Whirlwound

Whirlwound

Critter • QI-tter • Go 8-Bitter

Comments 712

Re: First Minecraft Movie Trailer Features Creepers, Piglins And Jack Black's Steve

Whirlwound

My takeaways from this:

  • I only just learned there’s a Minecraft coin-op last weekend when I was down in Scarborough (ye GODS, their arcades are terrible now) - I’m not sure I could handle a movie so soon after that
  • Jason Momoa is trying to pitch for The Big Lebowski 2
  • Jack Black is hitting ALL the nitros to get Borderlands as far back in the rear view mirror as he can
  • and the way Danielle Brooks was done up, I seriously wondered for a hot minute how the hell they managed to cast Alison Hammond…

Re: Soapbox: The Next Pokémon Game Should Rework Old Critters, Not Just Add Dozens More

Whirlwound

We need a few new twists to Pokémon progression. Specifically, Eevee and their evolutions…

  • second level eeveelutions (more badass, but not on Mega level - about half way there)
  • cross-type eeveelutions
  • and eeveelutions for the remaining types.

An arty pal drew a whole bunch of non-canon ones years back - a steel one (Bolteon), a second level of Jolteon (Volteon), a psychic/fire cross-type (Psyroveon), and a Flying type which we had a brilliant double-pun name for - Paraveon.

Re: Critically-Panned 'Borderlands' Movie Flops At The Box Office

Whirlwound

The only thing this is going to be in the running for is Razzies (no small irony that the D&D movie, far from universally loved, just won a Hugo Award at WorldCon in Glasgow). I saw the ‘cancerously unfunny’ review after I’d booked tickets, but I was committed to it by that point. It is, and I’m being kind here, absolute industrial-strength pish.

Worst film of Jack Black’s career by no small distance; Kevin Hart should have stuck to shooting hoops; Blanchett & Curtis were just trousering the cheque. At least Ariana Greenblatt wasn’t as irritating as Ashly Burch’s voicing of Tiny Tina - I’m normally okay with her, being a Critter, but that’s really not her best part.

I’m going to go see Deadpool & Wolverine again this weekend, just to cancel out this utter crapshow. Good job my ticket was free (Cineworld Unlimited), but the fact that this train wreck of a movie meant my monthly sub was paid for rankles like a biøtch.

Re: Round Up: The First Impressions Of The Borderlands Movie Are In

Whirlwound

Already had tickets booked before the reviews dropped, so I was kinda tied into it, but... damn.

Four people in an already-worryingly-tiny-for-its-third-day screen. Just four. Not a laugh, not a giggle, not a snigger, nary even a snort. From ANY of us. Just singularly Not Funny - kind of a problem when it's being pitched as an action-comedy.

In comparison, Deadpool & Wolverine last weekend was full of whoops, hollers, cheers and howling laughter. But when you've got Jack Black in probably the least funny outing of his entire career, and you find yourself wishing Kevin Hart had stuck to basketball, that's really Not A Good Sign.

Borderlands pitched itself completely wrong as a movie. It was never going to live up to the games' main premise of Billions Of Guns™. On top of that, the characters were half-baked; Blanchett & Curtis were just picking up the cheque. Lilith is just a Rule-63ed Han Solo with better threads and, granted, a very nice line in contrapposto. But whilst a well-cocked hip props her up, it saves n o t h i n g about this film at all.

This thing is worse than the 1993 Mario movie (which at least had Almost Unreal), Street Fighter (Ming-na Wen), Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (Kristin Kreuk), anything that Uwe Boll farted out (.....yeah, I got nothing)... yes, it's even worse than Pixels. COMBINED. Eli Roth should be made to deedpoll his name to Alan Smithee.

I'm going to go see Deadpool & Wolverine again at some point this month. I have to. Because, with every cell of my being, I resent this pile of toss being the screening that meant my Unlimited sub paid for itself.

Re: Funko Fusion New Story Trailer Revealed, Out On Switch This November

Whirlwound

60 characters. [shakes head] Jesus.

How many Pops are out there? They haven't just reached saturation point, they've lapped it, pissed rings round it, and made it totally irrelevant.

60 ain't gonna cut it. The chances of them including any of the handful I've got (the Vox Machina set was a birthday present, limited edition Widowmaker and Tracer were back when Overwatch fandom wasn't toxic, and who thought Dan Marino & Ryan Tannehill would have one?) are a gnat's pube away from zero.

