Heading through dead early to pick it up, STRAIGHT back home with it (no chance I’m hanging about with the feral NEDs hovering to mug the crap outta folk), chilling until I have to head out for work, coming back with nachos and a few Rekorderligs (other Scandinavian ciders are available), and going for 4 hours of starry-eyed fun fun fun before Age of Umbra.
Holding off on a memory card until some proper deals turn up.
Every March when I head down to Southampton, I love going past the Sega building both there and back. It's like hitting a checkpoint, saying hello to an old friend.
Be weird if that wordmark and Sonic have been taken down (chances are they will have gone, it'll be 2027 next time I make that trip anyway).
Do I want to play this? Bloody right I do, yeeess.
Will I want to play this when I’m in Japan? Damn skippy I will, mmMMmm.
Am I taking my GCN over there with me? Get bent, no chance, am I.
Now go bog off back to the Xbox version, there a non-Master chap is.
Even after this long, spanning the lifetime of two entire consoles, it still feels fresh to play. It is easily in my top three games ever - and it would take an absolute stone cold masterpiece to knock it out.
Never mind on the console - what about on the dock?
Still think they've missed a trick not including dock storage to shuttle back and forth from, or functionality to add a card or drive to it for that purpose.
After six days of bollocks from Amazon, I snagged one at Currys on my walk in to work. Pretty sure the discount they gave me will be hard to beat (IYKYK).
But here’s the thing. A few weeks back, Amazon UK were actually shown to be not playing fair in the online bunfight for preorders - going so far as to partially cause it themselves
The Independent had documented how they were releasing minuscule amounts of preorder bundles every half hour, but not updating the console’s listing page. And even when presented with the evidence, their customer services just flat-ass-out lied about it.
Five years hence? Oh, sure. Means nothing right now, though, does it.
As long as it’s only getting afterthought releases (if it gets a release at all) and sawn-off content, the Nintendo wing of the gaming scene will always be the Alan Davies of that particular QI panel.
If I’ve not been on it recently, it’s because I’m knackered. Work shifts doing solo furniture lifts on heavy and/or unwieldy boxes takes it outta y’all. In my gaff, ‘2-person lift’ translates to ‘good luck with that’. I mean it isn’t like there’s anyone younger in the place or anything OH WAIT THAT’S ONLY SODDING EVERYONE ISN’T IT
Add to that being a Critter, so, y'know, what even is sleep, and... welp.
I have gone back to Mario Kart 8 DX the past couple of weeks in my brief spells of consciousness under the Daystar, and it’s weird, but since I played Mario Kart World at the ExCeL, 8DX just feels like way slower than it used to.
I dunno if anyone else has the same thing I do - the longer I spend away from a game, the better I get at it. Might be that, but if I’m doing some damage to the 150cc GPs when I used to suck major booty at that speed, something’s going on...
Thing is, RIval Schools PS1 kinda rocks harder than the coin-op for the same reason: extra content. And there's a lot of stuff across them two discs to miss out on.
Wonder why they skipped Rival Schools and Star Gladiator. Street Fighter EX too for that matter (though the PS1 Plus Alpha version is the best of that, could be why…)
Difference is, I want Mario Kart World. I literally could not give less of a crap about your oh-Christ-on-Fire-Here-We-Go-Again little sociopath simulator. One game vibrant and full of joy, chaos and fun, the other a grimy portrayal of a slow inexorable descent into a raging dumpster hellfire? No contest, Sonny Jim.
Someone recently said GTA6 hits a little too close to what’s actually happening over In the States. Extreme polarisation and national entropy. Watching any news about America is like watching a country eat itself. It’s depressing AF, not to mention bloody exhausting, just to watch or read about; why the blue arse would I want to play it, especially coming back knackered from a shift at work? Yer boy Whirlwound wants to get UNwound of an evening, not wound up even further.
I’ve got friends over there actually living slap-ass-bang in the middle of what’s going on. One of them is the Sister of Battle in our RPG sessions - yet somehow our 41st-millennium shenanigans aren’t the most wrong-headed discourse each Friday evening (and our GM runs it grrrrrrrrrrim, even for Dark Heresy). Listening to her experiences the other side of the Atlantic ranges from chilling to soul-destroying. Only thing missing is Judge Dredd - and I suspect that’s only because we haven’t had the global thermonuclear war yet.
At the end of the day, figuratively as well as literally, I play games for the escapism, not to immerse myself in more of the same. If I want to drive around in a realistic environment, either to relax or like an utter loony, Burnout Paradise is still way more than valid. If I ever want to shoot guns, I’ll get an FPS; I’ve got Metroid Prime Remastered, the Quake games and Overwatch 2, they’ll do until Prime 4 drops. (Though reworks of Prime 2+3 would be nice an’all.)
