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I'm tempted to buy it, but I will probably just dust off my Wii U when the new expansion comes out.

Yes! More single player content.

I was really interested in the new stuff for 3DS and was sad, that they didn't bring it to the WiiU version as DLC. So maybe I'll get it on Switch for that.

@SmaggTheSmug I recently played Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun with a controller. Totally different genre but similar controls and camera perspective. It worked surprisingly well.

I'm planning a trip to Tokyo in June! Definitely checking this out.

If they started in 2013 that means they had at least a general idea of when the Switch would be released. If the Wii U had been more successful would they still have released the Switch in 2017? Or would the game have been delayed for year even if it was finished?

So it is exactly the same as part one, then? That's fine for me. I really liked the first one. I will probably buy it on Steam, the controls work a lot better with mouse and keyboard.

I played the demo and liked that it is basically a more structured Minecraft. I still won't buy it, because the controls for placing blocks felt very awkward, especially compared to Minecraft. Even there it is a bit of a chore to build a house.

Building stuff is the main point of the game so if that part feels weird and overly complicated I don't think I will enjoy it very much.

I would love to have Joy Con with different layouts. I loved the Wii U layout with both analog sticks at the top. I still use the Wii U Pro controller on my PC while my Xbox 360 and One controllers are gathering dust.

A left Joy Con with a proper dpad and a right one with the stick at the top would be perfect.

@Wolfgabe Only if you look at it as a "traditional" video game score where everything below a 7 is basically considered garbage.

If you look at it like it is meant to be i totally agree that it is an "Average" game.

I like the idea of crowdfunding. I backed a few games years ago and all of them got released. Some of them were not as good as I hoped but there were no total failures.

However nowadays I only back campaigns were I know 100% what I'm getting. For example I bought several print releases of web comics I read. You can just read them for free online but I like to have them as real books and most of the time you get some exclusive extras like additional chapters or artwork.

I would never back a tech product, because the risk of something going wrong during manufacturing are pretty high, if the people doing the campaign don't have a lot of experience.

So is Bridge Constructor Portal the first (kind of) Valve game on a Nintendo platform?

HALF LIFE 3 CONFIRMED

I'm looking forward to this. The first game was great! But the Metroidvania label is misleading. The first one was called that as well. If you look at screenshots or short gameplay footage plus the fact that you have to unlock new abilities to enter new areas it seems to fit.

But in reality it is a point and click adventure through and through with some very basic combat added on top. That is nothing negative and adventure games are my favorite genre. Just don't expect Metroid or you might be disappointed.

My backlog is as big as anybody's and this site, but the cool thing about these shorter indie games it that you can just go through them in a couple of days and than return to your backlog.

The downside is that if I don't finish it in let's say two or three days I will probably never finish it.

But I absolutely loved Spirit Tracks so I will definitely pick it up.

@Tempestryke The authorization system was sooo stupid. And totally unnecessary. No explanation at all would have been better than that. In Metroid Prime her suit was "damaged in an explosion" and in Super Metroid they didn't explain at all why you had to unlock all the skills again. And nobody cared.

I put that in the "horrible writing" category and mostly just ignored it. Although I have to admit that I rolled my eyes every time it came up in a cutscene.

@GraveLordXD I agree that Other M was very different from the other Metroid games and I can understand why a lot of fans didn't like it but it was still fun to play.

My main issue with Samus Returns was that some of the symbols that tell you which weapon to use were hard to tell apart. I also found it weird that several reviewers called it the best looking 3DS game of all time. I thought the graphics were kind of messy.

@Averagewriter That's true. But on the other hand most people seem to love Metriod Fusion and that was a lot more linear than Super Metroid as well.

I think the hate for Other M mostly comes from the awful writing.

@Spectra Other M wasn't that bad. The story and Samus' characterization was mostly rubbish and the controls weren't perfect. I especially hated switching to the missiles during boss battles. But overall the gameplay was a lot of fun.

The graphics were very good for a Wii game as well. Also I have never played a game that transitions so smoothly between pre rendered cutscenes and in game graphics.

