Posts Tagged ‘nintendo’

29 Sep

The Switch 2 Launch Window is Over – Now What?

Posted by vagrantesque in Console, Games, Switch 2. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , .

Or: Not Another Switch 2 Update Post! Yes, I’m Afraid So.

Indeed in this hardware-dominated gaming year January, April, and June each provided relevant, compelling reasons to talk about Nintendo’s newest headline magnet, and at the beginning of this month the Switch 2 officially passed its three-month anniversary on the market. Yes, we’ve already lived through an entire financial quarter with this thing, and more besides. All the games dated in the big April Nintendo Direct have been released, more have been announced and/or given dates, the calendar for the rest of the year is set, and we have a pretty good feel for the current strengths and weaknesses of the console.

I don’t really have much of a personal stake in extolling the pros or eviscerating the cons of the Switch 2 at the moment. As that mammoth June article covered, it’s a rather straightforward upgrade over the Switch 1, and almost all my friends who had the last console already own its successor. I am, however, morbidly curious about tracking the 2’s market presence against that famously back-against-the-wall version of Nintendo that pulled out all the stops way back in 2017, and maybe throwing in an update on some developments that weren’t exactly obvious on release weekend. Time to dive back in, then.

Who Wore It Better?
Switch Launch Year Face-Off

If there’s one thing the first Nintendo Switch was notorious for getting right, it was the pitch-perfect release schedule stretched across its now-legendary first year on the market. So naturally any close follower of the industry would be mighty excited to compare the first year of any would-be successor, as directly as possible. Naturally, he writes, as he squirms uncomfortably in his chair. So uh, yeah, let’s do that.

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12 Jun

Very Quickly Breaking Down an Almost-E3 to Remember

Posted by vagrantesque in Games. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , .

Geoff Keighley, you son of a gun.

The actual 2025 Summer Game Fest show may not have been one for the history books, but something has clearly shifted around the event by now. Despite the largest console launch in gaming history just days earlier, and an ongoing reluctance from the big-boy publishers to allow their messaging to clash with that of their rivals, the light shining from Geoff’s would-be E3 replacement in 2025 was too irresistible to ignore for too many important names, and we ended up with an unusually dense June showcase season.

Because I only just put up a monster post for the Switch 2 launch, this annual show analysis will be much shorter, less formatted, and perhaps slightly more unhinged than usual, but I wasn’t going to miss doing one anyway.

Warm Nostalgia For Dishonest Trailers

The first of the big names to show themselves in that sweet early-June hype slot was – rather surprisingly – CD Projekt Red, who teamed up with Epic Games to release a mighty impressive State of Unreal demo for The Witcher 4 at this year’s Unreal Fest. The demo was so impressive, in fact, that the comparisons to that infamously overambitious E3 2012 Watch_Dogs trailer immediately came out in force among YouTube commenters. More like Un-Real, am I right?

All that said, despite the old-school E3 stage vibes of the presentation I am slightly more inclined to believe this crazy demo – which is purported to run at 60 frames per second on a base PS5 – is more likely to lead to something comparably playable than that fateful Ubisoft misdirect over a decade ago. Epic has already proven that Unreal Engine 5 can improve its capabilities and efficiency through the games releasing on it, and CD Projekt just proved with Cyberpunk 2077 on the Switch 2 what they are willing to do in the name of optimisation. Cautiously exciting stuff that started the season off with a bang.

Quirky Playstation Returns, Brings Fight Stick

“Live service games? What are those?” mused a pensive Playstation as they kicked off one of the best State of Play shows ever with the glorious return of Lumines. The company’s traditional tendency to ignore Summer Game Fest in nonchalant fashion and do their own thing now looks suspiciously like a multi-year plan to circle slowly around the June hype season until they can go before Xbox; I joke, of course, as not much about Playstation’s last five years screams “well-planned”, but if they bring the heat like this again we will be in for some good-old-days June appointment viewing.

The flavour of the 2025 State of Play could hardly be more different from that of last year, as even third-party online multiplayer game mentions were kept to a blatant minimum. The cheeky return of Pragmata set off my Capcom-streak alarm once again – the game is looking fabulously different from anything else in their current catalogue – and closing with an all-new Arc System Works Marvel fighter could not have shouted “hardcore traditional audience” any louder from the proverbial rooftops (announcing a new official Sony fight stick came close though). Elsewhere, the return of Suda51 via Romeo is a Deadman (a title that not-so-subtly pairs with the protagonist of Lollipop Chainsaw) will always be welcome in my house, it’s great to see the ongoing survival of the Bloodstained and Nioh series, support for Astro Bot remains stellar, and Final Fantasy Tactics LIVES! More of this please, Sony.

