BulkSlash

Spot on. Ocarina does it best. Expansive enough to not feel constrained, but small enough not to be a tedious slog every time you want to cross it. It’s spooky and haunting at night and a relaxing countryside walk in the sun during the day.

That said, I always play the Redux patch now which makes young Link run very fast when he has the bunny ear mask equipped so he races across Hyrule Field in no time! 😅

I think if they were still doing the sci-fi COD games I’d be interested in COD on the Switch. But they’ve gone back to the more mundane terrestrial combat which doesn’t really excite me.

I don’t play online so I’d only be interested in the campaigns and being able to play them with gyro aim would actually be a bigger selling point for me that fancy graphics. I actually waited for Doom Eternal on the Switch because Doom 2016 played so well with gyro aim.

I don’t know the NES game but the GB game is great. It’s like a slightly more basic version of GB Donkey Kong, where you have to collect items in a level to open the exit.

It’s not going to set the world on fire or anything, but if you enjoy GB platform games then I think you’ll enjoy it. £9 is a pretty fair price for it.

The only problem with the SP is the lack of a headphone jack. So you’ve either got to cart the adaptor with you or play without sound.

I went with the GB Micro, while it is very small it’s very portable, has a headphone jack, a very bright and vibrant screen and is great for playing Mario World.

@FishyS I used to use LINK in Ocarina as it would annoy me watching the ending where Ganon is shouting in caps and says “CURSE YOU Link”. It always looked weird to me.

These days I’ve used the text editing tools available for Ocarina and changed his speech to lower case but made it red for Zelda, yellow when he curses the sages and green for Link. 😅

Easily Japan, it’s more colourful and dynamic.

Love this game, so I can't not go for the ultra expensive edition! 😩😅

@KBuckley27 I was thinking back to that forecast too. Nintendo are either being too optimistic or they think their line-up of games this year are so good that they'll be able to attract a lot of new buyers. Maybe they think the Mario movie will help shift consoles? A new Mario game might help with that too.

That's funny that it works in real life, I know if you try that in Daytona it just slows you down! Next time this guy will need to try shifting down into first to trigger a power slide like in Daytona. 😉

Gyro aim? I’m buying this game!

No big movie release is complete without some wildly random and unconnected licenced products! 😂

Just bought it and I’ve really enjoyed it. I suck at shooters so this being easy really helped. It took me a little while to fathom the power-up system, but by the end of the first loop I’d sussed it. I enjoyed the story too, especially the twist at the end of the tutorial and the whole idea behind the second loop.

This has to have some of the best 2D sprite work I’ve ever seen too, especially that first shot as the Drainus takes off and all the elements of it are moving around using parallax to simulate it being 3D. Awesome.

Quite why Nintendo didn't offer some custom control schemes or add a remap feature to the emulator I don't know. They put a custom scheme in for Sin & Punishment (by making the right analogue stick also work as the stick), so they can do it if they want to.

Perfect review and spot on. I just had a quick session on the N64 and had a great time. The N64 was obviously enjoying it too, as it decided to throw various random enemies at me. The game never gets old, there's always something different about every play through.

In terms of the start/stoppiness of the controls, you can still move and shoot without invoking the crosshairs, it's just less accurate. I tend to "stun" enemies using that method and then line up a quick headshot to follow. You barely need to slow down that way.

@CharlieGirl The controls are bad because Nintendo have mapped the c-buttons to the right analogue stick. It's basically the same control scheme as Resident Evil 4, so there's nothing intrinsically wrong with it, it's just the terrible choices Nintendo made mapping N64 controls in their emulator (and the lack of remap options).

I basically gave up playing it after a few minutes and booted up the N64 instead.

Considering the visuals in Mario Kart 64’s end credits still finish before the music I won’t hold my breath that this will be fixed.

The silhouette of that Popeye drawing/sprite where he's pointing at the ground looks almost identical to the Mario sprite in the DK Game & Watch where he points at the ground in one of his frames. They must have used Miyamoto's drawings as a reference when making it.

Are we sure it wasn't Pitney Bowes? They handle eBay's international shipping and I've had things they've ripped open to inspect in the past.

Whatever the case, breaking open the sealed case isn't really the problem, it's destroying the contents that is the truly egregious part. There's no call to open it like that and they could have easily x-rayed it, which is standard procedure for suspect items, rather than destroy it.

I love this game, they’re right when they say it’s designed to be replayed a lot, I’ve already beaten it 6 times. Finding all the upgrades was a lot of fun in itself.

The only criticism I have is they didn’t get an awesome music track like Kristine’s The Danger for the end credits like they had on Blazing Chrome. 😅

They probably cancelled the next three Splinter Cell games even though they haven’t started them just to make sure they don’t accidentally make something people want to play.

That's really cool, if they could do an N64 version with six face buttons I'd be all over it.

I was going to buy the game anyway as it’s a decent Strider follow-up (I’d be interested to know how the CPS-1 hardware compared to whatever Mitchell were using at the time). I’m even more keen to support it after hearing about how EA cloned Mitchell’s Puzz Loop game and made a fortune doing it.

My vote goes to the OG Zelda Game & Watch. I’ve still got mine, it’s a lovely bit of old Nintendo.

It wasn’t a great year for me on Switch, there wasn’t really much that I really wanted to play (even though there were a lot of games released this year).

That said, nothing annoys me more than people (especially that one new guy on Digital Foundry) talking as if the Switch’s hardware is old and therefore can’t do the job any more. I just don’t get that. The hardware hasn’t somehow become less able to perform over time, it’s just as capable as it was on launch day. So saying it’s long in the tooth just doesn’t make sense.

Sure, it can’t match the graphics of the PS5 or Series X but that doesn’t mean games being made today should be graphically inferior with worse performance than games that came out at launch. That’s a programming issue, not a hardware issue.

