Games Inbox: Is the Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7 beta any good?

The Monday letters page is still furious about the Game Pass Ultimate price increase, as one reader suggests The Elder Scrolls 6 will be worth the wait.

Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email [email protected]

What goes around comes around
I haven’t bought a Call Of Duty game in about 10 years. All that wall jumping and sliding about in Infinite Warfare put me right off.

I download the latest beta every year and usually enjoy it. This year however took me back to what put me off Call Of Duty all those years ago. I lasted half a dozen games before I uninstalled it and returned to Thank Goodness You’re Here!
Coinslot-

GC: You basically missed a decade long period where Activision were purposefully moving away from the excesses of Infinite Warfare. But it’s been so long they’re now giving it a go again. Maybe wait only five years before dipping back in, as these things work in cycles.

Victory at any cost
So I was just reading that cheaters have descended on the recent Call Of Duty beta, and as usual I’m scratching my head as to what they get out of it.

Can any current or former cheaters in online games enlighten me?

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I don’t play online so you’ll have to pardon my ignorance, but is it a way to quickly gain experience points?

Or, as I suspect, is it just to experience an unbelievably hollow sense of accomplishment while robbing honest players?

How people behave in the world often confuses me, but this is particularly baffling, especially when it can lead to permanent bans and other punishments – all of which are completely deserved.

Maybe Activision and the rest should instead stick them all in their own bespoke lobbies, where they all just cheat against each other in some sort of self-made hell that they to suffer in.

Seriously, what a bunch of losers. I bet half of them have posters of Billy Mitchell on their walls.
ANON

GC: A hollow sense of accomplishment is a nice way of putting it. Activision claim that the cheaters during the beta aren’t necessarily a problem, as they’re using them to train their anti-cheater tech to work better when the game actually launches.

End of line
Microsoft blundering has become such a norm that I was not too surprised by the massive hike in price for Game Pass Ultimate. It is ridiculous and I am just about done with them as a company, after being a day one Xbox 360 purchases to eventually getting the Xbox One and even Xbox Series X within the first six months of their releases.

I was actually at that point of deciding what to do anyway, with my Game Pass Ultimate expiring in the next month. I will probably still play occasionally, but may move on to a different console, as I had been thinking about getting a second-hand Switch for my kids anyway.

Saying all of that, I would really appreciate the 12 month code Simundo kindly offered, as it will tide me over until I decide which direction to go next.

GC (yes, my real initials, not just a GameCentral impersonator!)

GC: We’ll send you the code later today. Our thanks to everyone else who wrote in requesting it.

Email your comments to: [email protected]

Switching for a month
I’m about to endure a 12 hour transit to the US, spend some lonely nights once I get there for a month; I’d love to know your choice of game(s) to take? I’ve a Switch 1 and surprisingly, a DS with Professor Layton And The Curious Child still in it. Working like a dream still.

I really want to play the Super Mario Galaxy entries on Switch 1 but I’m keeping my powder dry for now, as I have them on Wii. I could never get totally onboard with the original’s motion controllers even though I could tell that the game was amazing. I just never had the time back then to fully indulge its ambitions, and I don’t think I have it now.

Metroid 4 Prime has pre-order discounts but I’m wary. I’m a cynic and never rush in even though I’m a massive fan of the franchise. It’s kind of come down to me considering replaying some 16-bit games of yore on the online service for a month or two (not sure I need the expansion).

Surprisingly, that NyxQuest still haunts my mind to this day. That was never a portable game. I still have it on file, and I’d just play that if I could. Loved the soundtrack even though it played on Every. Single. Level. I loved you Nyx. There’s a Kid Cupid in there somewhere…
D Dubya

GC: You’re not giving us much to work with there, in terms of your tastes or what you might or might not have, but assuming you have some of the more obvious titles on the console how about some choice indie picks: Animal Well, Balatro, Dead Cells, Into The Breach, Lorelei And The Laser Eyes, or Dave The Diver.

Enough is enough
I think I’m finally done with Xbox too. I’ve owned every console since it first arrived on the scene two decades ago. You used to be able to do so much on the console that you couldn’t do on others. I remember uploading all my music to the machine, so I could create a custom radio station on GTA. My first online console experience was with Halo 2. Splinter Cell was one of the best examples of lighting in games.

Originally a DirectX box meant to provide console players with PC quality games. Sure, the Duke controller wasn’t perfect, but they perfected that through the years. I’m also one of the few people that saw the vision of the Xbox One to be a good thing. I routed my Sky Box through it and used the Kinect to control everything.

The implementation and marketing could have been much better, and I didn’t agree with the always online aspect. They’ve made mistakes but they usually correct them eventually. They have had a great output recently and have a good slate of games coming out. It’s always one step forward and 50 steps back with them.
Anthony Daniels

Essential question
I’m with Game Pass Core, which has now been renamed to Essential, and I have noticed you get less points each day for signing into the Xbox app since the change in name. I play games on my PC, does anyone know how to get the ‘Play a PC game’ points on the Xbox app each day when you are on Game Pass Essential?

