nicols

Actually, it's original title way back on the NES was David Crane's A boy and his blob: Trouble on Blobolonia. David Crane being the designer of early classic console / computer games such as Pitfall, Ghostbusters and Little Computer People as well as being one of the Founders of Activision! He's still around but he faded away somewhat in 90s... still, credit where credit is due.

@Eddy9000 Also likely that the factory applied protector is designed to reduce the chance that the screen undergoes catastrophic failure and shattering... so if it gets dropped, you still have a broken screen but not tiny shards of glass on the floor or all over a child's hands...

@JasmineDragon good point and I'd also wager that the licencing costs for England / Australia and a few other key cricket teams / leagues are still substantially less than the hyper commercial US centric sports teams / leagues, meaning that the breakeven point for an official cricket game is much lower too. It's obviously works for Big Ant as they've been churning out assorted licenced cricket games for nearly a decade now.

@MichaelBurns lol, thanks - I only know this because I looked into a couple of years ago when i was choosing my BT dongle for the switch . However, what I learnt was that because BT is so ubiquitous, people think its trivial to implement... but it's not. Its a mess of software versions, chips and chip suppliers, standard / non-standard proprietary codecs and licences, all of which have to have some sort of lowest common denominator compatibility. Even APTX comes in multiple flavours that require different chips / hardware compatibility on both the transmitter and receiver side but are backwards compatible to the original APTX codec.

When I tested my dongle with a cheap pair of aptx LL headphones, sound quality was OK but latency excellent. I then tried all my various BT sound devices (the dongle had a light to show if it was connected to APTX LL or an SBC device). To test them I used youtube videos (talking heads for lip sync or actual latency test videos) and Cuphead (where the sound fx and inputs are very tightly synced, like the old merry melody cartoons of the 1930s that it was trying to emulate). The difference and range of latency was huge, with my apple earpods being just about "OK, not great but bearable", through to a portable Sony speaker being so out of sync it was unbearable.

@spurryitboi See my comment above re why some people are experiencing lag and some aren't

@MichaelBurns Does your dongle and headset use an actual low latency codec like APTX LL? If so, that's a proprietary codec dependent on specific qualcomm chips. What Nintendo have done here appears to be based on the default, not very low latency but near universally supported SBC codec. This has the advantage it will work with the old BT chip that's in the Switch and pretty much any BT headset... but the disadvantage that the latency can vary massively from headset to headset (by 100s of milliseconds). Then there's the issue that people also vary in their ability to perceive / tolerate audio lag. As a rule of thumb, latency less than 100ms won't be perceived by most people but more than 300ms will... with that wide grey area of latency in the middle - standard BT / headset combinations using SBC will straddle that 100 to >300ms range. Put those together and it explains why some people are getting acceptable latency and others are experiencing massive audio lag.

@KateGray Just for info, but I don't think Ubisoft has anything to do with Harmonix or Fuser... you may be thinking of the Just Dance ip.

@OorWullie I too hate BigBen / Nacon and fully support the above message

Despite being stung by TWT,. I gave them the benefit of the doubt and bought their full priced (£49.99) volleyball game on xbox.... the invisible hit box on the players was such that the in game replays would show players waggling their hands about at nothing whilst the ball, several metres away, would bounce off thin air. I think it got one minor patch that never addressed the issue.

@blockfight in fairness, the original devs went into meltdown and half the studio collapsed but they did release fixes months later. Also, this is now developed by Big Ant of AO tennis and Cricket 19 who have a good track record of patching games.

However, your point stands as this is still NACON / Bigben... a truly awful publisher who I don't trust further than I can throw them.

@JayJ This. It was a terrible launch and the patches took a long time to arrive, the devs basically collapsed, Big Ben director gave an interview to a french business mag saying the game was broken, they knew that even as they promoted the online game knowing it wouldn't be ready (online play was dropped a day before launch) but not to worry, it would still make a profit as most sales were non-refundable physical discs... but by the end, it was patched, online was added back and was an OKish tennis game (around 6 months after launch).

Big Ant were almost as bad with the original AO licence... it launched JUST in Australia in January 2018 to tie into Australian Open, was barely playable, was launched around the rest of the world months later as AO international... and was still bad! This was within weeks of the bad TWT launch. The difference was the ceo wrote a letter to the community soon after launch, apologised and said we messed up, tell us what we need to fix and then released a huge series of bug fixes, tweaks and game play changes based on community. The fundamental game play was still a bit 'marmite' but it did run better and included many features requested by fans re the control scheme etc.

@Magonigal On Big Ant we agree but this is Nacon's IP and I don't trust them - other consoles are getting a deluxe 'Ace' edition coming with some sort of premium season pass to get access to extra licensed players, stadia and 'official' tournaments for example... that doesn't sound like a publisher that's trying to make amends for the bad smell that lingers around this franchise from last time...

@Magonigal yeah, I'm quite conflicted on this one - I like video tennis, and although they are far from perfect, Big Ant have made some good sports games and tend to at least patch up their games. On the other hand, the original TWT was one of the worst launches I've ever experienced and publisher Nacon / BigBen (don't let the name change fool you) are one of my least favourite publishers due to this and other shenanigans...