If I ever want to pretend I’m a psychotic criminal, I’ll go get my head checked.
Bit late, like. In the coming up on 5 years I’ve had a Switch, I’ve already caned Arcade Archives for most of what I wanted digitally. Only things left are the two Last Blade games, but I’m just waiting a bit for if they ever get a discount.
@kevmauldin For the absolute arse-on that Amazon UK have been making it for folk, they needn’t have bothered either. Six days I tried to do it through them. Three digits’-worth of Add To Basket buttons I had - got one in my basket twice, only for them both to vanish when I got to the checkout. Not worth the hassle, and I was a wreck at work by that time.
Yeah, Currys have their moments. They’ve been handy with discount codes on first party Switch stuff. I was just looking to go with Amazon so utilise their Pay-In-5 option, help take the edge off things a little with my Japan trip [head rotates a little] coming up. My resources are looking half decent right now though, the Mario Kart World package is limited, and cracking an NS2 out on a Shinkansen would be pretty dope, so I cracked and went for it.
I haven’t really checked since I snagged one at Currys on my walk in to work, but after a quick search it seems that Amazon UK is still pulling its stealth-drop bollocks.
They’re releasing like 3-4 consoles every half hour, but not updating their listing page to show that. If you get one in your basket, chances are it’ll be gone before you’ve even got to the checkout.
There is a way to pull an end-run around them on this - it’s shown on this live feed from the Independent: bit.ly/42FRjld - but it takes near-Sisyphean levels of patience.
For Amazon’s part, they’re denying point-ass-blank that they’re doing this, even though the Indy has witnessed it first hand, catching them red handed. Customer service is about as much use as a chocolate blowtorch - you’d think they’d have better training since they’ve got all that money that they’re not paying in taxes…
On a quick spin out to grab a couple of things - not doing too much the next couple of weeks before payday; play this right and I could throw north of £500 into the trip fund.
Going to try and put a few dents in the old backlog there, and after talk of spicy ladies in vertical shmups earlier in the week, I’m going to go back to one of my prettiest girls - Idol Janshi Su-chi-Pie: Saturn Tribute. Kenichi Sonoda will always be a favourite mangaka of mine - there are noticeable recycles of his character designs from Gall Force and Gunsmith Cats - and being ex-AmeCon, an affinity for magical girls is almost baked into the DNA. For years I had our mascot Ame-chan on my phone wallpaper from one of our wonderful artist Hel’s badge works - Super Ame-chan Galaxy. She was adorable. Like I always said - Ame-chan is someone’s Girl Next Door. And that someone is an inordinately jammy sod.
And Kyoko/Su-chi-pie is a redhead too, which helps no end.
Let users choose CUSTOM colours. Hell, the shop itself gives every game page its own colour scheme - how hard would it be to extend that to the front end of the system? Never mind Themes, because it’s clear they aren’t bothering with that - let us pick our own background, highlight, icon and text colours.
There’d have to be no other option available to me for an absolute Day-One-If-Not-Before purchase if I was even going to consider it. If there’s no true physical release, they’re going to chew space either way. It’s already coloured whether I’m going for titles that were otherwise dead certs to get physical.
This is even more of an issue with the sudden spike in game prices, which leave us not forget is now spreading to other platforms. if I’m paying £75 for a game you better damn BELIEVE I want a permanent copy of it on my side if it’s not going to be accessible on theirs one day.
You either guarantee access in perpetuity from your side or you let us back stuff up to ours, because right now, Industry-kun, we don’t trust your ass as far as Ryan freaking Leaf could throw it.
The top-down Xevious games never really did it for me, much as I grew up on 80s coin-ops. Weaponry was a bit dull, right at the time others were turning out Nemesis & Salamander, Slap Fight, Star Force, Halley’s Comet, Arian Mission, etc etc. 3D/G+ made a better fist of it, so I hope that heads over soon.
Dude. Have you seen the spicy credits images for Strikers 1945? Yes. Yes they very can be.
Dammit, this is JAPAN*. As staid and traditional as they seem outwardly, scratch the surface with a ¥1 coin and they are heckin f i l t h y when they wanna be. In fact you don’t even need to scratch - just look closer. Weekly manga anthologies thicker than a discount store forklift driver filled with some of the grossest content imaginable. Multiple comic market events stuffed to the gills with more of the same from amateur artists.
Then there’s the games. Gods bollock it, this is the country that has churned out strip pool, strip hanafuda, strip pachinko, hell, even strip QIX. And that’s before we get to the myriad strip mahjong games there’s been. Psikyo had to redo most of the character scenes for Hot Gimmick so they could get it on the Switch, and even Idol Janshi Su-chi-Pie got vanilla’d (but it’s still Kenichi Sonoda’s gorgeous art, so I’m good with it).
