Whirlwound

At least they finally got round to putting some Tron content up. Might have a crack at it now, then.

@IronMan30 Preach it. I just trip-starred the last of 100cc after no small amount of being sniped/passed with the line in sight, by red/blue/both/multiple shells and karts a full bar slower on the speed stat. I'm beginning to think Scott Falco had a point on YouTube.

Weird thing I've noticed, though: it's usually Lakitu. I mean, 'course it's bloody him when you think about it. The little hecker is obviously using his insider knowledge of every single track since the series began as the starter, checkered flag waver, Johnny-on-the-spot rescue service wherever the hell you go out of bounds etc etc etc etc... He's been at it 35 years now, so he's bound to instinctively know every shortcut, every pass point, all the optimum launch points for every item, isn't he... [/s]

I'm expecting to get my ass handed to me on a regular basis in 150cc.

How about getting together with Hamster to add Symphony and Memories to the Arcade Archives?

I’m waiting for PlayVital to do a Switch 2 version of its retro shells. My OG is clad in a SNES-styled one, and it rocks. Feels great, and it’s still dockable. They’ve got some non-retro shells out there (clear, glittery or… berry-coloured?), but they close off the kickstand.

To paraphrase Jonathan Coulton, Code Monkey think maybe CEO wanna write 60th soccer sim himself…

Would a bot use bold, italics and • bullet points? Or even know how to on here?

I want the Switch 2 to do well, make no bones about it. Hell, it’s the first time in 4½ decades I’ve gone over £300 deep on any non-PC/laptop unit, never mind £400, so it bloody better succeed. But I’ve seen this pattern before too many times from certain devs and publishers, going right back even to when the 8-bits started getting overtaken. Coverage in the likes of CVG, The Games Machine & Games-X began to feel token before dropping off completely.

@MischiefMaker Urgh, that kinda sucks. Keep an eye on it though - from what I’ve read, any cancellations get sold on an ad-hoc basis. You might get lucky.

If they’re going to futz with intermission tracks, keep them in Knockout Tours, but give us different race types…

• Follow The Leader - first to reach each checkpoint gets to pick where the race goes next.
• There And Back Again - Once the race finishes, go back to where it all started - going down each leg In the opposite direction. No falling off the track on the return trip; the whole map is fair game. Could be combined with Follow The Leader.

See, this is what has me concerned that the Switch 2 era is just going to be more of the same…

• Big games skipping the NS2 (I’ve already noticed this with Konami’s Press Start reveals - and there’s a lot of stuff that is slated to appear on everything except Nintendo gear. Still no sign of indie hits like Blue Prince or Romancelvania either)
• Afterthought releases way down the line (we’re apparently getting Borderlands 4, but still not Tiny Tina - also no sign of Super Woden Rally Edge coming our way… and it isn’t gonna take us another 6½ years to get Pure Pool Pro, is it? …IS it?)
• Not getting the full experience (yes, Madden, but no MVP release or College Football’26)
• Sawn-off content/quality (still waiting for DLC other platforms got - suspect some devs just can’t be arsed with it coming to us)

If Nintendo’s not careful this could wind up being another GameCube/Dreamcast, with devs not supporting it, or only to a point.

Once hotels are booked and JR rail passes are organised, putting in for tickets is next in line for The Trip™.

And this is right up there.

That’s what got folk steamed? Hell with that.

Call a game that and not have any Chris Rea in the soundtrack - nuh-uh. Don’t wanna know.

Even if it’s just God’s Great Banana Skin.

I clearly need more caffeine. For a hot second I thought that was Rosette from Chrono Crusade.

Which would still make for a kickass fighting game.

I'm liking the Rallygator, ride-wise. For a trike with a single rear wheel, its handling is incredible. Very nippy. Does what I want it to and doesn't ask many questions.

Still tinkering with who feels best on it though. I noticed that playing as Pauline futzes with the Fast Start timing quite a bit. Which is a touch annoying, because that Famicom-coloured Aero outfit - rowr there, missy, row-rrr.

