Category: Nintendo Switch

Gaming, Meaningless Ramble, Nintendo Switch

Overwatch: POTG Luck

I’d be lying if I said that my recent interest in Overwatch wasn’t a hankering for some of the ‘Good ol’ Days’ I spent hanging around TF2 servers. In recent years, my online FPS playing has been a gentle mix of squad based co-op and the unavoidable Battle Royale invasion, but those days of chipping away or digging in against the desert backdrop of Dustbowl have never really been matched in terms of smooth and direct team based combat. Enter the super-new and latest release of “Overwatch”… erm… ok, so I’m late to the party here, but in my defence it was only a few weeks ago that there was a free Overwatch event on Switch which meant that I finally decided to try Blizzard’s class based team shooter. The hours I spent with it that week, and the subsequent attractive sale price, coerced me in to dipping in to my PayPal funds to spring for it.

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Gaming, Meaningless Ramble, Nintendo Switch, Review

Sniper Elite III: Chewing Gum for the Thumbs

Step in to the shoes of Buck ‘Elite Sniper’ McSniper-Elite the most elite sniper in all of the sniping elite sniper division. Armed only with his elite sniping gun he must snipe more elite-ly then the other elite snipers to become the most elite sniper in all the sniping world of elites to prove once and for all who the most elite sniper is.

I mean, I assume that’s the general gist of the game. I wasn’t paying too much attention; oh, and you have to shoot nazis because it’s WW2 times, except in Africa which is slightly different to all the other WW2 times games that involve shooting nazis in mainland Europe. The problem is that, despite the amount of sarcasm that I’ve jam-packed in to that opening few sentences, I’ve sunk a fair few hours in to ‘Distance-Shooty-Number-3″ which probably says more about my current state of gaming than being a reflection on the game’s quality… and for the record, if spending all your ingame time crouched to the point that your back starts to sympathetically ache is something you enjoy, then knock yourself out because there’s kind of nothing seriously wrong with Sniper Elite III, it’s just that I’m struggling to tease out what qualities made it worthy of the hours I’ve personally played it for.

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Gaming, Meaningless Ramble, Nintendo Switch, Retro Gaming, Review

Night Trap: Awww Grrrrrrr…

Spoiler Warning: This article contains plot spoilers for the game ‘Night Trap’

Call me childish, but there’s a small part of me still smirking at playing ‘Night Trap’ on Switch; a game that Nintendo’s North American President once said would “never appear on a Nintendo System”. Even stepping away from that, it’s clear that the game wears the controversy that surrounded its original release like some robe of state and that without the original drama it’s fairly questionable that it would have received a 25th anniversary re-release. Now, I know that it’s a title that has an unquestionably vast library of opinion pieces, critical breakdowns, and impact articles already associated with its name, but now that I’ve finally experienced the game myself, something that my eight year old self would have been super jealous of having seen those futuristic FMV graphics splashed across the pages of Mean Machines Sega, it’s a good moment to throw out my own views on the controversy surrounding it and how it actually stacks up as a game.

Night Trap is one of those titles where the events surrounding it are at least as (if not more so) interesting as the game itself. Graphics are mainly comprised of live action FMV video that is cut and changes depending on your actions as a player and represents that weird time when CD based games were young. With this new physical format developers were presented with a vast amount of storage space compared to the cartridges that they may have been used to, and like all new tech, they didn’t seem to quite know what to do with it. Thus games like ‘Night Trap’ were born, and for a brief instant were going to be the direction that all games were going; real actors in live action video where the player gently influences the actions in something more like an interactive movie than a traditional game. It was released on the MegaCD (or Sega CD), Sega’s CD drive add-on for that 16-bit blast-processing fuelled monster the Mega Drive (… sigh… or Genesis), in 1992 at arguably the height of Sega’s presence in the home console market on a system that was at the time one of the more widespread CD based platforms. This relatively high level of exposure to the general public arguably led to what happened next, but the twist is that this game was originally meant for a completely different (and more primitive) technology.

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Gaming, Meaningless Ramble, Nintendo Switch, Review

Trüberbrook: Pointing, but not Clicking

Spoiler Warning: This article contains major plot spoilers for Trüberbrook

Point-n-clicks are one of those genres that has found a home in the arms of small and indie developers. Whilst mainstream triple-A releases focus on increasing levels of action and frame-rate, the humble PnC offers gamers something at a more sedate pace which I almost completely ignored growing up only to uncover their charms when I was a little older; and there’s a lot for me to like about PnC’s give my gaming tastes. One of the reasons I enjoy classic survival horror is that feeling of exploring, unravelling and gradually unlocking an area which a good PnC encapsulates. I also enjoy a good story and that certain brand of gaming where you don’t need to have twitch reflexes to play.

