Games Inbox: Cyberpunk 2077 on a base PS4, Balan Wonderworld demo impressions, and Wolfenstein 3

Cyberpunk 2077 – has it got better? (pic: CD Projekt)

The Monday Inbox wonders what will be the next big budget Marvel video game, as one reader really doesn’t like Kentucky Route Zero.

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

Mid-table mediocrity
Not too surprised to see Cyberpunk 2077 occupying the middle of the table in the Readers’ Top 20 of 2020 at the weekend. No one would’ve predicted that just a few months ago, but it’s actually not too bad considering all the bad press it’s had.

Personally, I can’t say anything about its quality as I haven’t played it yet, as I decided the best thing to do was wait for the PlayStation 5 version when I found out about all the problems. Obviously, that’s now become a longer wait than I originally expected, in terms of getting hold of both the console and the delay of the dedicated next gen versions.

So I just wondered what readers could say about how the game is performing on a base PlayStation 4, which I do have. I’ve read about the recent patches and while they seem to help it still sounds like the games run pretty badly and I still think I’m right to wait. It’s just at this point I’ll be waiting another six months!
Lumpy

The Old Order
Like many others I’ve been getting through my backlog whilst in lockdown and have finally got round to playing/finishing Wolfenstein: The New Order, after buying it pre-owned years ago. At first I thought the gameplay felt dated, with it being from 2014, but after two chapters I was hooked!

The story is great, it’s got me interested in WWII for the first time since school and the learning curve of the game is excellent. I’ve now just bought the other three Wolfenstein games for the PlayStation 4, so my backlog isn’t going anywhere!
Lizardpudlian
PS: Any news on Wolfenstein 3, GC? Not much online since 2018 but Bethesda were certain the trilogy would be brought to a conclusion.

GC: There’s been nothing. MachineGames are working on the new Indiana Jones game now, so that probably means it’s not going to be out for a long while yet – if at all.

Avenging the Avengers
Glad to see that Crystal Dynamics have already started on a new Tomb Raider game. After the disaster that Avengers has turned into I was worried for them, as developers have been shut down for far less in the past.

It makes me wonder what the future for other Marvel games is though. This was the first one not by Sony and it’s gone down like a lead balloon, even though the game itself – if it had been just single-player – was actually pretty good. So I guess that means the first prediction will be that no more stupid games as a service games.

Another problem for the Avengers game though was that it didn’t have its own look and feel. The Spider-Man games are pretty different from the movies, so they don’t look like they’re trying to copy them. Avengers did though and if there’s going to be anymore like it then it has to have its own identity. That’s why Ms. Marvel worked so well, because she was unique and couldn’t be compared to the films.

I imagine Square Enix will want to dump the Avengers as soon as possible, even if Disney doesn’t want to cut ties first, but who else will get more licences? Will Microsoft try to get in on the action or will Sony cut them out and try to make everything Marvel a PlayStation exclusive?
Wamde

E-mail your comments to: gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk

Almost zero
One person’s art is another person’s drivel. I have to say I think 70% of Kentucky Route Zero falls under the latter. The first two acts in particular feel really laborious, with what feels like endless reams of tedious text which don’t add up to much at all. Luckily, from Act 3 onwards the game picks up a little bit with a few magical moments that lift the whole experience and the art design throughout is nice.

The idea of participating in creating the details/backstories of the characters through your chosen dialogue is interesting but I don’t think it really makes for a compelling game. Your choices being insignificant to the outcome of the story makes the whole thing feel even less interactive than it already is. In the end I barely cared which dialogue option I chose as the characters were going to carry on obliviously anyway.

Personally, I wouldn’t encourage this extremely static artistic approach to games. Gaming’s strength is its interactivity. I want to directly interact with a story through gameplay and truly step into the world. Games like Inside, Journey, and even What Remains Of Edith Finch? work so well because their gameplay feeds into the story nourishing it in a way that wouldn’t be possible in any other artform.
Ryan O’D

Money back
While I don’t condone scalpers or buying from them, if you are going to buy a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X/S from eBay use the free trial of completesavings.co.uk cash back site to get 10% cash back on any eBay purchases.

They are affiliated with hundreds of retailers, such as Argos and PC World, but do have a £15 monthly subscription which you get back if you make one online purchase a month via their site.

I buy online all the time so always get my £15 back, plus 10% on all my purchases. Just don’t forget to cancel the free trial if you don’t intend to keep using the site. I used it to get £40 back on my Oculus Quest and you get the money back usually in 30 days.
DW

First impressions
So, I had a go of the Balan Wonderworld demo the other day. And while I can’t say it was one of my most anticipated games of the year, I was still intrigued by it. It had good pedigree, it looked imaginative and the trailer invokes Nights Into Dreams. All good things.

Then you play the thing. Now, I’ll not go so far as Nintendo Life who have called it outright bad – it’ just simply boring and meh. I still like its aesthetic and upbeat vibe, but the controls are awful. I can’t remember playing a platformer, 2D or 3D, that handled this poorly. Your character feels so wooden, movement feels like you’re running through cold porridge. And the jumping, no matter your costume, is laughably bad. Plus, why is every face button jump? It means, that when you turn into the dragon whose main ability is a fireball you suddenly can’t jump! What have you been smoking, Yuji Naka?!

Now, later levels could impress, as the farm level was uninspired. Mafia Island back in A Hat In Time was also the weakest part of that game. But Hat In Time still made a much better first impression than this! So did Psychonauts. So did Sonic Adventure. 1 and 2! So did Sonic Heroes for goodness sake! In fact, the game will be doing very well if it ends up being better than Sonic Forces. Yeah, I went there!

Credit to them for putting out this demo but it’s probably going to hurt sales. There’s what? Just a couple of months before release? It’s looking a lot like turkey…
DMR

Boss choices
A heads up to anyone who missed it: Radio 3 featured boss music as a theme on their Sound of Gaming programme. They picked some excellent choices too (God Of War, Shadow Of The Colossus, The Legend of Zelda) and conducted an interview with Stuart Chatwood, the composer for Darkest Dungeon and Prince Of Persia. Well worth a listen on the BBC website.

Next Saturday’s episode is on music in platform games, with an interview with Celeste’s composer, Lena Raine.
Stolos

More: Games Inbox

Weekend Hot Topic, part 2: GameCentral Readers' Top 20 of 2020

Weekend Hot Topic, part 1: GameCentral Readers' Top 20 of 2020

Games Inbox: Will the PS5 be back in stock in February?

Stage five: acceptance
I’ve made my peace with the PlayStation 5 stock shortages and have accepted I will get one when I’m able to get one. I’ve been undecided to go for the digital or disc version. I think it will be the digital version because of game sharing with my nephew, so we can pick up on the gaming sessions we used to have when I had an Xbox like him.

I will give my nephew my PS4 Pro and hopefully get him a PlayStation 5 at Christmas. If I keep the Pro as my primary console as any account on it can play the games from my account without my account needing to be logged in on it. As my PlayStation 5 won’t be my primary console for my account, I will need to be logged in on my account to play but game sharing allows both of us to play the game simultaneously, like having two disc copies of the game. We will both need PS Plus to play online though.

I’ve got 372 PlayStation 4 games, two are on disc so the disc drive is already pretty much redundant to me. But still, I have a reluctance to part with the drive as it means all your purchases are through the digital store. But the PSN store is very good for sales and I will be making all my purchases digital for game sharing so the drive will not be used at all. I’m not a movie or TV buff, so happy to consume that content digitally also.

For better or worse, only time will tell I guess, I will be 100% digital. But as Cyberpunk 2077 has sold 10 million digital copies already I guess digital has probably already tipped over to being the majority share of game sales.
Simundo

Inbox also-rans
Did your Cyber Shadow review copy not come in yet?
Mexx 42

GC: It did not, no. We’ll see if we can just buy ourselves a copy, but it may have missed its chance now.

I really hope Japan gets its coronavirus vaccines sorted out soon. Nintendo need to get back in the office or they’ll never get anything done!
Gofer

This week’s Hot Topic
The subject for this weekend’s Inbox was suggested by reader Gannet, who asks what is your favourite video game genre and how do you hope it will evolve in the new generation?

