The Wednesday letters page is resigned to the next generation being all about AI, as one reader wonders what happened to The Wolf Among Us 2.
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Bottom of the pops
Is it me or is modern video game music really boring? It’s very high quality but it all sounds like movie music and I never feel any of it is memorable. Very few game soundtracks feel like they were made for a game anymore, just its cut scenes at most.
It says something when the best soundtrack of recent years has been for the Final Fantasy 7 remakes, but they’re only memorable because they’re based on older tracks (although they are very well reimagined). Starfield was the only other one I can remember liking recently but although good it could easily just have been a movie soundtrack and you’d never know.
I miss the days when I could hum a video game tune and everyone would know what it is. I mean, what’s the theme tune for famous modern games like God Of War or Monster Hunter or whatever? Compare that to Halo and Metal Gear Solid and it’s no competition at all. I miss those days.
ChaosMR
PC in disguise
What I don’t understand about Microsoft’s new direction is why they think anyone’s going to invest in their ecosystem as they go multiformat and sideline their hardware plans. Xbox consoles are basically irrelevant now and the only other place Game Pass is available is on PC, so the number of people signing up to that and gamertags and whatever is going to shrink every year.
Sure, they may make you sign into an account, like Uplay+ and whatever, but that doesn’t mean anything and certainly hasn’t helped Ubisoft. If you’re a PC in a box you’re… just a PC. There’s nothing special about the hardware other than the logo on the case.
Xbox just is Activision Blizzard now, plus a few sidelines, and every new rumour and annoucement just seems to cement the fact that they’re purely a third party publisher.
Blastermaster
Welcome Crisis
I don’t want to excite anyone, but Capcom has apparently trademarked the name Dino Crisis again. I know that doesn’t necessarily mean anything, and sometimes they have to do this just to keep the name, but now there’s hope that finally a dinosaur crisis could break out on modern consoles.
Like many, I’m hoping Capcom spend their Monster Hunter money on anything other than Monster Hunter and a new Dino Crisis would be my number one choice. I’ll take whatever I can get but personally I’d prefer a brand new game rather than a remake. I’ll take that but the original had quite a bit of dull puzzling that wasn’t actually that much fun, so I’d like to see a completely modern take, like the new Onimusha.
Flambe
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Too many and not enough
Interesting to read how few gamers finish games. I don’t think it’s down to having less time but that there’s so many games being released. You only have to look on the stores of all formats to see there’s hundreds of games being released every week. Admittedly a lot are dross but it’s still overwhelming. Then you have Game Pass and PlayStation Plus, where you have so many games that as soon as you start playing one you’re already thinking about the next one.
When I was gaming in the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s (that makes me feel old) games where few and far between, so we rinsed every last drop out of each game that we enjoyed. Makes me laugh that gamers now still moan that not enough games are coming out. I know they mean AAA games but hardly any are that now, as they’re released unfinished or broken, but there’s still lots of great indie games being released.
Rob
Lobo lives
I recently completed Detroit: Become Human and thoroughly enjoyed it (I realise I’m quite late to the party) and it got me thinking about all the Telltale games I played once upon a time.
I recently read an article about The Wolf Among Us saying that the second game would be out this year and was wondering if GC had heard anything about this, as I can’t find any other news about it?
Soloplayer36
GC: Last October, Telltale denied rumours that the sequel has been cancelled but they never said when it would be out or gave any indication of when we might find out more.
Fear the future
I fear that AI being the big new gimmick for the next gen Xbox and PlayStation is now inevitable. This is despite the fact that, as you say, there is no proof that it works, that it’s useful, or that it’s not all just a big scam.
I believe it’s possible that Sony is just experimenting and maybe only thinking of using it for specific purposes, like talking to characters, but I’m already convinced Microsoft thinks it’s going to make whole games with AI, even though that sounds like the worst idea ever.
AI cannot create anything new. It just regurgitates things that already exist. If you don’t like procedurally generated levels in roguelikes at the moment then you are going to hate AI generated games with random designs that never go anywhere, landscapes that don’t make any logical sense, and no proper exploration or secrets.
But hey, it’ll make Microsoft’s share price go up and I think we can all agree that’s the only thing that’s really important. (Until the share price then plummets, when they realise no one wants to pay for this stuff.)
Gordo
HD classic
I would love a HD-2D remake of Chrono Trigger. I agree that it’s a very underrated game, which is weird because at the same time everyone seems to agree that it’s also a total classic. So I’m not sure why it doesn’t get talked about more.
I realise the dream team wouldn’t be coming back to make it, but it is only a remake and they don’t necessarily have to change anything; just switch up the graphics, maybe add a few more anime cut scenes and that’s all you need. It’s a great game without any changes, you just need a gimmick to sell it to a new generation of fans.
Loman
Changing times
Just a few musings on recent news articles… Sony’s live service push was clearly a response to wider trends within Western gaming, where sales of many ‘normal’ games have been falling year-on-year. Anecdotally, it feels like the younger generation of gamers are attracted to live service titles with social elements as opposed to conventional games (despite my best efforts to foist my interests on my young family members…).
This shift in the Western market is being offset by the rise of PC gaming in China, hence Sony and Microsoft’s interests in that platform: if games are selling less on console, a PC version becomes more of a necessity. It also explains Sony’s recent moves to cosy up to new third party studios in East Asia. Nintendo are insulated against this to a degree by their super strong brand, particularly in their home country where they reign supreme (and PlayStation haven’t made much of a dent since the PSP/PlayStation 3 era).
Where does that leave us old, grizzled gamers who have been here since the Xbox 360 era*? Well, there’s still loads of good games out there but the times they are a changin’ it seems, with even big name studios one perceived flop away from closure. I hope us old timers are still a worthwhile target market for a few years yet, otherwise we’ll have to ‘get better’ as the kids say, at these online games.
Magnumstache
*Just kidding. I had PlayStation 3.
GC: ‘Sales of many ‘normal’ games have been falling year-on-year’ is a pretty vague statement, it depends what you’re referring to exactly.
Inbox also-rans
What a weird story about the SNES running faster as it gets older. I can’t say I’ve had the same problem. Maybe if we wait long ago all those Xbox 360 games with terrible screen tearing will suddenly start running without any problems.
Gordolf
I realise we don’t know the cost of this supposed Xbox handheld but I think the point many people are overlooking is that these things are always £500+. There’s a reason the Steam Deck has only sold a few million and it’s the ridiculous price.
Korbie
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