It was with this thirst for a story and world to explore that I picked up Trüberbrook, a PnC adventure that drops the player in to the scuffed shoes of a Quantum Physicist, Hans Tannhauser. Arriving in the small remote German village of Trüberbrook in the 1960’s, under the unquestioned circumstance of having won a competition that he didn’t enter, Tannhauser is drawn in to the mysterious local activities of the Millennium Corporation and ends up saving our reality. The visuals, made up of hand crafted model shots, are probably the most immediate draw with its intricate diorama-like presentation and an almost claymation quality to the onscreen cast of quirky characters. Regular readers will know that ‘small town mysterious events‘ and ‘diorama-like‘ are two of my triggers to an almost instant purchase, so it seemed like I was on to a winning formula already. Continue reading “Trüberbrook: Pointing, but not Clicking”

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Gaming, Meaningless Ramble, Nintendo Switch, Review

Ringfit Adventure: Gamification Done Right

… or WiiFit RingVenture as I like to call it… 

TLDR: It’s pretty good at doing what it does

Longer Version: I’m a long time dabbler in the gamification of exercise so I really know what I’m talking about. My relationship with the world of physical exertion is a complex and haphazard affair, especially compared to some of my family, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate the gradual gains and progression that exercise can bring… it’s just that I want some flashing lights and numbers… ideally in graph form… to go with seemingly endless reps. So I’ve tried all sorts of things, I’ve logged exercise through fitocracy and given the Google.. erm.. fit/exercise/active/whatever app a shot during my last sustained gym going effort (over a year ago now), but really nothing has stuck. The common problem with these types of apps for me (and I appreciate that they work for many people) is that they don’t really get to the heart of gamification. They tend to revolve around the idea of the user being happy with a sense of knowing that they’re doing exercise without really providing any sort of structure to do that; goals are self imposed and the experience of ‘logging your hours’ is largely the same on day one as it is in day 100.

… and let’s face it, if there aren’t unlockable costumes involved then I’m just not invested..  Continue reading “Ringfit Adventure: Gamification Done Right”

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Gaming, Meaningless Ramble, Nintendo Switch, Retro Gaming, Review

Sunset Riders: Deserves More than Arcade Archives

I get it, I really do. Hamster Corporation’s ‘Arcade Archives’ series is all about emulating some beloved and well known… along with some much less well known… arcade classics. Bringing the coin-op pleasures of yesteryear up to date with faithful console ports is indeed a laudable goal, it’s just that Konami’s early 90’s western run-n-gun, Sunset Riders, really deserved more.

It’s a game that I’ve been interested in since I borrowed the Mega Drive version for about a week from a neighbour at some point during the early 90’s. Being mostly a platform gamer I hadn’t ever really played many run-n-gun titles, let alone one that was as vibrant as Sunset Riders. That wild west town of the opening stage with its saloons, bandits popping up from every location and … bulls running through the streets?… drew me in to the extent that, despite never owning it, I’d often fire it up at times when I’ve indulged in a bit of sneaky 16-bit emulation over the years.

With all this in mind I was delighted to see it inconspicuously tucked away in the new releases section of the Nintendo Switch e-Shop under the Arcade Archives banner recently and barely paused before parting with the necessary funds to start it downloading. Continue reading “Sunset Riders: Deserves More than Arcade Archives”

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Gaming, Meaningless Ramble, Nintendo Switch, Retro Gaming

Learning to T-Spin: ’89 to Tetris 99

A few weeks ago I caved and signed up for the ‘Switch Online’ service. Sitting in a PC gaming chair for the past few years has meant that I’ve never paid for an online console subscription so the concept was pretty foreign to me. What finally won me over was access to the virtual console NES & SNES games and the vague idea that I might try a few couch online games…

… what my wife and I have actually done is sink a chunk of time into Tetris 99. Or more accurately many many small chunks because Tetris 99 is one of those games that’s delightfully easy to pick up in a spare ten minutes. For anyone not familiar with the concept, Tetris 99 is a Battle Royale version of that iconic soviet puzzle game where 99 players battle it out to be the last one standing. Clearing rows is necessary, not only to keep you in the game, but it also sends those garbage rows (missing one square) to the bottom of a target’s board, pushing them closer to failure. The whole thing comes together to form a satisfying experience that I found, despite not really being much of a Tetris player, is very rewarding even if I’ve yet to claim a victory (4th place being my best performance at time of writing).

One of the cool things about Tetris 99 is that there are no instructions, which means that in order to discover the subtleties of the game (for example how back-to-backs or combos work) involves playing it lots or finding an online guide. This bring me neatly on to T-spins (which, if you’re like me and have only a passing knowledge of Tetris, you’re unlikely to have heard of). I was having a pretty good game. One thing that I did know about Tetris is that a ‘Tetris’ is the clearance of four lines with a single piece and represents the best move in the game… right? In Tetris 99 this sends 4 lines of garbage (not considering other bonuses) to your opponent and I’d had a solid number of them by the time I was finally wiped out. Curious to know how many I’d racked up I checked out my game stats. I noticed an entire stats section devoted to ‘T-Spins’… and was compelled to go away and find out what exactly a T-Spin is, and why I’d want to start filling those columns with numbers. Continue reading “Learning to T-Spin: ’89 to Tetris 99”

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Gaming, Meaningless Ramble, Nintendo Switch, Resident Evil, Retro Gaming

The REMake is the Pinnacle of Remakes, So Should Capcom Just Stop Doing Them?