Re: Talking Point: The Switch eShop Could Be Great With These Few Tweaks

Whirlwound

@Lightsiyd For a kickoff, I have multiple backlogs you could measure punt returns with. Physical and digital. And Steam. And my emulation gear. So I chip away at one of them.

My non-Nintendo stuff topped out at PS3 & 360. Just not enough stuff I wanted to play on anything later to warrant buying any of them - but the Switch more than made up for that. Far and away my biggest single-format collection, and I’ve been at this a while.

Re: Talking Point: The Switch eShop Could Be Great With These Few Tweaks

Whirlwound

@Lightsiyd No, I mean every other website I order stuff on. None of them have any problems with me doing so while using a VPN. Only Nintendo has ever blocked my card details - and this has to be the reason. My card works fine literally everywhere else while I'm going through another 30-day soft-ban on the eShop. They've nerfed my PayPal each time too, and are once again the only place it gets blocked.

They're fine and freakin' dandy with me getting a voucher code, though.

Re: Talking Point: The Switch eShop Could Be Great With These Few Tweaks

Whirlwound

Keyword Blocks.

I'm pretty sure every Switch-owning parent is dreading the day that Little Johnny and/or Maisie ask the near-inevitable question 'Daddy, what's Hentai mean?' For all such content on the eShop barely deserves the term, putting it Out There for the young'uns to spot and subsequently go a-googling for is prrrrrobably not the greatest idea.

It’s ironic that for all the stability and bad words list updates we have downloaded over the years, Hentai has been one of the most watered-down terms on the eShop. And yet it has been allowed to fly under the radar and infest it with mild abandon, its true meaning hiding in the shadows of the real world and the rest of the intermabob. Waiting for the unsuspecting to trip over its pulchritudinous ways.

So that would be my pitch - let users block certain terms when found in keywords, titles and yes, devs & publishers. Anything you don't want [you and your younglings] to see, you [and they] don't see. MidnightWorks and their shonk-ass contemporaries would get their collective asses stomped before the hat even thought about dropping.

Oh yes - and how about stop blocking my SODDING DEBIT CARD just because I use a VPN. No other bugger at all has issues with me ordering stuff to be delivered in the UK when my IP looks like I'm in Norway - it's literally just Nintendo, and they've done it three times now.

Re: Poll: What's Your Switch Game Of The Year Of 2024 So Far?

Whirlwound

Balatro has the hooks in deep and it won’t let go. The Llamasoft anthology is amazing - Jeff’s stuff is really just That Good™ - and I’ll definitely give Animal Well a shot at some point, but right now, I’ve only double-dipped on one title this year (if you don’t count an almost 40-year gap on some of the Hairy Yak’s works), and Balatro is it. Soon as it appears on iOS, it’ll be a triple-dip.

Re: Retailer GAME Reportedly Ending In-Store Sales Of Physical Games And Hardware

Whirlwound

Not often a Mackem like yours truly sides with the Mags, but F-bomb Mike Ashley. He hasn’t had a penny out of me for years, and that will continue as long as his BS does.

GAME might not actually be dead - yet - but it’s starting to look real rough. That SOB has killed so much of the UK high street, and is poisoning the rest with a malignant festering tumour in the shape of Sports Direct.

Won’t be long before all we have left are tiny sections in supermarket chains (Tesco isn’t bothering already, dunno about the rest), independent shops and, of all the possible last men standing I honestly did not think it would be them, CEX.

Re: Gallery: Metroid Prime 4: Beyond Is Looking Absolutely Stunning On Switch

Whirlwound

@Steel76 I suspect that if anything, it may well appear on both - bridging the gap between consoles the way Breath of the Wild did. That, or if you want the full all-singing all-dancing all-kitchen-sinking experience, you get a Switch 2. Same cartridge, but while the OG Switch will still undoubtedly be host to a stunner of a game (anything less after this long will be a massive howler), it’ll have noticeably more oomph on the new one. I’m expecting it to be an utter sock-blower-offer on the S2.

Re: Nintendo Direct June 2024: Every Announcement, Game Reveal, Trailer

Whirlwound

@Anti-Matter I've had a look, and Japan got everything we did, plus...

