JohnnyC

I saw a documentary about Middle-Earth enterprises, where the forest was to make way for the fire of industry.

If I remember correctly, it didn't work out well for the CEO.

In terms of overlooked games which have never again seen the light of day, can I add Pyramids of Ra.

Great puzzle game and - as far as I'm aware - fairly unique. Closest I've seen to it was Cuboid on the PS3.

Mario but in hell already exists. It's called Crown World on Super Mario 3D World.

I wonder what story he'll be making up for the other inmates if he ends up in prison. Can't see anyone wanting to own this story in an English prison, but maybe things are different in Japan.

As the industry seems to shift more towards microtransactions and live service, my backlog is finally getting the attention it's long deserved and needed.

Just got no interest at all in this kind of stuff.

Some bargains in there when I went in at the weekend. They were doing 50% off lowest price, which effectively meant games like Demon's Souls, Ghost of Tsushima and Horizon Forbidden West on the PS5 were £15 each. Whatever their history, I'm glad to have a gaming shop on the high street among all the cafes and clothes shops.

My personal favourite is the 2008 reboot. Excellent game, great combat, great visuals, great exploration. The dlc epilogue was an early example of dlc done right as well.

@Yalloo Yep, they're not as hard when you do all the levels one after another with each of the characters. I beat the whole game with Mario a year or two ago, and then came back to it in the last few months to beat with the other characters. First time doing Challenge Road and that last mystery house level therefore didn't have the benefit of muscle memory, so took quite a few fails to get the hang of it again. Must have died dozens of times on those levels as Mario on my first play through. Thanks, same to you.

Ok, hands up. Who bought 5 million new PS2 consoles in the last year?

Finally got 100% on Super Mario 3D World yesterday. 55 hours playtime, off and on for the last few years since it came out. To be clear, I mean beat every level with every character. Hard work for the last couple, but satisfying!

Back to God of War Ragnarok and Side Order dlc for the rest of the weekend's gaming time.

Breath of the Wild for being amazing, fresh, engrossing.

Tears of the Kingdom for adding substantially and telling a new original story on the same foundations.

A wonderful pair of games that compliment each other beautifully. The Godfather and The Godfather Part II of the gaming world.

Competition is good. Let the record show that I acknowledge the reference to Microsoft and am wondering if Nintendo will see a true competitor.

If anyone's interested, I saw Game selling WarioWare for £14.99 last week. Mentioning as it's unusual to see a boxed first party Nintendo game that cheap.

Can't remember which one it was, it's not a series I've ever been into.

@Vyacheslav333 I thought the games themselves were fine, but to be clear I meant it was particularly good in terms of bonus content. The Smash Bros games used to be good for that stuff, but unfortunately they chose to leave it out of Ultimate.

The earlier first party remasters made at least a minimal effort to justify a double-dip. Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze, Captain Toad Treasure Tracker, New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe and of course Mario Kart 8 Deluxe all had some form of extra content over the original versions. For older titles, a HD lick of paint is an attractive selling point, especially when it's from the ground up like Link's Awakening. I've generally been fine with Nintendo's approach to remasters, although for me the gold standard is something like the Street Fighter Collection where you got loads of museum pieces along with a good collection of games.

I'm surprised about the comments regarding a lack of Fire Emblem Engage spirits. Struggling to see that the game needs more Fire Emblem content, particularly given the backlash to another Fire Emblem character being given a dlc slot in the first season pass.

After nearly 6 years I just find it pleasantly surprising that the game is still getting any extra content at all. At this point in the life of every previous Smash game, it's successor had been released by this time.

I took a punt on EA Sports FC 24. Hard to say no for £20, and the last one I bought was FIFA 18, so felt it was time to upgrade.

Already got these icons from the first time they did them several months ago. All showing as already purchased. I echo the call for more variety. Hopefully when Luigi's Mansion 2 HD comes out, that series will finally get some icons.

You know the way the colonel talks about Rambo being a mythical killing machine who absolutely destroys anything in his sights? That's how Nintendo talk about their legal team.

Super Mario Land would have killed them?

I know a lot of people feel this is pointless, but Mario Kart 7 would be a good one to port now that Nintendo appears to be done with Mario Kart 8.

Link Between Worlds and the remasters of Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask feel like no-brainers. Agreed with Samus Returns as well, which really should have been a Switch title to begin with when it came out in late 2017.

Beyond that, whatever Nintendo fancy.

@norwichred Yep, as were many games from 30 or so years ago. Still be nice to play it again.

Every time I see games like this, it reminds me of a great Game Boy game called Chase HQ.

Great news, glad to hear something positive that might nurture creativity after the last several weeks of mass redundancies.

