Games Inbox: GTA 6 at The Game Awards 2023

Three days and counting
It’s going to be December on Friday and I can’t help it, the hype for GTA 6 is building to epic levels and nothing’s even happened yet! It’s actually kind of fun that Rockstar are so unpredictable because the reveal really could be on Friday, or at the weekend or basically any time in the next couple of weeks, and we’ll probably have no warning until it actually happens.

The only real guess is whether it will be at The Game Awards or not, but my guess is that it won’t be. There are two reasons, one being that Rockstar doesn’t usually like to be seen as just another games company and very rarely turns up at other events. The other reason is more straightforward, if it’s going to be there why not just tell everyone?

Obviously, Rockstar wants as many people as possible to watch the trailer so if it was going to debut at The Game Awards why wouldn’t you tell people, so they made sure to tune in?

That’s my guess anyway, and I don’t really mind if I’m wrong, as long as the reveal is by at least the 8^th. I’m hoping it’ll be Friday though, just so I can watch it a couple of hundred times over the weekend and read up on all the theories that will instantly pop up about it.
Franky

Short and sweet
I really enjoy Super Mario RPG. I’d started it before on the Wii Virtual Console but never managed to finish it as the graphics were not what I was expecting, after hearing how good they are. I wanted to give it another try though and while it was more expensive then I think was probably necessary I’ve really enjoyed myself. And you know why? Because it was short and fairly linear.

Seriously, I am so over 100 hour epics and this hit a sweet spot that I really enjoyed. There wasn’t enough time to get sick of the gameplay or locations, I didn’t end up forgetting what the story was because I’d been playing it so long, and at the end I was wishing there was more instead of being glad it was over.

I would be all for more games like this, especially role-playing games which, in my opinion, have just ballooned out of control in recent years. Super Mario RPG shows how things used to be and in a lot of ways it was better.
Purple Ranger

Money maker
Am I the only Capcom fan that doesn’t really like Monster Hunter? I generally like all their stuff but the games have never appealed, with the clunky combat and repetitive objectives, there’s a bit of wackiness with the cat-things but I never feel it has the same sense of freewheeling cheerfulness that even the horror of Resident Evil seems to enjoy.

Despite what it may sound like though I am all in favour of Monster Hunter, as I understand that it’s very popular and gives Capcom the money to make other games – the ones I actually like. It’s also kind of exciting because it means that if Monster Hunter is out soon then the big one after that is going to be something interesting…
Cuit

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MGU
I’m really pleased with how Spider-Man 2 turned out. I know the original had some faults but it feels like the sequel fixed them all and everyone seems more universally positive about it. Even GC liked it. It’s pretty obvious that Daredevil is going to be in the DLC and Insomniac is not being at all secretive about its plans for a Venom semi-sequel.

I do worry that he’s going to have to be de-powered quite a bit to make it interesting for a whole game but all the Venom stuff in the game worked so well I have full confidence that Insomniac will pull it off. I’m getting impatient for Wolverine to come out though as I want to know what they’re going to do after that.

Now that Spider-Man has been such a massive hit for them and Sony do they go full out with a Marvel game universe or are they just going to keep it to the super popular characters? The movies show you can expand outside the usual suspects but push your luck and go to far and it can all fall like a house of cards. You could argue that’s already happened with Midnight Suns.
Tennant

Striking while the iron is cold
I really feel for the team at Monolith Productions. They must’ve been pretty pleased with themselves after the two Middle-Earth games, and inventing the Nemesis System. And when they started this Wonder Woman game it must’ve been after the first film had been a big hit.

Then only a few years later and the sequel turns everyone off the character and Warner Bros. start talking about how all they’re interested in is live service games. Things can change quickly and to be honest I worry about the future of the studio if the game’s not a hit. At the very least I sense a lot of microtransactions in their future…
Capsica

Just wait
I agree that it sure is going to feel like a come down paying ‘normal’ prices for games again after Black Friday basically went on for almost two weeks. I agree that it would surely make more sense to have them this price all the time, to get more people buy them, but I also accept that’s never going to happen.

What surprised me about this year though was that even very recent games like Spider-Man 2, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and Modern Warfare 3 were getting discounted. Not by a lot, but enough to be worth the effort and convince you to get them now rather than later (well, not Modern Warfare 3 for me, but you get what I mean).

But what’s going to happen next year when we now know that anything released in November, let alone earlier, is going to be cheaper if you wait till Black Friday. Publishers love their day one hype but I for one am not going to be buying any new games that come out after September. What’s the point when you can get £10 or £15 off if you just wait a moth or so?
Ginocre

Mobile Kart 9
I just realised the reason Mario Kart X is called that is because Nintendo are classing Mario Kart Tour on mobile as Mario Kart 9.
Andrew J.
PS. Do you think you will reviewing Kingpin Reloaded? I played the demo of the original game on PC over 20 years ago and it was very good in my opinion and very impressive graphics.
Just completed: Darq (PS5)

GC: Yes, you may be right in terms of Mario Kart. We don’t know about Kingpin Reloaded though; we didn’t much like it the first time around.

Super Everything Kart
That Mario Kart X rumour sounds pretty believable and I can’t argue with the guy’s track record, so… yay! I mean, I’m ready for a new Mario Kart, isn’t everyone else? And doing it soon after the Switch 2 launch but not too soon after the last of the Mario Kart 8 DLC makes sense to me.

Calling it Mario Kart X is weird though. Even if they’re counting World Tour as 9, which I don’t think anybody else was, why would you skip a number, because once you’re onto Mario Kart 14, or whatever, it starts to make it all seem a bit like it’s starting to overstay its welcome.

However, what I thought was what if it’s X as in crossover? There’s been lots of talk about making the next game Nintendo Kart, in the style of Super Smash Bros., so you could have Mario Kart X Metroid, Mario Kart X Fire Emblem, and… Mario Kart X Sonic or Pac-Man or any of the other of dozens of Smash cameos. That could also explain why it’s been so expensive to make.

They keep saying that they can’t make a game on the scale of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate again so this would also help to create that same appeal but in a different game where all you have to do is drop in a different driver. Just a theory but I’ll be happy if I’m right.
Mosseye

Inbox also-rans
A bit late but I’ve just read the RoboCop: Rogue City review. ‘Most satisfying headshots we’ve experienced in a long time’ you say? Sold.
Mitchell

Was there ever a Twin Peak video game, GC? I feel like there should’ve been but I don’t remember ever seeing one.
Neeps

GC: There was a VR game in 2019 but we haven’t played it and we’re not sure it’s actually a game, it seems to be more like you just visit a bunch of locations from the show. We would highly recommend Deadly Premonition though, which is the closest thing you can get outside an official adaptation.

This week’s Hot Topic
The subject for this weekend’s Inbox was suggested by reader Cranston, who asks what are the best and worst video game presents you’ve ever received?

As Christmas approaches, and family members struggle with the age old problem of what to buy the gamer in their life, we want to know what the happiest is you’ve ever been with a gift and what was the most disappointing moment?

It can be for a birthday or any other occasion, not just Christmas, but let us know the circumstances, including whether you tried to hint at what the present should be and whether your initial impression of the gift changed over time.

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

The small print
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