Raffles

The likeness to the in game character is actually quite good. The eyes are the biggest giveaway.

Classic wallriding. Indeed it's something that seems unrealistic in games, and that you'd likely spinout in real life. Amazing it worked.

@kalosn Good post, I agree. Having been used to the luxury of a SeriesX, and a gaming PC with a 3070, I do find it hard to play stuff at less than a locked 60. Then I have to remind myself Goldeneye is one of my favourite games, and I still love playing it even today.

I love the N64, and also enjoy seeing machines pushed to their limits, even if framerate/resolution can be a little unsteady.

I'm glad they targeted 60 for this too. It was hard to get used to Astral Chain's 30 after Bayonetta 2's 60.

I know most people are fine with 30, but I much prefer even a highly variable 60 target, as long as the game has a fixed timestep and triple buffering.

I'd like a direct sequel. I love Super Mario Odyssey.

It always astonishes me when I read comment sections about Odyssey, and there are so many comments saying they didn't really like it etc.

As a long time Mario fan, this is my joint favourite Mario game alongside Mario 64, and simply one of the best games I've ever played. I love everything about it.

@Royalblues I know it wasn't your main point, but I addressed it because I just find it weird whenever I hear people talk about the Switch's tech being "old and outdated" when it came out, as it simply isn't true, or even close to being true in the realm of mobile hardware.

You're right that the X1 came out in 2015, but then it was mainly used in the Nvidia Shield, which is not a mobile device. Plus the GPU is based on desktop hardware, which is why it was ahead of its time in 2017, and still has a solid featureset even today - supporting modern shaders, Vulkan etc.

@Royalblues Your assessment of the Switch's hardware is not even close to being true. In 2017 when the X1 came out, it was clearly better than any other mobile chipset on the market, particularly the GPU. The CPU side is nothing to shout about to be fair, it's very GPU heavy, but the GPU was ahead of its time for mobile. It wasn't until a year or two later that flagship Apple and Samsung devices could match its GPU performance.

So when the Switch came out, it was excellent hardware, at least judged as a handheld.

This is definitely one of those instances where there is a big discrepancy between critic reviews and player opinion.

Critics are like - "Ackchyually these tracks are not as good as proper MK8 tracks".

Players are like - "Yay more Mario Kart!"

@steventonysmith Yes that's true, as I recall, weren't there supposed to be no new tracks, and it was only retro tracks and MK Tour tracks? In which case yes this brand new one is a surprise.

@CharlieGirl Agreed, it obviously looks more PS1, with the crispy unfiltered textures, with visible pixels etc. It's worlds away from the signature smooth N64 look, with its "vaseline filter"

Good point. I absolutely love the look of the game, might be time to dust off the 3DS.

Surprised Mushroom Gorge isn't getting more love. One of the best Wii tracks for sure, I really like it, and definitely looking forward to that the most in this "wave".

The other Wii track I'd love to see is the river one, the moving stream, Koopa Cape I think.

@LXP8 Sure. I suppose one man's tedium is another man's delight. I find strategy games and turn based battles the most tedious thing in the world, but evidently they have a huge fanbase, a lot of people love them.

The "tedious" combos you describe are kind of what I love about fighting games, particularly Street Fighter. The more dumbed down fighting games get, the more boring they become imo. It's why Mortal Kombat and Tekken have always played second fiddle to Street Fighter, they are too button mashery, without the precision that makes Street Fighter so good and satisfying. And one of the reasons why SF5 is boring is I think it lost a step when they tried to dumb it down a bit. Give me SF4's FADC combos and 1 frame links anyday. SF4 could be frustrating, but ultimately is just so much better and more rewarding than any other fighting game I've played.

I do really like Virtua Fighter and Killer Instinct though. KI is kind of like a less technical Street Fighter on steroids, but it's really, really good. I hope they make a sequel.

@SpaceboyScreams Let me guess, you're unable to do a fireball or SRK from the right side, and you're 0-100 in Street Fighter matches?

@OnlyItsMeReid

Pretty much

I think Street Fighter is the best fighting game series and there is no close second.

