Games Inbox: Five Nights At Freddy’s film, Mass Effect vs. Star Wars, and Alex Kidd

I’m sure this will interest the guy that wrote all those Five Nights At Freddy’s reviews for Reader’s Features, but apparently Warner Bros. has signed it up to make a movie out of. That’s right they’re making a movie out of YouTube fodder game where you sit in a small room all night flicking the light switch on and off.

I mean, I dunno, maybe it’ll make a good horror film but haven’t film companies learnt yet that making movies out of games with a postage stamp-size plot doesn’t work? In fact I still haven’t seen a game movie that was even close to be a proper film that works. And yet still they come. At least The Last Of Us has some meat to its story but this Arnie film already seems to have stolen the look.
Benson

I don’t believe a word Michael Pachter says but I do hope that Mass Effect 4 is coming out next spring, and I do agree that seems the most likely. But I wonder how EA feels about Mass Effect now that it has Star Wars. I mean the series was always a kind of spiritual sequel to Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic and now EA could get BioWare to make that instead, or something else Star Wars related.

Apparently Dragon Age actually sells better than Mass Effect too (which I can’t believe but there you go) so I can just imagine the bean counters thinking that they don’t want too many similar games at once and that they should stick to what sells. Or maybe I’m just being paranoid and making things up like Pachter.

Oh well, at least I’m not passing my comments off as fact…
Bronto

I recently re-obtained my first ever games console, the Sega Master System, after it was found in the loft and handed back down to me. It didn’t take long to hook it up to the analogue socket of the TV, auto-tune it to channel 36 and then get playing. The only game available was the on-board Alex Kidd In Miracle World. It was a game myself, my brother and my dad would play over and over and would tell of tales of how far we’d reached or how my brother even got to Janken the Great once!

Something took a hold of me and possessed me to try and complete it once and for all. Attempt after attempt filled me with the glow of nostalgia, the graphics, the level design, the music and the infamous Janken Matches. I got pretty far the first few attempts but never really knew how far I was from the end; having never seen it before.

Then, I managed to make it to the big man himself… Janken the Great! Nerves took over, my palms sweated and I died, repeatedly, dwindling away my remaining lives. I then respawned only for Janken the Great to remain motionless! He didn’t start his attack pattern, punching him wouldn’t emit a hit and agonisingly it dawned on me; I’d have to stand up, walk over to the console and press that ‘Reset’ button to start all over again!

I persevered however and reached him again, bested him and eventually completed the game! It was certainly a Friday night I hadn’t planned but a rewarding one in the end! I then had the experience of gleefully regaling the tale to my dad and brother the next day, I’d like to think the youngest son became legend at that point.
Paul Conry

Just a belated comment to say I liked the Destiny re-review over the Easter holidays and agree with the reader that the 7/10 reviews were perfectly reasonable, even though I’ve put more hours into the game than any other last year.

There’s so much else that could be done better in Destiny, hence the relatively low scores, but even the way it is now I just can’t stop playing. Or maybe it’s the limitations that make it so addictive. If there was more to do and explore, or if the artificial intelligence would be better, you wouldn’t be able to play it in the sort of half sleep walk mode that I do.

I know that makes it sound like some terrible addiction but vegging out with the game and talking to a few friends online is the perfect way to relax. It’s absolutely not the perfect game, but that doesn’t mean it’s worthless either.
Penfold

I don’t want to point out the obvious here but isn’t a bit stupid that you can’t actually buy amiibos anywhere? Like the only ones I’ve ever seen are the same five main characters at GAME and they’re always £15 instead of the £10.99 they’re supposed to be. What is the point of making all these wonderfully obscure characters if nobody but eBay scalpers are going to sell them?

I can understand shops maybe not being able to stock them but shouldn’t I at least be able to order them online from Nintendo or Amazon? It makes no sense. It’s not like Nintendo makes the extra money out of the eBay sales, so why not just produce more? Although I guess then we’re back to trying to make sense of Nintendo decisions again…
Tolly

I don’t want to sound like I’m just following the crowd but Bloodborne really is amazing. I never quite got into Dark Souls (didn’t have the time as much as anything) but over Easter I have become completely transfixed by Bloodborne. The level design is sublime, like everybody says, and although very difficult the action seems fair and never cheap.

