Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition – Life on the Bionis

Good morning. I feel like I’ve been asleep for the last 10 years. I had convinced myself this was a game, but the intricate detail of the shadows convinced me this place was real after all. The rest of my life was a dream. The world wasn’t round or flat, we lived on the organic ecosystem of a defeated titan. My memories of wielding the Monado still lingered in black and white, but now it was time to fill them back up like an old colouring book. Just being back in Colony 9 was enough to feel energised with purpose.

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Xbox and Motion Controls, Will Series X Leave Us Aimless?

If you’ve played any shooter on a Nintendo system in the last decade, it probably had gyro or pointer motion controls. Metroid Prime Trilogy, Splatoon, Zelda, and now Fortnite, Zombie Army Trilogy, Doom, Duke Nukem, Borderlands, and many other third party games are adopting it after the huge success of Splatoon 2, and general ease of use.

Even Sony have adopted this for 2 generations now, though you’d be forgiven for not noticing it. Much like their handheld legacy (just kidding), these features weren’t really used that much nor embraced. But the fact is, the Dual Shock has motion control and it’s used in a lot of big games like Gran Turismo Sport to steer. It’s not used nearly enough and it’s technically very primitive, but the option is there.

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Doom Eternal – Always Offline

This game was recommended to me by Isabelle while we were chatting in the Town Hall. She said she spent the weekend “ripping and tearing” and when I noticed that my town’s weeds were still there, I asked her what she meant. “Doom Eternal, it’s pretty hype”. Oh okay, thanks for the recommendation Isabelle. I can’t believe I hadn’t played it yet, she said it was one of the biggest games of the year so far. I got my hands on an Xbox copy and I was excited to finally start the game up. However, that excitement quickly turned to confusion.

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Animal Crossing Cool Beats: New Horizons, Classic Tunes

Those industry fat cats want to charge big bucks for their tunes, but I think music should be free man. I’ve been making a few tunes to see what works in this thing, and thought I’d share. For ease of use I’ve put a separate sound clip, followed by an image of the notes you can input yourself. Enjoy the freedom. No likes, favs, subscribes or divides here man. This is all about sharing the vibe.

Keep in mind there are limitations of the Town Composer, it doesn’t have sharp notes so some things have gotta be in different keys. Still, a bit of compromise can get most songs in a recognisable state. You just gotta take what life throws at you man. How do you get these? There’s no password or online sharing unfortunately, but it’s very easy to just copy the notes yourself. Talk to Isabelle in the Town Hall and just move the notes up and down until you get what you want. If you don’t have the Town Hall yet then keep playing and come back to this later! Music always waits for you, so you can wait for it.

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Staying Fresh in Quarantine!

When you’re stuck inside there’s always a risk of getting bored or falling into bad habits. Right now we’re lucky to have a brand new Animal Crossing game to keep us busy, but there are certain things your body and mind need to stay happy while you are isolated. Your body needs to move around, your brain needs stimulation, and you need to feel connected. I’m going to give suggestions on how to keep things fresh and stay off the hook. This is purely from a gaming perspective. Of course you can exercise and read books as well, but if you’re here then there’s a good chance that gaming is a rewarding part of your life. Instead of getting burnt out, this could be a great time to get even more joy out of it.

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I know nothing about video games, but there’s something fishy about Animal Crossing and COVID-19

A guest post from Roland's partner.

With our lives suddenly controlled by social distancing and quarantine, my boyfriend and I are spending dramatically more time together. I thought this might be a wholesome bonding experience, however he’s dedicating almost his entire time to some game called Animal Crossing. I don’t know if you’ve heard about it? I hadn’t, but it’s popped up in my socials a bit and apparently it’s a bit of a big deal. So anyway, I thought I’d sit down and watch a bit, and after just 5 min I am 100% convinced this game is intricately connected, if not entirely responsible, for the covid19 pandemic. Let me explain:

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Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Welcoming Wisp

It’s been a busy few days. I’ve just turned my tent into a house, and after heavy construction the island of Straya already has its own Museum. We all gathered outside for a big celebration, with lots of clapping, laughing and party poppers. It was a wild two minutes and everyone had a great time, including all the other island residents. Both of them had gone to bed, but I was too full of adrenaline to sleep after all that hype. There wasn’t much in the Museum yet, but it was just going to be the start of a huge attraction that would bring people to the island from all around the world. It was just the first of many projects I’ve been discussing with Nook, and after a successful Museum opening we can move on to the next thing.

With today’s work done, I was winding down with some fishing. It’s a good activity to calm the senses. A cool ocean breeze washed over my face, while the soft splashes of waves soothed my ears. I was walking along the shore looking for my next fish, when something else caught my eye.

