When whining achieves nothing.

First, view this tweet so you have context. Turns out WordPress wouldn’t put the Tweet in a image for three paragraphs worth of me being a smarmy shit. Whoops.

Yes, it has actually been that long since Nintendo introduced the SNES app to Switch Online members. With the announcement came an update; updating wouldn’t be normal again. It is now December, and one has to wonder where the updates went. That’s easy; the updates stopped because Nintendo probably got sick of the whining on YouTube and Twitter. Continue reading “When whining achieves nothing.” →

The Touryst – Fynding Your Way

Welcome to paradise. You’ve just arrived here on a boat with nothing. No money, no suitcase, no directions and a boat driver who doesn’t know the area. You also have no recollection of your place in the world or a backstory. This is a small island with 2 houses, a shop and a mysterious looking temple, with nothing on the horizon. What’s a tourist to do?

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Pokemon Sword & Shield – Escaping The Noise

When I was a kid playing Pokemon Blue I would dream of a world where you could see Pokemon out in the wild. They’d run around and you could chase after them or just watch them play and be themselves. The ultimate Pokemon game would be so interactive, fun, mysterious and exciting, and look beautiful. It would carry all the great design strengths of the main Pokemon series, and even offer new Pokemon itself in a new land. The ultimate Pokemon game. Back then people dreamed about what the first console Pokemon would be like. Now developers Game Freak have been dragged kicking and screaming to a powerful piece of hardware, finally, and what do we have? The ultimate Pokemon game? Could we finally be at that point? With the amount of fun I’m having right now with Pokemon Shield, I’m going to say yes. They did it. I don’t believe a perfect game will (or should) ever exist, but I believe this could be the best Pokemon game yet.

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Ring Fit Adventure – Better Than Real Life

You planned on going for a jog today, but… it’s just not a good morning, is it? You’ve just woken up and it feels like a terrible idea. It’s hot, there’s smog in the air, people outside, lots of traffic and commotion. You might bump into people on their way to work or school. You might step in something. You might have to cross several roads and jog on the spot awkwardly in front of traffic. Birds could poop on your head. Car horns are going off, lights are flashing. You’re not going anywhere this morning… but what if there was still a way? Maybe tomorrow.

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Borderlands 3 – Keeping Up With The Calypsos

After seven years of DLC and side-stories for Borderlands 2, the third game is finally here. I’ve jumped into it over the past week and have been enjoying some vault hunting on brand new planets. The story is new, environments are new, there’s a million new guns, and the vault hunters themselves have brand new skills. So, what else is new? I keep hearing people say it’s just “more Borderlands” as if to downplay this game. Of course it’s more Borderlands, the title of the game is Borderlands 3. It’s not inaccurate, just a lazy way to describe it. Borderlands 3 is purposefully designed as a sequel and does a pretty good job improving the core gameplay while offering a new scenario. I’m currently level 20 and will go a bit more in depth about what’s new.

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Luigi’s Mansion 3 – PAX Aus Demo Impressions

OooooOooOoo! Do you dare enter the house of horrors? After a 20 minute wait in line, I got to play the spookiest game at PAX Aus. The booth was very dark and had about 8 Switches, with glowing ghosts around the wall. They put a lot of effort into the presentation for this game, it was definitely the most interesting place in the Nintendo booth. The line for Pokemon Sword and Shield was longer, but they just had generic setups there. This experience had atmosphere similar to if you were playing on the couch in the dark at home.

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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” →

Borderlands 2 – The Vault Hunter’s Guide to the DLC

I’ve been playing a lot of Borderlands 2 over the past few months and completed the whole regular campaign again in The Handsome Collection (named after evil protagonist Jack Handsome). I love the game and had a great time but didn’t think it was really worth a writeup alone, because it’s pretty much what you’d expect. The same game from 2013 but with retouched HD graphics at 60fps. A loot-based shooter with a post-apocalyptic setting, some dark humour and lots of bandits, gunfights, looting and exploring. It’s a very good game and a joy to replay, but many people have been there and done that. After getting The Handsome Collection however, it comes with all the DLC I had never played before. I was surprised and delighted to find this content was even more fun than the main game.

It can all be a bit overwhelming however, with dozens of places you can fast-travel to as soon as you find a fast-travel station in the first hour of the game. Having now played every single bit of content in this game, I thought I’d dissect the DLC a bit here and try and help anyone who doesn’t know where or why to start.

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GRID Autosport – Switching Gears

Racing simulators have quite the history of avoiding Nintendo consoles entirely. The last really good one I remember playing is F1 2009 on the Wii, ten years ago. Since then I’ve just got my racing fix from other consoles, with their analog triggers and in-house games like Forza offering a very solid driving simulation experience. Suddenly out of nowhere, a port of GRID Autosport has landed on the Switch eShop. I was a little cautious at first, as racing developers have treated Nintendo consoles with the bare minimum apathy in the past. Anyone remember Project CARS on Wii U? Exactly. However here we are in 2019 with the Switch kicking arse and taking names, and GRID Autosport is the real deal.

To say this game delivered what I wanted would be an understatement, it vastly exceeded expectations. Feral Interactive have not just ported the game, but upgraded it in every way imaginable, with a higher resolution and framerate than the original game, and controls and graphics optimised for both docked and handheld mode. This game is quite simply the best racing simulator to ever grace a Nintendo console, and by extension, the best one ever to grace a handheld. It’s an absolute miracle.

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Limbo

Originally released alongside Hydro Thunder Hurricane in 2010’s “-Insert hemispheric appropriate season- of Arcade”, Limbo would escape the bounds of Xbox Live Arcade and go on to become a darling of the indie gaming world, collecting accolades and praise, from critics and gamers alike, on every platform it was released on. But in an unusual twist, Limbo is set to become unavailable on a platform for the first time, as macOS will cut support for 32-bit applications when new update drops next month. On the eve of this gaming purgatory, let us look back on Limbo.

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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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Nintendo Switch Firmware Update 9.0.0 – Putting the AAA in Updaaate

That’s right! The hotly anticipated new firmware update is now available on Switch. We knew it was coming, but nobody expected it to drop today! Wow! They didn’t even announce it in the Nintendo Direct, that’s how secretive it was.

There’s nothing quite like that feeling of excitement when something new happens. The Nintendo Switch 9.0.0 Firmware Update captures that feeling in a single moment, with a surprise pop-up on the Home menu asking if you want to update.

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Super Kirby Clash – Free to Chill

Surprise! Kirby just ate all your games and downloaded himself onto your Switch. Just kidding, unless you’re a parent. Super Kirby Clash is now up on the Nintendo Switch eShop as a free download. This game was announced during the Nintendo Direct a few days ago and released immediately, faster than you could Uber it. It’s a sequel to the free-to-play 3DS Kirby Clash game, but now with the addition of online multiplayer. That was a big factor in getting me to try it. I’ve been playing the last few days and thought I’d do a little writeup to describe what it is. A platformer? A fighter? A kart racer? What’s Kirby up to?

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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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