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10 Jun

At Last, We Switch 2 a New Era

Posted by vagrantesque in Console, Games, Switch 2. Tagged: , , , , , .

Nintendo’s eighth generation has begun. The previous one lasted a gargantuan 98 months and two days, and it was very very important to the fortunes of the company, but it has finally run its course, and now here we are at the end of the successor’s long maiden weekend. The Nintendo Switch 2 is in our hands, and tons of people around the world have begun to put it through its paces, proverbial microscope at the ready.

If you think I’m not one of those people, you must be new here. Welcome!

Party Platform

Over the last four days I have played the Nintendo Switch 2 at five different locations, in ten different groups of people, online, offline, on TVs, propped up on cafe tables, in bed and on public transport. No matter what conclusions you may draw from the rest of this rather large article, it remains worthwhile to mention that this is still Nintendo’s competitive advantage in 2025; they do wide-demographic multiplayer better than any other major platform holder, and they do it in a myriad of different ways. The Switch 2 is just as flexible and even more social than its trailblazing older brother, and just in case that conclusion gets lost in all the nerdy minutiae to come, it goes right up here at the top of the page.

Hardware? I Hardly Know Her

Now let’s get straight into the needlessly granular hardware observations and comparisons you all know and tolerate.

The Switch 2 is definitely a nice bit of kit out of the box, and the first thing I noticed is something I hadn’t heard any preview explicitly mention: the dominant colour of the machine. When assembled in handheld mode, this console presents a clean, unified visual that’s a far cry from the middling greys of the Switch 1’s short-lived launch joy-cons, which only made the thick black bezels of the 2017 model stand out even more. The Switch 2 may technically still be on the darker side of the grey spectrum if you want to be a giant nerd about it, but for all intents and purposes this handheld is black, and it looks good in it.

It’s also large, though the box in which it ships is somehow noticeably smaller than even the already-shrunken OLED box. The roughly 8-inch screen and significant power/battery jump up from the first Switch necessitate a wider frame, though the Switch 2 really doesn’t feel as big – or heavy – as it looks; that’s probably down to a remarkably thin breadth. No portable PC handheld I have tried – and I’ve tried a fair few – is even close to this narrow, and that helps with the weird illusion of lightness despite the screen size. It’s only when you look down its edges and notice how tiny all the buttons and compartments are – with the notable exception of the relatively giant lower air vents – that the size hits you again.

As for the screen itself, pros and cons are undeniably in play. All the pre-release hubbub about the Switch 2 lacking an OLED panel will almost certainly prove irrelevant to the vast majority of people, as the LCD technology Nintendo uses has come on in leaps and bounds in the last six years. The 1080p screen is much more comparable to the one on the Playstation Portal remote player this site dissected last year, both in size and vibrance. In the picture below, you can see some classic light bleed around the edges of the Switch Lite that isn’t there on the 2. However, it’s still undeniable in person that the Switch OLED (not to mention the AyaNeo Air handheld PC also covered in that 2024 article) runs rings around the launch Switch 2 as far as black levels, contrast and even brightness are concerned.

The biggest immediate difference from the Switch 1 beyond stature is the magnetic attachment mechanism behind the new joy-cons, and they do indeed jump on with a satisfying clap. The magnet on each edge is strong enough to feel like it takes over control once the “Joy-Con 2s” are inside the colour-coded divots, yet weak enough that you can’t, say, attach the two components from within their plastic bags right out of the box. At least in week 1, my Switch 2 isn’t showing any signs of loose or bendy joy-con connection; everything feels almost like one piece in handheld mode.

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6 Apr

Making Sense of All This Nintendo Switch 2 Nonsense

Posted by vagrantesque in Console, Games, Switch 2. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , .

It has barely been three days since the hour-long Nintendo Direct that blew the doors off the Nintendo Switch 2. But my word, does it feel like ten.