Even the more famous titles aren’t immune. Remember Cybernator? Character designs for the original version Assault Suits Valken were by Satoshi (Langrisser, Plastic Little) Urushihara, well noted for his NSFW work. Ghost In the Shell? Christ on Fire, have you seen what Shirow Masamune’s been up to since the 90s? There’s even some cayenne-laced pages in the GitS manga.
As for horizontal shooters - welp, just don’t look too closely at some of R•Type 1&2’s bosses, a’ight?
…and I’m going there at New Year’s! (…get yer orders in sharpish, I’ve got a 32kg limit on my second case… </s> )
Because straight after the Update, ALL my digital downloads had gone. Well, I say gone - dark grey boxes with cycling icons in them, but that was how they stayed. A crap-yourself-hollow event if ever there was one. Normally they at least start to come up a few seconds in, even on my (comedically packed) 2-tera Micro-SD, but nope - nada.
I had to take the card out and give everything (ironically) the old Nintenblow routine - popped it back in and there it all was. Aneurysm (and a stern email from my ISP, no doubt) averted.
They should have released the update on the 1st of April if it was going to do that, not the 30th…
Still eye-scorchingly, face-meltingly fast, still ridiculously difficult later on, and I still love it like it was my first born. Almost criminal that there's been nothing in the series to touch it since.
Nothing. Anywhere. Five days in. Even the webcomics laughing at Shedeur Sanders are appearing now.
And Amazon is just pissing me about no freaking end:
flip-flopping between having an active preorder button and “Currently Unavailable”
active clickable preorder button, followed be “failed to add an item to the basket”
active clickable preorder button, followed by a 503 Error page
active clickable button that actually placed a bundle in the basket - I have screenshots as proof - yet when I go to checkout, it’s empty. Although the item count still seems to think there’s something in there
my phone blips with a notification to “Take another look” and secure one now - yet there’s still nothing when I do so #IWouldLikeToRage
Active clickable preorder button, which I accidentally hit multiple times - I get a page saying “the quantity requested is no longer available. We’ve placed the maximum possible in your basket. WHICH, APPARENTLY, IS ZERO.
Been on to customer service, and they’re hiding behind “glitches”, but are basically coming out with that despicable triteism “It Is What It Is”.
Dunno about you, Jeff old son, but if my site was as “glitchy” as this on multiple platforms across five straight days, I’d be giving it a serious looking-at. A glitch is temporary. Five days is not temporary.
I'm playing the Pre-Order Game, which, if Alex thinks Oblivion Remastered is hard, he should really have a go at. Yes, I’ve cracked. Trip be damned - I can manage this. I figure that busting a Switch 2 out for a few hours of Mario Kart World with a mate on a Shinkansen next January might be as cool as my life gets.
Since I started trying, the NFL Draft began, Miami screwed up their targets, Shedeur Sanders slipped as far as DAY THREE, going from 5th overall best prospect to FIFTH PICK in the FIFTH ROUND - and by Cleveland as well, the poor bugger - and the Draft ended. Orlando City tonked Atlanta Utd 3-0; the Lightning pulled a game back against the Panthers; England women won their seventh straight Six Nations and FOURTH straight Grand Slam; Sunderland lost their fourth straight to Oxford, continuing to not give a crap now they're locked in 4th and playoff bound; the Magic took one off the Celtics to avoid the sweep; Chrith Eubank Jr took a unanimous decision off Conor Benn in the Am-I-Valid-Now-Dad Bowl... and I STILL haven't managed to lock down a Switch 2 preorder. Some supposedly reputable sites [cough]payyourtaxesyouslapheidsociopath[cough] even going so far as to repeatedly show an active preorder button that refuses point-ass-blank to process one.
Afterthought. AGAIN. No MVP release, no Deluxe, no College Football, and a sodding keycard. Nothing ever changes with these arseholes. Always the same rough end of a pineapple.
I’m wondering how much is going to get sawn-off this time. It won’t be the full game everyone else gets. Bet it’ll still cost more than the Son¥/M$ versions though, if not the same for way less content.
EA haven’t so much lost my trust as lost it, found it, pissed on it and set it on fire. They have serious work to do if I’m ever going near any of their crap again.
It must be said, Head-Spinner Trip or not… I am weakening. It would be dope on a near cosmic level to break one out on a Shinkansen to Kyoto for a mooch around a certain museum. I dare say that at what will be the downslope towards 54 by that time, my life will not get any cooler.