@thesilverbrick The Wii U had NO new games for 10 month after launch. Then we got Pikmin, a great game but no system seller, and then NOTHING AGAIN until Christmas.

I would have been in heaven if I had gotten two AA Nintendo games in 6 month in 2013.

My predictions:
Release date for Kirby
Title reveal for Yoshi
Lots of indies
News on the online service (even if they just say "delayed to summer/fall")
Maybe new OS features (Netflix/Browser?)

I'm not expecting any major surprises for AAA first party games (but third party announcements are possible).

@NintendoLife
"We'd imagine Nintendo will be doing everything it possibly can to shut the door on such exploits in a future firmware update"

Didn't Nintendo already do that? All confirmed hacks require firmware 3.0.0. The one used in the videos in this article definitely does.

@RadioStarbuck The Wii had the biggest Virtual Console library yet and it was still hacked.

@Bunkerneath In Japan they also read books the wrong way so that is probably the reason.

@BulkSlash Yes, the Switch has a browser. It is installed by default because it is used to display the eShop, Login Screens for public Wifi and Twitter and Facebook (for linking accounts and posting screenshots). The only thing that is missing is a user interface that allows you to access other websites.

On Topic: This will probably help hackers a lot to hack the Switch, but they still need some other exploit to run their own software first. The successful hack that was reported currently only works with a specific and old firmware version.

@imgrowinglegs You can copy screenshots to the sd card and then stick the sd card in a card reader.

@manu0 That's because it only consists of text and (small) pictures. Movies and games taking up dozens of Gigabytes desensitized us on how much data you can actually store in one Terabyte.

I don't mind articles about this stuff. I find it fascinating to learn the inner workings of systems like the Switch. The hardware analysis for the Wii U for example was a very interesting read.

@Coffee_Drinker "It wasn't released in the West" isn't a valid excuse for using a pirated copy anymore. Because the Switch is region free you can just order a physical copy on Amazon Japan, use one of the dozens of import shops or create a Japanese eShop account.

@Hordak You can buy Gameboy Flash Cards (basically a game cartridge with an SD card reader). That way you can play roms on an actual Gameboy instead of using an emulator.

It looks like they combined both mobile games into one. They have 30 "days" each and this has fifty. Plus the first screenshot is definitely from a level from part 2. Maybe they cut out some of the very similar levels and that's why it is not 60 levels.

@nhSnork Germany has a pretty big voice acting industry. Like in most of the world, Hollywood movies are a big deal here. But the average movie-goer would never watch a movie with subtitles, so everything is dubbed.

That's the reason why English anime dubs suck so much compared to the German ones

I'm pretty sure France has a big dubbing industry as well.

Isn't it kind of a spoiler that the Mushroom Kingdom is in the game?

I played this and some other games from the same developer on mobile and quite liked them, but they are very cheaply made and also look like they were translated with Google Translate.

Unless they polished the game a lot or added a huge amount of content, it is not worth 5 € in my opinion.

@Heavyarms55 For me VR controllers have nothing to do with motion controls. Yes, they use similar technology, but the result is completely different. I haven't tried Playstation VR with the Move controllers, but the Oculus Touch controllers are great.

Looking down and seeing very close approximations of my actual hands increases immersion drastically for me. The Touch controllers even register which buttons you are touching so if I move my thumb to a different button or lift my index finger off the trigger, in some games the fingers of my virtual hands move accordingly.

Even if it is still far away from showing hand movements one to one it is close enough that I sometimes forget that I even hold a controller and it feels like actually touching and manipulating objects in the virtual reality. For me this is the biggest improvement in VR compared to what was available in the past.

@GameOtaku There is a very simple reason for the drip feed, more sales. If they release one game per week, the people that like these games will buy them all.

If the release 10 or more games at once, a lot of people will say „I don’t want to spend 70$ on old games, I’ll just buy one or two“.

@JunkRabbit While it uses a different engine, Doom is even bigger than The New Order with, I think, over 60 GB.