What do you traditionally consider to be your favourite genre and why? Which games do you think are the best examples and how do they compare to other famous entries in the genre?

How did your favourite genre fare in the previous generation and does it seem to be getting more or less popular at the moment? What do you hope for in the new generation and have any games in the genre been announced or released yet?

E-mail your comments to: gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk

The small print
New Inbox updates appear every weekday morning, with special Hot Topic Inboxes at the weekend. Readers’ letters are used on merit and may be edited for length.

You can also submit your own 500 to 600-word Reader’s Feature at any time, which if used will be shown in the next available weekend slot.

You can also leave your comments below and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.

MORE : Weekend Hot Topic, part 1: GameCentral Readers' Top 20 of 2020

MORE : Weekend Hot Topic, part 2: GameCentral Readers’ Top 20 of 2020

MORE : Games Inbox: PS5 stock in February, Joanna Lumley as Lara Croft, and Xbox Series X love

Follow Metro Gaming on Twitter and email us at gamecentral@metro.co.uk

For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.

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Weekend Hot Topic, part 2: GameCentral Readers’ Top 20 of 2020

The Last Of Us Part 2 – game of the year? (pic: Sony)

The annual readers vote for the best games of the last year chooses between greats such as Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Hades.

Although we’ve already revealed what we think are the best games of 2020 we always make sure to give readers a chance to vote for their favourites and the chart you see below is the end result of all the emails we’ve received during the course of the week.

The top three were easy enough to predict, even if the order they’d appear wasn’t, while Ghost Of Tsushima was the highest polling game to appear in the reader chart but not ours.

Readers’ Top 20 – 2020

1. The Last Of Us Part 2 (PS4)
2. Final Fantasy 7 Remake (PS4)
3. Animal Crossing: New Horizons (NS)
4. Hades (NS/PC)
5. Ghost Of Tsushima (PS4)
6. Astro’s Playroom (PS5)
7. Demon’s Souls (PS5)
8. Immortals Fenyx Rising (XO/PS4/NS/XSX/PS5/PC/Stadia)
9. Doom Eternal (XO/PS4/NS/PC)
10. Star Wars: Squadrons (XO/PS4/PC)
11. Cyberpunk 2077 (XO/PS4/PC)
12. Ori And The Will Of The Wisps (XO/NS/XSX/PC)
13. Spider-Man: Miles Morales (PS4/PS5)
14. Streets Of Rage 4 (XO/PS4/NS/PC)
15. Horace (NS/PC)
16. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (XO/PS4/NS/XSX/PS5/PC/Stadia)
17. Wasteland 3 (XO/PS4/PC)
18. Paper Mario: The Origami King (NS)
19. Half-Life: Alyx (PC VR)
20. Lonely Mountains: Downhill (XO/PS4/NS/PC)

Standout release
I’m sure that most would view the last year as a nightmare, but in amongst wading through some of my gaming backlog, it did have a few good new games that helped get me and my family through lockdown.

The game that stood out most to me last year was The Last Of Us Part 2. While it was perhaps a tad long, with several false endings, it had a fantastic story and several good set pieces, with well voiced characters that let you see both sides of the story. While the gameplay wasn’t revolutionary it was very good and it looked absolutely stunning on the ageing PlayStation 4. I can’t wait to see what Naughty Dog do with the PlayStation 5 tech in the coming years.

I was lucky enough to get hold of a PlayStation 5 at launch and the free game, Astro’s Playroom, is a fantastic showcase of the console’s new features, and also a loving homage to PlayStation’s past. I played it with my son, and we both had a blast, and I pointed out the past consoles and franchises that have been a part of our lives for well over 20 years. The levels were well designed and there was a definite Nintendo feel about them, with lots of variety in the gameplay and loads of hidden secrets.

The third game that I’d mention is Spider-Man: Miles Morales, which is a much more focused game than the last Spider-Man, with a story that keeps you playing. The action is slick, and action-packed, with some cracking set pieces, and puzzles that add a sprinkle of variety to the proceedings. It also looks stunning on the PlayStation 5 in 4K, especially with the ray-tracing, which adds a lot to the reflections on the skyscrapers that you swing around.

I look forward to seeing what the next gen consoles can do this year, and I hope that more gamers get a chance to pick them up in the coming months, without paying ridiculous sums on eBay.
Cubes (PSN ID) and Cubes1 (Twitter)

Obvious choices
Picking my top three games of 2020 was easier than I expected. Not because I didn’t play a number of quality games that were released last year but because there were three that stood out ahead of the rest.

3. The Last Of Us Part 2

Whilst I think it should have been a little shorter, and I wasn’t comfortable with all of Ellie’s decisions, I still found The Last Of Us Part 2 to be a great experience. The gameplay is an improvement on the original and the graphics and voice-acting possibly the best ever. I am not sure if a Part 3 is necessary but if it had the same quality then I couldn’t say no.

2. Final Fantasy 7 Remake

This was my first ever Final Fantasy game and what an introduction it was. I loved the characters and the combat system is up there among the best I have played in a role-playing game. I was totally immersed from start to finish and can’t wait for the next instalment.

1. Animal Crossing: New Horizons

I have been a fan of Animal Crossing since the GameCube but New Horizons is easily the best. It doesn’t change much but refines everything and what it does add slots in perfectly to the existing gameplay loop. It would have been my favourite in any year I think but was the perfect escape from the troubles of 2020.
Pigfish2 (PSN ID)

2020’s playroom
My top three for 2020 are:

3) Immortals Fenyx Rising. OK, so it’s a pretty obvious Zelda: Breath Of the Wild rip-off, but it’s also an excellent game in its own right. The combat is enjoyable, the puzzles are varied and challenging, and I also found all the characters very entertaining. The sense of humour, though admittedly not to everyone’s taste, really amused me, and how it expanded on Greek myth was very inventive. Just a fun and underrated game.

2) Sakuna: Of Rice And Ruin. A bizarre mix of 2D dungeon crawler and farming sim shouldn’t work but what a combination they make. You must clear an island of demons in the dungeon sections and the only way to improve your character’s stats/levels is to grow more and better rice. Trust me, it makes sense in context. While neither section quite holds up on their own, the game is far more than the sum of its parts and if you like either of the genres it is definitely worth trying.

1) Astro’s Playroom. While it’s basically a glorified demo for the DualSense, it’s the most impressed I’ve been with how a game combines with technology since, well, the last Astro Bot game. The haptic feedback elevates everything of course, but it’s the little touches that make the game shine.

Seeing the bots as different Sony characters and unlocking hardware in the labo were the highlights but I played through it all with a huge grin on my face. Even the soundtrack is awesome and the GPU song is a work of genius. As a love letter to all things PlayStation, ASOBI Team have excelled themselves. Fingers crossed they will make a full sequel soon.
andy_b720 (PSN ID)

E-mail your comments to: gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk

Going rogue
My top three games of 2020 were:

1. Until You Fall (PSVR)
2. Immortals Fenyx Rising (PS5)
3. Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Switch)

I’ve struggled more this year than any other to decide my top three, mostly due to the fact almost all the games I completed in 2020 weren’t released during that year.

The above three represent the ones I had the most fun with and had the biggest impact on me.

Until You Fall is a roguelike (or roguelite, I’m not sure I know the difference) in VR. The visuals and soundtrack make this pop and the gameplay loop is both addictive and fun. A superb package that really left its mark on me.

Immortals Fenyx Rising wouldn’t have even been on my radar had it not been for the GC review. Thoroughly enjoyed this one through new year and beyond. I prefer it to Zelda: Breath Of The Wild due to the lack of annoying rain and coat wearing! The puzzles did get a little repetitive, but the bright colours and humour made it a joy to play and Apollo’s arrow was a real highlight.

Animal Crossing sneaks in here probably solely down to the timing of its release. It landed just after lockdown and the vibrant world it offered was a perfect contrast to the bleakness of the real world. I completed the story element over a couple of weeks and had I been more creative, I may have continued for much longer. The sheer scale of the customisation for your island was too overwhelming for me, but my slice of island life was a good tonic.

Keep up the great work GC.
Petersmiler

GC: Roguelites tend to have less harsh punishments for death, or be overall easier, than roguelikes.

