Whirlwound

[sigh]

Look, Jack. Dude. Just bury the hatchet with Kyle.

You got away with the Mario movie because nobody could wreck that money printer, but Borderlands and Minecraft were pish.

It wasn't until the character select screen on Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha that I realised that's how his name is actually pronounced. Not 'Zangeef' as it was always laid out for the previous 8 years or so, but 'Zang-E-F'.

Well it would have been Super Mario Galaxy 1+2 - but Jeff the Tax Dodger decided to nobble my order yesterday, and conveniently hiked the price up when I tried again. AND back down afterwards.

He’s never that strapped for three quid, is he…?

@StewdaMegaManNerd Wait ‘til he hears how Apple’s stuff jumped from 15 to 26.

You’ve been part of the second great triumvirate of gaming voices that I’ve had the honour to follow - the first being that nutty bunch of Rignall, Penn & Liddon in ZZAP!64 a whole - Christ on fire, 40 years ago now.

Whatever you get up to next, Zion, I wish you every success.

We need Rhythm Tengoku in there soon. Seriously. I’ve got the GBA cartridge and a translated version on my Miyoo Mini, and it still plays like a dream all these years later.

@BrewsterTea Let me know when there is a physical version to purchase.

Key card. So, no. I'm sure. Want to play it, no doubt. But I know what I don't want as well.

I mean it’s not like they could cram the main content into a true physical to take the edge off a download. Even if just the audio was downloaded if streaming it from a card is that much of a chew-on.

With a 1TB micro SD EX costing, let's not forget this, half as much again on the console itself (and just so you know, Autocorrect just tried to change ‘console’ to ‘cocaine’), a full download will be turning whatever storage we’ve got into a digital Midgar, its lump of stodge talking up nearly ⅓ of the internal.

Immediate vibes I’m getting here: Free to start? Ooo, that felt like a new egregious twist of the release type dagger. Roll 1d8+2 monetary damage right there. Straight off the bat, ≠ Free To Play, at least after a few go-rounds.

“He gives the kids free samples / because he knows full well / that today’s innocent faces / will be tomorrow’s clientele…” - - Tom Lehrer [1928-2025]

Season passes, intrusive banners, unskippable ads, microtransactions, pay-to-win content… yeah, how about Nope. They can take their digital powdered ha-a-pi-ness and shove it.

That strategy being what, exactly? “To be fair we’re not really all that fussed about selling as well as we could…”?

I hope Hades 2 and Crossworlds both kick RE9 up in the air. They’re both getting it right.

For a hot minute I thought you meant the CD-i editions.

@Ooyah Five.

Though recent output hasn't half been disappointing. When they said 2025 was going to be "full of surprises", I'm not sure that [checks notes] Steel Worker, Video Hustler and Scrambled Egg were what we had in mind...

@Dom_31 it’s not a selection of games, Dom, 14 is literally all there is. The other eight were Japanese exclusives that never made it west.

Ha! Crap, no.

Putting this in the Expansion half of NSO, so we’re already paying extra, and then more on top of that for the viewing accessory? And a pitiful roster of just 14 titles - not even the full 22 (!) - that’s just going to get in the way of other NSO systems getting new stuff?

Whatever you’re drinking, Nintendo, for crying out loud take more water with it.

Bold of you to assume we'll have the space to spare 👾🗝️🎴

I got more mileage (arf) out of the demo than the network test. Didn’t feel as chaotic or random.

Didn’t get as much from Team Sonic Racing as I did Transformed, so this looks like it might be a bit of a return to form.

I’ll take “Saw This S**t Coming” for £500 please, Alex…

I can hang on a week. Bloody have to, won’t I - it’s been a hella busy month. Halfway between paychecks, and with what’s coming out before the next one, I’m down to ~£70 for the next two weeks.

Good job it’s two paydays in October (lunar months), and almost all my Paypals clear by the 12th.

@WavyDolphin65 You forgot Persona & Vocaloid.

Wake me up when they bring in Aggretsuko.

And still no sign of R•Type Final 3 either...

I'd have been more impressed with a dock that handles both types of JoyCon connection, slide rail and magnetic. I mean, who the hell can afford that many JC2s right now?

Not being a Gears of War player (haven’t even fired up my 360 for years), my mind went the same place as KidSparta & WaveBoy: Wind Waker. Not exactly a bad thing.

I don’t agree with the latter though; while MP4 is obviously going to be a different shrike of Space Pirates, sailing in the King of Red Lions is relaxing for me. It was back then too, when I wasn’t as decrepit as I am now - I often just played it to go smeg about on the water.

I enjoy watching speed runners, GDQ and the like, but I couldn’t do it myself. I like to taste the game I’m playing rather than chug it.

Fantastic! Can’t wait to play this on my Seg--oh…

Total number of Nintendo Switch 2 games, all forms, as of 14/9/25: 177.

True Physicals confirmed or already released in 2025: 10 (per NL themselves) with 4 coming. Fourteen total. Not even 10%.

The rest are eShop only, sitting so hard on the fence they've got spelks in their arse (read: don't want to tell us because they know we're not gonna like the answer), or are fully down with GKC.