Indeed the moment has arrived: cats are finally out of bags; features and details have been divulged; long-held secrets have been spilled; we now know almost all of the important stuff about the Nintendo Switch 2. And just like when the Wii U made its full debut in mid-2012, or when “Switchmas” took the Internet by storm in very early 2017, my frantic compulsion to type up every errant thought on this site on minimal sleep and maximum coffee intake has peaked once again. I have watched the full Nintendo Switch 2 Direct through multiple times with and without reactions, read all the official documents and interviews, and taken in more analytical content than I care to admit.

But this post has not turned out to be as simple as a quick churn-out of thoughts. The original plan was to try and pump it out in a day, but then it was revealed that channels, sites and influencers had proper hands-on impressions ready to share on the same day that a bulky Nintendo Treehouse Live stream hit the internet, with another day of live streams to follow. On top of that, now there’s a wildfire of unexpectedly economics-flavoured chat going on throughout the internet since the cost of the new system came to light, with every 12 hours seemingly delivering a K-Drama-worthy twist.

So ultimately this article is a few days in the writing – during which Switch 2 preorders have already partially sold out here in Australia – but as a result it’s hopefully a bit more informed and carefully considered. It’s definitely a lot longer. After all, this kind of event just does not happen every day; it’s time to break down the tremendously exciting and extremely volatile promise of a brand-new Nintendo gaming generation.

The Brass Tacks

June 5th. That’s the date we will get our hands on the Nintendo Switch 2, for $699 Australian dollarydoos (called it). The new machine will arrive packing a 7.9 inch 1080p capacitive touch screen that as many feared will not be an OLED panel, but does support 120 frames per second output, High Dynamic Range at HDR10 spec and Variable Refresh Rate! All three of those bullet points are massive surprises roughly on the same shock level that the multi-touch screen, USB-C charging ports and region-free game support were back at the 2017 Switch reveal. Along with 3D audio, these are forward-looking hardware features from an often stubborn company, and the only thing more surprising than their inclusion is the fact Nintendo actually called attention to them (excepting the VRR thing) in the Switch 2 Direct.

120Hz VRR support is a massive deal in particular, as it makes 40FPS refresh rates look really smooth – and that is a much easier performance target than 60 for third-party developers to hit for their often-tricky Nintendo ports. And sure, HDR makes almost no difference without either an OLED display or some serious local dimming support, which is pretty rare on portable screens. But support is support, and that means docked play can finally take advantage of modern TV colour ranges. Speaking of which, the dock also has a freaking cooling fan and supports 4K output at up to 60FPS, but the cool kids know that the Switch OLED’s dock already did that; the Switch 1 just couldn’t take advantage. Some of the lighter Switch 2 games just might, however; oh hello, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond.

Nintendo’s battery life estimates are somewhat nostalgic: 2 – 6.5 hrs depending on the game, apparently, which sounds pretty similar to what the official channels said about the Switch 1 in 2017. The major difference this time around is that we have many more points of comparison in the handheld space these days, and we have seen handheld PCs of a similar power level struggle to reach even a solid hour of play while running the most demanding games. Not even Nvidia’s fabled tech wizardry can account for that much of a discrepancy, so it is perhaps worth tempering expectations for now concerning how well the heaviest games will run in portable mode.

They will, at least, load faster, because standard Micro SD cards will no longer suffice on Switch 2 – only the “Micro SD Express” standard expands the included 256gb of storage. In related good news, early reports of file sizes for Nintendo-exclusive games are promising; it appears whatever forbidden compression magic Ninty developers used in the Switch 1 era hasn’t lost its edge. As long as they stick mostly to exclusives, it appears even digital-only players won’t have to expand the Switch 2’s memory that often.

The Switch 2’s controllers are called “Joy-Con 2” officially – more Sony energy in the marketing there – and they lack any form of IR camera, but do support a mouse-like control mode capable of combining with improved gyro and more detailed HD rumble (which thankfully is not called 4K rumble) to provide your standard dose of Nintendo novelty. Every tangible input is larger, the magnets look strong, and the chance of that middle connector on the edges snapping off appears much less concerning than it did in that CG render three months ago.

Steve Bowling from GVG even said after his hands-on session that the Switch 2 “felt like a Switch Lite”, so solid is the connection from controller to console; high praise indeed. Tech specialist YouTuber Marques Brownlee also made note that an accidental press of the release buttons doesn’t fully remove the new joy-cons because the magnets are too strong; you have to fully press them down. Ergonomics improvements also seem positive across the board, although I still doubt my AyaNeo 1S will be seriously challenged as the most comfortable handheld in my backpack.

