Whirlwound

⬆️ That subtle gag right there is why they'll have picked the 12th. Hell, remember when the TotK Direct wasn't shown live in the UK due to the passing of Queen Elizabeth II? The name would have been decided months beforehand, but they weren't about to honk off a whole country.

So it goes here. Would you want to be celebrating big Nintendo news in America on the anniversary of... that?

Played slow, sluggish handling, and a frame rate that seemed to struggle a bit to me. Drove aggressively and did alright, but while it didn’t feel unfair per se, it felt something that was arguably worse: random.

Even with position and team-mate rankings, there wasn’t much sense of how things were or how to maintain/get back into things. Dogpiling on the final stretch didn’t help much either.

It’s only the NS1 version though, so I’d hope there’ll be an NS2 demo down the line so we can compare.

@The21zonz That made me twitch back at the London event, when the staffer I was assigned for DxD said I could roll the JoyCons on my legs if I couldn't get away with it on the table.

I was like [thinks] ...okay... apart from the Vic Reeves connotations that evidently flew right over your head, you are aware this is a game of WHEELCHAIR FREAKING BASKETBALL?!

Katamari/Battle Zone-style dual stick tank controls might be an idea., using button combos to shoot, turbo and pull tricks. Or maybe something like a quasi-ARMS control; from a vertical joycon starting position, flick forward or back to spin each wheel

Either way, it definitely needs way more content. It didn’t feel like it had anywhere near enough depth back in April whatever the price, and so it turned out.

True physical for NS1 plus update for NS2. Only way I’m going. Gets me the ability to play on either unit, and actual ownership. Not gonna be a snob over it not being a red card, but the quasi-digital option that nobody wants I will look down my nose at like it’s a gods-damn ski jump.

Game Key Cards need to die on the vine.

@Vyacheslav333 Way things are going we might well get Half-Life 3 first.

We’ve been waiting how long now, 8 years? Few more months ain’t gonna kill us. Hell, I’ve waited longer for things. Eight years was 2003 and three jobs ago - all for a ship that’s not so much sailed as hit high warp…

@Lightsiyd What, you mean like... [gulp] ... a devkit?

Nah, never gonna happen. Make far too much sense, that.

Wonder how all the stuff that's on Game Key Cards or Download-In-A-Box is doing in proportion. If there's any justice, not well.

Stuff is already slipping through the net because of this. VooFoo for one have nixed Pure Pool Pro for NS2 directly through lack of devkit.

They’re going to end up hamstringing their New Shiny if they don’t get everyone else up to speed.

There probably were other chart entries, but MKW sensed that they released too hard and promptly went full Ayrton Senna to wipe them out.

Wave Race: Blue Storm for NSO GC?

@ShieldHero I’m gonna be sticking with the NS1 physical version and getting the upgrade. I’d like to be able to play it on whichever unit I have on me.

Knowing file sizes would be handy though. That quarter-tera on board sure gets nommed up fairly rapidly.

Crossworlds OG getting a physical, NS2 getting a TRUE physical, and an upgrade option being made available. AND a look at it a month in advance.

Publishers take note. I don’t go all in on Star Wars as much as some, but THIS IS THE WAY.

Indy I will take. Might even shift stuff back to the OG to make space if I need to. That and Crossworlds, but we know the latter is true physical.

I dunno... all I could really take from this is that if Kirby Air Riders is the November game, Metroid Prime 4 has to be the big Christmas release. At the very least.

Mafia must have been drifting too much and pulling too many tricks.

6/10.

Fine for what it does, but what it does isn’t very much. Quite insubstantial for the price.

Bibles and crosses at the ready, everyone… #poyo

@kid_keo Oh, I’m not going trip-stars on it all just yet. I’ll go back to the ones I haven’t maxed out - I want to unlock mirror mode first.

That clean-driving tactic really does work though. I had a hell of a job on getting through the early 150cc GPs thanks to the ridiculous difficulty pre-update (£&%#ing Lakitu!!) and it’s still far from a walk in the park now - but to go from that to two first-try wins means there’s at least something to it.

I just gave my reverse curse a try - if I leave a game alone for a while, I get better at it.

Hadn’t been on Mario Kart World for a week or so, having discovered the update hadn’t changed much imho, certainly not in the CPU drivers. You still drive Balls-Out™, drift like you’re in Burnout and throw tricks and grinds like you’re Tony Hawk, and the CPUs will go full Ikaruga on your ass.

And then I thought… what if I didn’t drive full aggro? What if they only go after you if they see a threat - like the Borg?

So I tried it.

