Darksiders III reaction, Titanfall 2 free-for-all, Nintendo Switch

Horsing around

After watching the Darksiders III trailer I’m surprised Gunfire Games didn’t take the opportunity to retcon out Vigil’s bizarre decision to rename Famine and Pestilence. Instead we are left with a game featuring that famed horse rider of the Apocalypse, Fury (the other one is Strife).

The series has always seemed weirdly reluctant to make full use of the cool premise of the Four Horsemen battling against Heaven and Hell. Darksiders II was set largely in a fairly generic fantasy world with the Apocalypse pushed into the background and Death portrayed as an elite warrior rather than the actual Grim Reaper.

I don’t know if they’re just worried about stirring up religious controversy, but I can’t help but feel the setting would be more interesting if it went deeper into the Book of Revelation inspirations.
TGN Professor

GC: It’s almost certainly the religious aspect, particularly with regards to the American market. As you imply, we can’t help but feel they would’ve been better off making up their own fantasy universe from scratch.

Stuck in time

Hooray!

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been playing through Darksiders, having enjoyed the sequel a few years ago. I was just thinking about what they could do for a third entry then saw the news about the new game which is great. Although watching the IGN reveal trailer I’m a little disappointed to see that the story doesn’t seem to have moved on at all.

Darksiders has you as War trying to clear your name. Darksiders II has you as Death in a concurrent story to the first game – trying to clear War’s name. The trailer for Darksiders III starts with War in chains, so it looks like his name is still not cleared yet?! Don’t tell me Fury now has to clear his name!

I was also thinking the format might have changed slightly. It’s probably a bit ambitions for a smaller studio (assuming Gunfire Games are smaller studio compared to a company like Bungie) but maybe they could have or will do something like a four-player co-op where you each play one of the horsemen and have to take on Destiny style raid dungeons. Anyway, can’t wait to hear a bit more info.

If Darksiders III does OK, it’s pretty certain we’ll eventually get a fourth staring Strife but let’s just hope it’s not all about clearing War’s name again!
PsillyPseudonym (PsillySeudonym – gamertag)

GC: According to IGN it’s ‘set around the same time as the events of Darksiders II’, so we think you’re right. It certainly doesn’t look like War’s name has been cleared in the trailer.

Big impression

Can I just say what a wonderfully creepy game Little Nightmares is. I think walking through the dark with all the mannequins around toward the end was great/nerve racking!

But I’d also like to draw people’s attention to the PS Store, where, if like me, you were happy with the news of a third Darksiders game there is a bundle of both remastered games for £16. Which considering it’s £16 for the first one alone is pretty good!
Liam

Furniture land

Thank god Bethesda chose to release a Prey demo, indeed. Wanted to write in to defend against Phil’s point. I was always planning on getting Prey based on the premise, alone but was probably going to wait for some sales first.

After playing the demo on hard difficulty I was not disappointed by the previews suggesting it was ‘a thinking man’s game’, which is undoubtedly a dig at the Call Of Duty crowd. It was a challenge of nerve and mind, like a cross between Garry’s Mod prop hunt and The Thing. I raised my wrench against any and all mugs and chairs. Playing with headphones on, even mop buckets I knew were black spiders made me touch cloth because of that damn music sting!

After multiple playthroughs of the demo I now have a good idea of what skill trees to level up (hacking seems like a very useful starting point) and have now pre-ordered the game (£40 on Amazon Prime). Really looking forward to exploring the rest of the game and I hope it’s not too short. And I’m really glad Bethesda decided to release a demo.

They got extra money out of me by doing so, as the demo convinced me to buy as soon as possible because it is so different from the majority of other first person shooters available now. I never got round to playing Dishonored 2, so I can’t comment how much of a clone Prey may be to it but I like Arkane and hope they do well. Beware the chair!
Stretchy Grunt

The second year

I’m seriously beginning to wonder whether the Nintendo Switch could be a hit on the scale of the Wii. Every time we hear a new story about it the situation seems even more positive than before. And despite what it seemed like before launch I think the release schedule is working out pretty well, with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe clearly off to a great start and Splatoon 2 likely to do very well too. I’m not so sure about ARMS, but I’m beginning to think it won’t be ignored as others were predicting a few months ago.