There’s a new Pro Controller too, which has been tweaked for ergonomics (and, apparently, heft) and packs an honest-to-goodness headphone jack alongside two programmable back-buttons – so we’re basically talking about an official controller that does what third-party pads have done for years. I get distinct Xbox-One-to-Xbox-Series vibes from both the official and hands-on descriptions of this thing – i.e. lots of small design changes that aren’t immediately noticeable – and I wrote way too much about that at the end of 2020 so I can’t wait to get my own hands on it and compare. Sadly this will be another generation without analogue triggers, but I do still hold out hope the D-pad has had a tightened redesign. In any case, all Switch 1 joy-cons and pro controllers thankfully will work on Switch 2, likely with some game-by-game restrictions.

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28 Feb

Cool Fun Take: Pokemon Brilliant Diamond Is Still Fun, Actually

Posted by vagrantesque in DS, Games, Switch. Tagged: , , , , , , , .

“Not another Pokemon replay post!” I assume you cry in anguish, promptly scrolling past and continuing to live your life. Well, to that I say:

  • It was Pokemon Day yesterday and I have nothing else to write about in February;
  • Nintendo recently announced that Nintendo Switch Online Game Vouchers won’t work on Switch 2 games, they’re being awful quiet about their 2025 Switch 1 releases, and I’ve had a spare voucher sitting around on my account for months;
  • I wanted to play something requiring minimal attention while bingeing Formula 1: Drive to Survive this past week in preparation for the new racing season, and let’s be honest, Pokemon Brilliant Diamond / Shining Pearl are the most mindless Pokemon games available on the Switch;
  • I actually never got a chance to write properly about BD/SP, because in 2021 I hadn’t yet started my annual Game Re-Releases countdown.

What do you know; another perfect-storm excuse to play through an old Pokemon game and turn a critical – albeit rather quick – eye on it as we go.

Wow, People Hate This One

It’s not hard to find negative opinions about this one: just about any Pokemon YouTuber or writer around seemed to have a sour impression of Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl when the games launched in late 2021. As far as I can tell those impressions have either been reinforced or forgotten about entirely almost three and a half years later; despite 15 million copies sold worldwide, there aren’t a ton of softening opinions to be found (yet). And the sentiment is rather easy to explain. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: it’s all about expectations.

The Pokemon Company used to set a pretty regular precedent of remaking older games to keep the series’ momentum going, and they were usually well-received. Gen IV remakes were rumoured among fans for much longer than any prior generation, and that hype was never quelled or addressed in any official capacity. Yet last year’s so-called “Game Freak Gigaleak” revealed that Gen IV remakes may not even have been planned at all until the eleventh hour, as the studio was focused mainly on the relatively fresh series direction represented by Pokemon Legends: Arceus – which conspicuously launched a mere two months after Brilliant Diamond.

As a result those very remakes were the first-ever main series games to be outsourced to a new developer, ILCA, and the lack of development time afforded that studio is sadly plain to see in the end result. Am I here to argue that this product does not feel rushed?

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17 Jan

OK It’s Happening, the Nintendo Switch 2 is Real

Posted by vagrantesque in Games, Switch, Switch 2. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

Sweet, sweet relief. That’s most of what I feel.

There has never been, in the entirety of my 25-odd years of following the videogame industry, a more tiring new console hype cycle.

It’s been almost four years since all that supposedly guaranteed “Switch Pro” bluster turned into the Switch OLED model, and to this day it seems just as likely that internal plans at Nintendo changed late as a “Pro” model never existed in the first place. The internet learned nothing from that experience, of course, and essentially all of the online – then, eventually, the increasingly offline – hardware speculation since has centred on the system’s successor. Reports have indicated the Switch 2’s hardware specs may have been finalised as early as 2022. Analysts have thrown out ironclad predictions and been wrong repeatedly. Entire YouTube channels have made their names off speculation and anticipation.

The wait for a Switch 2 reveal was so long that Nintendo themselves felt the need to add a “no new console news” asterisk to the announcement of every new presentation. Eventually third-party accessory manufacturers conspired to leak the dimensions and form factor of the system, emboldened by the number of competitors doing the same thing. By the middle of December 2024 we had essentially seen everything it was possible to see about the supposed chassis of this machine; by the time the January 2025 date had reached double digits we had seen and cross-examined every inch of the new dock, joy-cons, even a motherboard. All that was left was for the big N to draw aside that stupid curtain and show up in an official capacity with the new console.

