Games Inbox: Is Helldivers 2 in decline?

Stuck in the middle
As someone who played the game almost every day in the beginning, I’m not surprised that people are starting to lose interest in Helldivers 2. I can’t say why it happened so suddenly, but for me the reason I stopped playing so regularly was not only because of using all the good weapons, but also because it was starting to get a bit monotonous.

There are only so many times you can play the same thing over and over again, and for me, I’ve reached my limit. I’m aware that things like Fortnite and Rainbow Six Siege seem to take forever, but I need at least some kind of variety. I’ll probably be able to play the game properly again in a few months, but I can’t imagine playing it as often as I once did.

Helldivers 2 didn’t do anything particularly wrong, but you can have too much of a good thing. How much this applies to other people I can’t say, but I notice that most of the long-running live service games are games for kids (Fortnite and Minecraft) or hardcore shooter fans (Rainbow Six and Counter-Strike ). .

There’s not much middle ground in between, and yet that’s exactly where Helldivers 2 finds itself. Maybe that was even the point. But if it was, I think we’ll find out that these types of games don’t work in the long run.
Sasquatch

Working as intended
So is Hellblade 2 the 2024 version of Ryse: Son Of Rome? It looks incredible, but not much happens.

I wasn’t surprised by the low score as I had played the original and was totally impressed with it. The whole gimmick of the voices was annoying. The combat was one note and there were about three or less enemy types.

Has Ninja Theory made a good game yet? Quick Google check, no. Maybe Enslaved, but not a great album. Of course it’s just my opinion and others may love Ninja’s previous ones, but I won’t continue buying their products unless it’s dirt cheap like the games I played.
Bobwallet

GC: Ryse was primarily an action game, so in that sense it was a bigger failure. For better or worse, Hellblade 2 is the way it is on purpose. We’re not big fans of Enslaved, but we always felt the DmC reboot was underrated, even though the story elements were terrible.

90s nostalgia
It’s weird with the 30th anniversary of Resident Evil 1. I remember buying a PS1 to play it and calling everyone in the room to look at the lifelike graphics. There was nothing like it at the time or the horror style that really made you jump. One of the few games I kept coming back to.

Amazing how far we have come in such a short time, although for me Super Mario 64 was the most amazing achievement with the limited hardware of the time. Remember watching the intro, waiting for the game to start outside the castle, and then realizing it had started and the whole game was like this. Witchcraft at work. Magical, spent over 100 hours getting every star.

All the best and fingers crossed for everyone on the Digital Foundry and Eurogamer staff. Worrying times. They are both gamers and quality journalists.
TWO MACKEN

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Lara in the flesh
Great news for me!

Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered will be released physically on September 24. I’ve been wanting to play this, but wasn’t keen on the idea of ​​a digital copy when my other Tomb Raider games were on disc. Glad I waited now.

It comes out as a standard edition. But even better: a deluxe steel book edition with maps, a book of more than 80 pages, a download of the soundtrack and a music CD with the greatest hits. It all sounds very retro and exactly what I was originally hoping for. The game will be released on PlayStation 5 and Switch. No mention of Xbox.
Tony- -1975 (PSN ID)/SW-4453-8520-2043 (switch)

GC: There’s also a £160 Limited Run Collector’s Edition, which includes all sorts of other stuff like action figures and replica pistols.

Previous advice
RE: Chaosphere and Paul C’s boot and other issues with the Xbox Series The advice was for the Xbox One, but I think it applies to the Xbox Series X as well.

Specifically: ‘Just go to Settings, then Disc & Blu-ray and triple-press to clear persistent storage (just like clearing the Xbox 360 cache).
Then navigate to the advanced settings under Network and clear the Alternate Mac address, which will restart the Xbox and get everything running smoothly again, at least on this side.’

Hopefully this helps to some extent.
NatorDom

Dirty discs
I have a little problem. I received System Shock new and sealed today from Hit for PlayStation 5 and I could hear the disc was loose before I opened the jiffy.

I opened it up and saw some small marks on the disc, I installed the game on PlayStation 5 and it installed perfectly and I started with the very first area after the cutscene when I selected New Game.

I haven’t had any problems yet. If the drive is installed correctly, does this mean the drive is fully functional?

Do I need to return the drive for a refund?

I had Sea Of Stars delivered from Hit towards the beginning of the month and the drive was loose there too, but there were no marks and it installed perfectly.
Andreas J.

As they come
Great review of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, GC. I am definitely interested. I played one of these games or Super Mario RPG briefly on the DS about 15 years ago, so here lies my question… I know Mario games don’t really have a continuous story, but what do you think is the best order to play these? games?

Like in the Paper Mario/Mario RPG versions. They all seem to be available now on Switch, Nintendo Switch Online or DS. So, what’s the most coherent/fun way to experience them? As you even referenced a number of different games in its history in your review.

Thank you for your response and keep up the good work!
Lizardpudlian

GC: Thank you. However, that’s a lot of games and none have a direct story connection (we’ll remember that). We just played Super Mario RPG, Paper Mario and The Thousand-Year Door and then went straight to The Origami King. The Mario & Luigi games are a little more cohesive, with returning characters like the wonderful Fawful, but the answer to any question like this is always the release order.

Every port in a storm
Interesting news about Nintendo’s acquisition of Shiver Entertainment’s Port House. Despite some confusion among readers about the quality of recent ports, I think the reasons why Nintendo sought out such a studio make a lot of sense, hoping to avoid the gaps in the Switch lineup on Switch 2.

Third-party ports to the Switch usually required a specialist hired by the original publishers or developers. Panic Button’s work on Doom is probably the best known, but Saber’s work on The Witcher 3 and Feral’s on Alien Isolation also stand out.

Now that Nintendo is buying out their own port studio, it looks like they will offer this service internally to third parties. If EA or Microsoft can make deals directly with Nintendo for Switch 2 versions, you’d imagine it would be more attractive to bring their games to the new platform.

Then there are patches for existing Switch games for the Switch 2. Many first and third party Switch titles would benefit from an upgrade, so there would be benefits to handling this with a dedicated studio that handles the old and new hardware knows.

I have a feeling, like other readers, that Nintendo will charge for improvements to older games, which isn’t a bad thing since these things take resources to produce. I can see Switch 2 playing Switch games straight out of the box, but if you want higher frame rates and resolutions… that’s £10 and Shiver will do the job.
Marc

GC: You talk about the studio as if it is some kind of renowned expert in its field, while the gameography suggests anything but. Do you really want the people behind the Mortal Kombat 1 port to remaster Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom?

Inbox is also running
Great review of the Paper Mario game. I remember playing this on the GameCube and it was excellent. I was quite sad when it ended. Do you think loading times will be much faster with the Switch 2 if it has backwards compatibility?
Raving

GC: Thank you. It will probably be a little faster, but it’s not a major problem, just a minor annoyance.

I don’t understand why Helldivers 2 is suddenly gaining popularity, but how will that affect Sony’s future plans? This should teach them that you can’t say you have a hit with live service games until much later, but somehow I don’t think they want to hear that.
Lettom

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