It’s far from an essential, but I can spread this out over a few months and still shove money aside. There are options to do this in instalments - Klarna, PayPal Pay-in-3, Amazon Pay-in-5 #PayYourTaxesBezosYouTrumpLickingAIAbusingBellend…
@Medic_alert @Bunkerneath @Pigeon
I suspect some judicious use of the spin-off canon - probably OutRunners (just as long as it isn't OutRun Europa or 2019) - to give it something of a Cannonball Run feel, along with a similar ensemble cast of C/D-listers. (I can heartily recommend the Cannonball Run movies btw, they were a hoot.)
As for soundtrack... I kinda hope they lean into some classic renditions, even in just background incidental bits. [checks OST box set] Richard Jacques' Euro mixes of Passing Breeze & Magical Sound Shower, Makoto Iida's electric guitar-led Splash Wave, AM2's Risky Ride guitar mix, Fumio Ito's 2006 version of Shake the Street... and maybe some Maniacs of Noise somewhere as well. They don't show up in the 20th Anniversary box, but them crayzee Dutch boysh' music on C64 Turbo OutRun was the first I heard that squeezed a fourth voice out of the previously 3-sound-only SID chip. They're still at it today too, with a lot of work on SoundCloud.
And obviously, yes, I hope this leads to an OutRun 3. With Ferraris. It's felt more remote of a chance than Half-Life 3 for years. When you consider how fast and loose Sega played with the ol' Prancing Horse IP there for so long, churning out games when they didn't even have the licence anymore, it can't be beyond the wit of man to get it all going again.
Comments 712
Re: Poll: With One Week To Go, What Are Your Switch 2 Launch-Day Plans?
Heading through dead early to pick it up, STRAIGHT back home with it (no chance I’m hanging about with the feral NEDs hovering to mug the crap outta folk), chilling until I have to head out for work, coming back with nachos and a few Rekorderligs (other Scandinavian ciders are available), and going for 4 hours of starry-eyed fun fun fun before Age of Umbra.
Holding off on a memory card until some proper deals turn up.
Re: Rumour: Iconic Studio Codemasters May Soon Close For Good
Kinda saw this coming with that talk last week about the possibility of F1 on the NS2.
EA: because you just can’t have nice things.
Re: A New Arcade Baller Is On The Way, But Temper Those NBA Jam Expectations
NBA Jam™ but For Kids™
And it needs more STUFF.
Re: Opinion: Upgraded For Switch 2, ARMS Deserves A Second Shot At Greatness
What if it's a taekwondo mix, though?
What if... LEGS?
Re: Nintendo Updates Switch 2 Backwards Compatibility List
ABEMA won't work? 😱 Oh noes! How will I get my bi-monthly sumo fix?
... oh yeah, Twitch.
Re: SEGA Gives A Behind-The-Scenes Look At Its New London Office
Every March when I head down to Southampton, I love going past the Sega building both there and back. It's like hitting a checkpoint, saying hello to an old friend.
Be weird if that wordmark and Sonic have been taken down (chances are they will have gone, it'll be 2027 next time I make that trip anyway).
Re: Review: SoulCalibur II (GameCube) - One Of The Best Fighters Ever, Playable Oh-So-Soon On Switch 2
Do I want to play this? Bloody right I do, yeeess.
Will I want to play this when I’m in Japan? Damn skippy I will, mmMMmm.
Am I taking my GCN over there with me? Get bent, no chance, am I.
Now go bog off back to the Xbox version, there a non-Master chap is.
Re: Codemasters Says It Will Look At Switch 2 And See If It's A "Good Fit" For F1 Games
@Atariboy
Being honest, I would rather EA didn’t pick it up. They’ve grown far too complacent with their monopolistic sports franchises over the years as it is.
Re: Codemasters Says It Will Look At Switch 2 And See If It's A "Good Fit" For F1 Games
Read:
Plus ça change, mes amis, plus ça putain de change…
Re: Review: SoulCalibur II (GameCube) - One Of The Best Fighters Ever, Playable Oh-So-Soon On Switch 2
Had a bash with mah boy Nunchaku Elvis (that’s Maxi to y’all - uh-huh-huh) at the London event, and he is still gloriously chaotic to play.
The only downside to this is how much screen time it’s going to steal from Wind Waker...
Re: Feature: The Long & Rainbow Road To 'Mario Kart World' Part 3 - Final Lap
How good is 8?
Even after this long, spanning the lifetime of two entire consoles, it still feels fresh to play. It is easily in my top three games ever - and it would take an absolute stone cold masterpiece to knock it out.
Re: Want Even More USB Ports On Switch 2? Accessory Firm JSAUX Has Got You Covered
Never mind on the console - what about on the dock?