Series best
My top 3 games of 2020 are:

1. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
2. Wasteland 3
3. Final Fantasy 7 Remake

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is, for me, the best in the series to date; prior to it I would’ve said Black Flag. I’ve always really enjoyed the Assassin’s Creed series, while I agree with its criticisms of being overly bloated with repetitive side content, and they’ve always struggled with how to open the games with long drawn out prologues lasting several hours. But they have been improving greatly since the first big break they took to develop Assassin’s Creed Origins, which really took several steps to refining the formula with less bloat and far more substantial side content.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, I felt, was too over-bloated again, although I did enjoy it. It had way too much side content, the world was way too big, it was a chore to traverse it and the levelling system meant grinding through a lot of the dull filler side missions in order to level up enough to continue the main story.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is much more refined. The world is sizeable but much less overwhelming than Odyssey. The levelling is much better and so is the side content. Gone are the rinse and repeat fortresses and bandit camps. In their place are mysteries which offer dozens of unique sub-stories featuring interesting characters with a lot of gameplay variety and they’re often very funny. You still raid big castles and monasteries, as you would expect given the Vikings setting, but they are held for big story moments and optional raids you can do to get materials to upgrade your equipment and settlement with.

Raids feel much more epic too, when you’ve got dozens of non-player character Viking allies fighting the Saxons with you in massive battles. The combat is really great and satisfying, with lots of cool moves to unlock with your skill points. I really like the story and the game has dozens of characters and I found them all likeable, especially Eivor the main protagonist. I played the game for over 60 hours and had a blast. I’m patiently awaiting the DLC.

Wasteland 3 really surprised me. I’m not typically a turn-based strategy fan but I tried Wasteland 3 because it’s on Game Pass and loved it. Perhaps a lot of it was to do with it’s something different for me and outside of my comfort zone, but I thoroughly enjoyed it throughout my 30+ hours playthrough. I found the game very funny, with lots of funny characters and factions. The combat is really well done and I found it pretty easy to get to grips with. Not to say the game isn’t challenging, a lot of encounters did take several attempts for me to get past. But it is easy to pick up, difficult to master.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake I thoroughly enjoyed. I do remember the original quite fondly, but I was too young to fully appreciate it at the time. I found myself way more invested in the story and characters in the remake and I felt like they did an excellent job fleshing the Midgard section of the story out into a full 35-40 hour game. I’m looking forward to part two when it eventually happens.
Big Angry Dad82 (gamertag)

Enjoyment not guaranteed
My top 3 games of 2020 were:

1) Hades (I played on PC): The combat just feels ‘right’, the characters are interesting and the progression loop is wonderful.

2) Hearthstone: Scholomance Academy expansion (iPad): Hearthstone is my most played game of all time. I had taken a break from it for a while but came back to it to it this year and it’s still as brilliant as ever.

3) The Last Of Us Part 2 (PS4): I’m not sure I enjoyed playing this game but I don’t think I was supposed to. The graphics, world building and motion capture were terrific and the story stayed with me for a long time after I completed it.

My honourable mentions of games I played in 2020 but were released earlier are:

a) Eleven Table Tennis (Oculus Quest 2): Like many people, I missed being in my office for work this year, where we are lucky enough to have a table tennis table. Eleven Table Tennis is incredibly lifelike and a brilliant substitute to lunchtime table tennis games.

b) The Outer Wilds (Xbox One): I don’t normally like this type of game, but this turned out to be one of my favourite games of all time. The design is so clever – I have enormous admiration for the people that thought of it.

c) Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (Xbox Series S): The best Star Wars game I’ve played for a long, long time.
IgnatiusOReilly (gamertag)

Soundtrack of the year
The list of new games released in 2020 I wanted to play but didn’t have the time to is pretty substantial. The list of new games released in 2020 I actually did play is about half a dozen games, so this should be an easy list to compile.

3. Superliminal

There’s enough puzzle games out there that owe a debt to Portal that they could easily be a sub-genre in their own right and Superliminal, released on the Switch in July, is probably the most Portal-like of all the Portal-inspired puzzle games. It’s a first person puzzle game divided up into various test chambers, there’s a slightly sarcastic disembodied voice that occasionally chimes in with comments about your progress, and occasionally you can see behind the curtain as you start to escape the test chambers and see the inner workings of the facility you are in.

So far, so Portal, but that description really doesn’t do this game justice. The game bases its puzzles around the idea of optical illusions and forced perspective – does this object appear to be big because it is small but really close to me, or it is far away and genuinely large? Each puzzle is pitched perfectly in terms of difficulty, so that I was never really stuck for too long but still felt that lightbulb moment when the solution came to me.

My only real gripe was that the game could have been longer – I finished it in around three hours but felt that the concept could have been expanded a little more. And just in case you miss the point that the developers were trying to make throughout, the game will handily spend the last 10 minutes spelling it out for you, which was a bit weird but still quite nice.

2. Paradise Killer

I’m not a fan of X + Y descriptions of games but the short version of this is that it resembles what you would get if Suda51 made a Danganronpa game. That either sells you instantly or this game isn’t for you. It’s a game set in a pocket universe in which humans are kidnapped and taken to an island and forced to worship the Old Gods but by doing so open the island up to demonic invasion, thus necessitating the creation of a new island. On the eve of the birth of the final, perfect island, the ruling council are all murdered and you, the player character, are brought back from your exile to investigate. The backstory isn’t strictly necessary though as you are here to simply investigate a murder.

The overwhelming majority of the game involves walking around the island, looking for clues and talking to its various inhabitants, all weird and wonderful characters. It’s an open world investigation game so right from the start you are free to wander off in any direction, look for clues and talk to people in any order you wish. Regardless of how much investigation you have completed or evidence gained, you can begin the final trial at any point you like and accuse whoever you wish. Will you accuse and convict the right people? Can you get to the truth? Is there even an objective truth to be had?

The great strength of the game comes from the fact that it holds up despite allowing you to do things in any order you want – a lot of time has obviously gone into making sure that the conversation trees make sense and that the game can be finished at any point, which is staggering when you consider that the dev team is remarkably small. It also has the second best soundtrack of any game I played this year.

1. Hades

Quick: think of a way in which you could improve Hades. You can’t, because it can’t be improved upon. The 1.0 release of Hades seems like the culmination of not only the two years it spent in early access but also the culmination of everything Supergiant have been trying to accomplish with their previous games. It’s a roguelike but removes everything that annoys me about roguelikes. Each death, and there will be many, allows you to keep your experience points so you can start your next run a little upgraded.

It’s a small thing but one which provides a tangible benefit to each run, unlike other games where you just hope you are getting better at understanding the mechanics. But each death also affords you a chance to speak to the many characters who inhabit the House of Hades and I started to look forward to returning just for a chat. There must be a point where you run out of new dialogue but so far I haven’t hit it.

There are enough weapons in Hades that all play differently to each other, but that all compliment the strengths and weaknesses of each other, to allow you to find a build that suits your preferred play style and in that regard it seems to be like a fighting game – choosing a new weapon is like choosing a new character to main.

Hades is the sort of game you play intending to do one run before bed but then realise it’s three in the morning and you have work tomorrow. It looks great and it plays great. It also has the best soundtrack of any game I played this year.
Eiichihoba (PSN ID)

Short answer
A Short Hike, Astro’s Playroom, and Horace. I’ve decided that the overly bloated games don’t get a vote this year.

It’s time to trim the excess fat developers (even you Nintendo)
Andee

More: Games Inbox

Weekend Hot Topic, part 1: GameCentral Readers' Top 20 of 2020

Games Inbox: Will the PS5 be back in stock in February?

Games Inbox: Will Destruction AllStars be the next big PS5 game?

A good year
The list of games I have given are games I have completed or attempted but still yet to finish. Tough choices really, as I mostly played previous years’ games for a lot of last year but here are my top three.

1. Final Fantasy 7 Remake

An absolute masterpiece in my eyes. Remaking this game and coming anywhere near the classic version seemed like mission impossible. But it certainly was given a blooming good remake all right, a dream remake really.