But of course with E3 approaching it only makes me wonder more about what Nintendo has coming up next. Super Mario Odyssey should be the perfect way to end the year but what about after that? We know about literally nothing at the moment and they’ve already used up all their biggest franchises: Zelda, Mario Kart 8, and Super Mario. If Nintendo think they can follow that up with second-stringers like Pikmin and Kirby then I would’ve hoped they’d learned their lesson by now.

Maybe a new Metroid, since it’s been so long since we’ve had a proper one, but they need to keep with the new franchises. Splatoon worked out great and ARMS might do too. That’s what we need more of, not diminishing returns with a new Donkey Kong and a new Star Fox, until they get down to franchises not even their biggest fans care about. The Switch in 2017 seems to be working out great but it’s the Switch in 2018 I’m worried about now.
Goose

You get what you pay for

Well, I just bought one of them retro game controllers from Argos with 200 games on it (you know the one where it’s in the shape of a joypad the size of a matchbox, priced at a tenner). However, I wasn’t expecting much for the price. Unfortunately, I will never know because my two-year-old LG 4K UHD smart telly hasn’t got the phono plugs to plug the game controller in so I can play it.

Now I not what you’re all going to say – why didn’t you go and get a converter to play the Damon thing? So off I went to my local Maplin store, only to be told it would cost me around £50 to buy a converter so I can see it on my screen. Or go and buy a new telly with the phono jacks already built into it. I wouldn’t mind but the whole gaming box only cost me a tenner in the first place.

So my question is how do other people manage to have all these other retro gaming devices like your new retro Ataris, Mega Drive, and the Nintendo gadgets to work on their tellies, because mines at least two-years-old now and surely any newer telly made after mine is just not compatible for these latest retro-crazed gaming devices to be played on due to the phono plugs.
JAH

GC: We don’t know about the others but the NES Mini uses a HDMI cable. We assume you bought this, but it doesn’t seem to contain any real retro games – just a bunch of cheapo Flash games (there’s a PDF list here).

Oldest school

All this talk of remasters from gaz be rotten has got me thinking. I’d like to see much older games put onto games consoles, ones that were invented long before video games.

When I was growing up in Mevagissey many years ago my mates and I used to enjoy a jolly game of Poohsticks. I sure that some sort of video game could be made out of that.

Here’s hoping for some Inbox magic
The Dark Fud

Catch up on every previous Games Inbox here

Making the list

I have just finished playing Titanfall 2 and although it’s a great game, it doesn’t quite beat the other multiplayer shooters I’ve played in recent years.

My list goes in reverse order:
4. Titanfall 2
3. Overwatch
2. Star Wars: Battlefront (controversial!)
1. Splatoon (of course)

I’ve got a feeling not everyone will agree with that list. One thing I’ve noticed in all four games is the lack of emphasis or downright absence of a free-for-all mode. Titanfall 2 obviously has one, but the wait for a match was 10 times longer than the team modes – making it very unappealing to actually play. Free-for-all used to be the only game in town, with several different variants, but slowly it is being wiped out by team modes/games.

It seems a real shame as I am naturally a lone wolf player and free-for-all is a much more fitting mode for me to play. Not that I don’t enjoy team games at all, with Splatoon my favourite game ever, but I miss the more cutthroat and chaotic play of having everyone out to get you. Free-for-all is something I’d love to see as an option in Splatoon 2, I’m sure they could find a way to make it work.
Ryan O’D
PS: I know some would cry foul that they weren’t included already, but I hope they release new DLC tracks for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

Inbox also-rans

What’s everyone assuming Bethesda’s two new games at E3 are? Wolfenstein must be one of them, but what’s the other? The Evil Within 2 by the sound of the rumours I’d say.
Ollie

Do you know what Link’s favourite song is? A Good Heart These Days Is Hard To Find by Feargal Sharkey.
DMR

This week’s Hot Topic

The subject for this weekend’s Inbox was suggested by reader Steiner, who asks how much money do you spend on gaming a month?

Do you have a specific budget that you stick to, or some other kind of system to make sure you don’t spend too much at once? What do you do when multiple games come out at the same time? And do you try and have money in reserve for the launch of new consoles and other hardware?

What percentage of your games do you buy for full price and how much do you take advantage of sales? Do you resell your games or buy second-hand, and how are your habits changing as digital downloads become more prominent?