Still think they've missed a trick not including dock storage to shuttle back and forth from, or functionality to add a card or drive to it for that purpose.
Re: Talking Point: The Switch 2 Pre-Order Situation Sucks, But Can Nintendo Do Anything About It?
After six days of bollocks from Amazon, I snagged one at Currys on my walk in to work. Pretty sure the discount they gave me will be hard to beat (IYKYK).
But here’s the thing. A few weeks back, Amazon UK were actually shown to be not playing fair in the online bunfight for preorders - going so far as to partially cause it themselves
The Independent had documented how they were releasing minuscule amounts of preorder bundles every half hour, but not updating the console’s listing page. And even when presented with the evidence, their customer services just flat-ass-out lied about it.
Re: Fight Fans Rejoice, 8BitDo Is Launching A New Arcade Controller For The Switch
I am way on down with this. 8BitDo are my go-to.
Re: Nintendo Predicted To Become "Primary Partner For Third-Party Game Publishers"
Five years hence? Oh, sure. Means nothing right now, though, does it.
As long as it’s only getting afterthought releases (if it gets a release at all) and sawn-off content, the Nintendo wing of the gaming scene will always be the Alan Davies of that particular QI panel.
Re: Talking Point: Are You Ghosting Switch 1 To Save Yourself For Switch 2?
If I’ve not been on it recently, it’s because I’m knackered. Work shifts doing solo furniture lifts on heavy and/or unwieldy boxes takes it outta y’all. In my gaff, ‘2-person lift’ translates to ‘good luck with that’. I mean it isn’t like there’s anyone younger in the place or anything OH WAIT THAT’S ONLY SODDING EVERYONE ISN’T IT
Add to that being a Critter, so, y'know, what even is sleep, and... welp.
I have gone back to Mario Kart 8 DX the past couple of weeks in my brief spells of consciousness under the Daystar, and it’s weird, but since I played Mario Kart World at the ExCeL, 8DX just feels like way slower than it used to.
I dunno if anyone else has the same thing I do - the longer I spend away from a game, the better I get at it. Might be that, but if I’m doing some damage to the 150cc GPs when I used to suck major booty at that speed, something’s going on...
Re: Review: Capcom Fighting Collection 2 (Switch) - A Cracking Collection Of Top-Class Arcade Fighters
@Yomerodes
Thing is, RIval Schools PS1 kinda rocks harder than the coin-op for the same reason: extra content. And there's a lot of stuff across them two discs to miss out on.
Re: Review: Capcom Fighting Collection 2 (Switch) - A Cracking Collection Of Top-Class Arcade Fighters
Wonder why they skipped Rival Schools and Star Gladiator. Street Fighter EX too for that matter (though the PS1 Plus Alpha version is the best of that, could be why…)
Re: Square Enix Details Plan To 'Reboot And Awaken' Its Business
Never not gonna say it:
DITCH THE NFTs.
shorturl.at/NsILs
Re: "It's Very Powerful" - Borderlands 4 Dev Hypes Up The "Perfect" Switch 2
If it’s so “perfect”, where’s the Tiny Tina reveal?
Re: Talking Point: Are You Excited At All For Switch 2 GameChat?
@MrDocena The last three decades just called. They beg real hard to differ.
Re: Talking Point: Are You Excited At All For Switch 2 GameChat?
It’ll get used probably on tabletop style games, but not much else. Not bothering with a camera.
Re: Hideki Kamiya Intended To Continue Bayonetta With Another Trilogy
A Bayonetta/Devil May Cry crossover would have been nice. Won’t happen now.
Re: Here's A Look At The Back Of Mario Kart World's Switch 2 Box Art
No. I tagged a bundle release, because no way in hell was I going to pay £75 for it when a £35 option was on the table.
Re: Overwatch 2 x Street Fighter 6 Collaboration Announced
Tracer x Sakura?
Re: Former Rockstar Dev Throws Shade At Mario Kart World, Says New GTA Will Be Worth The Price
Well, yeah…?
Difference is, I want Mario Kart World. I literally could not give less of a crap about your oh-Christ-on-Fire-Here-We-Go-Again little sociopath simulator. One game vibrant and full of joy, chaos and fun, the other a grimy portrayal of a slow inexorable descent into a raging dumpster hellfire? No contest, Sonny Jim.
Someone recently said GTA6 hits a little too close to what’s actually happening over In the States. Extreme polarisation and national entropy. Watching any news about America is like watching a country eat itself. It’s depressing AF, not to mention bloody exhausting, just to watch or read about; why the blue arse would I want to play it, especially coming back knackered from a shift at work? Yer boy Whirlwound wants to get UNwound of an evening, not wound up even further.
