The Wednesday letters page is unsurprised by Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ mostly good reviews, as one reader hopes for Xenoblade Chronicles X-2.
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Weekly quota
I’ve a question I don’t see asked much and that’s how many hours a week people play video games and what they think is healthy? I read today that the average is 8.6 hours, which is about 1.2 hours a day, and that seems to me to be reasonably okay. It’s a lot but I don’t think it’s unreasonable, especially compared to how long most people spend watching TV or looking at their phones.
But that’s the average and when you start to get above those numbers, I think it starts to become more worrying. I’d certainly feel things were getting out of control if I was playing 15 or 20 hours a week. But to be honest, I don’t really know, as I don’t tend to time myself.
So just interested to know if people have limits they impose on themselves? Or if you just play as much as you can? As someone with teenage kids I definitely have more spare time than I used to, but I’m not sure sitting around playing video games is a very good example to be setting.
Gonch
No more, no less
So Assassin’s Creed Shadows seems to have turned out exactly how I expected, and how I imagine most sensible people expected: more or less the same as usual but with a few little tweaks and extras to give it an illusion of change. I’m not saying that as a big negative, just an observation, as it’s no doubt better than a lot of sequels.
What I didn’t expect was the unanimous praise for the graphics, so that’s actually got my interest piqued a bit. There’s no way I’m paying full price for it, because we all know what happens to Ubisoft games after a few months, but I’ll probably get it sooner than I was intending.
As for whether this will save Ubisoft… the last suggestion was that it had to do really well and I’m not sure if these good but not mind-blowing reviews are going to help it achieve that. I hope so though, the last thing we need is even less publishers in the world.
Focus
Reputation repair
I really do think the GameCube is a very underrated console. The two reasons it always gets looked down on are that it’s the only console to ever be outsold by an Xbox (just) and the Mario, Zelda, and Mario Kart games for it were not great. But everything else was.
Metroid Prime is just as perfect as Super Metroid, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door hasn’t aged a day, F-Zero GX is still my favourite racing game, and Resident Evil 4 was a revelation at the time. I also like Billy Hatcher And The Giant Egg.
I’m not saying it’s the best console ever or anything but some of its games are amongst the best things Nintendo has ever done and I hope that will be remembered via the Switch 2.
Korbie
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Where the wolves are
As we all agree, graphics are much more important than gameplay. To this end, I recently picked up The Order: 1886 for a few quid and loaded it up on PS4 Pro. My goodness, it’s still very pretty. Those graphics absolutely smack you in the face and I’m not sure there are many current generation games that surpass it.
Jokes aside, they managed to make fighting werewolves extremely boring and the third person combat in general is a bit underwhelming, while I found the lovely graphics and setting to have some promise. I’m not sure who owns the IP but I wouldn’t be averse to seeing a studio like People Can Fly (who it was recently revealed have entered into an exclusive development agreement with PlayStation for… something) have a bash at bringing the gameplay up-to-speed with the visuals, as fighting werewolves should definitely be fun (also playing Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow on the Steam Deck, which supports this).
Magnumstache
GC: It’s a Sony first party game, so they own it. Original developer Ready at Dawn went bust last August.
Xenoblade Chronicles X-2
For anyone that hasn’t played it, I would 100% recommend Xenoblade Chronicles X, as I am one of the seemingly few that played it on the Wii U. GC are right to say that there’s disagreement amongst fans and a lot of people that like X don’t like the others and vice versa.
I think it’s because the numbered games are a lot more anime inspired, whereas X is a lot closer to hard sci-fi. Yes, the characters still manage to be anime cliches but what can you do? No game is good at everything. I still love the game and the exploration and combat is great, with tons of customisation options, lots of characters (more in the Switch version, it seems) and the good ole transforming robots.
Personally, I’d much rather see a sequel to X than a Xenoblade Chronicles 4 but I’m not very confident of that ever happening.
Goldie
Human cost
So there’s a lot to talk about. Firstly, I’ve had the inconvenience of finding out it’s probably not a good idea to buy a second-hand handheld. My OneXPlayer stopped working, after about a month of purchase. After an attempted reset I had no choice but to return it to CeX. Used the refund money to buy an ASUS ROG Ally X. Last time I ever use Utorrent, to torrent games. Lesson learned.
I’ve also had the distinct pleasure of waking up to see Assassin’s Creed Shadows meet my expectations and disappoint me. Of course it’d include a forgettable story. I experienced this very milquetoast feature with my playthrough of Avowed yesterday. But an 82 on Metacritic and I could see GC scoring it a 7/10 from a mile away. It was written in the clouds, because I’m foreseeing Ubisoft declaring bankruptcy very soon. If an 82 is the marginal best they can deliver us, after an abysmal 2024, it’s what they deserve.
On a brighter note, I’m exceptionally impressed by Death Stranding 2. I will be pre-ordering when Amazon decides that £69.99 is a ludicrous asking sum and lowers the price tag. Even Kojima isn’t worth that much. But for the love of Miquella, can Rockstar please hurry up and announce the second trailer for Grand Theft Auto 6? I expected a March release but it’s getting absurd at this point.
Shahzaib Sadiq
GC: Ubisoft employs over 18,000 people.
New start
I don’t think we’ll ever see another Half-Life or Portal game that isn’t either a tech demo or a multiplayer game or some other thing that is purposefully not want people want. It’s wrong to expect anything else really, because everyone that could have (or should have) been involved in making it is long since gone.
If they really are trying to make Half-Life 3 right now then who’s making it? Perhaps they’re talented people but there’s no guarantees and it’d be almost like Valve, as a developer, were starting from scratch, with their knowledge base and their reputation. If they announce anything I’d be interested but not optimistic.
Poisson
Track record
RE: Johnson and is anyone looking forward to Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. I’m very interested. Based both on the quality of Naughty Dog’s previous work but also the little we know of the game so far.
From Jak And Daxter and Crash Bandicoot to Uncharted and The Last Of Us (we’ll forget about Way Of The Warrior) Naughty Dog have demonstrated consistent top tier quality. I see no reason to think they couldn’t successfully try their hand at another type of game.
I also like the set-up. I love sci-fi, FromSoftware games, and games that have an air of loneliness. I’m prone to being melancholic to be honest.
So a sci-fi Souls game where you’re alone on an alien planet sounds fantastic to me.
I can understand the overused ‘80s retro future art style making some feel it’s unoriginal. But I remember when The Last Of Us trailer landed many said it looked like another zombie game but that turned out to be a milestone in gaming.
The title though, I agree, is a bit rubbish.
Simundo
Inbox also-rans
Imagine if GTA 6 went back to the top-down style of game the series started out as…
LeighDappa
Lego Pokémon? I think Nintendo and Lego would be able to buy a mint at that point and just print off the money straight from the source. Here’s hoping they make a Vanillite. I bet they don’t.
Bosley
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The small print
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