I mainly play my PC games in Steam. I have got a Microsoft game in Steam which is Psychonauts 2.
Andrew J.
PS: I just got given a £50 gift voucher for a company not giving me a good service, so have just bought Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2! Which is cool.

No consoles
I have never had an Xbox, but have been intrigued by Game Pass since one of your readers mentioned that you could now play its games directly through the TV; I checked my new-ish LG telly and sure enough there was the Xbox app.

I’ve been somewhat loathe to spend real money on it, with no sense of the streaming quality, so had been saving up reward points via Bing to get myself a month’s pass (guess that was a waste of time!). Anyway, it looks like a Core subscription now converts to Ultimate at a rate of 0.4, so if I was to add a month myself then it should result in a 5+ month ‘trial’, which seems worth the gamble to me.

Mainly, I just want to play Keeper when it comes out, but the idea of running something like Indiana Jones And The Great Circle with no dedicated hardware in the room seems like it should be a glimpse into the future (albeit one we’ve been promised for a fair few years now), so either way I will report back once I’ve had a chance to give it a whirl… thanks!
rich_c

Top of the pops
RE: Super Mario Galaxy 2. I still have the Wii version but got the Switch version anyway and I forgot how good this game is. I only ever play on my Switch in handheld mode, so some of the Yoshi controls can be a pain but it’s not the end of the world.

It one of those games where I’m only going to play a level and a whole world later, I’m still playing. The music for the Galaxies doesn’t get enough love – still can’t decide if the Bowser’s Road 64 remaster or Bowser Jr.’s Fiery Flotilla is my favourite.
Simon

Interactive toys
I got around to putting together my Lego Game Boy over the weekend. The attention to detail is brilliant, even to the point of the Zelda cartridge having a Lego version of a memory chip inside, I had great fun putting it together.

Anyway, it got me thinking as I was building it how much I enjoyed the Nintendo Labo series and how ingenious it was.

As Nintendo and Lego seem to be pretty good buddies at the moment, that made me wonder if we could possibly get Lego crossing over into Nintendo’s territory by making something similar to Labo that works with the Switch 2?

There could even be an exclusive game that uses characters similar to amiibos, that you would have to build similar to how the Lego Super Mario characters work.

Or maybe build a NES Zapper gun that uses a Joy-Con to play Duck Hunt with maybe a Lego twist to it? I’m just throwing ideas up here guys, albeit I’m sure they would be very primitive to anything Nintendo and Lego could imagine up.

I would like to see something like this and I’m sure a lot of other people would too, it certainly would be interesting if nothing else.
freeway 77

GC: Fans have already started adding working components to the Lego Game Boy. The Super Mario line is pretty interactive, from a digital point of view, so we could maybe imagine them going a step further in a future product.

No guarantees
RE: Game Pass Ultimate. I won’t be continuing with this. Cost of living increases are bad enough, but I can no longer justify this increase.

The fact they cannot guarantee cloud gaming access without queuing for Ultimate?

To be honest, playing some games on the cloud with a half decent bit-rate and getting glitches were pushing me towards cancelling. This just makes it easier.

Might even head back to PlayStation.
Al

First release
Regarding Tosh and their Elder Scrolls 6 predictions, which are probably quite accurate really considering the lack of news. Although The Outer Worlds did have its fans, it was not enough to stop a fair bit of a critical mauling, with some reviewers and gamers.

I agree it’s very weird in that The Elder Scrolls 6 looks like it’s not going to be released anytime soon, but if like Skyrim it will be continually released over a couple of generations of consoles making money! Then you could maybe afford to spend time future-proofing and making it the best game ever and reap in the rewards for all those years in the making.

It’s the same with Oblivion, as it’s now had another release but not quite as many times of Skyrim. GTA 5 has been in the same position also and why stop the money coming in by releasing a newer title too soon – Just ask Nintendo!

You could argue that technology will overtake the game, and it would be outdated, but also they could be using technology we don’t know about yet and are wise to the fact technology is changing but bringing it aboard to utilise with Elder Scrolls 6!

If this is the case then maybe Bethesda are possibly using a good business decision – looking at the long term – and taking a little loss of financial momentum, knowing that if a game is made well, with good intuitive research, and then developed with modern day skills then there’s every reason that the next proper mainline The Elder Scrolls will be an absolute banger.
Alucard

GC: The Outer Worlds has an 85 on Metacritic.

Inbox also-rans
So the Halo remake/remaster isn’t even being made by Halo Studios? What’s the betting it’s going to end up as worse than the remake we’ve already got?
Hermy

So how long is anyone betting before we get an apology video from Phil Spencer? The only way I’ll be able to watch it while keeping my lunch down is if he resigns at the end of it.
Focus

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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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