I’ve got friends over there actually living slap-ass-bang in the middle of what’s going on. One of them is the Sister of Battle in our RPG sessions - yet somehow our 41st-millennium shenanigans aren’t the most wrong-headed discourse each Friday evening (and our GM runs it grrrrrrrrrrim, even for Dark Heresy). Listening to her experiences the other side of the Atlantic ranges from chilling to soul-destroying. Only thing missing is Judge Dredd - and I suspect that’s only because we haven’t had the global thermonuclear war yet.
At the end of the day, figuratively as well as literally, I play games for the escapism, not to immerse myself in more of the same. If I want to drive around in a realistic environment, either to relax or like an utter loony, Burnout Paradise is still way more than valid. If I ever want to shoot guns, I’ll get an FPS; I’ve got Metroid Prime Remastered, the Quake games and Overwatch 2, they’ll do until Prime 4 drops. (Though reworks of Prime 2+3 would be nice an’all.)
If I ever want to pretend I’m a psychotic criminal, I’ll go get my head checked.
And by the way?
I’m only paying £35 for MKW, biøtch.
Re: SNK Announces ACA NEOGEO Selection Vol. 5 And Vol. 6 For Switch
Bit late, like. In the coming up on 5 years I’ve had a Switch, I’ve already caned Arcade Archives for most of what I wanted digitally. Only things left are the two Last Blade games, but I’m just waiting a bit for if they ever get a discount.
Re: Where To Pre-Order Nintendo Switch 2
@kevmauldin For the absolute arse-on that Amazon UK have been making it for folk, they needn’t have bothered either. Six days I tried to do it through them. Three digits’-worth of Add To Basket buttons I had - got one in my basket twice, only for them both to vanish when I got to the checkout. Not worth the hassle, and I was a wreck at work by that time.
Re: Where To Pre-Order Nintendo Switch 2
@killercereal
Yeah, Currys have their moments. They’ve been handy with discount codes on first party Switch stuff. I was just looking to go with Amazon so utilise their Pay-In-5 option, help take the edge off things a little with my Japan trip [head rotates a little] coming up. My resources are looking half decent right now though, the Mario Kart World package is limited, and cracking an NS2 out on a Shinkansen would be pretty dope, so I cracked and went for it.
Re: Where To Pre-Order Nintendo Switch 2
I haven’t really checked since I snagged one at Currys on my walk in to work, but after a quick search it seems that Amazon UK is still pulling its stealth-drop bollocks.
They’re releasing like 3-4 consoles every half hour, but not updating their listing page to show that. If you get one in your basket, chances are it’ll be gone before you’ve even got to the checkout.
There is a way to pull an end-run around them on this - it’s shown on this live feed from the Independent: bit.ly/42FRjld - but it takes near-Sisyphean levels of patience.
For Amazon’s part, they’re denying point-ass-blank that they’re doing this, even though the Indy has witnessed it first hand, catching them red handed. Customer service is about as much use as a chocolate blowtorch - you’d think they’d have better training since they’ve got all that money that they’re not paying in taxes…
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (3rd May)
On a quick spin out to grab a couple of things - not doing too much the next couple of weeks before payday; play this right and I could throw north of £500 into the trip fund.
Going to try and put a few dents in the old backlog there, and after talk of spicy ladies in vertical shmups earlier in the week, I’m going to go back to one of my prettiest girls - Idol Janshi Su-chi-Pie: Saturn Tribute. Kenichi Sonoda will always be a favourite mangaka of mine - there are noticeable recycles of his character designs from Gall Force and Gunsmith Cats - and being ex-AmeCon, an affinity for magical girls is almost baked into the DNA. For years I had our mascot Ame-chan on my phone wallpaper from one of our wonderful artist Hel’s badge works - Super Ame-chan Galaxy. She was adorable. Like I always said - Ame-chan is someone’s Girl Next Door. And that someone is an inordinately jammy sod.
And Kyoko/Su-chi-pie is a redhead too, which helps no end.
Re: Poll: Orange Or Red Switch eShop - Make Your Choice
Let users choose CUSTOM colours. Hell, the shop itself gives every game page its own colour scheme - how hard would it be to extend that to the front end of the system? Never mind Themes, because it’s clear they aren’t bothering with that - let us pick our own background, highlight, icon and text colours.
Re: Talking Point: Will You Be Buying Any Game-Key Card Switch 2 Games?
There’d have to be no other option available to me for an absolute Day-One-If-Not-Before purchase if I was even going to consider it. If there’s no true physical release, they’re going to chew space either way. It’s already coloured whether I’m going for titles that were otherwise dead certs to get physical.