Microsoft and Embracer are about as interested in making great games at the moment as Kellogg's, so these studios are well rid of them in my opinion.

Played a bit of Killer Instinct, but honestly Side Order in Splatoon 3 has taken most of my very little gaming time so far this weekend.

More Rare games which started life on Nintendo systems. Whether it's a compilation like Rare Replay or via the NSO apps doesn't bother me. Specifically, DK64, DK Land on the Game Boy plus it's sequels (these should be possible as they were on the Wii U VC), Diddy Kong Racing, Perfect Dark, Banjo Tooie, Killer Instinct Gold. Anything more modern than that, I'd probably prefer to play on a PS4 or PS5. Sorry, but generally my position on third party ports is I want to play the best possible version rather than thinking "it runs reasonably well, considering it's on the Switch."

I'm fine with it coming out little by little. Haven't got time to play all the NSO games I want to play anyway. Just glad these games are playable on a Nintendo console again (legally) in some form.

NICE!!! Been after Killer Instinct for ages. Chuffed to bits with this!!!

Hopefully some Microsoft and Rare news. Otherwise likely a few more last-gen ports to pad out the release schedule.

@Neph They'll likely be added into regular rotation in a few months, as happened with all the other "event" spirits.

@SBandy1 Same. Killer Instinct Gold dazzled me on the N64 too. I remember footage of that was in the early compilation trailers back in 96/97.

Killer Instinct and Rare Replay to come home, please. If other stuff goes multiformat, that's a happy bonus.

I still think these games were low-effort schedule-fillers, but they were very entertaining games to pick up for a quick blast now and again.

Didn't expect Suicide Squad to hang around that high in the charts.

Smash Ultimate to get the new spirits (a plague on both Nintendo's houses for toying with my 100% completion!!!)

Then back to my Arkham Asylum play through on Hard difficulty.

I fail to see how anyone can make an argument for being loyal to Xbox right now given they're gutting their developers, and particularly if the multiformat rumours play out next week. Their whole business model now seems to revolve around Gamepass and that's not even unique any more now that Sony are offering something similar with the different tiers of Plus.

@MysticX Agreed, Link's Awakening was very impressive. Ditto Final Fantasy VII Remake if we can open the floor to other platforms.

Never heard of this, but the NA artwork ticks the nostalgia box. Loved early 90s artwork like this, which promised a game that the pixels could only deliver when coupled with your imagination.

Making up for the fact that they completely ignored the 40th anniversary of the original Donkey Kong from the looks of it. Whatever, as long as there's more to come in terms of a new game and more retro releases added to NSO, not bothered how they choose to justify it.

Halfway through the weekend and so far I've continued my play through of Arkham Asylum, which feels timely given all the negative reviews for Rocksteady's latest.

Spent a fair amount of time playing Ultimate Chicken Horse with the kids, which always provides a lot of laughs, shouting etc.

Planning to go back to God of War Ragnarok. Played quite a bit of this recently and feel I'm closing in on the finale. Bit of a meandering story, but overall I've enjoyed it.

@Frailbay30 Agreed. I sit corrected.

I'd say it's a slow news day, but in terms of gaming it was either read this or read about the new Suicide Squad game. You win.

Pfft, I could do that. Switch OLED, couple of joy cons, tube of super glue. Easy peasy.

Never played it, but I always understood this was a very good game by any standard.

@DwaynesGames Fair point. I keep mine in their cases on a shelf. Love me some box art each time I select a game.

Only mattered when the cartridge was visible while playing, like in the Game Boy, SNES and N64. For the Switch it's about as meaningful as those memory cards with icons on them.

Arkham Asylum. Had it on PS4 for several years. Finished City last year and never got around to finishing Asylum, but been enjoying it this past week.

Finished Spidey 2 last week after getting it for Christmas. 35 hours to do everything. Very much a "one and done" game but I enjoyed it a lot. Been playing Mario Wonder alongside it which I'm also enjoying a lot.

Buy them, gut them, take home the profits. Glad that Microsoft's share value has risen from 2.89 trillion to 3.01 trillion off the back of this news. Obviously the outcome we all wanted from this acquisition.

Nintendo often makes weird decisions, but when fans were saying during the lean Wii U days "why doesn't Nintendo just spend it's huge cash reserves on..." remember it's so it can continue to do it's own thing in gaming and not be taken over by some heartless Gordon Gekko corporation which would at best lead to a homogenised product and at worst see it stripped and destroyed.

@Magician People have been saying it for a while and with the Switch 2 expected to launch this year, if it does launch on the Switch it will be a cross-gen title like Twilight Princess and Breath of the Wild. Can't see it launching solely for Switch at this point.