I rate this game very highly and it hits most of the original’s charm and really takes the story into an intriguing direction. Which leaves me guessing like mad as to what is in store for the next chapter in this epic masterpiece.

2. Ori And The Will Of The Wisps.

I did not play the first instalment of this enchanting game but decided to get the second for my laptop, which I don’t usually use for gaming much but this really tempted me for its fantasy fairy tale mystical charm. The Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night style gameplay, and the musical delights also, helped in my decision. I got the original soundtrack too and just had to see how this synchronised with the game’s story and gaming world’s mechanics.

It worked, and truly charmed me with its amazing creatures and life forms, also the clever level designs to challenge the player in very unique situations, with some amazing boss battles. The story is of a dream-like quality, and the sound and music just complement it so perfectly. Just simply wow.

3. The Last Of Us Part 2

Now this is a game which I still need to complete, I took longer than I should have to get past the first one of the series. Not the game’s fault, just so many other games to catch up on around the same time. But I am loving the brutal nature of this game and its compelling me to get back to it ASAP.

It’s quite an interesting game, with gamers loving it or being disappointed with it. Mainly the controversial storyline seems to split people. To me it’s no more controversial or hard hitting than a very good film or TV show. But I can see with the main protagonists development from the previous game and her mindset, it is quite a departure from the first game. By the time the second game starts you know Ellie has grown up to be tougher and meaner.

But the bloodthirsty world she’s in, it would toughen and psychologically change the persona and temperament of a lot of us also! It is a game to be respected and to question one’s self for sure. But to me, this is what I wanted and can’t wait to fight my way through this savage landscape to the bitter end.

So a good year in my gaming books and one to remember. Not as great as some years, but I don’t look too deeply into that aspect of it. What I played was amazing and 2021 looks to continue my gaming journey of a lifetime.
Alucard

E-mail your comments to: gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk

The small print
New Inbox updates appear every weekday morning, with special Hot Topic Inboxes at the weekend. Readers’ letters are used on merit and may be edited for length.

You can also submit your own 500 to 600-word Reader’s Feature at any time, which if used will be shown in the next available weekend slot.

You can also leave your comments below and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.

MORE : Weekend Hot Topic, part 1: GameCentral Readers' Top 20 of 2020

MORE : Games Inbox: PS5 stock in February, Joanna Lumley as Lara Croft, and Xbox Series X love

MORE : Games Inbox: Destruction AllStars on PS Plus, PS5 stock problems, and Wolfenstein 3 release date

Follow Metro Gaming on Twitter and email us at gamecentral@metro.co.uk

For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.

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Why I sold my PS5 to get an Xbox Series X – Reader’s Feature

PlayStation 5 – an expensive proposition (pic: Sony)

A reader explains how he got a PS5 at launch but later decided to sell it in order to get an Xbox Series X and Game Pass.

I hesitated writing this Reader’s Features because I didn’t want it to be mistaken for a stealth brag, that I had managed to get both consoles, and I also didn’t want it to look like I was stoking the flames of the console war, because although this is all about the decision to choose one format over another that decision was a difficult one precisely because both are very tempting systems.

This all started when I pre-ordered a PlayStation 5 last year and, to my surprise, managed to get one on day one. I know it’s not been anywhere near that simple for a lot of people, but it really is just the luck of the draw and even now I feel I probably should’ve been a bit more appreciative of it. Don’t get me wrong though, it is a great console. I love all the new features like the activity cards and the DualSense is amazing. In fact, the DualSense is one of the main reasons I wanted to keep the PlayStation 5.

Perhaps it was the ease of the console that made me question it more from the start but once it was all set up and I’d play through Astro’s Playroom (which is great) and started on Spider-Man: Miles Morales I realised that if I wanted to get Demon’s Souls as well it’d be another £70. I knew this beforehand, of course, but I never expected to get the console straightaway so the whole thing seemed very theoretical until that moment.

You can probably guess where this is going already but basically I did the maths and realised that having the PlayStation 5 as my main console was going to cost a fortune. Even ignoring the £70 Sony exclusives everything else would have to be paid for individually and I was beginning to get very jealous about Xbox Game Pass.

This was a strange realisation for me as I have never really liked the Xbox, or rather I have never liked Microsoft’s attitude towards gaming. They’ve never made any attempt to turn Xbox into anything other than the ShooterBox, with an approach to first party games and marketing that is solely tuned to the needs of the American audience. So much so I’m shocked they haven’t sold a special edition with an American flag on it.

In direct contrast to Sony their first party games have got worse over time, not better, to the point where they’ve basically had to buy up half the industry to compete (and even then they’ve only bought American companies). They might have pushed online back in the early days but beyond that I don’t feel they’ve been a good influence on the games industry at all.

Or at least that was what I thought before I got a PlayStation 5.

Games Pass is so good because Microsoft are a huge company that can afford to lose money hand over fist until they’re the only company left. That’s how they’ve beaten competition before, in other industries, and together with buying up all other independent companies that’s clearly how they’re going to attempt to beat Sony – as well as Amazon and Google and anyone else that looks like being a threat.

It’s an awful way to go about business and I hate to encourage it but… I’m not rich. I’m not rich and I like video games, which is an expensive hobby. I probably shouldn’t have got that PlayStation 5 in the first place, given how expensive it was, but once I did I was faced with the sad realisation that I couldn’t afford to continue to buy games for it. So I sold it to a friend and bought an Xbox Series X from a different friend (he’s essentially a scalper but sold it to me at cost).

I’m not happy that I’m not going to be able to play Demon’s Souls now but I am happy that I’ve suddenly got access to hundreds of other games and can afford to keep myself entertained throughout lockdown. I’m not proud of myself and, stupid as it may be, I still resent Microsoft for how they do things. But on a practical level I didn’t really have any choice if I wanted to be part of the next gen.

By reader Leander

The reader’s feature does not necessary represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.

You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. As always, email gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk and follow us on Twitter.

MORE : The Sony first party developers to look out for on PS5 – Reader’s Feature

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My 5 top GTA games of all-time – Reader’s Feature

GTA: Vice City – is it your favourite? (pic: Rockstar Games)

A reader lists his favourite Grand Theft Auto games, including some unusual choices such as Liberty City Stories and the very first game.

A while back I did a Reader’s Feature on Grand Theft Auto and how the original was worthy of a remake when the series hits its 25th anniversary. Grand Theft Auto has managed to make it onto multiple platforms but below are my five favourite Grand Theft Auto games of all-time, which will always remain classics in the series.

Grand Theft Auto (PS1)

In 1996 the original PlayStation console had just launched and Rockstar North were still called DMA Design. When the first Grand Theft Auto launched it offered an experience that no gamer had ever expected to be possible. Offering an explorable open world, as well as the ability to choose what you wanted to do, this was one title that people just could not stop playing over and over.

You may remember the playable demo that came with the Official PlayStation Magazine, that people would play over and over even with a timer. However, it wasn’t long before PC gamers created a patch to remove the timer and enjoy the demo without limitations.

I remember exploring the city while the console version still had the demo timer and finding hidden missions once the full game released. Even listening to the radio stations was awesome while driving round the city and exploring. The first GTA is, for this reason, one of my favourites in the entire series.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (PS2/Xbox/PC)

With the release of the PlayStation 2 came the launch of GTA 3, which offered a 3D open world with improved graphics and features. This did not disappoint but although it was an amazing title it paled in comparison to its successor GTA: Vice City. Vice City offered unexpected upgrades to the previous title, with helicopters, bikes, new weapons, extra radio stations, and enterable building interiors – along with the first chance to acquire assets.

More missions were available than what GTA 3 offered, as well as access to boats and a sea plane. This made Vice City more popular than GTA 3, resulting in it selling more copies than its predecessor. GTA: Vice City celebrates its 20th anniversary in October of 2022 and it will be interesting to see what, if anything, Rockstar has planned for this date.

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories (PS2/PSP)

Originally made for the PlayStation Portable, these spin-off had new storylines, characters, and new radio stations. Both titles eventually also came to the PlayStation 2 but remain some of the least well-known entries in the series.

Grand Theft Auto 5

If there is one thing Rockstar did brilliantly with this title it is the fact that you have multiple main characters, each with their own unique missions and assets. This added a unique type of gameplay to the series, as well as ensuring that players would not get bored of the story mode and providing random events for each character, as well as unique side quests and friend missions to do.

