Kitchener

This stunk way back when on PC, can't imagine why anyone would think the stench would have gone away by now.

For crying out loud, do Jade Empire, not this dross.

@mickholohan
I think I will feel genuinely happy for Hollow Knight fans when, if ever, they get an actual announcement of a release date.

Whenever I think about Hollow Knight, I feel deep sympathy for those who love it and utter the briefest of tuts while shaking my head ever so slightly, and prize myself fortunate that I don't have any relationship to it. Poor souls.

@Mommar Winter is coming.

Are we doing bets on how long it lasts before Sony drops it like a bag of turds?

Two years.

I feel so, so very tired.

This one is tough.
The US cover is definitely weebier than the EU cover but it is also more characterful and unique, stands out a bit more.
Though I do detest that flying pest.

Saddened that Square and Silicon Studio didn't manage to re-capture tha magic with the sequels, never really spoke to me like the original.
Especially not the music, the OG had a sublime soundtrack.
Even the third entry fell flat in spite of getting Revo back to compose, shame.

@ActionPanther
He has no teeth and he must chew!

Asylum is not a good port.
It is a bad port.
In fact it is a very bad port and Nintendolife is actively misleading consumers by saying otherwise.
City is fine, it plays okay and I've completed it myself with minor complaints.
But Asylum is rubbish given its age. It runs worse than City for Christ's sake.
Bad, bad, wrong take, Nintendolife.

@canaryfarmer
You are deluded.

@Bablommebite
An absolute idiot who was so eager to replay Asylum and City that he didn't wait for a technical analysis, lining the undeserving pockets of Warner Brothers.

@canaryfarmer
Then you are actually blind. And insipid shilling like this only leads to lining the pockets of unscrupulous corporations.

Asylum becomes a slide show during combat. It is staggeringly bad considering its age.

City is fine, not good, but fine and I've been enjoying replaying it after all these years.

Knight is an absolute disaster.

The biggest disappointment is how the unstable and poor performance makes combat unresponsive and sluggish. These games are renowned for their fluid and fast combat encounters, these ports do them a grave injustice.

Kojima made a massive mistake by dropping Hayter for Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain.
Sutherland was fine but added nothing.

@GrailUK
I can't imagine anyone playing this for the first time in 2023 having a good time.

It was janky already in 2001. Downright obtuse, punishingly difficult, ugly as sin, and corny as heck.

But I loved it. It had a little special something that I'm not able to articulate right now. Something like Dark Souls, also not at all, and often laughably unfair.

And I am impressed they've gone through the trouble of porting it to Switch. Seems utterly bizarre to me.

@LikelySatan

Very disappointing indeed. Would have been a very good game with a smooth framerate and gyro controls.

Trying to get along with Prodeus.

But it's been hard going so far, frankly it's not a very good Switch game.

The performance is terrible and the controls abysmal.

And the game itself is obtuse. With nonsensical world maps, levels, collectibles and unlockables. On top of that the spritework is nothing short of galling, obfuscating the distance to enemies and their attack animations.

However, turning the difficulty down to easy, using 3d models instead of sprites, enabling permanent sprinting, remapping the controls (Map on B!? What!) and disabling view acceleration has transformed the game from a terrible mess to an enjoyable weekend romp.

Just when I thought I was out, Hello Games pulls me back in!

This ain't your mom's Blinx The Time Sweeper

So when are we getting Worn Panther suit scented candles?

Give us Trespasser, cowards!

Kind of hope Nintendo patch out the elevator railing as a ultrahand building block.

Not because I don't think the builds using it are cool. But because Every Single Frigging build uses them and it's making everything kind of samey.

I find it baffling that anyone is capable of getting worked up over the story in Bayonetta, it is entirely superfluous to the actual core of the experience; the combat.

Every single cutscene in every single Bayonetta game, from the very first to the very last, is too long, nonsensical, poorly written, poorly acted (actually, I'd argue the acting is as good as it's going to get with that script) and just plain awful.

With action that spectacular, the story is just... there, it's fine, no one should care enough to get worked up about it.

Ooooh, torn on cashing in on this freebie.

On one hand, leapfrogging the early grind is nice.

But on the other hand, sticking your nose to the grindstone builds character. After all, the journey is the goal, is it not?

Knowing my impulse control, there is no way I'm passing up on free treats, though.

Like Grados weren't overpriced enough already...
I jest, they're great on-ear headphones and God (and my wife, sadly) knows I've spent far more than that on headphones.

I suppose Baby Girl Lisa finally got done with this clown.
Sad state of affairs for Nigeria's most middling rap star.

As if I needed another reason to hate this dungeon besides the dreary length, awful music and boring enemies.
-the others are ace though

@KateGray
Hah, interesting that the school actually gave a toss about what pens you wrote with.
My kids will be issued iPads when they start school and will hardly write by hand at all which... well, I'm conflicted about that.

Have to admit I'm more of a medium nib kind of guy, I like the thicc lines. -though not bold, I'm not crazy.

Fancy finding a writer here with a preference for fountain pens, good stuff.
People hardly write these days, might as well use a slightly special instrument when we do.
-not to mention a special ink, like Pilot's Iroshizuku line oh my

@KateGray
I'm sure that if I had to use fountain pens at school I would harbour an everlasting, furious hatred of them.
Luckily I chose them of my own free will.