It will be interesting to see if they can shrink the Switch version considerably or if we have to pay for 64 GB Game Modules.

@AlexSora89 While they add to the atmosphere of the game I could live without the swastikas. And as I said they don't censor the violence and gore anymore.

The worst part is, that the German version doesn't include the English voice track. In the first game most of the Nazi characters still spoke German and a lot of characters spoke Polish or French, which was really cool, but on the voice track of the German version everybody spoke German.

@AlexSora89 Regarding censorship in Germany. It was really bad in the 80s and 90s but got better and better since then. Not only for games with swastikas and stuff but violence in general. And also for movies.

In the first Half Life they replaced all the solders with robots and the Scientists and security guards couldn't die. Instead if the took damage they sat down on the floor and shook their heads.
Half Life 2 on the other hand was released uncensored just six years later.

Another famous example is the Command and Conquer series. In the first two games they replaced every infantry unit with "Cyborgs". But starting with Red Alert 2 they were uncensored expect for Generals, which was seen as too realistic so the did the Cyborg thing again and also changed all the names of citys and countries.

It is also almost impossible to find uncut versions of most 80s horror movies in German.

But nowadays games and movies are rarely censored. The only exception are swastikas and other Nazi symbols.

@Incognito_D You can also plug the USB cable into a USB port on your TV, if it has one of those. It usually works but it is not guaranteed because some TVs don't put out enough power.

I'm not surprised. Storage requirements for a lot of current games are kind of insane and a lot of publishers won't want to pay for 32 GB game cards.

Breath of the Wild is 13 GB for the whole game. The Destiny 2 beta on PC, which consists of only a 15 min Intro Mission with cut scenes and voice acting and two multiplayer maps was 16 GB!

If I remember correctly, Wolfenstein: The new Order was 48 GB and Star Wars Battlefront was around 32.

I was surprised that the popularity vote was a lot less clearly in favor of Marina (48% vs 52%).

I didn't take part in the first regular Splatfest but for the Test Fire Splatfest it was 30% vs 70%.

I guess the Marina bonus faded quickly and most people are actually voting on the theme of the Splatfest instead of the characters.

I enjoy playing Worms WMD but it doesn't grab me like Worms Armageddon and World Party did back in the day. It is definitely the best "modern" Worms game.

I like bridge builders but I will probably buy it on PC. I need a mouse for these types of games.

Can someone actually confirm that it is an auto runner? I can't really tell from 30 seconds of game play. Aside from the punching it looks like the first game and that wasn't a runner.

I can't see them making a headset that uses the Switch as a screen. The resolution is way to low (I have an Oculus Rift with 2x 1200x1080 and it still looks blurry and pixelated) and the Switch is too heavy.

But a headset with build in screens that plugs into the USB C port plus some kind of belt to strap the Switch to your body would be interesting (no wires to trip over!).

@SLIGEACH_EIRE Actually the Wii U is almost out of stock on Amazon JP

I really like it although I haven't been playing it for weeks. Might be a good time to jump im again. As someone who's not that good with rhythm games I especially like, that the song doesn't end early when you do poorly.

@JunkRabbit
I play with my two thumps most of the time. Only for the harder songs I need more than two fingers.

@GravyThief I didn't notice a lot of problems in most NES classic games, but Kirbys Adventure runs so bad with massive slowdown whenever a lot is happening on screen. It was almost unplayable for me.

Does anyone know the exact reason? Is it because of the packaging not being in French or the actual games? Couldn't they just sell the EU Version in Quebec?

I know that there is a law in Germany that there has to be German text on the packaging. Stores that sell imported stuff usually slap a sticker with the translated text on the box.

@Hughesy Preorders selling out in minutes after they are made available seems to be the norm nowadays. If Nintendo fails to deliver like they did with the NES classic we have every right to complain, but can we at least wait until it is officially released?

@Nico07 No, I am Level 9 and I could buy it right away.

@Maruel My guess is that extension speed means how fast an Arm movies forward and expansion rate means how fast the umbrella at the end of the Arm opens up.