Acid test: get Jon on a GameChat. One voice that carries? Let's try TWO.

Ehhhh…. I dunno. That all too brief blast I had on it back in April wasn’t anywhere near enough to judge on. And those pixelating transparencies still grind - ten times more powerful than the OG, was it?

Put up a demo and let me at least taste what’s getting plated up.

@SirLink Yeah, I thought I'd secured that room...

I’ve been lucky, I guess. I seem to have totally dodged any stick drift by - erm, hardly ever using JoyCons because they’re ridiculously tiny and hideously cramp-inducing for my hands.

8BitDo SN30 Pro FTW. Especially the Hall effect version.

If they're going to do this, we should be allowed to create backups on our side. Who knows when servers would eventually get knocked on the nut.

After a hard drive failure, there's some stuff I can no longer play on one of my older consoles because I can't get at it to re-download anymore.

I'm going to apply an automatic -2 modifier to any /10 score I see for something that is only available on digital or Game Key Card.

So just 4/10 then.

If Sega puts out an upgrade for the NS1 edition, I might - might - go to 7.

I’m playing wait-for-delivery-of-more-HD-cables-and-an-auto-switch-box, so I can have both my docks linked up.

Oh, and lots of gawping at how gorgeous everything has run on the NS2 so far.

When I saw this at the London event, I was more stunned at the fact Ryu leaves Ken hanging when his lifelong bud goes for their customary fist bump.

I clearly have some canon to catch up on since Ultra SF IV…

I’ll have a watch once I’ve picked mine up in the morning. Want to get it home first.

Calling it now: it’ll wind up in NSO as a freeb.

@TwinFami Go have a look at their other stuff as well, there’s heading for like five decades’-worth of it. The Swedish stuff is as strong as their English, if not more so.

Gyllene Tider are still A Thing 45+ years on, then there’s all their solo stuff (Per, Marie, Lena, Helena Josefsson), Lonely Boys, Son of a Plumber, Mono Mind…

@TwinFami It’s Roxette. Been a fan since Look Sharp! in 1988, and they’re locked in a fight with The Lightning Seeds for Band I’ve Seen The Most.

Not the first time I’ve seen them without Marie (2009 Islington*, 2018 Hammersmith), but it is the first since she passed away - and it’s also the first with Lena Philipsson picking up the mic. Third time at Wembley though (1991, 2011).

• This was Per’s solo Party Crasher European tour. Roxette sans Marie in all but name, given she was still in her cancer treatment - but she did appear at the Amsterdam gig to a thunderous ovation. Miss her something fierce.

@SillyPlanet92 I’ve got time off around my birthday the weekend after next, didn’t want to look like I was taking the mick too much.

(That’s for the end of the year, when I’ve got a gig at Wembley Arena at the start of December and The Trip™ at the end.)

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.

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.

NBA Jam™ but For Kids™

And it needs more STUFF.

What if it's a taekwondo mix, though?

What if... LEGS?

ABEMA won't work? 😱 Oh noes! How will I get my bi-monthly sumo fix?

... oh yeah, Twitch.

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.

@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.

Read:

• An afterthought release, months down the line from M$/Son¥ releases…
• …but same cost, if not more expensive…
• …if they can be arsed at all
• Sawn-off quality, less content, reduced DLC
• Announced content dropped
• Game Key Card, no true physical release

Plus ça change, mes amis, plus ça putain de change…

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...

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.

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.

I am way on down with this. 8BitDo are my go-to.

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...

@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.

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…)

Never not gonna say it:

DITCH THE NFTs.

shorturl.at/NsILs

If it’s so “perfect”, where’s the Tiny Tina reveal?

@MrDocena The last three decades just called. They beg real hard to differ.

It’ll get used probably on tabletop style games, but not much else. Not bothering with a camera.

A Bayonetta/Devil May Cry crossover would have been nice. Won’t happen now.

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.