And then yesterday, at long last, they did. What a day.

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30 Dec

Best of 2024: Top 15 Games

Posted by vagrantesque in Best of 2024, Games, Lists. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , .

Look, I know I tripped over myself to emphasise repeatedly just how good 2023 was as a videogame release year, and I stand by that; it really was an all-timer. However, while that year had a real “something for everyone” vibe going on amongst its treasure trove of big-budget heavy-hitters with huge review scores, 2024 was arguably just as good if viewed through a narrower genre lens. If you’re a fan of RPGs – especially if you partake in the Japanese variety – the sheer onslaught of quality that hurtled past you this year was every bit as crazy as in 2023; maybe even more so. The more mainstream western genres did show up by the end, thanks largely to a resurgent Microsoft/Ubisoft double act (which was nonetheless blunted by the late delays of Avowed and Assassin’s Creed Shadows respectively) and a very important EA release, but the weebs of the world will likely remember this one for a long, long time.

I must also give a shout-out to the general cadence of the releases this year: I wasn’t truly overwhelmed by the volume of releases on my personal hype list at any point throughout the year, but from mid-January to yesterday, I was always playing something good.

Of the fifteen games that make the 2024 list, only a third were developed by Western studios, and only one of those is American. That latter stat may be an all-time low for this website, but not simply due to the Japanese gaming heartland’s banner year: China and Korea also took larger chunks out of my playtime pie chart than ever before, and I certainly wasn’t alone in that experience. We’ve also got two “reimaginings” on the list – otherwise known as re-releases too ambitious for last week’s countdown – and one of the longest honourable mentions sections ever.

What we don’t have, unfortunately, is Dragon’s Dogma II, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Dragon Ball Sparking! Zero (a few dragons going about this year), Another Crab’s Treasure, Visions of Mana, Warhammer: Space Marine II, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Lorelai and the Laser Eyes, Tekken 8, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, UFO 50, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble, Star Wars Outlaws, Marvel Rivals, Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden, The Plucky Squire, Metal Slug Tactics, GranBlue Fantasy: Relink, 1000xRESIST, or Mario & Luigi: Brothership. All of these games were either on my wishlist, briefly owned, or even started by me throughout the year, but fell victim to the relentless passage of time, soft reviews, and/or the always-rolling videogame release calendar, preventing me from reaching the five-hour playtime threshold I use to determine eligible games. There’s also no Palworld or Hades II, because we’re still miles away from a year with a dry enough schedule to convince me to break my personal rule against games with some form of “early access” tag.

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VR BEST OF 2024 DISCLAIMER

This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. Nobody ever agrees with me 100%. Respectful disagreement is most welcome.

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15. Another Code: Recollection (NS)

Released at precisely the wrong time for a whole community of Nintendo fans reeling from the news there’d be no Switch successor till 2025, Another Code: Recollection was largely dismissed when it squeaked out at the very beginning of 2024. You could argue a slow-paced double-bill adventure game throwback was hardly going to set the charts on fire anyway, but I think it was still rather unlucky, because the striking comic-panel art direction that drives the ground-up reimagining of 2005’s Another Code: Two Memories handily reinvigorates a DS cult classic two decades on, leaving many obtuse quirks behind to ensure the game’s devotion to both atmospheric puzzle-solving and unsettling mystery help it stand out from its fellow Switch exclusives.

The move from snappy stylus controls and once-unprecedented kitchen sink gimmickry to proper third-person 3D exploration and fully-voiced cutscenes means puzzles have been changed and/or completely removed, the time between brain-teasers is noticeably longer, physical layouts have been shaken up, and some of the creepier touches have been sanded down. But the more lively, believable environments in the 2024 release help tie together the game’s overall story in an arguably superior fashion, delivering twists with a pulpy watercolour flair and sticking the landing under a clearly modest budget. As the credits indicate, this is very much a “based on” angle from developer Arc System Works, taking inspiration rather than instruction from the original.

And those drastic changes don’t just serve the first game: the previously Japan/Europe-only Wii release Another Code R not only makes its worldwide debut here, but the story continues unbroken from the Two Memories save file and uses all the same UI elements, producing a near-seamless end result. The second reimagining in the package sacrifices puzzle density for plot even more than its predecessor, but with a cast so large that it feels like Game of Thrones in comparison and some truly heady Black Mirror-esque sci-fi ideas along for the ride, it’s justified in doing so. The fabulously-titled Recollection may be of modest means, but I have never seen anything in the vast realm of videogame revisitations use an approach quite like this, and it deserves a nod at the top of this list.

