Games Inbox: Is Sonic the Hedgehog cooler than Super Mario?

The Wednesday letters page wonders whether Half-Life 3 could still be real, as a reader is unsurprised that Shinobi: Art Of Vengeance wasn’t a big hit.

Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk

Playground battle
Reading about the 35th anniversary of Sonic the Hedgehog had me dragging up some old memories about intense playground arguments, about who was better out of Sonic and Mario. Sonic very firmly won in my school, where most people I knew had a Mega Drive. But it wasn’t as simple as just that.

Sonic was clearly the cooler character, with his ‘attitude’ versus Mario’s stupid moustache. Don’t get me wrong, I fully accept, as an adult, that Nintendo’s games are better, but I think the question of who’s cooler now is difficult to answer.

There’s a lot of baggage around Sonic nowadays, as the loser of the two, but I think the deciding factor is their supporting characters. Sonic has so many lame hangers-on it’s unreal and I barely tolerate Miles and Knuckles, let alone the rest.

Mario, on the other hand, has Bowser, Peach, Luigi, Yoshi, Toad and many more and… I suppose you wouldn’t call them cool but I do like them as characters and I think the movies have done a lot for Bowser and Peach in particular. So all these years later, I think I’m going to have to switch my allegiance to Mario.
Kenzie

Alternative reality
It’s fun to see this game about playing as prime minster. I know it’s just coincidence it’s come out now, but it makes me wish there were more video games that could react to current affairs, instead of always being five or more years behind wherever we are, because of how long they take to make.

Not even online games seem to really do this. You get some Christmas outfits in November and maybe a rabbit or something at Easter and that’s it really. Unlike movies and TV it’s like the real world doesn’t really exist in video games, even when you’re playing games set in modern times, with people talking to you online.
Rooster

All ahead slow
Well, I can say with complete honesty that I will never be getting a Steam Machine and while I was only mildly interested (because I knew it was going to be expensive even before the price hike) I’m definitely out now. It’s not even a serious proposal because as well as being super expensive it’s not even that powerful and you can definitely get better gaming PCs for the same price.

I’m not going to do that either though, because, quite frankly, times are tight and spending hundreds on new games machines is not on my to do list. I can’t imagine I’m the only one thinking like that either right now, so I really don’t know how Sony’s going to handle the PlayStation 6 if it’s anywhere near as expensive. If we thought this generation was a slow start, imagine the next one!
Futterman

Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk

The 10%ers
Not very happy to learn that the N64 is 30 years old, even if I do love the console and its weird controller. I always hoped they would do a mini-console version of it because while it has some classic games it really is a question of quantity over quality, so you could easily fit them all on.

Naturally, I’m loving the idea of Star Fox 64 and Zelda: Ocarina Of Time getting remakes and I really hope that Zelda: Majora’s Mask gets one too. I haven’t heard many people talking about a Super Mario 64 remake though and that makes sense to me as I think it would seem quite basic today, if you upped the graphics and modernised the camera. I think that would also make it a lot easier too.

GoldenEye 007 probably wouldn’t make too much sense either but sometimes a game just isn’t made to last forever. A lot of these games had a massive influence on gaming but that doesn’t mean you can expect them to stay relevant forever. I think probably only a small percentage of games from any console are still worth playing after a couple of generations.
Zeiss

Sign of Life
So, Steam Machine has been given a price and a proper reveal but I can’t help but notice there’s still no sign of Half-Life 3. I’m not questioning whether the rumours were accurate or not but whether Valve has changed their mind and how they ever planned to handle it.

If they don’t want to subsidise the cost of the console then I can’t imagine they’d be in favour of exclusives either, so hopefully, if it does exist, we can still get it released for everyone to play. At least on PC anyway, I could easily imagine them not bothering on consoles, as they’ve never liked them. That way it wouldn’t exactly be an exclusive, but they could still end up pushing people towards Steam.
Clanker

Please be quiet
Someone really, really needs to tell Xbox execs to stop giving interviews. It’s endless and none of it is helping them. Yes, Call Of Duty is bigger than the MCU, Microsoft. Of course, everyone thinks that. You go waste a couple of hundred million dollars on making a movie of that and see how big a hit it is.

I would ask whether these people don’t have something more important to do than be interviewed by a movie website, but we all know they absolutely do. While they’re swanning around talking about how great the Sea Of Thieves movie is going to be, we’re just days away from hundreds of Xbox people being laid off and probably multiple developers being shut down.

If the new boss has been brought on to wind down Xbox then she’s doing an excellent job, because I have never felt less sympathetic towards Xbox. I want nothing to do with it. I doubt I’d even buy any of its games on PlayStation 5, especially not any we know about at the moment.

It’s amazing to me that despite knowing nothing about games and having never worked with him, the new boss is acting and sounding exactly like Phil Spencer. Microsoft must pump these insincere, weirdly grinning execs out by the dozen. I wouldn’t trust a word any of them say.
Pr0metheus

Tempting luxuries
I know there’s a cost of living crisis going on but will someone please explain that to my brain that’s already decided we need the new Commodore phone and a Steam Machine (plus Steam Frame).

Both vastly overpriced but look very cool.
Mark Matthews

Sega takes ages
I see Sega has admitted that Shinobi: Art Of Vengeance did not sell as well as they were hoping. That was pretty obvious from the lack of hype and the fact that I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone talking about it, not even on here.

Personally, I think it’s a great game, even if it does feel a bit like a 2D game with ninjas in it, rather than actually something that is really a Shinobi game. But if it was closer to the original games I think it would’ve done even worse.

It’s the first game in Sega’s retro revival and it has not worked out. It’s obvious why too, because, as everyone told them before they started, they left it too long. I think the only ones they have any chance with are Dreamcast games like Crazy Taxi and Jet Set Radio, because at least they’re not quite as old and there’s still some hope that people that liked them as a kid are still into games.

I’d be surprised if Virtua Fighter CrossRoads was any kind of a hit though. That’s another one they left far too long before putting any effort into appealing to ordinary people and not just the hardcore. This is all too little too late and it’s a shame because I would’ve loved Streets Of Rage and Golden Axe to become big names again, but I don’t think there’s any chance of that now.
Corsa

Inbox also-rans
I know a lot of people are down on it but I’m looking forward to getting a PlayStation 6 as soon as possible. I love getting new hardware and at least that’ll give Sony some incentive to put out new games.
Trepsils

Just to let everyone know but a Rhythm Paradise Groove demo is out now on the Switch eShop. It’s Switch 1 and 2, so everyone gets a go.
Vallow

Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk

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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