I’d welcome a new Mass Effect I’m not sure the old ones are as good as people make out anymore.
Jeffo

Nintendo exclusive
My hope for the Nintendo Direct is another exclusive GTA game. There’s been some mention of Chinatown Wars recently, which originally was a DS exclusive, and I’d love to see Rockstar do something like that again. Or just anything unique for Nintendo, who they seem to respect.

GTA 6 is never going to work on the Switch 2 – I’d be surprised if it worked well on the Xbox Series S – but Switch 2 is almost certainly going to be the biggest format of the generation, so wouldn’t you want to support it in some way? Even just as a way to direct people towards GTA 6 on other formats.

I’d love to see a new top-down game or failing that some kind of spin-off, maybe based on the mini-games where you’re driving ambulances and taxis and so on. It could be like Crazy Taxi but set in the GTA universe. Probably not that likely, but that’s my idea.
Korey

ALSO READ Get Crash Team Racing and the Crash Bandicoot N Sane Trilogy for just £45

Open goal
I really hope that rumour about a new Castlevania is true. It really is baffling to me that Konami went all in on Silent Hill, which has never been a big seller, and we’ve so far had nothing for Castlevania except a few retro compilations. It all seems backwards, given Metal Gear has only had the one remake announced, and again a few compilations.

I’d have to go along with the majority and say that FromSoftware would be the perfect people for the job, but I assume they won’t make it, since they don’t own the IP or anything. Unless it turns out Hidetaka Miyazaki is a superfan that’s always wanted to work on it, but I don’t remember him ever mentioning it.

For me, there’s no point keeping it 2D. The early games were only 2D because the tech wasn’t there and unlike Metroid they went 3D as soon as they could. Not that they were ever great games, but the intention was there and I’d like to see it carried out by a better team with a bigger budget.

It’s crazy how few big budget Metroidvanias there are, so this is a big chance to become the best out there and I would’ve thought Konami would jump at that chance.
Hammeriron

Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk

Romantic viewing
I am always amazing by game publishers that manage to spoil their own secrets. How hard can it be to check the embargo date for a trailer before it goes up? And yet we see this mistake again and again.

Oh well, at least we know that the State of Play must be very close, probably Valentine’s Day like the rumours say. Although I would imagine that if Metal Gear Solid Delta is going to be in the Direct then that means this rumour of Castlevania is not going to be revealed as well.

I do agree that seeing it at the Nintendo Direct in April seems very likely. I hope so, because a big budget new game is immensely overdue and I’d really like to see it. Even if the dream of FromSoftware doing it is almost certainly not going to happen.
Zeiss

Mixed reception
Always interesting to see when a big name game doesn’t get universal praise but I will say I never expected Civilization 7 to be one of them. Not surprised to see GC and Eurogamer (who really hated it) being amongst the lowest but IGN is interesting too. I really do think they’ve become a lot more reliable in recent years and are nowhere near the laughing stock they used to be.

ALSO READ Is Sony removing the DualShock’s light bar?

As usual with reviews like this, most of them actually seem to read the same but then end up giving the game a good score anyway. I know there’s a certain addictive quality to Civilization, that makes it hard to be completely awfu,l but the GameSpot review, for example, seems to accept all the criticisms and then just gives it 8/10 anyway.
Benjy Dog

Live evolution
I’m not sure what to make of the idea that publishers are starting to think of live service games as not something that lasts forever. I guess when even Apex Legends, which I think of as being relatively new, is six years old you do begin to wonder how long things can really last.

Even so, Fortnite is eight years old now and I doubt there is ever going to be a Fortnite 2. One of the many clever things Fortnite did is have a cartoonish art style, so there’s not really anything to improve in terms of graphics, beyond minor features, like ray-tracing, that most people would never notice.

For games less successful than that though it’s looking like 10 years is the maximum you can really last, without needing a major refresh. I just checked and Destiny 2 is also eight years old, so I think it’s obvious there really does need to be a Destiny 3. Although I doubt Sony will give Bungie the money to make that now.

So sometimes once you get to that 10 year mark I think companies are just going to give up and call it a day. Other times they’re going to want to give it a reboot. It’s not just tech though. I know I wouldn’t dream of playing Siege, given it’s been going on so long and it’s got all these weird niches and characters, so pressing reset to get more people involved makes sense to me.
Vyvyan

Things change
Shuntaro Furukawa: ‘Launching exclusive games for Nintendo Switch 2 is essential for its success.’

Phil Spencer: (singing away to himself) ‘Ooh eeh ooh ah ah, ting tang walla walla bing-bang. Ooh eeh… Sorry did he say something? I was miles away’
Stephen, Manchester

GC: To be fair, Phil Spencer did use to think that, back when he wanted all Bethesda games to be exclusives.

Superstar developer
To me, it seems obvious that Nintendo is going to have a brand new franchise (although it could involve existing characters like Mario) that uses the mouse controls as its main feature. Based on everything they’ve ever done I cannot imagine that they would add such an unusual option (at great expense, I would assume) without a solid idea of what to do with it.