As a huge Nintendo fan I wanted to like Smash, I try and like every one of them, but ultimately it's just a casual party game, not really a fighting game at all. It's so random and messy, with none of the precision that makes fighting games so good and compelling.

I really like the look of Spirit Tracks, but for some reason have never played it.

@thiswaynow By the end of the song? I was nodding along by 20 something seconds

@calbeau I couldn't agree more. I'll be honest, I find it genuinely perplexing, the shift towards multiplayer. So much so, that a lot of the biggest games are multiplayer and single player often takes a backseat.

Do I have anything against multiplayer? No, there's been a couple of multiplayer games I've found very fun and addictive, but I much prefer single player for the reasons you stated - being able to pause the game whenever you want, and play at your own pace, I find it hard to play a game where I can't do that tbh, so I inherently enjoy single player games more. I ultimately find a good single player game to be a far more engrossing experience than multiplayer.

The two multiplayer games I really enjoyed, and found addictive, are PSO and SF4.

I'm surprised, didn't expect this to be 1080p60.

I'll have to try Portal out for the first time.

@Gitface What about Perfect Dark do you think is better?

Goldeneye is one of my favourite games ever, and I've tried to get into Perfect Dark a couple of times, but it just didn't grab me the way Goldeneye did. The missions and the setting, didn't find them that appealing or exciting. I found Goldeneye engaging and addictive from the minute I played it, and I'm not even a Bond fan in the slightest.

@Arkay It's running at 30fps with more LOD pops, so probably? If not actual Switch footage, maybe a workstation running on Switch settings.

It does look very good, exceptionally good for a Switch game if this really is representative of the Switch version.

I've never really known what people's problem is with this game, other than being negative just because it's Sonic.

I thought it looked good from the get go, but indeed this trailer looks the best so far.

@the_beaver Not sure it can really be called an indie game tbh. It's a 40 strong studio owned by SEGA

Concerns about a non-Italian actor?

But Charles Martinet, basically Mario as everyone knows him, is French American

The game actually looks really good. Internet gunna internet, plus people just seem to have a major stick up their arse about Sonic.

This looks like it might be the best Sonic since Sonic Adventure.

Best dog games please.

I'm not too fussed about raytracing, especially for anything that isn't going for modern realistic visuals, but how I would love Zelda OOT and Mario 64 running at 60fps. I don't even want any silly texture packs, I like the original textures, I just want 60fps

I knew 100% who the author of the article would be, just from the title.

I couldn't really think of any other writer who would be compelled to write about weird arms

@sketchturner I couldn't agree more. I mean imho, Goldeneye hasn't aged a bit (other than graphically, but that goes without saying).

The gameplay is still the best, most engaging and fun FPS I've ever played.

@MikeDubbz Agreed. We're obviously way beyond the point of these simply being considered "phones".

It's now essentially a tiny laptop that can make phone calls. I mean, the GPU/CPU power of flagship phones is now ahead of cheaper laptops, it's quite astonishing really.

GX is much, much better. I mean, there's no comparison really, GX is the best F-Zero by a country mile. It still looks and plays spectacularly today.

@KateGray - On a scale of 1-10, how disappointed were your parents when they found out you didn't even beat the final boss?

Absolutely fine tbh, just as good as the day I got it.

@Yorumi Exactly. Through the entire PS4 generation I was gaming mainly on PCs and then Switch too.

I had CPUs like an i5 3570k and Ryzen 5 2600, with mid range GPUs too (such as 650ti, 7850, 1060, 1660 Super), and the same story - pretty much everything worked perfectly, just like a console.

You don't need a beast of a PC to have a great experience PC gaming. The flexibility is good. Game not running at 60? Just turn down some settings or the resolution, that's the biggest advantage PC gaming has imo, the sheer level of flexibility and customisation.

@JaxonH Good post I agree, as you said presets are very good these days and many games even auto detect hardware and adjust accordingly.

Have you tried emulation btw? It's great that Retroarch is even on Steam these days, should make things easier than ever.