If I'd known it was going to be like this, I would probably have held off.

I know gaming's very own answer to Geoff Castellucci, the formerly of-this-parish Jon Cartwright, wasn't keen on the power meter not functioning at 60fps. Makes him hook and slice more often.

Read: we couldn’t get Sakurai to shut the hell up, so screw it, might as well make use of it.

Metroid Prime 4 better be getting at least one Direct if this is getting two.

😃 SHIGS!
🥺 Not enough Shigs. Give him the hosting spot!

🤔 Some interesting new stuff…
😔 … but just some.

😍 A date for Metroid Prime 4! Finally!
🏍️ Wouldn’t have revealed the bike though. That’s a surprise spoiled. (@Thorgaer Be fair, dude, she’s had her DNA rewritten enough over the years, she’s earned it after that last crack…)
😞 …and no Prime 2/3 remasters. Shadow drops in the next two months are all we can hope for now.
📖 …but we’re getting an artbook in the run-up covering Prime 1-3? Serious mixed messages going on here…

🤩 Galaxy 1 & 2!…
🤑 … for how much?!

😈 Hades 2!…
👿 …with no word on an upgrade route.

🎾 Mario Tennis Fever!
🍓 …but I just got Aces…

🙂‍↔️ So many names missing that have been discussed in recent weeks… barely anything huge at all, certainly nothing really big that was new confirmed…

🧬 So much Resident Evil and still no Code Veronica…

🤡 Virtual Boy? Lol nope. I’d have gone with Game & Watch. The catalogue’s so tiny they could fart this out all in one go and be done with it. Now it’s just going to get in the way of releases on other NS Classics platforms. Rhythm Tengoku GBA? Doshin the Giant GC? Nope, you’ll have Nester’s Funky Bowling VB and you’ll jolly well like it Sonny Jim!

💫 A second Kirby Air Riders Direct? That’s just greedy, Sakurai-kun.

🗝️ Still ridiculously quiet on what’s going to be on Game Key Cards. This means the proportion is high, and they know we aren’t going to like just how high - especially for the really chonky titles.

🎩 And STILL no Layton. Don’t think he’s turning up this year now.

So yeah, very Monkey Paw-ish. A solid 5/7 - had I not just escaped work and been focused on tonight’s Dark Heresy shenanigans, I might have gone higher.

Guess I’ll have to buy the White Album again…

At least it's Best Route Possible - physical NS1 available (so you actually, y'know, own it) with a free update tor NS2.

And there'll be ways around the price stinging too much - potential offers, spread the cost on PayPal/Klarna etc.

Give Ozzy Man Reviews a nudge when it drops. That'd be a fun crossover for you guys.

(As long as he doesn't drop any 'Fark Me Dead's...)

Might not be a Cloud version, but I bet it'll be a Game Key Card.

Christ on Fire. A complete Game & Watch collection would have been a better call than this.

At least they should be done with updates for it in fairly short order - if there are any. I've seen complete ROM dumps that barely break the 80-megabyte mark - and they include PD demos. Just put it all up, find a pokey corner of a shelf somewhere, hide it and be done. Don't even put it in the expansion half.

“Thanks to our friends at Nintendo…”

Good to know someone’s getting devkits…

Waku Waku 8? Please?

Grid Beat, Ground Zero Hero and Basketball Classics might get a look, but the rest I dunno.

Not sure what I expected tbh. It’s kinda like hoping for a new NBA Jam out of them while wanting Thalamus Digital to finally do Creatures 3…

• NEEDS to be a date for MP4. HAS TO BE. They’re getting awful close to blowing that 2025 window.
• Something - ANYTHING - on the new Layton. Woefully thin gruel we’ve had there overall since the original trailer.
• A low percentage of Game Key Cards. (I know - who am I kidding. Almost everything third party over a certain size will be a GKC.)
• Unfortunately I do still suspect we’ll be getting left behind on a lot of big titles, and there’ll be a few sawn-off releases as well.

Over a quarter of my NS2’s onboard storage? For that?

Yep nope. They could put Shaq, Penny, Nick, 3-D and Grant (both Horace and Hill) in their prime on the Magic lineup and I wouldn’t.

What happened to 10x more powerful?

Remember how they were going to tackle all that HentAI slop and asset flip shovelware? Yeah, funny how that didn’t work out. The eshop is still riddled with it all, if anything worse than before.

There’s stuff I want to get, but with under four months to the Japan trip I’m trying to be good. The rest isn’t coming either because devkits are still throttled, or devs just don’t wanna write/port for it. I know for a fact the former applies to Pure Pool Pro not coming over.

That, and game key cards can go bite a fat one.

@ROMhaiku And it’s £16.75 on the eShop as well! Way to go Team Cherry!

Oh cool, I’ll just go back and play that rather than go with a Game Key Card for the new one. It’ll be one off the backlog.

Bundle it in with Rival Schools and Star Gladiator, seeing as they got skipped in the last Capcom Fighting Collection.

⬆️ 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.