BulkSlash

I don't know how many times I've 100%'d Odyssey now, but I know I've overwritten every save slot at least twice. While I'd be happy with something new, I'd really like at least one more Odyssey.

I suspect they are working on an Odyssey 2, I think they were doing DLC for the first game and much like Galaxy 2 I think it has ballooned into a full-blown sequel. I wouldn't be surprised if it hits the Switch in time to cash in on Mario-mania from the movie.

All I would hope for in the sequel is cheaper costume prices (grinding Luigi's Balloon Hunt to buy everything is a chore) and that you also don't need to grind Luigi's Balloon Hunt to get the Odyssey to 999 moons. Ideally I'd like there to be 999 moons to find in the game, I'm sure the only reason it's like that in Odyssey is because there originally were meant to be DLC kingdoms.

Three separate statues in identical poses? It would have been better to just make one and allow you to snap different armours on and off.

Makes sense. It stops verified accounts changing their name and impersonating another channel while still bearing the YouTube verification mark.

@Woodyshoe It does if you have a Mac and can build Provenance from source as it supports N64 now. I'll be giving this a try this evening.

The one downer to Nintendo's N64 emulation is there's no patched versions of games. The Redux patch for Ocarina of Time adds so many awesome quality of life things that it's hard to go back to the vanilla version now.

It was an OK game, I quite enjoyed it but I didn’t like the death mechanic. They actually patched it at some point as it was quite annoying, but I’d already beaten it by then (and probably got the bad ending) so I haven’t tried it again since. Maybe this article will give me the reason to try it again.

Oh no, why’d they hire Brian Tyler? He did one amazing score on Children of Dune years ago, but everything since has been utterly forgettable and mediocre. They had to bring in Danny Elfman on Avengers Age of Ultron to actually add in Silvestri’s Avengers theme and pep up the action music.

At this point it seems like The Pokémon Company needs a team of Satoru Iwatas to come in and fix their engine, much like Iwata-san did when he worked on the original Pokémon.

LuigiBlood is correct, Nintendo's N64 emulator isn't very good at matching the bottlenecks of the N64 hardware and often runs at the wrong speed.

This is why Mario starts talking before the music finishes in the credits to Mario Kart 64, because there's no slowdown in certain parts where the camera is zoomed right out like there is on real hardware.

I'd be willing to bet it's the same for the end credits to Ocarina of Time, there's probably no slow down when all the NPCs are dancing around the fire meaning the visuals end before the music.

@HammerGalladeBro I wish they'd make remapping and connecting Bluetooth headphones quicker to access too, it's a pain having to dig through the options screen for them every time.

I'm hoping Nintendo will copy Valve and add per-game control remaps, accessible directly when you're playing the game like on the Steam Deck.

At least Nintendo have moved Bluetooth up the Settings menu a bit, they're outpacing Valve on that count at least where it's buried right near the bottom.

Here’s an idea for the filmmakers: how about getting Charles to perform Mario as an alternate audio track on the Blu-Ray? That way, the people who wanted him to play Mario in the movie still get to hear his version.

It’s pretty depressing to see games heading in this direction. I’ll naturally never be playing this game, but there are too many who will to stop this sort of business practice from being profitable.

It’s practically criminal that we never got a Devastation 2 from Platinum. I’m actually replaying it on Steamdeck at the moment and it’s just as awesome as I remember. It’s a 360-era game so there’s no reason the Switch couldn’t handle it easily.

For me it’s probably Final Fight Guy. Sure it’s missing two player mode, Cody, the factory level, area transitions and only has three enemies on-screen at once but the graphics are nicely colourful, the music sounds less scratchy than the arcade version and it was a much easier way to play the game in the ‘90s than trying to find an arcade with the game AND convincing my parents to give me money to play it.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed Nintendo will release an updated version of the game with all the DLC tracks at some point (obviously that’s a while off yet). I like the game so much I’d like to own a physical copy (rather than just the digital one I currently have) but I’d like to have all the new tracks included with it.

@progx Very interesting! 👍 Maybe now that Craig has finished his stint as Bond, Barbara Broccoli’s objections over confusing people who Bond is are over?