I haven’t played the recent reamake of Resident Evil 3… I probably will, but for now it’s not too high on my ‘to-play’ list. What I do know about it is that it looks visually stunning and gameplay reports have generally been good, but it is nonetheless still receiving a mixed response from the community. For me, the more action heavy focus has dampened my enthusiasm. What I have played recently is the REMake (AKA the Remake of ‘Resident Evil’ that was originally released for the Gamecube) in HD on Switch. It’s a game that I’ve played before, but a little while back it was on sale and I really just wanted to jump in to something familiar. Despite its age, the gradual journey through the Spencer estate has never looked so good and as a game it still holds up after all these years. It’s also one of the few remakes that’s almost unanimously considered to be an improvement over the original release. It almost seems as thought Capcom did the impossible with it, they took a classic, a genre-defining classic no-less, and only a few short years later remade it in to something better than the original outing, so maybe they could learn a few things from themselves in how to go about pulling this off. Continue reading “The REMake is the Pinnacle of Remakes, So Should Capcom Just Stop Doing Them?”

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Gaming, Meaningless Ramble, Nintendo Switch, OffTopic, Resident Evil

Chris Redfield’s Awkward Debriefing

Apologies to all you non-Resident-Evil-Fan-Readers out there, but this is a Resident Evil related post. A little while ago I was once again in a Resi-mood, to I picked the REmake up on the Switch. And yes, it’s a great game and probably one of the best remakes ever cashed-in-in-on by Capcom. So I picked my way through Chris’ and Jill’s scenarios and found myself mulling over the implications of each of these versions of events. More than that, I realised that considering events in the following games, and given the additional questions raised by Resident Evil Zero, It’s Jill’s scenario, and not Chris’, that must be canonical… and that it must’ve been pretty awkward when Chris found out…

“That’s some expensive carpet…” Chris Redfield thought as he tentatively explored the flooring with his socked left foot. He kicked the discarded combat boots to one side and stretched out his body as best he could whilst still technically remaining seated in the cold metal chair. Irons had been gone for hours and his final words before leaving the room had been “…don’t move…” Even so, Chris had just reached a conclusion in his internal debate and decided that boot removal was technically not moving. The Chief seeing his socks was preferable to spending another how-ever-many hours with aching feet. It already felt like a lifetime since the surviving members of S.T.A.R.S. had been manhandled in to separate rooms for a personal debriefing with Irons himself following that nightmare in the Mansion. Continue reading “Chris Redfield’s Awkward Debriefing”

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Gaming, Meaningless Ramble, Nintendo Switch

The Switch: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Waaaaaa eeeeeaaaiiaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh…… wwwaaaahhh wwwaaahhhh waaahhhhhhh

An oft unadvertised bit of Hundstrasse trivia is that I enjoy a good western. That cliche mix of myth and reality, tales of a fleeting time in history, and the frequently blurred lines between good and bad make for some ol’ fashioned guilty pleasure viewing. In the last few weeks I’ve replayed both ‘Hard West’ and ‘Call of Juarez: Gunslinger’; two titles that capture everything superbly over the top about the genre in very different gaming vehicles, but I’m not writing about westerns today. Instead I want to talk about the platform that I enjoyed those titles on, and in all honesty, most of my recently played games: the Nintendo Switch.

The Switch has been a fixture in the household for some years now, but aside from ‘Zelda, Breath of the Wild’, I really hadn’t spent too much time clutching the wonkey-eyed-dog. Our Switch was, for the first 2 years in the house, mostly a useful portable gaming vector for excursions away for the weekend, or to take with us to play with friends or family. That was until late August last year when our player 3 arrived. At the time of writing we’re getting in to something of a good routine, but the first few months of having a baby that routine is really changeable and gaming needed to be slotted in as and when it could be; heck, I played most of Golf Story with him sleeping on my lap. I guess the point that I’m trying to make is that the Switch offers me a way to game when sitting down for long spells at the PC isn’t feasible. The quick startup, easily suspended software, and ability to just grab the console and continue in handheld mode all play right in to that need of having to adapt gaming to the current household circumstances. I’ve also begun… until recently of course… to brave possibly judgemental looks from my fellow commuters and started making use of my morning train journeys to get some gaming in.

So with the Switch the device I currently use the most to game, and having now played a good variety of titles, I felt like it was a good time to take stock and reflect on it as a console. In short, outline the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly …see what I did there?…  Continue reading “The Switch: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly”

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