I've sunk about 10 hours into it so far and am enjoying it but it really is worth emphasising that to play career mode, you have to be connected to the internet - this is a big downside for handheld play. Also, the game has technical issues that can result in crashes (most likely a memory leak - it gets worse / more likely the longer you play - I reload the game from dashboard every 18 holes or so and avoid the crashes).

That I am still enjoying the game is a testament to how much fun the actual game play is.

@60frames-please RE user courses, previous games in the series (before this re-branding) had cross platform course databases i.e. courses made on PC were playable on xbox etc. This resulted in 100s (perhaps 1000s) of courses ranging from crappy to fantasy to surprisingly authentic recreations of famous courses - it has a fairly robust rating and handicap system as well so the top rated / most played ones are easy to find and normally worthwhile.

@shazbot Gamer' s like to go after the AAA companies like EA and 2K for their more dubious practices but as a sizeable single A to C list publisher, BigBen / Nacon tends to fly under the radar... but its been involved in quite a few crap fests and dodgy practices of its own over the last few years... the Tennis World Tour launch / patch fiasco springs to mind.

@JimmySpades Golf Club 2019 was an odd one... the 2K deal was only announced like a few days before launch so I suspect the majority of the development happened without 2Ks direct involvement.

re the controls, if you choose the beginners club set the straightness of the 'flick' of the right stick felt more lenient compared to golf club 2. All I can say is I tried GC 2 and didn't really get on with it either but sunk many pleasant hours into 2019 with the beginners club set / easier greens (it's still a challenge - but felt much more down to me and my choice of shots / estimates of power and slopes etc than just random variations in stick movement completely ruining my shot).

Of course, all this is assuming that (1) they've kept the same general control scheme which I think is likely and (2) that it translates well / has been tweaked for the switch controllers (be it joycons or the pro controller)...

@doctorhino The devs, HB studios, have a decent history with golf games on other platforms and this is really a rebadged Golf Club series game (HB actually picked up the PGA licence for golf club 2019 on other platforms). My concern is their control scheme is a bit divisive / tricky to master so people may pick this up expecting a simple 3 click system as opposed to the analog stick based system the previous Golf Club games employed.

@JimmySpades Did you try Golf Club 2019? I found the controls to be far more forgiving than the previous games (played on Xbox and PC using an Xbox controller).

@ConsumingCinema in the previous games in the series (this is basically a re-badged Golf Club game by HB studios), there was an active course creation community with courses being forwards compatible e.g. course created in Golf Club 2 worked in Golf Club 2019) - literally 1000s of new courses and unofficial recreations. They've confirmed that this creation feature is in this version on other consoles / pc but NOT on switch... but no word on whether you can still IMPORT courses from the community cross platform.

Off topic aside... can anyone confirm that some of the external video scenes in the trailer were shot in Chatham? The riverside scenes looked like the back of an office at Chatham Dockside, there are some very familiar looking flats in the distance and there's also a bright red Lighthouse Boat along that stretch of the river Medway too...

Putting aside the subject matter and artistic vision vs exploitative cash in nature of the game... it's likely the choice of the player as unseen moderator rather than the actual streamer is at least in part due to the limited nature of the FMV format. Put simply, with a branching narrative where every decision point needs to be clearly signposted and then filmed to seamlessly blend into each other, having the on screen protagonist literally pause and ask the player what to do next is easier to write and edit together...

@LilMuku and that comment is apparently wrong anyway - on Twitter, WI stated that the script was co-written and dialog improvised by the lead actress herself. Whatever the quality of the final product, I seriously doubt the INTENTION of the creators was to portray this as exploitative or provoke this sort of backlash for publicity.

I have it and am enjoying it but I do wish there was a straight forward arcade mode directly accessible from the main menu and the non localised in-game non-localised cut scenes / theme park world game variants select screen do grate somewhat - but core game play and 'land' variants are good fun and worth a punt for anyone that likes the mr Driller games/arcade puzzle diggers.

Its my understanding that Nintendo tries to control their game pipeline quite carefully - they are quite happy to sit on an all but complete game for many months, partly to smooth out their physical manufacturing of carts and partly to 'place' their games into a release slot for maximum impact (loads of family switch sales at Xmas? Lets slip out a brain training game in January to get casual players into the habit of buying games for the console).

As such, its doesn't surprise me that ACNH, XBC and Paper Mario releases were unaffected as they were already done before lockdowns kicked in... but it doesn't bode well for their big release they normally drop around end of Nov to maximise Xmas sales.

@playstation_king @sanderev These sites fall into 3 categories

(1) legitimate authorised resellers (e.g. codes from Amazon UK directly, Fanatical which is actually a subsidiary of the publisher Focus Home interactive, Green Man Gaming) - should be zero risk - they buy their codes from Nintendo / the authorised distributor.

(2) grey market resellers that capitalise on regional price differences / bulk buying (I believe CD keys falls into this category) - these are basically legit operations exploiting a loophole - normally low risk but no guarantees - I have received bad keys from CD Keys but their customer service was pretty damn good and rectified things almost immediately.