This is even more of an issue with the sudden spike in game prices, which leave us not forget is now spreading to other platforms. if I’m paying £75 for a game you better damn BELIEVE I want a permanent copy of it on my side if it’s not going to be accessible on theirs one day.
You either guarantee access in perpetuity from your side or you let us back stuff up to ours, because right now, Industry-kun, we don’t trust your ass as far as Ryan freaking Leaf could throw it.
Re: Hollow Knight: Silksong Will Be Playable At An Australian Museum In September
Gah. Gonna be Q4 then, isn’t it. Can’t see it being before mid-September if there’s this song (zort) and dance being made about it.
This coupled with just showing an ETA of 2025 in the Direct clearly suggests the Big N wasn’t about to give us an answer we weren’t going to like.
Re: Arcade Archives 'Super Xevious' Releases Today On Nintendo Switch
The top-down Xevious games never really did it for me, much as I grew up on 80s coin-ops. Weaponry was a bit dull, right at the time others were turning out Nemesis & Salamander, Slap Fight, Star Force, Halley’s Comet, Arian Mission, etc etc. 3D/G+ made a better fist of it, so I hope that heads over soon.
Re: Too Saucy For Xbox, 'Steam-Heart’s Saturn Tribute' Lands On Switch This May
@Maxz Wait ‘til he finds out about Versatile Exploding Bishounen ZWEI…
Re: Too Saucy For Xbox, 'Steam-Heart’s Saturn Tribute' Lands On Switch This May
“Can vertical shooters be erotic, though?“
Dude. Have you seen the spicy credits images for Strikers 1945? Yes. Yes they very can be.
Dammit, this is JAPAN*. As staid and traditional as they seem outwardly, scratch the surface with a ¥1 coin and they are heckin f i l t h y when they wanna be. In fact you don’t even need to scratch - just look closer. Weekly manga anthologies thicker than a discount store forklift driver filled with some of the grossest content imaginable. Multiple comic market events stuffed to the gills with more of the same from amateur artists.
Then there’s the games. Gods bollock it, this is the country that has churned out strip pool, strip hanafuda, strip pachinko, hell, even strip QIX. And that’s before we get to the myriad strip mahjong games there’s been. Psikyo had to redo most of the character scenes for Hot Gimmick so they could get it on the Switch, and even Idol Janshi Su-chi-Pie got vanilla’d (but it’s still Kenichi Sonoda’s gorgeous art, so I’m good with it).
Even the more famous titles aren’t immune. Remember Cybernator? Character designs for the original version Assault Suits Valken were by Satoshi (Langrisser, Plastic Little) Urushihara, well noted for his NSFW work. Ghost In the Shell? Christ on Fire, have you seen what Shirow Masamune’s been up to since the 90s? There’s even some cayenne-laced pages in the GitS manga.
As for horizontal shooters - welp, just don’t look too closely at some of R•Type 1&2’s bosses, a’ight?
Re: Nintendo Switch System Update 20.0.0 Is Now Live, Here Are The Full Patch Notes
Nothing, as has already been noted, on stability.
Funny, that.
Because straight after the Update, ALL my digital downloads had gone. Well, I say gone - dark grey boxes with cycling icons in them, but that was how they stayed. A crap-yourself-hollow event if ever there was one. Normally they at least start to come up a few seconds in, even on my (comedically packed) 2-tera Micro-SD, but nope - nada.
I had to take the card out and give everything (ironically) the old Nintenblow routine - popped it back in and there it all was. Aneurysm (and a stern email from my ISP, no doubt) averted.
They should have released the update on the 1st of April if it was going to do that, not the 30th…
Re: Video: Nintendo Shares More Footage Of F-Zero GX For Switch Online
Still eye-scorchingly, face-meltingly fast, still ridiculously difficult later on, and I still love it like it was my first born. Almost criminal that there's been nothing in the series to touch it since.
Re: EA And Respawn Hit By Hundreds Of Layoffs As New Project Cancelled
EA can go suck a big fat one. Can’t trust them anymore.
Re: Borderlands 4 Release Date Moves Forward, But Switch 2 Remains Unclear
My sawn-off sense is tingling already…
And while we’re at it, where’s Tiny Tina?
Re: Random: Missed Out On A Switch 2 Pre-Order? Sakurai Has The Perfect Solution
Nothing. Anywhere. Five days in. Even the webcomics laughing at Shedeur Sanders are appearing now.
And Amazon is just pissing me about no freaking end:
Been on to customer service, and they’re hiding behind “glitches”, but are basically coming out with that despicable triteism “It Is What It Is”.
Dunno about you, Jeff old son, but if my site was as “glitchy” as this on multiple platforms across five straight days, I’d be giving it a serious looking-at. A glitch is temporary. Five days is not temporary.