I’d definitely love a remaster from Nightdive including gyro aiming. All their FPS remasters have been perfect, so they would have been ideal for this one too. Now if only they could do Dark Forces I and II…

I’m surprised there’s nothing about the vsync issues, I’ve noticed quite obvious tearing at the top of the screen in places and the backdrops have a strange wobbling at times.

It’s a great game, but there’s no way I’d want to dedicate the time needed to get genuinely good at it. I’ll just play it enough to unlock enough lives to bulldoze through story mode. If only we could get Axelay on the Switch…

@Serpenterror RS is a 4:3 game, it doesn’t have a TATE mode because of that. Ikaruga was a vertical game, but I think Treasure made RS 4:3 because it was an STV cartridge game and had to be compatible with existing STV arcade cabinets.

I’m really liking what they’re doing with the weapons. It feels like a long time since I played an FPS where the weapons had an alternate fire mode, that was much more commons in ‘90s FPS games I think.

Not touching this with a barge pole. Companies need to learn that cloud versions suck and nothing will change that.

@Sir_funkington I'm in exactly the same boat! 😅 The good old days of four player GoldenEye like back when I was at uni are virtually impossible to schedule these days. 😥

Just ordered a second one, not to be greedy (or for scalping) but for some two-player GoldenEye, WaveRace and Mario Kart. 🤗

Easily Japan. It much more closely matches the game’s anime art style and highlights the actual bosses in the game instead of picking random stuff from Octopus’ stage. Plus it’s not squashed with large borders around the sides.

I just wish they’d do another game like Lego City Undercover. 😢

I love Osman, it really does feel like a spiritual sequel to Strider (and personally I like it a lot more than Capcom’s rough looking Strider 2 game). It’s a shame they went with Strictly Limited instead of Limited Run (assuming they had a choice).

I think there are loads of great ways a Portal 3 could provide new types of puzzles to make a fresh new game.

Where I think they’d struggle is a) bringing back Chell and b) coming up with a good story after Portal 2’s incredible plot.

Portal’s magic relies on both the puzzles and the story/characters. Just getting one of those right wouldn’t be enough. I think the latter is why we haven’t had a new Portal, they can’t come up with a good enough story.

@Joeynator3000 I agree, even N64 emulation still has issues these days, more modern systems than that are all over the place in terms of accuracy and compatibility. I’d much rather just turn an original system on and play the game than faffing around with settings to get a game to more or less run in an emulator.

I’m pretty meh on those two really, both were underwhelm. If it was Link Between Worlds I’d be very hyped or maybe a Link’s Awakening-style remake of some of the earlier 2D GB games I’d be interested.

My first MK was Super on the Super Famicom. I liked it a lot at the time, but over the years I’ve crystallised around MK64, DS and 8 Deluxe as my favourites.

@Rykdrew "Much more content than Mario Kart 8" And I thought Mario Kart 8 was massive! 😂

It's a pity there's no demo. I like the sound and look of the game, but given the steep price I need to try before I buy.

I really enjoyed the first one, but I'm not sure about all these live service events, where they randomly generate missions every few days. They got really repetitive in Forza Horizon, I'd prefer a normal career mode and just replay that if I liked the game enough.

On the PS1 they would draw the skybox first because it had no hardware z-buffer. The rest of the graphics were drawn after that over the top of the skybox making it look like it was behind everything.

@Serpenterror I’m fairness when the Kickstarter was running there were virtually no games releasing on the Wii U and definitely no Metroidvanias, so this was like the proverbial glass of water to someone in the middle of a desert (although I didn’t expect it to take 9 years to arrive!)

The Japanese artwork by a mile for me. The US/EU one doesn’t look anything like the characters in the game or the cartoon it’s based on. Plus it makes them look very aggressive and misses out the more light hearted and fun-loving characters they are. The enormous black borders around the art don’t help either.

Tried it and deleted it. I can’t fathom why they still insist on not allowing players to use the right stick to look up and down when gyro is enabled. It seems like deliberate obstinance now that so many shooters on Switch allow both.