I’ve avoided using any of the wikis so far and I’m just enjoying slowly exploring and working things out. It’s such a pleasure to do that in a game nowadays, without having a big luminous arrow pointing at where you should go and telling you exactly how to solve a puzzle. Bloodborne feels like a real game after months of playing only fake ones. I don’t want to be melodramatic but it really has restored my faith in gaming.
Vita-Man

So I see the Inbox isn’t exactly alive with talk of Battlefield Hardline. More fool me but I bought it day one and yet very few of my friends are playing it, and even the ones that bought it don’t seem to be enjoying it much. Although I agree the police theme was a bit odd, especially with all the violence in America lately, it’d be a shame if this put EA off doing any other spin-offs.

I’d certainly like to see something a bit more adventurous or funny. Maybe dinosaurs at last or something like M.A.S.K. or G.I. Joe where the vehicles transformed or were more obviously impossible than the real world stuff. I don’t know why some kids are convinced Battlefield is ‘realistic’ when it’s clearly anything but. DICE should take advantage of this, not shy away from it.
Ben

Over the Easter holiday weekend I had the sudden urge to play some superhero games. So from my cupboard I dug out X-Men: Destiny, Deadpool, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, The Amazing Spider-Man, and Marvel Ultimate Alliance.

I spent three to four hours with each and overall I came to the conclusion that superhero games are such a mixed bag. You never know if one’s going to turn out brilliant or terrible (except with X-Men: Destiny, which I took one look at and realised that it was going to be terrible).

Deadpool, Origins, and Shattered Dimensions are all very competent beat ’em-ups that involve accruing high combos and include the ability to level up your character and learn new moves and abilities. It feels to me like these games are made all to the same standard and no ambition to be something more.

I do love the Deadpool game though  because I think the voice acting for the titular character is done brilliantly and captures the feel of the character. I just wish the gameplay wasn’t so repetitive. Will definitely carry on again some day though. Shattered Dimensions was initially interesting, with some interesting ideas (Noir Spider-Man chief amongst them) but ultimately bored me.

The Amazing Spider-Man to me is a dull, boring and bland open world that we have seen done better with Spider-Man many times before. But still the best of these games, and still one of my all time favourite superhero games is Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Yet these types of superhero games aren’t made any more.

A huge cast of characters to mix and match, all the different abilities to play around with. I used to spend days on end playing X-Men Legends 1 and 2 and did the same for Ultimate Alliance 1 and 2 as well. You’d think with Guardians of the Galaxy and The Avengers doing such good business recently that these type of action role-playing games would be a perfect fit for a game revolving around them.

I think we can all agree these characters all deserve much better representation than the gaming world has given them in recent years.
DSAVAGE92

GC: The sad truth is that it’s just too difficult and expensive to make a good quality tie-in, so almost nobody bothers anymore. Not when smartphone games and lunchboxes are so much easier and profitable.

I don’t want to ask a stupid question but what does Deus Ex actually mean? I don’t think it’s even mentioned in the game.
Coushon

GC: It’s a shortening of the Latin phrase deus ex machina, which translates as ‘god from the machine’. That obviously relates to the games’ stories, even if the more common usage of the phrase is to describe a plot device that is used to abruptly resolve a story.

Count me as one of the people that never understood the hate Call Of Duty gets. Is it just because kids like it as well, and some people like to pretend it’s actually adult entertainment?
Bort

The subject for this weekend’s Inbox was suggested by reader LeighDappa (PSN ID/Facebook), who asks who is your least favourite video games character?

Particularly when it comes to non-player characters, which one gets on your nerves the most and who have you really wished the game would give you a chance to hurt or kill? Why exactly do you dislike them and do they irritate because of the way they’re written, how they act in the game (in terms of artificial intelligence, etc.), or something else?

How much can something like an annoying character ruin an otherwise good game? And are there any you’ve actually given up on, or actively avoided, just because you don’t like the characters?

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