Games Inbox: What characters should be in the new Marvel vs. Capcom?

Beyond infinity
We all know how much Capcom loves a good crossover and now that they have the Marvel license back, it might really be that long before we get a new Marvel Vs. Capcom? Infinite didn’t do well, but it was low budget and held back because Marvel didn’t own the Fox movie rights at the time. But now it is, so not only can the X-Men be in it, but Marvel will probably be pushing for it.

So you can have Wolverine, Cyclops, Cable, Magneto, Colossus, Gambit, Iceman, Juggernaut, Psylocke, Rogue, Sabertooth, Sentinel, Storm and all the others that appeared in the original games.

But there are also a lot of characters that have become popular over the last 25 years, so I would expect to see Deadpool, Phoenix, X-23 make it out of Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 and then maybe Magik, Mystique, Armor, Bishop, Sync and Kid Omega.

Capcom’s site is more straightforward, but I hope they delve into the older games as much as they do the new ones. I’m sure there’s some way they could work out the characters from 1942, Commando, or Forgotten Worlds. I love it when Capcom gets obscure, and I hope that if they do, they can go all out with the new game.
Johnson

Limited interest
I’ve been looking at the new games announced for physical editions of Limited Run Games and some of the options are so bizarre to me. Are there really enough people out there who want to buy hyper-expensive port compilations like Gex and Bubsy? I thought Bubsy Bobcat was literally a joke, like the absolute worst of Sonic wannabe animal mascots?

I realize nostalgia is a thing, but this seems to be taking it to extremes. I remember playing some of these games in the 90’s and they were terrible then, so I hate to think about how they play now.

I don’t think it’s hurting anyone, but I often wish people were as excited about playing new and original games as they are whatever garbage they happened to buy as kids. Nostalgia is a drug, and a lot of drugs are bad for you.
LiteWait

And is A
Here’s an interesting point of pedantry: is Metroid Prime a first-person shooter? Obviously the 2D games are Metroidvanias, hence the name, but I don’t think anyone watching the trailer for 4 would have assumed it was anything other than a shooter. Those who have played the other games know this isn’t true, but it seems a bit lacking to be called a Metroidvania.

I’m surprised genre labels have lasted this long to be honest, because in many cases they’re clearly not relevant anymore. You hardly get them in movies either. Maybe specific things like comedy and horror, but everything else is just what it is.
Gorf

GC: We wouldn’t call it a first-person shooter. Shooting is not the focus and you hardly need to aim.

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Anytime day
I want two games this year. It’s the first time I’ve only bought two games in 12 months. The first one has to be Assassin’s Creed Shadows, but I won’t be buying it from day one like I usually do. I’ll wait a few months, not because I can’t afford it yet, but I’m sick of buying them for £70 the first day and then a few weeks later they’re half price or better, which is a joke to me. With some players knocking it before it comes out, the price may drop even faster, so I’ll wait it out.

The second is Astro Bot. I like the demo or whatever it was called that you get for free with the PlayStation 5, but I hope Sony drops the price, which in all honesty they never do on their own games.

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 doesn’t bother me at all. I’ve played it before because it’s Call Of DUty with a different skin and next year it’s GTA 6 and I really can’t wait for that game. It will be massive and the sales will be something we have never seen before. Dare I say £2 billion in sales in the first 48 hours. I think I’d give £100 for that game.
David

GC: Astro’s Playroom was not a demo, but its elements are likely to be similar to the new game.

Special priorities
I saw your article about Sony ending support for the PlayStation VR2. I don’t understand logic, business or game. You spend a fortune to make, from what I’ve seen, a very good machine, but you don’t support the games.

They did the same with the handheld store; it was great, fantastic screens and great games, but the games stopped immediately. It seems that financial madness, if this is your view, then why do it?
TWO MACKY

GC: It’s a mystery. PS Vita’s early retirement may be due to disagreements between Sony Japan and America, but why Sony decided to prioritize PlayStation VR2 so early in the PlayStation 5’s life without planning any first-party games after launch is a mystery.

Bite the bullet
An interesting feature from a reader over the weekend about the Xbox 360, which is the zenith of gaming. I certainly have a lot of nostalgia for the console, but I’m sure I’m not alone in being glad that games have gotten even more realistic and complex since then. However, as a reader points out, this comes at a price that may not be sustainable.

The problem is, what is the solution? Artificially keep all consoles at the same performance as the Xbox 360 or just slightly above? No one will do that, especially not with competing companies. The second Microsoft or Sony release a low-powered machine, the other will do the opposite, which is partly what happened with the Xbox One and its ridiculous Kinect obsession.

The fact that Nintendo is sitting there proving that it can absolutely work to keep things the same (there’s been very little improvement from GameCube to Wii, so they’re at least a generation behind since then) doesn’t seem to matter. It should, but I don’t see Xbox or PlayStation doing it.

There are so many ways out of the current situation, but no one seems willing to make any big decisions and they only seem to be making things worse by postponing things.
Korea

A year later
RE: Crime Boss: Rockay City. Scored 3/10 by GameCentral, the game has seen many updates and is now a lot of fun. To make it even better, all DLC is now free on all platforms for a limited time.

The only downside is that you have to restart the game.
Cassius2K

A brief defiance
With so much talk about live service games at the moment, I thought I might mention my experience with Ubisoft’s XDefiant, which I initially thought was a really fun alternative to Call Of Duty… I haven’t played it in a week. and will probably never go back to it. There’s nothing wrong with it, but while it’s comparable to Call Of Duty, it’s not necessarily better than it.

Call Of Duty being a known quantity means not only that you know what you’re getting into, but that you’re already kind of in its ecosystem and not starting something from scratch. I think that’s why things like Helldivers 2 and Palworld and XDefiant dropped so much after a few months. They’re decent, but not world-class, and feel more like diversions from other, bigger games.

Fortnite and Apex Legends and whatever else aren’t necessarily better games, but they’re so well established that no one is going to stop playing them for any serious length of time in favor of something that isn’t significantly better. This is why we see these live service games do well for a few months and then fizzle out.

And does anyone think Concorde will be any better? Can anyone see themselves playing this until the end of the year, let alone 2034? If I were a developer, the last thing I’d want to work on is a live service game, not only because that’s probably not what I got into playing for, but because there’s so little chance of it being a hit.
Zeus2

Inbox is also running
I love it when developers congratulate each other on doing well. I can really see CD Projekt and FromSoftware working well together too if they did some project together. Maybe some new DLC?
Authentic

I’m just noting that it was the 25th^Thursday anniversary of Ape Escape last week. The only positive thing I can say is that there will probably be a reference to it in the new Astro Bot?
Gamgee

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