Each character has their own vehicles, as well as some cool in-game features like the stock market and the ability to take in-game snapshots with the phone. GTA Online is always being expanded with amazing DLC such as heists, assets, night clubs, and facilities. GTA 5 makes my list of favourites but I’d also give an honourable mention to GTA: San Andreas.

These are my all-time favourite GTA games and I for one am certainly looking forward to the future of GTA Online and the future releases of newer Grand Theft Auto titles. Whatever the future of GTA Online holds one thing is for certain, it’s going to be very interesting and great times are ahead for GTA gamers.

By reader gaz be rotten (gamertag)

The reader’s feature does not necessary represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.

You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. As always, email gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk and follow us on Twitter.

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The top 10 games of 2020 according to me – Reader’s Feature

Doom Eternal – would it be in your top 10? (pic: Bethesda)

A reader offers up a more detailed look at his favourite games of last year, including everything from Fall Guys to Cyberpunk 2077.

Since the weekend Inbox was the best games of the year, I thought I’d write a feature looking at my personal top 10.

Before I start there are a few glaring omissions. I haven’t yet played Ghost Of Tsushima and have never played any FromSoftware games, so Demon’s Souls isn’t a game I’m interested in. Also, whilst I have played Animal Crossing: New Horizons it wasn’t the game for me.

So here we go, starting at number 10.

10. Fall Guys

This is good little game to dip in and out of. Sometimes I think games can be too complicated, especially in regards to controls. It can get confusing if you have a few games on the go at once. This is why I think Fall Guys succeeds. Anyone can play. Up, down, left, right, and jump are about the only controls needed. It doesn’t hurt that it was a free PS Plus game too.

9. FIFA 21

I’ve always enjoyed FIFA but in recent years my interest has started to wane. I wouldn’t have probably got this year’s edition if I hadn’t have got a PlayStation 5. However, I wanted to see what the next gen version would be like. Turns out pretty much the same other than a different camera angle.

Despite this I still like FIFA, as unlike other games you don’t need to dedicate time to it. For instance, if I only had 20 minutes spare some games aren’t worth the hassle of loading them, whereas that can be one or two games in FIFA. Also, I’m actually decent at it. Whereas I tend to play on easier difficulty settings for most games, I recently finished a season as Leeds United on the World Class setting, winning the Premier League. I just hope future games change things up a bit.

8. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2

I almost forgot about this game when writing this list. I sold it alongside my PlayStation 4 in late September, so didn’t spend a great deal of time with it, but still managed to complete a fair chunk of it. As someone old enough to remember the original it plays just as well as I recall, albeit with much better graphics. Again, a bit like FIFA, it’s great if you don’t have a huge amount of free time, with each run only lasting two minutes at a time.

7. Doom Eternal

I’m only a few hours in but so far I’m liking the game. Essentially, it’s quite simple, shoot some demons in the face and repeat. However, it can be quite tricky and you need to chain ‘glory kills’, achieved by waiting until the enemy starts flashing and then using a melee kill, triggering a gory and gruesome finishing move, to refill your health and ammo. My only concern is whether there’s enough depth to the game to keep me interested for the entire campaign.

6. Dirt 5

I don’t play many racing games but did enjoy this one. It’s more arcade than sim which suits me. I think also it was just challenging enough without being too hard, though those who play racing games more frequently may find it too easy.

I very much found that at first there seemed to be a lot of variety in terms of different tracks and races. However, towards the end it seemed more repetitive. One thing you can’t fault the game for though is the dynamic weather system. It looked incredible, the changing weather and how the time of day affected the light really did have an effect on driving conditions.

5. Cyberpunk 2077

I’ve never been a massive fan of The Witcher 3 but managed to get carried away by the pre-release hype for Cyberpunk and pre-ordered it. I’ve been playing on the PlayStation 5 so not encountered any massive issues, in terms of bugs.

For me, some of the issues with the game aren’t ones that can be patched. The artificial intelligence can be poor at times, the police will spawn to your location as if by magic and then give up pursuit just as quick, characters might run you over then not react. GTA 5 had more realistic non-player characters and artificial intelligence and that’s nearly eight years old. The city also feels empty at times with a lack of traffic, which again is something that GTA also did better.

Despite these issues I still really rate the game. The open world is a joy to behold and looks at times stunning. So many open world games seem either set in fantasy lands (Zelda: Breath Of The Wild, The Witcher 3, Skyrim, etc.) or a world that closely resembles or are based on real world cities (GTA and Watch Dogs). Cyberpunk feels different to other games because of its unique setting in this regard.

I also can’t think of any other game that lets the user explore not just ground level but vertically by entering high rise buildings. The game has a number of compelling characters. I haven’t played the game for a while but want to try and hold off to finish it when the PlayStation 5 upgrade is released. It’s also encouraged me to give The Witcher 3 another try.

4. Super Mario 3D All-Stars

I’d never played any three of these games before, so buying the game was a no-brainer. However, I just didn’t enjoy Super Mario Sunshine at all. Super Mario 64 I found disappointing, because I could see the promise but couldn’t get past the shoddy camera or the frustration at the controls (I fell to my death a number of times, since the slightest nudge of the joystick seems to move Mario about 10 feet in that direction).

So why then is this game on my list? Simply put, Super Mario Galaxy. This game is amazing, I understand now why people adore it so much. Every level is genuinely different from the last. Round every corner there seems to be a new gameplay mechanism or quirk. Probably the best platform game I’ve ever played, only Super Mario Odyssey and maybe Astro Bot come close. Only my disappointment in the other two games in the collection stops this placing higher. I really hope they release its sequel for the Switch soon.

3. Astro’s Playroom

I think Astro Bot: Rescue Mission is by far the best game PlayStation VR has to offer by some margin. I wasn’t sure though if perhaps without VR, Astro Bot just wouldn’t be the same. Thankfully then Astro Bot is just as good without the need for a VR headset. It showcases the PlayStation 5 and the new DualSense controller perfectly, with lots of interesting ideas, gameplay mechanics, and call backs to previous PlayStation classic games and consoles.

It’s short sure, I attained both platinum Trophies in just under 10 hours and the main quest takes less than half that time but that doesn’t matter. I honestly think it’s a game I’ll come back to again and again. Since the game is included with every PlayStation 5, it’s either free making it very good value for money, or £450, making it a very, very pricey game! I hope it’s not long before we see Astro Bot again, I’m fully on board with Sony’s latest mascot.

2. Spider-Man: Miles Morales

I’m a huge fan of the first game, which was the source of my first and only (up until Astro’s Playroom) platinum Trophy. The game is essentially much of the same, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. However, Miles has some different powers to Peter Parker, which keep things from feeling stale. I also think the narrative in the game is slightly more compelling than in the first game.
Overall though there are only a few elements that differ from the previous games, these small differences add up to a better game. I also didn’t mind that the game was significantly shorter, I think it improved the pacing of both the story and the gameplay.

1. The Last Of Us Part 2

When it was announced that Naughty Dog would be making a sequel to The Last Of Us I can’t say I was fully on board. The ending to the first game seemed so perfect, I didn’t know if a sequel might ruin it. Some of the leaks had me even more concerned.

I was so wrong. In terms of narratives no other game has come close to it, in my opinion. In most games I sometimes feel when I’m watching a cut scene that I’m eager for it to end to jump back into the action. With The Last Of Us Part 2 I wanted to get through the gameplay to watch the next cut scene. The motion capture and voice-acting is on another level. The narrative is compelling and I was desperate to find out what would happen next.

That’s not to dismiss the gameplay. Like the first game the gameplay is much the same. This time, however, you have access to a bow and arrow from the beginning, which aids stealth. Also, Ellie is more agile than Joel and this means she is able to make use of vertical space and also can go prone to hide. The Last Of Us Part 2 isn’t a complex game, it isn’t particularly innovative, but I think it does the simple things well. It’s one of the most polished games I’ve ever played. Everything down to the most trivial detail looks amazing.