Did you actually have to use fountain pens in school?
I know we did that in schools here (Norway), but that was like 50 years ago.

In honestly though, I know Lamy's entry pens are quite divisive.
Both for the shape of their grips and the ...utilitarian "Lego" aesthetic (...or "boring", if you will).
I just happen to love them, but my current favourite is the TWSBI Eco, such a great writer.

@nessisonett
A healthy admiration of Boche ingenuity, is all.

Now then, I'm going to have to take issue with your lack of reverence for the Lamy All-Star.
"...reliable, friendly, and practical, it gets the job done."
I'm almost tempted to applaud you for your herculean feat of restraint for not typing "boring" at the end. But you might as well have.

I happen to use fountain pens for writing daily, voluntarily, and the All-Stars are excellent writers. A testament to German precision and efficiency, downright sexy and most assuredly not boring.

-all in good fun, naturally.

I know I'm in the minority here, but I'd really love to see the return of stereoscopic 3D.
With the eye-tracking in the New 3DS it went from being an irritating gimmick to an intriguing feature.

While interesting to some, I'm guessing this sort of stuff is far too "inside baseball" for any layman.
I spent a full minute trying to decipher the headline before clicking on this article, not going to lie, but that's just me being thick.

This is just stellar work, parallax occlusion mapping adds a lot of depth to the terrain.

Now they just need to fix the walking/running so that normal running without Speed Mode is possible, like it's supposed to.

Yikes, that 75% discount on Bulletstorm is mighty enticing.
Highly recommended for anyone who hasn't tried it, a proper good shooter. -with a surprisingly competent story, in spite of the often grating attempts at humour.

Just a terrible shame they've decided to shoehorn Duke Nukem in there for some reason.
Like topping a lovely ice cream sundae with a dog's dinner.
That guy was fun in the 90s when we all got the joke and more importantly; the developers got the joke.
Modern attempts at reinvigorating that old dinosaur have been atrocious.
Just let him die and live on in our memories.

Anyone know if Mutant Year Zero has seen big post-launch improvements with regards to visuals and performance?

I'm generally quite forgiving with regards to visuals and performance but Mutant Year Zero was... unappealing.

While I’m usually pretty quick to point out just how absolutely bloody hideous early 3D games were, the character models in this remind me of System Shock 2 and that hits me right in the nostalgia bone.

And at that price I can’t help myself.

Yeah day-one purchase for sure, Crytek and Sabre know their stuff.

Praise the Omnisiah!
So excited for Mechanicus.

I pray daily to the Machine God that the port looks and runs good.

Well I have no plans of supporting this hogwash.

The absolute tosh this developer is allowed to get away with is just staggering.

“No no, it’s supposed to be half-arsed trash; that’s the point. You’re just not clever enough to understand how brilliant it is.”

It’s rubbish.
It’s not charming, it’s an insult to every developer who struggle and work themselves to the bone and put their honour into creating their art that this gobbledygook gets this much leniency.

Oh the anguish, to be torn between the impulsive desire to purchase this the second it launches and the rational urge to wait until Digital Foundry has had a look at it.

So this is what salt and lemon juice in an open wound feels like?

Why in the flaming sausage Nintendo haven't put the Donkey Kongs on the Switch yet is completely beyond me.

Oh, maybe it's a permanent price cut on the eShop?
HAH!

Ah PETA, still fighting with tooth and nail to escape insignificance.
Good for them I suppose.

The ports seem a little pricey at first glance.

But Borderlands, Bioshock and XCOM 2 offer A LOT of content.

Three Bioshock games? That's a lot of gaming.
XCOM 2 with War of The Chosen? Oh boy that's a lot of tactical action.
-I spent dozens of hours with base XCOM 2 on PC.
Borderlands was never my jam, but people spent hundreds of hours on each single title.

So I can't argue that you're not getting your money's worth with those.

Burnout Paradise though? Get outta town, come on.

But still, I'm going to have to wait for a sale, especially since I've already played all of these before.

For a second there I wondered what Animal Crossing could possibly have to do with Topless FIFA.
Alas Topless FIFA remains but a dream.

The butterfly nerfs sink if you ask me.
I could easily make 60-70.000 Bells in about half an hour catching peacock and Madagascan butterflies.
If making Bells becomes a tiresome grind, I’m getting into the international stalk exchange.

Excited to see Sunless Sea on the Switch.
Played a fair bit of this on PC.
I must say though, it can be... challenging.
And to my tastes, a bit too challenging on default difficulty.

I heartilly recommend new players lower the difficulty to at least allow saving and loading whenever they so desire.
Once I did this I was able to actually enjoy the setting and writing of this weird, little gem.

For those who find such things interesting:
Richard Cobbett, games writer, collaborated as a writer for Sunless Sea. Word Smith par excellence.

@TechaNinja
Oh nothing of interest.
Just a closed minded person afraid of gender equality and very, very angry about communism.

Hey Nintendo Life, where's the Ban-Hammer at?

Lovely news!
Looking forward to it.

And seeing how it has managed to expose at least one of the most pathetic trolls on this site, I'm tempted to break my No Pre-Order rule.