@JaxonH Hahaha, that is nuts. I had no idea. Seems like a pretty surreal reaction from a hardware manufacturer

@Troll_Decimator You're talking about tinkering with settings, yes that's just part of PC gaming to get the best bang for buck PQ and performance.

What I'm saying is games just work, I click them, they open, they run perfectly - just like a console. Long gone are the days when PC games were more fuss and faf and you had to update drivers etc all the time. These days everything just works. Do consoles have some convenience and accessibility advantage over PCs? Sure, but even consoles these days can be annoyingly slow and cumbersome with forced updates etc. PC gaming and console gaming are closer than ever as far as overall usability etc.

I have a Ryzen 7 5800 and an RTX 3070, so yes my PC is good enough to run almost anything on max settings, but it only takes a few minutes to go into a menu and change the settings to your liking for the "best experience".

Again, I love the experience my SeriesX offers, the immediacy of quick resume and swapping between games within seconds, but it's absolute nonsense to suggest PC gaming is this huge hassle these days. It's easier and simpler than ever, and generally speaking everything just works.

@JaxonH Agreed, I am absolutely astonished at the power of this thing compared to FAR more expensive alternatives like the Aya Neo. I mean, the Steam Deck basically renders all the competitors redundant. Much cheaper, much more powerful, and as you said the kind of slick system level features you'd expect from a good console.

@Neoicelord Cyberpunk says hello. On launch the PC version was much better than its console counterparts, and still is.

What you're saying is largely untrue, I have a gaming PC, Switch, and a Series X and tbh 99% of the time I double click a PC game in Windows 10 and it loads immediately and works perfectly, just like a console. In fact in some cases it seems better, with less forced updates etc if I just wanna play a game right now.

Having said that I do love the convenience of the Switch and the SeriesX in particular. Being able to switch games quickly and easily with the controller, and quick resume in particular is a big deal.

Quick resume is so good, that the PC version of a game would have to be significantly better than the SeriesX version for me to play on the PC instead. Which to be fair, some are, like FH5 and Microsoft Flight Sim, but generally speaking I do love the convenience and pick up and play factor of the SeriesX. Quick resume is great, and something even a very powerful PC can't do. FPS boost is superb too, and definitely takes the SeriesX closer to what a good gaming PC can deliver.

Well, I'll agree with one thing - GamePass it aint

@Dirty0814 Feasible yes, but price is the exact reason Nintendo wouldn't make a 2 GPU device. Its consoles have been on the more affordable side for years, and 2 GPUs would push the cost way up. The mobile GPU would still have to be good enough to keep up with whatever the dock GPU could accomplish, albeit at a lower resolution.

A scaled down RTX 3000 capable of solid visuals at 1080p, with DLSS pushing that up to 4k docked would be a much better idea. Simpler and cheaper than 2 GPUs.

You'd have the added bonus of being able to render internally at 540p handheld, with DLSS outputting 1080p to a 1080p handheld screen.

DLSS would be the way to go for the Switch 2, and the only way mobile hardware could reach 4k docked. It could do DLSS performance, which is 1080p internal res, and still looks amazing.

It really is an astonishing piece of technology, more impressive than raytracing IMO, and the defining piece of tech this generation. In some cases it actually looks better than native, resolving more detail and making the image look more solid.

@TheRedComet Don't get me wrong, I like AMD and completely understand why Microsoft they went with them, their chips are certainly cost effective, they have the APU factor in their favour, and good power efficiency. I just mean in an ideal world I wish the Series X had DLSS for extra future proofing

Regarding the Switch 2, I was thinking the same thing, a custom RTX 3000.

I recently got an RTX 3070 Laptop and this thing is an absolute beast. The thing is though, it uses 140 watts for max performance. That's a huge power requirement compared to the Switch, and for a handheld obviously. It would need to be a heavily scaled down version of an RTX 3000, with much lower TDP.

Could work out really well though with DLSS. Could even render at 540p internally for handheld mode, AI scaled to a 1080p screen, then 1080p docked AI scaled to 4k. Which is of course DLSS performance mode.

