Games Inbox: Nintendo’s best video game console

The Thursday letters page thinks Battlefield: Bad Company 3 is less likely than ever, as one reader wishes for a home version of Daytona USA 2.

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E-mail your comments to: [email protected]

Battle On The Edge
Here’s a question GC, I’m not sure if you’ll know the answer.

Daytona USA is probably my favourite arcade racer of all time and, yes, I include OutRun and Mario Kart in that list.

There is a really good conversion on the Xbox 360 but I’ve only ever played the second one once in the arcades.

Why was there never a console release of that?

I don’t get it?

It’s money for old rope and dinosaurs like me will part with their hard earned cash for it.

Was it something to do with Sega dissolving as a company?

Surely it could be releases on today’s platforms?
jim lightfoot

GC: For such an important franchise, Daytona USA has always been poorly treated in terms of home conversions. Daytona USA 2 was supposed to appear on the Dreamcast, but it was cancelled in favour of an updated version of the original.

Bits in the sky
I’ve been thinking on Zelda’s changing landscape, with Hyrule been pretty much a wreck after the earlier war with Ganon, and seemingly in an even more perilous position now, what with it looking to be in a haze of flames with even more dangerous foes from Zelda’s past.

I have concluded (actually hoping) that when you complete a dungeon/divine beast/master shrine and release the spirit or guardian within, that the section of the map you’re in, be it Lake Hylia or Hyrule Field or Kokiri Forest, that that will change back to the light, to a more traditional Zelda area that we’re all familiar with.

The gouged earth is filled in, the dry lakes are refilled, the ruins are rebuilt, the towns people are back, the landslides are gone and opening new sections. The rivers and lakes are overflowing with life and waterfalls, the forests are verdant and green, life slowly returns to Hyrule and changes the landscape… also, bits in the sky.
big boy bent

Beyond Liberty City
In response to the letter on Wednesday, questioning the choice of setting for the next GTA, I thought I’d chuck in a slightly different way of looking at it. Looking at the accepted settings for the GTA games we have three distinct areas. We have Liberty City based on New York City and the East Coast, Vice City based on Miami and the southern vacation areas, and San Andreas based on L.A. and the West Coast. These are all pretty iconic areas of the States, with very different aesthetics, attitudes, and landscapes.

All are fairly iconic locations and well enough known worldwide that the average player would appreciate the differences and the cultural references. The scale of GTA 5 moved us out of a single city and presented a truncated but natural feeling California. I’m presuming the new one will also move us away from just Miami and probably focus on the state as a whole.

Perhaps they’ll then move on to the whole of the East Coast with number 7 (New York and up to The Hamptons for the weekend?). I guess my point is that outside of these three locations I’m not sure where else they could set the games that have the same level of mass cultural touchstones? I guess Vegas would be an option that has the same mass recognition, but outside of the city we’re into sparsely populated desert and I guess we’d have to include New Mexico too.

So yeah, the games are pretty broad pastiches of well know US areas and outside of the ones I mentioned above I don’t think there are enough areas of the states that would either make a good world map or allow us the same level of cultural recognition. GTA: The Flyover States, anyone?
Matt

GC: Las Venturas from GTA: San Andreas is basically Las Vegas but, yes, you make a good point.

Release the numbers
The problem with saying whether Microsoft’s first party games will or won’t compete with Sony is that we’ll never know. Xbox games never do well in the sales charts because of Game Pass, so it will seem as if it’s only a minor hit.

Microsoft are really only hurting themselves by never releasing sales numbers for anything they do. We all assume they’re low anyway, so it’s not like anyone’s going to be shocked. But in this case I expect Starfield will actually do better than it appears to us on the outside.
Loni

The original
That new Aliens game sounds intriguing, but personally I think I would prefer a turn-based game.

Anyway, reading about it reminded me of the very first turn-based strategy game I ever played! It was on the Spectrum, and I thought it was Rebelstar Raiders, but a quick bit of digging around on the internet it was actually the sequel: Rebelstar 2: Alien Encounter.

Not sure If anyone will remember it, but it was so heavily influenced by Aliens it basically was an Aliens turn-based strategy game. For the time it was incredible! I had never played anything like it before.

The premise was the same: bunch of soldiers sent to a planet to destroy a bunch of aliens and kill the alien queen. The aliens even looked like the xenomorph! Probably couldn’t get away with the potential IP infringements in this day and age.

And get this kids – on release it was £1.99!

Of course, it was created by the future creator of XCOM and king of turn-based strategy: Julian Gollop.

It was followed up by Laser Squad, which while being a significantly better game in many senses, doesn’t hold the same fondness and memories to me as Rebelstar 2, partly because I was an Alien series obsessive back then.

Anyway, to this day I love turn-based strategy games, but man XCOM can be cruel.

Looking forward to seeing how the new Aliens game pans out!

Have fun y’all
The Dude Abides

Inbox also-rans
Very glad to see the usual website layout return to the website, GC. I’m sure you had something to do with that so on behalf of everyone that was struggling to make sense of it on their phones: thanks.
Terrance

I’m so glad to hear that Ubisoft games are not going to be written by mindless, soulless robots. Now I wonder whether they could stop them from doing the gameplay too.
Deux

This week’s Hot Topic
The subject for this weekend’s Inbox was suggested by reader Grant, who asks whether you’ve ever dreamt about video games?

That doesn’t mean daydreaming about an imagined sequel or remake but a game that has had such an effect on you that it’s ended up in your dreams. It doesn’t have to be a nightmare but what games have you dreamt about and why do you think they made it through to your subconscious?

Was it because you were playing them a lot or because their story or gameplay had a profound effect on you? Or do you find it inexplicable that they turned up that way?

E-mail your comments to: [email protected]

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 and content.

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

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