Towards the beginning of the game there’s a section set in Seattle which is more open and less linear with optional objectives. It would be interesting to see Naughty Dog take this approach for a full game in the future. The Last Of Us Part 2, like many Naughty Dog games, is very structured and linear. It’s also too long and can drag towards the end. It’s not perfect. I went back and forth between this and Spider-Man as my game of the year. Spider-Man is at times more fun, not to say that The Last Of Us Part 2 doesn’t have its moments.

Ultimately though I don’t think a game has ever had such a lasting effect. It’s a good few months since I finished playing and I still thinks about it. I think it’s a game that will be remembered for years to come. A brave, bold, and unexpected sequel.

By reader Matc7884

The reader’s feature does not necessary represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.

You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. As always, email gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk and follow us on Twitter.

MORE : The Sony first party developers to look out for on PS5 - Reader’s Feature

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Weekend Hot Topic, part 1: GameCentral Readers’ Top 20 of 2020

Cyberpunk 2077 – one of the games of the year (pic: CD Projekt)

The annual readers vote for the best games of the last year chooses between greats such as The Last Of Us Part 2 and Animal Crossing.

Although we’ve already revealed what we think are the best games of 2020 we always make sure to give readers a chance to vote for their favourites and the chart you see below is the end result of all the emails we’ve received during the course of the week.

The top three were easy enough to predict, even if the order they’d appear wasn’t, while Ghost Of Tsushima was the highest polling game to appear in the reader chart but not ours.

Readers’ Top 20 – 2020

1. The Last Of Us Part 2 (PS4)
2. Final Fantasy 7 Remake (PS4)
3. Animal Crossing: New Horizons (NS)
4. Hades (NS/PC)
5. Ghost Of Tsushima (PS4)
6. Astro’s Playroom (PS5)
7. Demon’s Souls (PS5)
8. Immortals Fenyx Rising (XO/PS4/NS/XSX/PS5/PC/Stadia)
9. Doom Eternal (XO/PS4/NS/PC)
10. Star Wars: Squadrons (XO/PS4/PC)
11. Cyberpunk 2077 (XO/PS4/PC)
12. Ori And The Will Of The Wisps (XO/NS/XSX/PC)
13. Spider-Man: Miles Morales (PS4/PS5)
14. Streets Of Rage 4 (XO/PS4/NS/PC)
15. Horace (NS/PC)
16. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (XO/PS4/NS/XSX/PS5/PC/Stadia)
17. Wasteland 3 (XO/PS4/PC)
18. Paper Mario: The Origami King (NS)
19. Half-Life: Alyx (PC VR)
20. Lonely Mountains: Downhill (XO/PS4/NS/PC)

Family entertainment
Top three games for our family are:
Animal Crossing: New Horizons. I bought the themed Switch bundle for the missus in March and it’s been played practically every day since. It’s a superb game and couldn’t have been more apt for the year we’ve had.

Carrion. The sound effects send shivers down my spine every time I play it. The whip sound of the tentacles as you traverse the levels is downright unsettling. The puzzles are reminiscent of a Metroidvania but as the backtracking is never too far it just keeps me playing it.

Cyberpunk 2077. So we know its issues. I bought it day one for Xbox One and although it ran awfully and crashed a few times the story and characters were compelling enough to drag me in. Fast forward to the new year and managing to pick up a Xbox Series X and I’d say the game is truly the first next gen game for the console. Apart from a few characters in weird places it runs as smooth and looks as beautiful as you could want.

Honorary mention goes to:

Minecraft Dungeons. I’ve never been into Diablo type games, nor Minecraft, but this game played couch co-op is really satisfying. My other half has no hand/eye coordination for first or third person shooters. I’ve tried getting the missus into Halo and still laugh my head off at the sight of Master Chief running sideways down corridors and missing every enemy she shoots at, but isometric style games seem to be a hit and Minecraft Dungeons has just the right amount of skill, challenge, and secrets to unlock to keep us interested.
SteveP

Mostly Japanese
The best game of 2020 for me was Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition, by a country mile. It is essentially just a polished version of the original Wii game but for me it also happens to be the best Japanese role-playing game ever made. Xenoblade Chronicles has lots of beautiful locations to explore and a story that starts brilliantly and remains interesting throughout.

The thing I really love about it though is the Affinity links and how you can improve the relationships of not only your team members but every named character in the game. Admittedly, this could have been done better but I really liked how all the communities gradually link up on the Affinity Chart and hope this concept future games incorporate.

And my second best game of 2020 is another remake of a Japanese role-playing game. Yes, Demon’s Souls! Utterly brilliant game and, much like Xenoblade, one I started two generations ago but never finished until this year’s remake. I enjoyed this far more than I expected and really liked finding the shortcuts that linked the bosses to the starting points of each area.

I was expecting a horrible slog but I actually found it fairly manageable, although I was over level 100 by the end, which is probably at least 30 levels over par.

As tempting as it is to pop Final Fantasy 7 Remake in the third spot, and comprise my top three entirely of Japanese role-playing remakes, it sadly just missed out. My third choice is The Last Of Us Part 2. Not exactly a fun experience but a compelling one that kept me playing through to the end.

This is a game that essentially forces you to do things that you do not want to, something the first game also does admittedly, but Part 2 really doubles down on it. Emotionally manipulative to the point it has rubbed everyone up the wrong way but the bravery to do that with such a big title is what puts it in my top three.
PazJohnMitch

Difficult decisions
Turns out this is a really tricky one for me as I seem to have played a lot of amazing games from previous years (Zelda: Breath Of The Wild, Dead Cells, Borderlands 3, Slay The Spire, Into The Breach, The Outer Worlds, etc.) but fewer that have been released this year. So, I think of what I’ve played:

3. Gloomhaven (open beta). Probably not one that others have played, but it’s a turn-based tactical game based on the award winning board game. I would heartily recommend both. Essentially, you control one or more characters (either solo or, better, co-operatively) through a number of small combat-focused objective-led scenarios. Each round you choose two cards, the top of which normally dictates what you will attack and the bottom of which is normally a move, aiming to choose the top of one and the bottom of the other.

These cards also have an initiative which determines what order you participate in the round. This hand of cards also functions as your stamina – when you run out of cards that character is exhausted. It’s a very elegantly constructed set of rules, and while the full campaign isn’t up and running, the existing Guildmaster mode is more than enough for me to recommend it. Sadly, it’s only on PC at the moment.

2. Nioh 2. I enjoyed the first one – and this is very much more of the same. If you like Dark Souls, then it’s hard to avoid recommending this. Its perhaps more arcadey, but the possible approaches to playstyle and variety of enemies is much broader than the Souls series.

1. Cyberpunk 2077. This is a tough one. On launch it was exceptionally buggy, and while it’s stable now, it still has more bugs than is reasonable. Fittingly it crashed (the first in about 50 hours) during the closing credits. Despite all of that, I’ve played it extensively and very much enjoyed my time with it. While the combat, driving and loot is only adequate, and the side missions, while excellent, not quite up to The Witcher 3’s standard it’s still for the most part an absorbing, gorgeous looking game, whose scope surpasses anything I’ve played before.
Matt (He_who_runs_away – PSN ID)

E-mail your comments to: gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk

Justified anticipation
My top three games of 2020 would have to be:

Final Fantasy 7 Remake
Spider-Man Remastered
Grindstone

Final Fantasy 7 Remake was definitely my most anticipated game of 2020, despite having apprehensions about it prior to release. It certainly differs a lot from the original game but that almost made it more of a delight to play, as it constantly kept you guessing what you would see or do next and the modifications made to the music, graphics, and gameplay were all largely a success. It made being at home a lot more tolerable and was a joy to experience.

I never owned the original, so to be able to play Spider-Man Remastered for the first time on PlayStation 5 was great, it’s such a well-made game and really gives you the feeling of being Spider-Man. Everything about it oozes quality from the smooth gameplay, graphics, collectibles and relative ease of being able to achieve the Trophies, allowing me to get the platinum Trophy!

A pleasant surprise was the release of Grindstone late in the year (thanks for the review letting us know how good it was GameCentral). I picked it up with the bonus of a launch window discount on Switch and it is definitely worthy of the high score. It’s a great game and one which I’m thoroughly enjoying trying to do everything in.

