Brain Training World Championships – The Next Esports Frontier

The next big esport of our generation has emerged. There will be no fighting, shooting or platforming in this championship. Just pure brain power, concentration, focus… and maybe a few scratched screens.

Today was the day. I had prepared my whole life for this. Writing answers on the chalkboard in Maths class was just practice for the 25x calculations time trial. I knew something like this was coming, even before the technology existed. After dropping Maths in Year 10, I still continued to hone my skills in Brain Training on my DS, dominating the leaderboards in my household (good effort though, Mum). After such extensive experience, how could I not enter the Brain Training World Championships? This was my calling.

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Yooka Laylee & the Impossible Lair – Kong & Tonic

Impossible, huh? Pffftt, I’m a skilled gamer! Just a bit of platforming? No problem. Hey, these platforms are moving pretty fast. That’s a lot of spikes. Okay, there’s nowhere to land. Guess I’ll die. No more lives? … I’ll be back later.

Imagine a spiritual successor to Donkey Kong Country came out without anyone noticing? That’s what we have here. After years of hype for Playtonic’s debut 3D platforming game Yooka-Laylee, it received quite a bit of backlash for not being the best game ever made. It was pretty much what people asked for, a Banjo successor that revived open 3D platforming, but unreasonable expectations developed over the years. Playtonic took a completely different approach to Impossible Lair, announcing it and launching it very quickly in the same year. All they really needed to sell this game was a trailer with new David Wise music, roll-jumps and barrels.

Instead of purely catering to kickstarter backers demands, Impossible Lair is a passion project that takes advantage of the 2D platforming genre to fix all the problems the original game had. The “empty” and “unfocused” level design of a 3D wasteland becomes very focused and tight when you can only move left and right. I recently finished all 40 levels and the Impossible Lair itself, and I really have to commend this game. I’m a huge fan of Donkey Kong Country and especially Tropical Freeze, and I’m bursting to talk about this. Impossible Lair is the real deal.

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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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Rush Rally 3 – Rookie Developer Defeats Champion

5 right, into 3 left. Hairpin right. 6 left. Over crest. 22 dollars. Available on the eShop now. *thud*

Oops, I was meant to be giving directions. Welcome to Rush Rally 3! A rally driving game on Switch made by a single person Indie team called Brownmonster Limited. This is not the official rally game but who needs that, when you can race against Sebastien Lube and Marcus Groanholm instead?

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Brain Training for Nintendo Switch – Staying 20 in 2020

It’s nice to see you again, Dr Kawashima. This must be the first time I’ve ever been excited to see a doctor. Brain Training is back, the game that elevated Nintendo DS into the stratosphere outside traditional gaming. This “non-game” took off as a great way to use the touch screen and features of the DS and 3DS systems, but how does it hold up on a home console hybrid? It’s a little different. I picked up the new Switch version today and thought I’d write about the experience.

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Bury me, my Love – Phone in Hand

Bury me, my Love sounds like a psychotic murder mystery at first, but it’s full of heart. This is a common saying used in some countries when your loved one goes on a trip they might not come back from. Whether it’s an unstable country, a warzone, or the game awards, it’s said with much love and confidence that they will be fine. It means you will be the one to bury me, not the other way around. So you’re saying their journey will be very safe. It’s beautiful. You die first… no you die first… no you! This game gives a great look into the life of a couple who want to escape a dangerous home in Syria and start a new life.

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Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice – Psychosis Simulator

Is this really worth writing about- you didn’t enjoy it- you liked it- you don’t know if you liked it- you can’t write- you should write- this game might be misunderstood- you can do it- every experience is different- the game isn’t worth it- the game is worth it- at least it’s interesting- don’t hit that submit button there’s no going back.

These are my friends from Hellblade who stayed in my head. This game has a very large emphasis on sound design, as everything you do is narrated by dozens of tiny voices whispering at you constantly throughout the game. It’s made to imitate the feeling of psychosis and mental illness and warns you of its heavy themes before you start the game. Senua’s Sacrifice is a very personal journey where you explore very detailed environments and the dark corners of your mind.

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Pietriots Radio – Episode 5 (The Game Awards)

It’s been abandoned and haunted for a few years, but we are BACK in the Pie Studio with an all new episode of Pie Radio! Join Grubdog, Bill, Deguello, Matto, Pro Daisy and Roland as we discuss the recent Game Awards show, talk about the announcements and discuss our very own favourite games of 2019. Special guest Denis76686846 calls into the studio with even further insight!

download link (some browsers might struggle playing the file because it’s so long)

0.00 to 1:05 – Game Announcements discussion (Xbox Series X, new trailers, Godfall, Bravely Default 2)

1:05 to 1:08 – ???

1:10 to 1:43 – Game Awards discussion

1:43 to end – Pietriots Games of the Year

Thank you for listening! Please let us know if you enjoyed it and we’ll keep making them.

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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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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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.