  • Dragon Saikyou Ouzukan Battle Colosseum – July 4, 2024
  • Minna to Machigoro – July 5, 2024
  • Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown Deluxe Edition – July 11, 2024
  • Butto Bird – Coming right after Direct
  • Kamaitachi no Yoru x3 – September 19, 2024
  • Powerful Pro Baseball 2024-2025 – July 18, 2024
  • SCHiM – July 18, 2024 (we're getting this too, but I didn't see it in our Direct)
  • Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus – July 18, 2024
  • The Star Named EOS – July 23, 2024
  • Ninja Slayer: Neo Saitama In Flames – July 24, 2024
  • Reynatis – July 25, 2024, Demo coming after Direct
  • Eggy Party – July 19, 2024
  • One Piece Odyssey Deluxe Edition – July 25, 2024
  • The Legend of Heroes: Kuro no Kiseki II for Nintendo Switch – July 25, 2024
  • That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: Tempest Stories – August 8, 2024 (same Slime Datta Ken game we already know about?)
  • Gundam Breaker 4 – August 29, 2024 (already know about this)
  • Kamitsubaki City Ensemble – August 29, 2024
  • Uma Musume Pretty Derby: Nekketsu Hachamecha Dai Kanshasai! – August 30, 2024
  • Natsu-Mon! 20th Century Summer Vacation – New paid expansion DLC coming right after Direct

Re: Nintendo Switch Online Gets Four New Additions Today, Including Zelda, Metroid, And Perfect Dark

Whirlwound

Ah, THAT's why they didn't show up in the existing app. I was in the shower for the Direct and missed the separate app bit.

We're probably going to get Conker's BFD at some point then, because a) we've got Perfect Dark, so there's not as many issues with Rare games as we thought [ergo also, proper Killer Instinct 1+2, not just the SNES one]; b) there's not much point in a standalone app for just two games otherwise.

Re: Nintendo Direct June 2024: Every Announcement, Game Reveal, Trailer

Whirlwound

With respect to stuff I didn’t even have a hint about happening, the Marvel/Capcom Fighting Collection, Stray, and Metal Slug Attack Reloaded.

Overall though, there’s no escaping Prime 4 and Legend of ACTUAL Zelda. Buzzed for those two in particular.

@Anti-Matter they didn’t get Turok in their NSO expansion, and there was something some of my pals on Discord spotted called Eggy Party… (…I know… 💧) …but we’re getting it too. Drops free to play next month. Don’t know about anything else, but I was on my way to work in the aftermath, so I’ll check when I land back.

Re: Reaction: A Direct That Delivered, And Shows That Switch Still Has Plenty Of Pep

Whirlwound

Better than any recent stream I can remember.

Top announcements:

  • Metroid Prime 4 (of course)
  • Stray
  • Metal Slug Attack Reloaded
  • Marvel/Capcom Fighting Collection (Punisher I can take or leave, but the rest…)
  • NSO: Perfect Dark
  • Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

Surprise: When the Mature area of NSO was announced, I was honestly expecting Conker's Bad Fur Day, not Turok...

No Surprise: Silksong is just a collective fever dream now, isn't it...

Intriguing: MIO. Legit thought 'hang on a mo, Silksong got a lot more colourful' for a sec, and given that might be as close as we get for a while, I might well have a pop at that one.
Also, Darkest Dungeon II. I do love a roguelike, and another one on the backlog won't hurt. Much.

Missed Opportunity: DKC Returns HD. Surely it's been long enough for a new instalment...

Missed Opportunity 2: no-shows for Wind Waker & Twilight Princess HD. Much like when European Golden Boot winner Super Kevin Phillips kept getting snubbed for England because Bottler Keegan was obsessed with Shearer Poppins, I find myself thinking 'what's it going to take...'

Nope: Hundred Line. I have enough head weasels right now, thanks very little, Danganronpa-adjacent...

Re: Talking Point: How Do You Define 'Retro'?

Whirlwound

I have a scale of:

  • Current (this gen)
  • Modern (last two generations, so back to Wii/PS3/X360)
  • Retro (PS1-2, Saturn-DC, XB, N64-GC),
  • Classic (SNES/MD)
  • Vintage (C64/Amiga, Spectrum, Amstrad, NES, SMS).
  • Relic (anything before that, so VIC-20, ZX81, Videopac G7000, Pong console etc)

Borderlines will blur at times, some will fall between the cracks - QL, C16/+4, Dragon, Oric, Enterprise, TI99/4A etc - and Vintage will expand as time goes by to encompass what was Classic as everything shifts back a tier.