Special mention goes to Cardpocalypse, which narrowly missed being able to be voted for due to it being released in December 2019 for Switch. It’s a great game and one which uniquely has a disabled female lead and a funny South Park-style aesthetic and tone. The theme tune for the game alone trumps the Bugsnax theme for me!
thesmaul

Joy of motion
My real choice for the game of 2020 would be Ring Fit Adventure, which has been an absolute revelation, as I detailed in my Reader’s Feature. Obviously, that’s a 2019 release though, so disqualified. I did actually manage to play more newly released games than usual last year though, including GC’s top two: Animal Crossing and The Last Of Us Part 2. Although still good, I wasn’t really blown away by either of them, so they aren’t amongst my picks. I suspect they will top the Reader’s Top 20 though.

My three picks are not contenders for the best game ever, like my top two picks last year were (Devil May Cry 5 and Resident Evil 2 remake), but they are superb games that I’ve really enjoyed. It’s been an absolute lifeline to have gaming to fall back on during this difficult year and these games have really helped lift my spirits in their own unique ways. So here in reverse order are my choices for the 2020 Reader’s Top 20:

3. Doom Eternal. I enjoyed this game so much I played it through twice. The original was great and this is better. The rush of adrenaline you get tearing through hordes of demons, unloading all your guns on them whilst trying to maintain your health, armour, ammo, and sanity is unparalleled. The gruesome graphics, heavy metal sound and relentlessly, exhilarating gameplay all come together to create an almost entirely instinctual state of play that is deeply satisfying. The addition of the meat hook is very welcome and makes manoeuvring around the arenas even more of a joy. Hell, I even enjoyed the platforming sections, with some cleverly hidden secret areas adding an element of exploration to the game. Looking forward to getting my chainsaw back out for the Ancient Gods once both parts have been released.

2. Star Wars Squadrons. I think a common thread through my three picks is a heavy focus on the joy of moving through the game world. It’s not often I am truly entrusted with free movement through a 3D space but Squadrons shows what a little faith in the player can achieve. Some of the most wonderful moments I’ve had in the game don’t involve shooting down enemies or a successful run on a capital ship but merely the thrill of flying itself. Darting between structures and making a tight hairpin turn to skim across the surface genuinely feels like I’ve stepped right into the films, capturing the same excitement I had watching the Millennium Falcon fly all those years ago. Starfighter Assault may have looked better but Squadrons feels better. I know which option I’d pick. I imagine if I had VR this could have been my number one, maybe one day!

1. Lonely Mountains: Downhill. I love a good surprise. I thought Lonely Mountains: Downhill would be a quick palate cleansing indie game between bigger titles. Around 10 hours it was supposedly meant to last. I put in well over 50 delightful hours. I even managed to get top of the leaderboard on a couple of trails (obscure nighttime ones but still!). It is an absolutely top class racer and very favourably reminiscent of F-Zero in that incremental movements are the difference between glory and death. Learning each mountain and its trails was an engrossing experience, with each millisecond cut off your time a real triumph.

The implementation of shortcuts is the best I’ve seen in any game, with seemingly impossible jumps and routes gradually being tamed, changing your entire approach to a trail. Beyond the perfection of the precision racing and intricately designed trails there is another surprising element in the game’s success, the atmosphere.

The name Lonely Mountains gives it away but despite your mountain biker’s constant deaths there is this peaceful, almost wistful feel to the game that adds a layer of depth to your downhill sprints. Each mountain has several points where you can just stop and soak it all in. There’s no music, no noise bombarding you. Just you in nature, listening to the wind. In a year when going out has become such a luxury, a game that truly captures that feeling of space and freedom is something special indeed.
Ryan O’D
PS: Special mention for Journey To The Savage Planet, which narrowly came in fourth. A brilliant comical take on Metroid that was a real pleasure to play.

Bloody revenge
3. A major genre missing in my gaming lexicon is Japanese role-playing games. So I never played Final Fantasy 7 first time around. I was worried it would be lost on me, without the nostalgia feels. I was wrong, I enjoyed my time with Avalanche and the ATB battle system. Apart from one big spoiler that hasn’t happened yet I did not know the story at all. Knowing that thing made some parts more poignant. I hope for more varied locations though, in the next part.

2. Star Wars: Squadrons is some kind of voodoo magic. I have had PlayStation VR for several years but while better than when I first got it I have never fully got my VR legs. Prolonged play is a no-no. So how can I play Star Wars: Squadrons for hours on end, barrel-rolling between Star Destroyers while dogfighting X-Wings? I don’t know but I love it.

1. My top choice is a PlayStation 4 exclusive with near instant loading and some of the best graphics of the whole generation. It starts with a bloody act and sees the protagonist crossing the land on a quest for bloody revenge, disregarding their previous ethics on the way. Of course, it is Ghost Of Tsushima. Maybe it is because my last Assassin’s Creed was Black Flag but I really enjoyed the exploration and mopping up quests and collectibles across the sumptuous land of Tsushima. In a year with no travel it felt like a holiday to a gorgeous far away land but with added stand-offs of course.

The Last Of Us Part 2 was close to the top three but I cannot say I enjoyed it in the classical sense, I think that was the point really. I would have preferred being Abby for the whole game, with a relentless Nemesis type Ellie hunting you for the duration.
ThePowerFeeling (PSN ID)

Honourable mentions
I had trouble deciding which order to put my top three choices in but at number three is:

Pikmin 3 Deluxe for Switch. I love this game, I got it for Christmas and I’ve been playing it ever since. It beat out two other games because I find it a lot of fun to play, it’s very satisfying to throw pikmin at an enemy or obstacle and then watch them do their thing. It’s a very chill, relaxing game and it’s done a lot to take my mind of the stress of lockdown. It really brings me joy to play, especially when I beat a level that’s been giving me trouble.

Number two had to be Ghost Of Tsushima on PlayStation 4. I got it on release and at first I didn’t like the combat, I didn’t find it all that intuitive switching between stances for different enemies but once I got the hang of it I started to love it. The story is epic and the setting is truly stunning. In my opinion it showed up Ubisoft and made the Assassin’s Creed games look a little meh. The only complaint I have is that while the open world is lovely the game more or less forces you to play as a ghost or dishonourable samurai, while the story tells you not to play that way. I think the game needed multiple endings depending on how you played through the missions, but it still deserves all the love it gets.

My number one choice is Animal Crossing: New Horizons for Switch. I’ve never played an Animal Crossing game before this one, so it was all new to me. I found it to be a very charming little game to play, I got a surprising amount of satisfaction just exploring and finding new fossils and wot not on my island. I was very proud of my house when I first built it and I love being able to visit friends’ islands. Just like Pikmin 3, it brought me lot of joy to play during the first lockdown back in March of last year, it really helped me keep my mind off the situation. I also really like the seasonal changes implemented by Nintendo.

It’s my number one choice because I still dip into it every day, nearly a year after it was released. If that isn’t value for money I don’t know what is.

Honourable mentions go to The Last Of Us Part 2. I liked the game quite a lot, just not as much as I thought I would and nowhere near as much as I enjoyed the games I chose for my top three. Also, Immortals Fenyx Rising; again I liked the game quite a lot but for some reason it wasn’t able to hold my attention like the other games in this list. I’m really looking forward to reading what everyone else has been playing in 2020.
Mitchell

Only choice
I only want to nominate one game: The Last Of Us Part 2.

None of the other games released last year come anywhere near this for sheer entertainment and quality.

I rarely enjoy, or even follow, the stories in games but I was grabbed by Ellie’s revenge tale and loved the way you got to see the story from two different perspectives.

Simply brilliant and very highly recommended.
Manic Miner 100 (gamertag)

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Only three
First of all, I found out Horace wasn’t actually released in 2020 but I think it would’ve easily made it into my top three if it had been. Just wanted to quickly give it a well-deserved shout out for how hilarious, clever, and moving it was.

As it stands, I think that means I only actually played three new games in 2020 and, in reverse order, I’d rank them as follows:

3. Animal Crossing: New Horizons. This is the first Animal Crossing game I’ve played since the GameCube and, due to dipping in every day from early April till January, it’s easily my most played game ever, with an estimated time of 500 hours or more.