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Yoku’s Island Express – Pinball Platforming

Don’t mind me, I’m just a dung beetle doing my best. It’s a little hard to see with this big ball of poop in front of me, but I just roll with it. Life is all about perspective, and I take things with a side-on view. Getting from one place to another can be difficult, but life is all about the journey itself and I’m having a lot of fun.

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Pokemon HOME – Making the Journey from 3DS to Switch

What year is it? 2020? Good. Don’t mind me, I’m just a little bit dizzy from traveling through time and space. That means I’ve just gone through the process of transferring my Pokemon from my old 3DS games to Pokemon Shield. A few things surprised me so I thought it was worth doing a writeup to clear things up and explain the process. The most important thing to say first is that this requires the Premium Plan of Pokemon HOME. That means, unfortunately, you have to pay for this transfer. The Basic version you get for free on Switch is very barebones. You can only store 30 Pokemon, and Let’s Go and Pokemon Sword & Shield are the only compatible games. All you can really do with that is get a free Pikachu, some starters, and Mewtwo.

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Matto’s YouTube Recommendations

Wait a second, I like shit on YouTube? I sure do! Here are some of my recommendations.

FailArmy

Let’s face facts: you and I love it when stupid people do stupid things on home video and the outcome is painful and hilarious. It is why American’s Funniest Home Videos has still managed to stay on television for almost thirty years, but AFV as people like to call it has faced major competition thanks to the internet, and one of those competitors is FailArmy.

FailArmy is basically AFV on YouTube without a host telling crappy jokes over footage. Need further proof this is basically what it is? Go on YouTube and watch old episodes of AFV when Bob Sagat was still the host. Continue reading “Matto’s YouTube Recommendations” →

The golden rule for First/Third Person Shooters on Switch: make Gyro-aiming an option

When Doom 2016 made it’s way to Nintendo Switch curtiosy of the amazing folks at Panic Button, many took notice of it’s quality work. However, there was one major function mission from the base game: no gyro aiming. Gyro-scopic aiming slowly got a base in thanks to the 3DS and WiiU GamePad, and when Nintendo revealed the Switch proper in January 2017 and said, specifically, it contains DNA from all of Nintendo’s past consoles and handhelds, they weren’t kidding. Both left and right Joy-Con, and the Pro Control, have gyro sensors inside them. Continue reading “The golden rule for First/Third Person Shooters on Switch: make Gyro-aiming an option” →

Astral Chain – Odd Jobs (Walking the Beat)

Hi. My name’s Grubdog, but you can call me Grub. As everyone knows, redshift matter is threatening to end civilisation and monsters known as chimeras are ravaging Earth. It’s an important issue but someone still has to do the everyday things. We have built a nice little place here on the Ark and I’m gonna make sure it stays that way.

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Prey – Out of this World

Good morning. My name is Grubdog and this is my new place. I’ve been chosen to go into space and work at the Talos I Space Station. They’re doing some interesting things up there, but I’ve got some training to do before I’m ready. I feel so different since I got to this apartment, like I’ve become a brand new person. I can’t remember much about who I was before, but maybe that’s just the excitement overshadowing everything. Even walking around my room, there’s button prompts over objects like I know what they can do in advance. I can grab and throw this chair, but why would I want to do that? Chairs are for sitting on, but I guess life in space was going to be a bit less comfortable. I picked up a lot of objects and put them down just because I could.

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Nintendo Switch Online App – What’s Next?

If you don’t play Splatoon 2 regularly you’d be forgiven for not even knowing this exists. The Nintendo Switch Online app was launched almost two years ago now and currently supports two games, with fairly comprehensive stats on Splatoon 2 and some Smash replay features that nobody uses. A large number of active online games remain completely absent, and there really hasn’t been much attempt by Nintendo to get people to use this. The biggest current draw is the ability to voice chat for people who don’t have Discord.

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God Eater 3 – Just a Bite

Too dangerous, they said. That’s why we’re locked in here. Horrific beasts have taken over Earth, beasts known as Aragami who only live to consume and destroy. Yet we’re the ones treated like evil, the only people who can fight them. The uncreative God Eaters just call us “Adaptive” God Eaters or AGE for short, simply because we can breathe the air outside. It’s a long story but Earth is screwed. The air is full of corrosive ash that humans can’t handle, except us of course. This “ability” has led us to being locked up and treated like test subjects. We only get let out to do missions for them. Is that our fault, did we ask for this? We must be bad, just like the monsters right? Then why are we having so much fun slaying them?