My favourite weapon is the silenced D5K. Sadly it’s only in Frigate but being silenced means you don’t attract all the guards in the area. Dual wielding silenced PP7s is the next best thing, especially as the game will keep spawning enemies if you make too much noise.

I can unlock the Facility cheat, in fact I unlocked it for three or four people back in the day, but it usually requires several tries. Even if I get to the end of the level with enough health, there’s no guarantee Dr. Doak will be in the right place (usually he’s not! 😩)

I’m hoping if this does release on the Switch that the emulator developers will do what they did with Sin & Punishment and map the N64’s analogue stick to the right Joy-Con stick so the Solitaire control scheme can be used. Alternatively they could map a second N64 controller analogue stick to the right Joy-Con stick so the dual controller schemes can be used. The default control scheme just won’t work without six face buttons.

I don’t emulate Switch games but I hate Denuvo and will be boycotting any Switch game that contains it.

Wave Race 64 for me. Graphically Blue Storm was incredible (I’d say it still looks good today) but it just didn’t play as well as 64, there was something about the handling that just didn’t feel right.

Still, it would be nice if Nintendo could make a sequel. I know they don’t like to make a new game without some unique idea to differentiate it from the originals, but I’m sure gyro and HD Rumble could be used to do something a bit different (as long as they keep it optional 😉).

@Gs69 The Quake port is by Night Dive Studios, I don't think they had anything to do with those rushed Doom ports. They've done things like Turok, Powerslave and Doom 64 on the Switch, which are all really good. So don't worry about those annoying sleep issues with Quake.

Fantastic! One of my favourite racing games ever. While I would like Nintendo to make a new game in the series, I don’t know if they’ll ever be able to top the gameplay of this one. I’ve not played a single jet ski game over the years that handles as well as Wave Race 64.

Ideally I’d want a LOTR game that actually follows Frodo and Aragorn’s journeys. I don’t really want a game based around Gollum or Talion or that drunk guy in the background at the inn.

@rockodoodle Definitely. If the games are unfinished then it’s no better than what companies like EA pull and the price just isn’t justified.

@Shambo Totally. I’m mulling getting a Steam Deck as that has built-in gyro that you can turn on for any game. It’s a pity there’s no third party joy-cons that can be set to use gyro even if the game doesn’t support it.

In many ways I support Nintendo’s decision to not resort to heavily discounting their titles. So often these days I see people saying they’ll wait for a game to be discounted before buying it (and I’m getting that way myself!) and I think people are doing that more and more.

This race to the bottom can’t be good for the industry long term. The more people wait for discounts the more publishers will bog their games down with surprise mechanics, NFTs, micro-transactions, etc and cut corners on other parts of development. This might even be why games are $70 now so publishers can squeeze the early adopters as much as possible.

By sticking to their prices I think Nintendo are making the smart decision to combat this. While I can definitely see the argument that a cheap game might attract someone to try a franchise they’ve not considered before, I think Nintendo have handled this quite cleverly with their time limited free demos of full games.

@NeonPizza Are you sure about that controller name? I just did a Google search and it appears to be a errr…. self love tool? 😂

The lack of gyro kills any interest I’d have in this, and I love Bioshock. I’d have bought it full price if they’d got the controls right. 😥

@Buizel Yeah that's a good point about handhelds and the later stuff like Xbox. I think the PAL aversion started with the 8, 16 and 32-bit consoles (it certainly factors into my decision making when buying a game from those eras), I think maybe that's left something of a stigma even when it's not an issue on more recent releases.

@Buizel My theory is US and Japanese releases are more popular due to being NTSC rather than PAL. A lot of European releases ran slower and had large black borders at the top and bottom of the screen to account for the differences between NTSC and PAL. Some games did get some optimisation to fix this, but many, if not the majority, did not.

So because of that, most PAL releases are less desirable to collectors who would prefer to have games running at their intended speed and screen size. Plus I think a sizeable amount of collectors only have TVs compatible with an NTSC signal, making the PAL versions harder to play in any case.

If it’s using the original codebase with just some tweaks for the new graphics I’d call it a remaster. If they’ve written a new engine and have also remade a lot of the assets I’d say it’s a remake, even if the story is the same.