By this time I was in the second half of 150cc; just Leaf, Lightning and Special to go. No fast starts, we all know now you get better items if you hang back. Fight like hell to get into first of course, but from there… drive clean. Don’t trick, grind, drift, even be frugal with your items; juggle a shell or banana, sure, or a horn if you’re lucky, but don’t use them until in extremis. Get your coins full, naturally, but that’s it; keep the hammer down, don’t take risks you aren’t 150% sure of, and play it safe.

And boy howdy hey, whaddya know, it only bloody works doesn’t it. Bear in mind that in all previous iterations of the series, I suck at 150cc…

Leaf 150: First try Gold.
Lightning 150: First try Gold.
Special: got snarled up in the pipes on Mario Circuit a few times, but I was consistently on the podium. Couple of Silvers before getting a 2-star Gold. Across all three tries, I managed to win each race at least once.

Now then - let’s have a look at that Mirror Mode, shall we…

Dispatch (and whatever springs from the Critical Role/AdHoc partnership) and Pure Pool Pro. VooFoo says the lack of a devkit means the latter isn't coming to NS2, so the Big N needs to start getting them out there tout suite - or if they're not careful they're gonna wind up kneecapping their New Shiny, already holding it back when it's barely out the gate.

@topsekret Not really one to say I told you so, but boy freakin’ howdy hey, here we go again…

My concerns:

• Sawn-off - it won’t be the full experience other formats get, they’ll cut stuff because lol Nintendo
• Game Key Card - because of course it will be
• Higher cost for less game

Prove me wrong, Bandai Namco. Triple-dog-dare ya.

Oh, NOW were talking. It’ll probably look rough around the edges, not being an HD version, but I’ll take it.

@Gohanjin Being done back in 2007 on a now-long-dead PC - never mind that I'm like 97.5% Mac-based these days - unfortunately the source files are long gone. Dunno why, but every time I've worked on a music video, Premiere has killed the OS of the PC it was done on...

I wasn't that keen on the World Cup arc of the manga. They could have done more with it - I think they were starting to run out of ideas (Militaria? And wasn't this a YOUTH World Cup - with Agon, Gaou and the worryingly-foreshadowing Mr Don?) - could have gone through to the Christmas Bowl in the animu though.

There was a Dan Marino reference in the Nagas game though, so far as I'm concerned the rest of it is golden.

@Gohanjin I made this video based on it back in ‘07, attending AmeCon before running it proceeded to inhale my spare time. Won an award too.

youtu • be / mEy2MPFYFQI

@Gohanjin Ya—Ha—!! An ES21 game I would be all over. I was kinda hoping a series about Sena’s college years might have come from that 21st anniversary animation last year, but I guess Murata is still busy with One Punch Man…

@Supadav03 There's a physical version for the NS2?

Well I would, but I don’t have the space, do I.

If only it was actually on the cart, eh... 🤷🏻‍♂️

Oh - and no higher-end versions like other formats either. Kinda says sawn the hell off to me.

I came away from this with two things.

• I get to slot my RPG group's cats into Little Kitty Big City at some indiscriminate point in the future. Still just an OG title though.
• Pure Pool Pro isn't coming to either Switch because (a) there's no way the OG can handle 4K, never mind 8K - and (b) Nintendo, still being stingy with NS2 devkits, haven't sent VooFoo one.

Very little here for me - even the retro-looking stuff didn't scratch much of an itch. But if Nintendo keeps being that tight with the gear necessary to turn stuff out for the NS2, the next Indie World is gonna wind up ten minutes long.

4/10 - to quote a recent teardown of the NS2 Pro Controller, ‘piss-poor’. And I'm being kind.

Oh, and for the record - STILL getting a ton of eSlop and so-called 'hentAI' sh1te turning up in the eShop. Plus ça change...

Mods, hmm? Are we going to see those on the Switch as well?

My eyebrow remains steadfastly elevated until this not being the usual sawn-off afterthought on a Nintendo unit is proven. Just had a reply about another game I was hoping to see not coming over (blaming not receiving a devkit), so my inner cynic holds a firm grip on dominion right now.

Starting to feel like the GameCube and Dreamcast all over again…

That’ll be our Dark Heresy cat posse getting done then. Ellie the grey-white so-far-beyond-done-with-your-s**t floof, Loki the tuxedo void, Odin and his orange energy, Misha the Persian & Rexy the Maine Coon House Lion let loose on the town…

@Unit_DTH Or even better… how about Digital Eclipse’s next big anthology being Hewson/Graftgold. From Gribbly, through Nebulus and Netherworld, right through to Morpheus.

Hewson Consultants have been a huge mainstay of legacy C64 content - Uridium, Zynaps, Cybernoid, Rana Rama, Alleykat - on Blaze/Monster plug’n’play units, RGL’s THEC64 boxes, the Virtual Console. Their repertoire is rich for the plundering.