Both options would look good, be a massive upgrade to the Switch, and would be possible with a very power optimised RTX 3000.

@Dirty0814 I suppose that would be possible yeah, given that external GPUs are possible with PCs. Not sure how feasible it would be though, would be very expensive having 2 GPUs and the one in the dock would have to be vastly superior to the handheld one, which would make scaling tricky, as games would have to be gimped by the capabilities of the mobile GPU.

@TheRedComet most of your points are valid, but regarding your point #3, super sampling is actually the opposite of what you describe.

Super sampling is rendering at an internal resolution significantly higher than the output resolution, creating a very smooth and rock solid image.

For example I have a Series X plugged into a 1080p plasma, and any 4k game on the Series X like Forza Horizon 4/5 is effectively super sampled, rendering internally at 4k, then downsampling to 1080p. The image quality is surprisingly excellent, you can clearly tell it's resolving more detail than internal 1080p even though the output resolution is the same.

Anyway, though I love my Series X tbh I do kind of wish they had used an Nvidia GPU rather than AMD, to be even more future proof. DLSS is incredible, a game changer for this 4k era, and pretty much blows FSR out of the water, sometimes actually looking better than native. Which is not surprising as it's hardware accelerated, FSR is almost akin to doing ray tracing on a GPU with no RT cores.

I do hope FSR improves though, because as you said as graphical techniques and demands evolve these consoles will have to rely on rendering internally at 1440p or lower, and scaling to 4k.

Microsoft Flight Simulator shows that even some solid scaling looks good enough, when going from 1440p to 4k, but AI upscaling would obviously be ideal and open the doors to render lower than 1440p and still look very detailed and solid.

On topic - I really hope Mario Kart 9 comes sooner rather than later, whatever hardware it's on. I mean, this DLC is better than nothing obviously, but it would have been nice to have some actual new tracks, even if just 4 or so.

And for anyone hoping for a 4k Switch, I hope you're patient, as you'll be waiting a very very long time for a 4k handheld

Even the Series X can only just render modern games at 4k60, often relying on dynamic resolution to maintain framerate, and in the case of something very demanding like Flight Sim, is only running at 1440p30. And this is a machine that's 30 times more powerful than the Switch

The best idea for a Switch 2 would be for Nintendo to carry on with Nvidia for the GPU, and have a custom made RTX GPU with lots of tensor cores for very fast AI upscaling, and aim to render everything internally at 1080p with flawless upscaling to 4k.

@Wexter @MarioBrickLayer

Ah I see I see, yeah that makes sense.

Tbh it is still much more than I expected. I would have thought Nintendo would be worth a few times more than Activision, at least.

How is Activision worth more than Nintendo? WTF?

lol, better than I expected

@GrailUK If you're a Sonic fan, Sonic Generations and Unleashed are two of the 360 games that have been enhanced, and they look incredible.

Generations in particular runs at 4k60 now, and looks kind of unbelievable for a game of that generation.

@GrailUK One thing I forgot to mention is quick resume and FPS boost.

Both are game changers in functionality imo. I've really enjoyed being able to switch between 5 or 6 games at the exact state they were exited, something even a high end gaming PC can't do.

And FPS boost being able to retroactively enhance old games, running at a flawless 60fps is incredible.

Don't get me wrong, I love my Switch and thought the Xbox One was pretty terrible, but Microsoft have really come out swinging this gen. The Series X is way better than I expected.

@GrailUK Strange, I kind of had the opposite experience, a very good one.

I recently got a Series X, and it's been unbelievably fun, and fast, and generous.

I can't believe quite how much you get with Game Pass, literally 400 games, many of them excellent high profile ones. Most of them load in a few seconds, and look and perform brilliantly.

Not to mention how cheap the recent sale was, getting stuff like the Witcher for 5 quid, and several other good games for 2 and 3 quid.

I haven't received any annoying popups asking me to buy stuff etc, it's all been pretty great tbh.

As someone who has happily been a Switch/PC gamer for years, I am incredibly impressed with the Series X.