14. Helldivers II (PS5)

An entire book could be written on the life and times of Helldivers II – and I wouldn’t be shocked if that does actually happen one day – but the occasionally scandalous mismanagement of the game’s trailblazing Steam-on-day-one release strategy, not to mention the odd parasocial relationship built afterwards between players and developers of the game, is not enough to negate the crazy amount of fun I had spreading managed democracy among the fictional planets of Helldivers II in the early part of the year.

Among the legitimately countless tales of failed online multiplayer titles across all of 2024, the fact that one of the only real success stories came from a comparatively small team that made a brutal top-down twin-stick shooter on the PS Vita back in the day just warms my cynical heart. The fact it launched at a significantly lower price point than, I dunno, random example, Concord – with much fewer opportunities for microtransactions to boot – is hilarious. Helldivers II feels magnificent to control, looks far better than its relatively low resolution settings would suggest, and only kicks you down in a way that you quite literally asked for when you knocked that difficulty up a notch.

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30 Oct

Finally, An Excuse For a Banjo-Tooie Retrospective

Posted by vagrantesque in Games, N64, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

The bear clings to the ledge, like I once clung to my sanity.  

Feels like as good a time as any, right?

I struggle to motivate myself to sit down and write anything unless I can link it – however trivially – to something topical or current. But during the mind-numbing malaise of the 2021 lockdowns, I almost posted a Banjo-Tooie-themed article that had no such link. Almost. The half-written retrospective has sat in my drafts folder for years now, but since Nintendo and Microsoft at last decided to release the game on the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack service last week (fittingly two years after Banjo-Kazooie hit the program, mirroring both the original release and story gaps), I have not only a bona fide excuse to replay the game yet again, but to revive, massively expand, and publish that very draft.

Here we go then.

It’s been over five years since Banjo and Kazooie were announced as a joint DLC character for Super Smash Bros Ultimate and their trilogy of corresponding games on Xbox received a slew of 4K-enhanced patches. It’s been five days since the game hit NSO. Now, after I revisited Donkey Kong 64 with a critical eye in 2015 and played all of Conker’s Bad Fur Day in one day in 2018, I present to you the next entry in the library of opinionated late-90s Rareware platformer coverage on this site: my unsolicited, recently-refreshed musings on the slightly divisive sequel to the star-making, Jiggy-collecting Banjo-Kazooie.

Just… so 4K.

Screenshots from both the Switch and Xbox versions will appear throughout this article; can you tell which is which? There are literally no prizes for guessing correctly!

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26 Dec

Best of 2023: Top 5 Game Consoles

Posted by vagrantesque in Best of 2023, Console, Games, Lists. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , .

Better late than never, right?

In the world of dedicated videogame consoles, 2023 felt in many ways like the true dawn of a new generation; in hindsight the pandemic-punctuated pageantry of 2020’s eleventh hour now kinda reads like a pillow-soft launch with only trivia night technicality in mind. It may have been a rollercoaster of a year for PC gaming – an astonishing density of poor ports sprinkled among a fleet of immensely exciting pushes into the handheld space – but the console world brought some semblance of confident, comforting familiarity to 2023. The slow transition from the last generation is finally approaching its end with real intent – bringing a controversial return to normalcy for 30 FPS visuals along with it as Unreal Engine 5 leads the way down a road the last generation cannot travel.

But we can still fill out a top five for now, so let’s do that.

My ranking is based on new developments in each console’s wheelhouse, primarily concerning exclusive games but also taking in factors like firmware updates and hardware/accessory additions. As always, mostly due to how wide and varied their ecosystems are, Mobile and PC are disregarded for this list.

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VR BEST OF 2023 DISCLAIMER

This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. If you agree with me 100%, go buy a lottery ticket. Respectful disagreement is most welcome.

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5. Playstation 4

LAST YEAR: 4th

‘Twas the year the fourth Playstation home console effectively began its last march into the pages of history. Though plenty of major circumstances were out of Sony’s control this time, the company’s famous decade-long support plan for its numbered videogame machines has perhaps been a little easier to uphold in the case of the PS4 than its two older brothers: neither the PS2 nor the PS3 enjoyed quite this many of their allocated ten years as a lead platform for brand-new prestige videogame releases. Yet here we are at the end of 2023, and Sony’s lean exclusives lineup for the year has effectively skipped the fourth home Playstation. A couple of bigger third-party games have followed suit – although back-ports for the likes of Hogwarts Legacy and Star Wars: Jedi Survivor proved that the very biggest are still unable to resist the allure of that ocean of existing last-gen machines.

