Games Inbox: From Software’s Tenchu, third party Nintendo, and Indiana Jones And The Fate Of Atlantis

So after a bit of digging about I have discovered the guys that make Bloodborne/Dark Souls also have the Tenchu licence. I know there was Tenchu Z last gen but the less said about that the better.

Why hasn’t there been a proper Tenchu this gen? I would love to see what they could pull off. Imagine an open world where you could take on assassination contracts, espionage, escorts all the while watching from the shadows.

I mean the power of the current gen could give us all the best ninja game in years.
ghostjizz (PSN ID)

GC: The quality, and quantity of ninja games throughout gaming history has always been pitifully, and inexplicably, low. This is a good idea though, we’d forgotten From Software owns the rights now.

Great to see all these old LucasArts games getting remade. With Full Throttle I think that only leaves The Dig of the more modern ones left to do. But given it’s probably the least loved of the bunch I imagine maybe they’ll skip that.

What I’d love to see though is a remake for Indiana Jones And The Fate Of Atlantis. Not a remaster like these others but, because it’s older, a complete remake with modern graphics. The original is still one of my favourite games ever and it has a much better plot than the stupid fourth movie, even though it has some of the same themes.

Failing that I’d settle for any kind of new Indiana Jones game. Harrison Ford is too old for it now but in video games your main actor never ages. As you can imagine I’d prefer something slower and more adventure styled, but I think I’d settle for anything that was at least good at this point. It’s sad to think that the Indy games got worse as technology got better.
Clifton

As a huge Final Fantasy VII fan I thought I would have my say regarding the much anticipated remake. Personally, I can’t wait. We all need to remember that Final Fantasy VII is a massive game. I once read that 90% of players never reached Disc 2. The point I am trying to make is that the costs of remaking the entire game at the graphical level of what we have seen in the recent videos of Midgar, will be monumental.

From what I have seen of Midgar, it looks outstanding. I hope that the same standards are kept throughout the entire game. Perhaps the only way to do this is too spread out the game via three discs like the original.

Obviously I would have preferred it to be all in one package, but Square-Enix know what they are doing, and if you don’t want to get involved, then no problem. However, I am looking forward to this immensely.
Dark Anima

I enjoyed GC’s shamelessly detailed theories on what the Star Wars: Battlefront’s DLC could contain, but I think my normal response in all these situations is just to assume the most boring and lowest effort choice: in this case just minor variations of the vehicles they’ve already got. (I’m calling an AT-ST with graffiti on it and different weapons, that the Rebels can use.)

But with the new film so close now I can’t help getting really excited about all things Star Wars and the game is actually doing a great job of keeping the hype going. It might be a bit simplistic but I’ve been putting an hour or so in pretty much every day since release and I’ve really enjoyed it.

I hope that EA are quick to announce their other games after next Thursday though as I want to know when the first games are coming out that are based on the new trilogy. (Although why do I get the feeling that Lego The Force Awakens will be first?).

Actually, come to think of it, EA has been a bit quiet in general the last few months. They didn’t have anything at The Game Awards or the PlayStation Experience and they’ve still said almost nothing about Mass Effect: Andromeda. Still at least I’m interested in what they’re doing, I suppose that means their marketing is working on some level.
Marth

I have to agree with the reader complaining that games like Sociable Soccer don’t get enough support. Gamers like to complain about the lack of variety or the lack of sequels to games they like but when the opportunity comes along they never seem to put their money where their mouth is.

I’m still worried about how long Elite: Dangerous is going to last, as it never seems to get much press and yet to me it’s far more interesting than that Star Citizen game that seemed to get 10 times as much money and publicity.

I know America’s the biggest market but the UK is only five times smaller in terms of population. And yet it feels like we have proportionally far less influence on gaming than we should. The problem is we just generally like the same things as the US, so they feel they’ve got no need to try and appeal to us specifically. It’s a shame, when you consider the great games that suffer because of it.
Bosley

I have to agree that I don’t think The Witcher 3 really deserves game of the year. It is good and certainly deserves to be in the top 10, but I think the weak combat alone means it can’t be considered that highly. When the thing you’re doing for 50% of the game just isn’t that good I’m not sure you can really be considered top tier material.