I’d love another Curse of the Moon as well (I’m replaying 2 at the moment), I think Grim Guardians will be scratching that itch in February based on the trailers.

I wasn’t that big of a fan of Ritual of the Night, much like Symphony of the Night I found it too difficult. I prefer my Metroidvanias like Super Metroid with plenty of health around.

I’d forgotten about Vengeful Guardian Moonrider. That’s definitely one of my most wanted, along with Bombfunk and Grim Guardians.

@SaturnHero Tell me about it. Sega have so many classic games locked away on old systems but virtually all they ever give us are the same old Mega Drive ROMs over and over again.

I’ve got both and for the most part I’m only playing on the Steam Deck at the moment, mostly because there’s lots of games on there that aren’t on the Switch or games that are on the Switch but haven’t included gyro aiming like RE4 (the options for control remapping on the Steam Deck are pretty vast, including adding gyro to games).

The main drawback of the Steam Deck is you still get a lot of the faff you have on PC like external configuration apps, tweaking settings to get it to run right or doing a lot of config to get emulators running properly all of which can be extra fiddly without a keyboard and mouse.

I haven’t stopped playing the Switch entirely but there’s just not much coming out at the moment which I want to play. In terms of size, I find the joycons too small for my hands, so with a set of Binbok controllers on my Switch it’s actually not that much smaller than a Steam Deck! 😅

I just had a look at this one Steam, there's something like £70 worth of DLC costumes for this game! 😂

That's pretty cool, although I hope it doesn't mean cloud versions!

If Daniel Craig really is there to announce GoldenEye's release I hope they make something out of how he's not even in the game.

There’s some cool ideas there, and an open world platformer is something I’ve always thought could work well (I haven’t got Sonic Frontiers yet). This does look quite easy though with very long floaty jumps, it’s like someone took Princess Peach from Super Mario USA and made her the main character! 😅

It does remind me a bit of Balan Wonderworld though with costume changes giving different powers. Hopefully it’s not going to be as easy as that game too.

@ozwally I got a Steam Deck for much the same reasons, I don't want cloud games. Plus it has my favourite thing: gyro aim! You can even add that to games that don't have it, unlike on Switch where you're reliant on the developer remembering to include it.

Definitely the Japanese version, because Vampire Killer is a way more bad ass title than Bloodlines or New Generation.

How long until Squeenix announce it undersold their unrealistic expectations by 20M copies?

I wouldn't mind trying this, although Tetris 99 is pretty much the only Tetris game I need.

Excellent. I was ready for more tracks quite quickly after the first pack, but the novelty of the second pack hasn't actually worn off yet. I'll be looking forward to booting up the Switch to play them.

I’ve got pretty much everything I’d want on the list already. £2.24 for the Panzer Dragoon Remake is good value even though it was a bit disappointing.

Ten quid for Doom Eternal is great value too. There’s no way I’d pay even that much for the GTA Trilogy though after the way they launched it.

I went for Arkham City and Mario U, although the latter only got really good with the awesome Luigi U DLC.

I’d played the originals a fair bit, but the first one I actually got into and finished was X. I think I beat Ultra Sapphire and Let’s Go Pikachu but I’ve never completed a Pokédex (too much work) and most of the other ones I’ve bought I’ve not finished.

I keep saying I’ll go back to Arceus but too many side quests involved completing Pokédex entries and it kind of put me off.

I actually own the gold edition so I went with that, but really the US one is probably the best as it represents the game in its truest form.

It’s a pity this didn’t come out on the N64, much like the article states, sandwiched between REmake and RE4, this just felt past its time on the GC and would probably have been better coming out earlier while the franchise format felt fresher.

I’d be interested to know how the sales break down for most Sonic games. I’d have thought more Sonic players would be on Switch than the other platforms, so Sega’s lack of care for the Switch version seems odd (unless of course Sonic doesn’t sell well on Switch?)

This game desperately needs a demo. The reviews are all over the place so I really need to be able to play it myself to judge if it’s worth it.

I’ve never liked the 3D Sonic games, they always seem rushed and unpolished and that goes right back to the first one on the Dreamcast. The new direction is enough to intrigue me to give 3D Sonic another chance, but after all the middling reviews it needs a demo.

Nintendo must surely have the resources to focus on both new games and delivering a great way to experience their old games.

I also really think there's room for more games like NES Remix that let us experience chunks of the classics without having to git gud at the whole game. A 16-bit "SNES Remix" would be awesome.

Looks like a very respectable turn out for a tiny handheld device compared to the gargantuan slab of power that is the PS5.

Japanese box art for me. The NA/Europe one seems to have cut out the Japanese logo and left the planet visible in the background that is part of the background of the Japanese cover.

Nice to see the years of getting games late during the ‘90s getting some acknowledgement. I just imported throughout the ‘90s and early ‘00s until they got a grip on it.

The weird thing is, the school I went to, loads of kids had a NES but I didn’t know anyone with a Master System! 😅

That said, I didn’t realise that Nintendo’s neglect was still overshadowing the market, I’d have thought the Switch would have sold well, the Wii was certainly ubiquitous and sold well for most of its lifespan here.

Unless DC plan to use Superman in a movie every year (surely they can’t do that many stand-alone and crossover movies?) I think Netflix would have been much better off just delaying season 4 for a year. This seems like a sure fire way to kill off any audience The Witcher has.

Maybe Cavill was asking for too much money? Netflix are having to make quite serious cut backs at the moment, so maybe this was a good opportunity to replace the star with someone cheaper.

Either way, this is good news for Superman movies and bad news for The Witcher.

I’m sure they’ll carry on shipping boxes to shops… with a download code inside.