It deserves admiration for being wholesome and comforting but as a creature of routine, and sometimes compulsion, I did end up feeling like I was held captive. If you don’t have a big network of friends to trade with online, then the means of unlocking everything just becomes so mundane that you end up resenting the game a bit.

But considering how, like many good first party Switch games, it’s practically screaming to have its progression system monetised, it also deserves praise for exercising that particular restraint.

2. The Last Of Us Part 2. It’s either mildly amusing or absolutely ingenious how this game seems to have anticipated the way people in real life would process their grief and react to loss in such an overwhelmingly negative way. Yes, there are a few hiccups in the writing and the plot might not pan out the way everyone would want it to, but it seems to me that a lot of the people condemning the game so intensely are doing so as a processing mechanism for certain story developments that happen early on. As if the success as a game starts and ends with one storytelling decision.

That aside, Naughty Dog has a real talent for conveying a sense of place, and while there wasn’t enough varied gameplay to spread across the full story, it was a real pleasure for the first 20 hours or so just finding in pretty much every room and area an interesting new thing to observe or a new micro-story embedded in the environment.

1. Hades. I’m pretty inexperienced in the roguelike genre (although Into The Breach is easily among my favourite Switch games). When I started with Hades, I could quickly see how it would be compelling to improve my way towards defeating the final boss and finally completing a run. What I wasn’t prepared for was the way the game doubled down (and tripled and quadrupled down) on that compulsion factor by gradually introducing different weapons, moves, currencies, enemies, allies, and stories to keep me interested well beyond the mere goal of beating the last boss.

It would all be massively overwhelming and off-putting if not handled well and I feel like a lot of developers could learn from Super Giant when it comes to funnelling content to the player. Particularly big open world games that like to dump hours of similar content on you at once.

I liken it to the difference between getting on board with a big TV series when episode one airs, compared to being expected to start watching it when you already know there are 120 hour-long episodes to get through (‘and season five is when it starts to get really good!’).
Panda

GC: Horace didn’t come out on Switch until 2020, so it would’ve counted.

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The Sony first party developers to look out for on PS5 – Reader’s Feature

The Last Of Us Part 2 – what’s next for Naughty Dog? (pic: Sony)

A reader examines some of Sony’s most accomplished first party studios and tries to predict what games they’ll make for the PS5.

PlayStation have had a killer generation, the bounce back from the PlayStation 3 has been the stuff of legends. Every year since 2015 Sony has managed to turn out a shocking number of high quality exclusives that have not only defined their respective genres but will go down as some of the greatest games of all time. The sheer quality has outstripped both Nintendo and Xbox, meaning PlayStation are going into the PlayStation 5 generation with swagger.

It’s difficult to pinpoint which games from PlayStation first party have had the biggest impact, God Of War was such an outstanding reimagining of the series that truly reinvented itself but still maintained and surpassed the high quality from the series’ glory days. The Last Of Us Part 2 was an ambitious and daring narrative that was polished with a sheen that puts games from other developers to shame. Sony managing to wrangle the Spider-Man IP was a massive get for the company and pairing the superhero with developer Insomniac was a small stroke of genius.

There’s a lot to look forward to in the PlayStation 5 generation, it’s a shame PlayStation have started paying to keep third party games as timed exclusives (Final Fantasy 16 and Deathloop) as they really don’t need to – their first party can speak for itself, as it has always done. So I’m having a look at some of the PlayStation Studios to watch out for in the next (current) generation.

Naughty Dog

I mean this is a no-brainer. Not many studios have had such an impressive run of high-quality games, where they keep on topping themselves with every single iteration. Everything that comes out of this studio is exciting and pure gold, with The Last Of Us Part 2 the studio created a beautifully immersive game world with stellar gameplay whilst pushing the boundaries of video game storytelling with its complex characters.

But with the Uncharted series seemingly drawn to a close or at the very least being passed on to another development studio and The Last Of Us Part 3 unlikely to be made immediately after the second game, where could Naughty Dog take us next?

A new IP from this studio would be welcome, it’s likely to be a third person narrative driven experience, as it’s the studios bread and butter, but you never know, maybe they’ll zig when we’re expecting them to zag. I would love to see Naughty Dog try their hand at a narrative driven first person shooter, maybe set in a war or something. If any studio can out-do the campaigns of Call Of Duty and Battlefield and make Activision and EA quake in their boots it’s Naughty Dog. Hopefully we’ll see the fruits of their labour in a year or two, whatever it may be.

Sucker Punch

Sucker Punch have a ton of talent and Ghost Of Tsushima really was a display of their ability to craft a solid and beautiful looking game. However, I will say that their games can often err on the side of caution, rarely trying to expand beyond the realms of a tried and tested gameplay formula.

But what makes Sucker Punch an exciting proposition for the future is that everything they make is still a high-quality product and despite Ghost Of Tsushima being generic in its execution, it’s a world away from Infamous and Sly Cooper, showing they are willing to take on anything.

It’s likely the next game from this studio is still a while away and with the success of Ghost they’ll probably be working on a sequel, which is a perfect opportunity for the studio to not play it quite as safe as they did with the first one. Take some risks, it’s an exciting proposition whatever they’re doing.

Insomniac Games

Sony’s most recent acquisition felt like it was a long time coming. Insomniac’s game output this generation has been fantastic, from the Xbox exclusive Sunset Overdrive to the Ratchet & Clank remake and, of course, a little game called Spider-Man. Insomniac are masters of creating worlds where traversing the environment is the best part of the experience. And over time their flair for exciting cinematic set pieces has put them in the upper echelons of game developers.

Their next game following on from the stellar Mile Morales Spider-Man game, is the next entry in the Ratchet & Clank series, promising an exciting use of the PlayStation 5’s SSD with the ability to jump between worlds on the fly, not to mention the game looks beautiful! Again, we are seeing a development studio at the height of their powers, using Sony’s endless budgets to create something new and exciting but still very much in keeping with the Insomniac games we know and love.

I can’t see the developer making any new IPs this gen, which is a shame. Sunset Overdrive’s comedic sensibilities were a refreshing change and still doesn’t really feel like anything else on either console. But more Spider-Man is no bad thing, not to mention the studio is clearly capable of making two games simultaneously, so who knows what might be next.

Media Molecule

Media Molecule is one of the more exciting studios in PlayStation’s portfolio, their games really help diversify the range of games on the console. Their most recent game, Dreams, set out to give users the tools to create anything they set their minds to, in an accessible and brilliantly implemented engine.

Their prior games have been smaller in scale, with LittleBigPlanet and the brilliant Tearaway, but this is a studio with limitless creativity, that really is willing to go outside the box when creating their art. I’m intrigued to see where they’ll go (beyond a PlayStation 5 version of Dreams). Trying to guess their next project is damn near impossible, but the one thing we do know is when Media Molecule set their minds to creating something it’s always a very high quality.

I would love to see them go back to a puzzle platformer, with something unique that can really stretch the studio with their creativity, maybe something less aimed at children. There aren’t enough adult orientated foul-mouthed platformers (à la Conker) for my liking and they seem a good fit.

Bend Studio

Day’s Gone was a big hit for this first party developer, their first big AAA game and it all came together beautifully. The game fell into the trap of being just a bit too close to other zombie filled games to really separate itself from the pack but there is no denying that the game was still very well put together and the zombie hordes were a marvel to behold.

So what’s next for this developer? A Days Gone sequel with a bigger budget to iron out the bugs which plagued the first game and some better writing would elevate the game beyond its first outing. With the plethora of open world games recently released and on the horizon I think I’d like to see the studio go in a whole new direction. I’d happily take another zombie game, however something more dense and vertical or even semi-linear might be a better fit.

We may see the fruits of their labour potentially this year, though more likely next as they only released Day Gone 2 years ago. I am interested to see what they’ve got cooking – I imagine Sony will allow the studio more creative and financial freedom given the success of Days Gone and I can’t wait to see how it turns out. If it’s not a Day Gone sequel then what could it be? The studio has certainly proved itself worthwhile with limitless potential.

By reader Jay Johnson

The reader’s feature does not necessary represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.

You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. As always, email gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk and follow us on Twitter.

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