(And pay your taxes, by the way.)
Re: 'EA Sports Madden NFL 26' Switch 2 File Size Seemingly Revealed
Not until I know what’s been cut out of it.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (26th April)
I'm playing the Pre-Order Game, which, if Alex thinks Oblivion Remastered is hard, he should really have a go at. Yes, I’ve cracked. Trip be damned - I can manage this. I figure that busting a Switch 2 out for a few hours of Mario Kart World with a mate on a Shinkansen next January might be as cool as my life gets.
Since I started trying, the NFL Draft began, Miami screwed up their targets, Shedeur Sanders slipped as far as DAY THREE, going from 5th overall best prospect to FIFTH PICK in the FIFTH ROUND - and by Cleveland as well, the poor bugger - and the Draft ended. Orlando City tonked Atlanta Utd 3-0; the Lightning pulled a game back against the Panthers; England women won their seventh straight Six Nations and FOURTH straight Grand Slam; Sunderland lost their fourth straight to Oxford, continuing to not give a crap now they're locked in 4th and playoff bound; the Magic took one off the Celtics to avoid the sweep; Chrith Eubank Jr took a unanimous decision off Conor Benn in the Am-I-Valid-Now-Dad Bowl... and I STILL haven't managed to lock down a Switch 2 preorder. Some supposedly reputable sites [cough]payyourtaxesyouslapheidsociopath[cough] even going so far as to repeatedly show an active preorder button that refuses point-ass-blank to process one.
Re: Switch 2 "Code-In-A-Box" Physical Game Listing Spotted Online
EA doing EA things. Who knew.
Re: Madden NFL 26 Confirmed For Switch 2, But College Football Isn't In The Starting Lineup
@MarioBrickLayer Florida fan checking in. I’m down too.
Just not an EA release.
Re: Madden NFL 26 Confirmed For Switch 2, But College Football Isn't In The Starting Lineup
Afterthought. AGAIN. No MVP release, no Deluxe, no College Football, and a sodding keycard. Nothing ever changes with these arseholes. Always the same rough end of a pineapple.
I’m wondering how much is going to get sawn-off this time. It won’t be the full game everyone else gets. Bet it’ll still cost more than the Son¥/M$ versions though, if not the same for way less content.
EA haven’t so much lost my trust as lost it, found it, pissed on it and set it on fire. They have serious work to do if I’m ever going near any of their crap again.
Re: Where To Pre-Order Nintendo Switch 2
It must be said, Head-Spinner Trip or not… I am weakening. It would be dope on a near cosmic level to break one out on a Shinkansen to Kyoto for a mooch around a certain museum. I dare say that at what will be the downslope towards 54 by that time, my life will not get any cooler.
It’s far from an essential, but I can spread this out over a few months and still shove money aside. There are options to do this in instalments - Klarna, PayPal Pay-in-3, Amazon Pay-in-5 #PayYourTaxesBezosYouTrumpLickingAIAbusingBellend…
Re: Sega's Classic 'OutRun' Is Reportedly Getting A Movie Adaptation Led By Michael Bay
@Medic_alert @Bunkerneath @Pigeon
I suspect some judicious use of the spin-off canon - probably OutRunners (just as long as it isn't OutRun Europa or 2019) - to give it something of a Cannonball Run feel, along with a similar ensemble cast of C/D-listers. (I can heartily recommend the Cannonball Run movies btw, they were a hoot.)
As for soundtrack... I kinda hope they lean into some classic renditions, even in just background incidental bits. [checks OST box set] Richard Jacques' Euro mixes of Passing Breeze & Magical Sound Shower, Makoto Iida's electric guitar-led Splash Wave, AM2's Risky Ride guitar mix, Fumio Ito's 2006 version of Shake the Street... and maybe some Maniacs of Noise somewhere as well. They don't show up in the 20th Anniversary box, but them crayzee Dutch boysh' music on C64 Turbo OutRun was the first I heard that squeezed a fourth voice out of the previously 3-sound-only SID chip. They're still at it today too, with a lot of work on SoundCloud.
And obviously, yes, I hope this leads to an OutRun 3. With Ferraris. It's felt more remote of a chance than Half-Life 3 for years. When you consider how fast and loose Sega played with the ol' Prancing Horse IP there for so long, churning out games when they didn't even have the licence anymore, it can't be beyond the wit of man to get it all going again.
Re: Paul Rudd Returns In An Awesome SNES-Style Switch 2 Commercial
@AstroTheGamosian The UK ads should have Ade Edmondson racing against Nigel Planer, Christopher Ryan and Alexei Sayle, and raising a glass to Rik.