4. Xbox One

LAST YEAR: 5th

A pretty similar situation to the PS4 here, except the Xbox One console family did receive the same home screen UI update that the newer Series consoles got, so it’s kind of ahead by default. Furthermore, the comparison between the Game Pass and PS+ Extra offerings continues to favour the Xbox side by some margin, but when you filter down the comparison to just day-one indie titles – which invariably have no problem running on last-gen tech – the head-to-head picture becomes even rosier for the ol’ Xbone. With a game pass subscription and a cheap second-hand Xbox in 2023, you could enjoy the likes of Cocoon, Cassette Beasts, Bramble: The Mountain King, Sea of Stars, Thirsty Suitors, Fuga: Memories of Steel 2, Steamworld Build, Party Animals, Venba, The Last Case of Benedict Fox, Planet of Lana, and Roboquest – and the last three are currently unavailable on a Sony or Nintendo platform. Not bad at all.

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16 Oct

The Second Age of Uncertainty for the Nintendo Switch

Posted by vagrantesque in Console, Games, Switch. Tagged: , , , , , , .

And (probably) the second-last article I’ll write about it. But we can’t be certain…

In late 2016, the questions were made of ‘if’s. Plenty of takes were ready to answer those questions with doom and gloom predictions, sure. But mainly, it was ‘if’s. Nintendo was back in the home console doghouse after a string of Wii U-tinted flops and an ambitious handheld/home hybrid seemed like an uncertainty at the very best. As a period in the Big N’s history, it’s been well-covered – although it still seems a little surreal to think about. If the Switch made a real sales impact, Nintendo would have pulled off yet another unlikely comeback. If it didn’t, the company was in for some real trouble.

Of course 2017 gave us a definite, emphatic answer. The Switch did just about everything right all year, dropping a steady stream of compelling titles without a single delay. But by 2018, the ‘where’s started to creep into the online chat. Any serial Switch YouTuber subscriber will remember the hysteria at the beginning of the year: Where was that Nintendo Direct? Then later, as the wave of ports and DLC expansions gathered momentum, where were all the brand-new games? Where was the launch content in the new Kirby and Mario Tennis games? Though nothing in Nintendo’s history suggested a year like 2017 could ever be properly backed up, their new console’s success made pundits ravenous.

Port city?

In 2019, we got a nice big serving of ‘why’s in the air. Some of Nintendo’s announcements that year inspired heavy-duty communal head-scratching: A portable-only Switch that couldn’t switch? A poorly-justified ‘dex reduction in the new Pokemon games? A new fitness game with a plastic ring accessory costing north of $100? Why? Of course all of these sold super well – 2019 was ultimately a strong year for exclusive games and big third party support alike – but no one could accuse the Big N of resting on their laurels to get there.

Whaaaaa?

As we all know, 2020 was a very different story. The releases dried up when an already light year collided with a worldwide pandemic, and the ‘how’s came out to play. How would Nintendo stay relevant amid such a climate when new Xbox and Playstation consoles were set to dominate headlines and interest all year? But the Switch had its most successful year of hardware sales ever, with periods of unavailability easily trumping its launch year as Animal Crossing finally smashed into the top tier of Nintendo franchises. Incredulous analysts could only ponder how such serendipity had lined up for Nintendo.

Do you make your own luck?

Now here we are, coming up quickly on that magical (usually final for Nintendo) five-year mark in a console life cycle. As hardware sales settle down again in 2021 and restless 4K Switch successor rumours refuse to go away despite an unprecedented global chip shortage, the ‘if’s have returned. There have been valid questions asked of the Switch throughout its life, but the ageing technology within what is functionally a handheld console now compares even less favourably with its beefy direct competition. Will it be able to hold its own or is another Nintendo nosedive coming up? Is the Japanese giant about to abandon support in favour of its next console, as it has done so often before around that half-decade point? Not since that first trailer five years ago has such an air of uncertainty hung around the hybrid gaming platform.

Allow me to present two points suggesting that probably shouldn’t be the case.

CLICK HERE TO READ THEM
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