I’m less sore about CD Projket RED getting developer of the year though. They’re clearly not the best in terms of making games, but their attitude towards DLC and the general way they engage with their audience and try to keep them happy is very much appreciated.

But yeah, in real terms though Bloodborne and From Software were robbed.
Trento

I’ve seen a lot of people saying they’d be happy for Nintendo to bin the third parties and carry on as they are. I appreciate this, it has certainly had some good games, but I think what really matters is whether Nintendo are happy with its commercial performance. If they are not then I’d expect to see them trying to secure increased third party support.

Can you imagine if they managed to create a system that could run all multiplatform games at 1080p and 60fps? I could see that catching a lot of people’s eyes, since it is something I seen constantly bought up in the fanboy console arguments.
Joe @ Dimp Digital

GC: With the exception of the Wii Nintendo hasn’t been happy with the commercial performance of their home consoles since the SNES days. But that’s still never really changed their view on third parties.

Apologies for writing in after the Hot Topic, but I was on holiday at the time.

I can’t remember quite when I got a Mega Drive, but I’m sure it was after having an Amiga 500 for at least a year, and I was sold particularly by Sonic.

It was such a feature of my life for so long that I won’t be able to talk about all my memories, but there are some standout moments:

I remember being mocked by my neighbours because I leant with Sonic during the special stages in Sonic 3 (and Sonic 3 & Knuckles) – evidently I was thoroughly immersed in the experience.

I was tempted for a Mega-CD and a 32X so I could play Sonic CD and Knuckles Chaotix, but alas neither of those happened.

I have to agree with the reader about Soleil/Crusade Of Centy (seriously, why the name change when it came to Europe?) – it is a fantastic game with a touching subtext about institutionalised racism.

I remember immense frustration with Kid Chameleon. In the first few levels there is a cheat to skip to the last boss. My brother and I could never beat the boss, so decided to play through the entire game, believing that if we practised enough through the game we would be skilled enough by the end. 18 hours later, still having not reached the last level, we switched it off, as we didn’t want to leave it on overnight.

To this day I still haven’t beaten that sodding game.

I loved Story Of Thor/Beyond Oasis (once again, why the name change? The story takes place in Oasis and has nothing to do with Thor!)

I remember renting it a few times from Blockbuster Video, but never getting particularly far. For a while this was my only method of playing the game, as I had never seen it in a shop. Eventually I put in an advert in CVG magazine, which made someone contact me, and I ended up buying it for £10.

It was also one of my main motivations for buying a Saturn (but long after the death of the Dreamcast) – so I could play the prequel (Legend Of Thor/Legend Of Oasis)

I remember loving Dynamite Headdy – one of my friends had completed it, but I was having trouble on a particular boss. I asked him to help, but by the time we got to the point I was stuck I had to go home.
Eventually I discovered that I was stuck on the second-to-last boss!
Also, what was up with the bonus levels? You had to put basketballs into hoops, and afterwards you would get a code. But you couldn’t put the code in anywhere – maybe it was a feature that got scrapped?

I loved Rocket Knight Adventures, and it’s sequel Sparkster. Sparkster was different between the Mega Drive and SNES versions, which surprised me at the time. The Mega Drive version had an implied secret about collecting seven magical swords. You got one if you won the mini-game before the start screen, and other ones required you to play on hard mode.

Years later I collected them all while playing on an emulator (save states were required because the game’s so difficult) but didn’t notice any significant difference after collecting them.

Finally I would like to mention Ristar – a fantastic platformer about a star-shaped alien that would defeat enemies by head-butting them as hard as he could from as far as his arms would stretch. Sometimes the game seemed faster than even Sonic.