The Wednesday letters page suggests making a Tomb Raider survival horror game, as one reader looks forward to the summer’s indie line-up.
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Almost recommended
I just wanted to give my verdict on Concord, after having played it at the weekend and into Monday. I’d say I broadly agreed with GC’s review, although not necessarily in terms of which characters were my favourite. I hated all the alien ones, so I’m glad there’s not more, and actually found Haymar to be a lot of fun.
Clearly the game is not original, or even trying to be, but I think it’s a bit pointless to concentrate on that, given the state of most other games and sequels. I guess it’s extra disappointing when a brand new franchise just straight-up copies something but even then this is still more imaginative, within its limits, than Valorant or XDefiant.
For me, the question is how good is good enough? The game is enjoyable and well-made but at the same time it’s not a world beater. If it was free that wouldn’t be a problem but it’s not, so then you’ve got to decide if it’s worth playing and worth both the money and time investment. Even as someone that enjoyed it at the weekend I’m not sure.
The beta may actually have been too generous, as now I’ve played all the characters I’m not sure what I’m looking forward to from the main game. The story? Not so much. I think Sony has still got a big job ahead of them, trying to sell it.
Freddy
Friends of Rockstar
I see there’s some rumours about GTA+ coming to Switch but what do people think this could actually mean? With these sorts of things it’s always the boring answer, so it’s probably just because Red Dead Redemption is on Switch, but what if this was Rockstar getting ready for the Switch 2?
I can’t see any scenario where GTA 6 could possibly work on the new console but what if Rockstar were making something new for Nintendo, like they did with Chinatown Wars? Or maybe they’ve got a version of GTA 5 working on it? It’s still basically an Xbox 360 game, so it’s not as if it should be a problem.
Rockstar get on better with Nintendo than I think some people realise, so I’d be keen to see them try and team-up again.
Waffle
Full horror
I see Lara Croft is now in Dead By Daylight, which seems a bit odd to me, as none of her games have been survival horrors. There was a bit of it in the first reboot, and I guess there was tense elements in even the early games, but it does seem odd to me that she’s constantly associated with horror stuff but none of her games really go for it.
I know the original version of the reboot was much more explicitly a horror game, that got diluted down to what we got, but if people are so keen on the idea, then maybe it is time to go for a full fat survival horror? It would certainly make more sense to turn Tomb Raider into that than the ultra violent stealth/shooter game that the last trilogy became.
Stuffy
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Surprise hit
There might not be any big name games out at the moment but it’s a pretty good time for indies at the moment, to judge by GC’s reviews of Gestalt: Steam & Cinder and SCHiM – both of which look interesting to me. I’m also optimistic for Dungeons Of Hinterberg, Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure, and Thrasher. I’m guessing GC will review these as well.
Hopefully there’s a lot of others I don’t know about yet, as I find one of the pleasures of indie games is that they suddenly come out of nowhere and they’re amazing and weird. I certainly never would’ve imagined that Balatro would become of my favourite games of the year and yet I was obsessed with it for months. Here’s hoping 2024 has more independent surprises in store.
Ishi
GC: We should be reviewing those, yes.
Internet detective
To add to the rumour mill, and I know you’re gonna love this absurd addition to my theory regarding ‘Who is Emio?’
Referring once again to the trailer, it’s blatantly obvious the reason our paper bag-wearing enigma is hiding one hand behind their back is to conceal the game’s unique selling point.
Nintendo’s Vitality Sensor, which will play the important part of cracking the case in this whodunnit murder mystery.
You can lie, but you can’t hide.
Bad Edit
GC: To be serious for a moment, the latest rumours suggest it may be part of the Famicom Detective Club series and not necessarily anything to do with Bloober Team.
Unsteady studios
I’ve seen some rumours, that were probably made-up, that Rocksteady is planning to reuse some of the stuff from Suicide Squad to make a new game where this time you’re playing as the Justice League trying to make it up to people. It’s good that the first step isn’t just to shut down the studio, but I just can’t see it working.
I didn’t like anything about Suicide Squad: not the gameplay, not the visuals, and not the story or the way they did the characters. I don’t know if Rocksteady have just lost interest in the DC universe now or if too many of the original crew have left now but this was almost unrecognisable from the Batman games they used to make.
In my opinion, the sensible decision would be to let them make their own new and original game but the problem with budgets and everything today is that even if Warner wanted them too its such a massive risk. Now Rocksteady is trapped making lame comic book games, that they don’t seem into anymore, until they eventually get shut down. It’s a real shame.
Onion Knight
This time it’s war
Aliens: Dark Descent on the PlayStation 5 is on sale at the moment.
I re-read your review from last year, in which you said it had a lot of bugs, but the PlayStation 5 version may be better.
Would you score it higher now? I’m assuming a lot of the bugs have been ironed out now, but I doubt they have had added more dialogue and music to the game.
Rave
GC: We haven’t played it since launch, but we understand from others that the bugs have been fixed. Even if they hadn’t it’s worth it in a sale, especially if you’re an Aliens fan.
Serious choices
I’m not sure how serious people were being when they said that they hoped there’d be a new Marvel Vs. Capcom but with the new compilation and Marvel movies ramping up again I don’t think there’s been a better chance in years, assuming we hand wave away any legal complications from Sony, until we know better.
So, what are people’s serious hopes and expectations of new characters? Multiple Fantastic Four characters are a given, with that film coming up, but I don’t know how many new X-Men they’d have, beyond the legacy ones, because it’s going to be a couple of years before Marvel gets into that (I think there’s a reveal expected at Comic-Con for their film slate?).
I think we’d probably also get Doctor Strange, Miles Morales, Loki, maybe Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, Moon Knight, and Scarlet Witch. But who knows, because Capcom loves to pick some really obscure characters. I have no idea where Shuma-Gorath came from in the original – he’s an interdimensional god not a little green octopus guy!
As for the Capcom side of things, I think Lady Dimitrescu is a shoe-in, as well as one or two new characters from Street Fighter 6, which sadly probably includes Luke. There’d probably be a Monster Hunter avatar (can’t believe there wasn’t one in Infinite) and then I’d like to see Gene from God Hand and Falco from Power Stone (guess we better have Squirrel Girl from Marvel as well, for GC, even though I don’t know who she is).
I’d like to see some other obscure Capcom picks too, like old school Bionic Commando and Regina from Dino Crisis. Then get really obscure like someone from Knights Of The Round or Forbidden Worlds. I always loved these games and the more obscure the characters the better.
Sagat
GC: A monster hunter was added as DLC after launch.
Inbox also-rans
The Sims is one of those franchise I wish another company owned. I used to love that game but EA has been so terrible controlling it, I’m not surprised to learn that The Sims 5 is having problems.
Cora
John Bercow in Fallout London? Suddenly, I really, really wish I had a gaming PC. Like the other reader said, what are Bethesda going to do if this ends up being better than the official games? It’s not like Fallout 4 was great to begin with.
Wombat
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