A 0% Game Key Card ratio.

Hey, let an old fart dream…

But outside of that:

• Blue Prince
• Pure Pool Pro
• Dispatch (Critter checking in)
• Hades II

If a purchase does not confer ownership, then piracy is not theft.

If Mario's getting something for his 40th, Samus better be getting something for hers next year... •cough•echoesandcorruptionremastered•cough•

Fun Fact: One game on this list has both a ZZAP!64 Gold Medal and a Sizzler to its name.

The C64 version of Bombuzal scored 97% back in late 1988. The Amiga version was covered a month later, but only scored 92%.

Plus ça change... 🙄💨

It would have to be a generational, once in multiple lifetimes, quadruple-A, 11/10 (Spinal Tap: The Game?), play-this-yesterday-if-not-before title to get me to even consider going for a Game Key Card.

EA monkey-pawed Madden by making it a GKC when they didn't have to. Ergo, my 4½ decade plus NFL/WLAF/NFL-E/NCAA/AFL/XFL/UFL/UFL*/ELF-following ass is going nowhere near.

• Yes, there's been two distinct UFL entities. The second is a merger of XFL v3 and USFL v2.

They want feedback? How about DITCH THE NFTs?

62 gigs. So they could get it on a true physical card.

They could.

They just don’t wanna.

@AlexOlney Just done a bit of research on this earlier today when the Sixth preorder went live, regarding…

• total cost to the UK
• payment methods
• how caffeinated you’re going to have to be when the starting gun fires

UK Cost: $175 for of the leather Magnetics, including shipping and import charges, comes to around £137 right now. I did throw in for a $3 karabiner in this as well, however, so along with the GBP-USD rates being what they are, allow for numbers to fluctuate a little, and you’ll wind up there or thereabouts.

Payment Methods: cards, obviously, but there’s also ShopPay and PayPal - so Pay-In-3 and PayPal Credit are totally options. Most of us are still in cooldown within 2 months of scoring our New Shiny, so this will certainly help Take the Edge Off.

Caffeine Level: oh boy. Oh boy. Make not a bone about it, you are gonna need to be buzzed to the absolute eyeballs right here. Both the City Slicker and Magnetic cases were fully gone, in all colours, inside of five minutes. The City Slickers probably went inside four minutes.

I mean, I’ve seen things run out fast. I’ve witnessed places at anime cons get snapped up at a rate of knots; the big UK ones like Minami, Aya, Ame, Kita et al, and the CR show at the O2 next October was almost fully booked when I got in, but this, sir, this takes the utter mickey. I was freshly Costa’d up, and I was about to go for it, but decided to hold off until my Kanda hotel is paid, so I refreshed and - yep, they were picked clean. You’d think I’d be ready for it after the shenanigans Amazon was pulling with the NS2 - nope. Not even close.

As such, I recommend enough coffee to equate to the power output of a quantum leap accelerator (hologram observer optional). You are gonna need to be sharp, clear-eyed and comedically alert to land one of these. Seriously, do not mess about, second-guess or hum’n’ha about it. If you aren’t sure, don’t. If you’re in, go for it. F o c u s . Be certain of which type and colour you want. Not a slip, not a fumble, nary e’en a typo if you can help it. Autocomplete your details if you can. Take no prisoners - because it doesn’t look like anyone else is taking any either.

And if you’re still down after all of that - the next preorder starts Tuesday 12 August, probably at 8am Pacific / 4pm BST again. I get paid a week tomorrow, so you heckers better have a high initiative roll. (Not the time to see some nice new Chessex Lab Dice sets either. Ach, mein schmerzlich Wallet…)

Mr Alex, sir, if you’d be so good as to put the word out…

Totally playing to the meme crowd with the number of characters.

(I mean, I’m down with it anyway, but still, know your audience…)

And at least we know it won’t be a Game Key Card, since it’s going to be on the OG.

New song (or at least a remix/update) from Laura?

Blue Prince has been the most intriguing game I’ve seen since Balatro. Need it on the S2.

Anyone got the over-under on the percentage of stuff that’ll be Game Key Cards instead of true physicals?

Huh. Got overtaken in the charts, so it engaged its Dynamic Difficulty and shortcut its way back in front.

Who knew.

Well hey now, you can choose to “believe” that all you want.

Same way that I choose to “believe” my money is better served going elsewhere.

Paging Bill Engvall... gonna need a Sign or two (hundred) here, man.

Well I would, buuuuuuuuuut I don't have enough space left for a game of that Game Key Card/half-frame-rate magnitude, do I... [le shrug]