(3) market places for individuals to resell codes - basically ebay for codes e.g. G2A, Kinguin. These are the ones to be wary of - had several bad PC codes from G2A that took 6 months to turn bad (credit card recharge scams can take time to come to light) - had the games deleted from my steam account. Had that happened on my Nintendo account, they normally ban the whole account and you lose access to your whole game library!

@clvr When it comes to switch ports, 3 universal truths have been established in the various comments sections of this site...

(1) ALL games can be ported to switch with minimal loss of fidelity (even games with very high cpu and memory bandwidth requirements)... devs that can't do it are just lazy.
(2) Some devs (e.g. panic button), rather than relying on optimised code, sensible design compromises and choosing projects that scale well to the switch hardware, are 'Wizards' and use 'magic' to port games instead... devs that don't resort to the dark arts are just lazy.
(3) Doing a port of a game is easy and just requires a week or so to change the in game tutorial button graphics to match the switch, changing the gfx and resolution in the hidden game settings file to medium and then finally press the 'turn all this stuff into a switch game' button... any dev that releases a sub optimal port because the publisher / IP holder only gave them a limited budget / time frame that precluded the opportunity to spend effort optimising the game is just lazy.

All we need to do is sack all these lazy devs and every port will be running at a locked 60 fps with full HD gfx...

...

Something like this has happened to me in the past on the UK web based shop - I bought the Trine Collection as it appeared to be a launch discount, only to get just Trine 1. I then had to convince Nintendo support that this was the case and that it was still up on their website as the whole collection (with the description and screenshots backing it up as the collction, not just the first game). I was treated like I was a fraudster because my e-receipt said Trine 1 - it was only when the publisher and devs stepped in and contacted Nintendo directly (they were inundated with similar complaints - it was a website issue) that I got a refund a week later. What's more, the way Nintendo dealt with it is they refunded my money, stopped me playing the game but it is still attached to my account as purchased, so I can never buy or play that game digitally again (fortunately, the cartridge version still works).

Possibly the worst customer service of a big corporation I have ever experienced - brusque, dismissive to the point of rudeness. The final straw was when I asked to escalate my complaint and what the process to do so was and was told that there is no legal requirement for a company in the EU to have a complaints procedure so it is Nintendo policy to deny all such requests.

@Morph You are technically right - it was not a financial bomb as if you factor in video / tv rights etc plus Hollywood accounting practices, it covered costs, possibly even made a modest profit. From a critical perspective AT THE TIME, it received mixed reviews. It was a massively expensive disappointment for Universal but definitely not a disaster in the same bracket as things like Ishtar and Heaven's Gate, both of which had far more profound impacts on the companies that made / distributed them.

@Heavyarms55 The main mode is full of 'card packs' to build a team that you either grind for or pay real world money and trade... but there are many other modes that are free of this. At full price, its hard to forgive the added expense... at £2.49 its much easier to just ignore that mode - at its core it is a solid, very well presented sports game albeit one with a bit of a steep learning curve and a storage hog (40gb+!!!).

@nicols Licencing, source code, IP and contracts were basically a wild west of spoken agreements and handshakes back in the early days of the arcades, made even more complex as companies have sold the IP / merged / gone bust multiple times in the last 4 decades! I mean, there was an article on this very site a few years explaining that Nintendo didn't actually code Donkey Kong and ended up getting sued by their out-sourced coding company because Nintendo PIRATED of their own game to meet demand when Donkey Kong was a big hit and were also accused of stealing code out of the game to make DKjr and DK3!

Also, to reiterate what a few other commentators have said - Ms Pac Man is often left out because there are ongoing legal disputes over royalties between Namco and the original programmers (who were NOT Namco employees).

Ms Pac Man was originally called Crazy Otto and was a hacked conversion board for Pac Man - when Bally Midway (the US Pac Man distributor) found out, they bought the game, had it modified and it subsequently negotiated with Namco, making it an 'Official' Pac Man game... with Namco taking the IP when Bally Midway went bust. However Namco stopped paying royalties to the original company some time ago thus giving the original team the (supposed) rights to sub licence it again... Namco disputes this obviously but they appear to be avoiding using the character / reissuing the game whilst this is sorted once and for all.

The article doesn't really explain these collections properly... The new Japanese NAMCOT Collection is not based on the arcade originals but Namco's home conversions or 'domestic titles' (NAMCOT was a subsidiary they used for home versions in the 80s). These Western collections appears to be a variant of of that emulation engine (e.g. a NES emulator) with extra games, split across 2 collections but confusingly renamed NAMCO Museum Archives in the US. Note, the currently available collection is officially called Namco Museum Arcade Pac so it is different.

@davisv-mon I've just read through your posts and then your post history on this site. I think you may be experiencing a paranoid incident and should contact your doctor or a family member.

Stay Safe.

@kobashi100 Oh, its still a decent controller though - I prefer the official pro con but that's mainly due to stick placement (pro con = offset / xbox style sticks, sn30 pro+ = inline / ps4 style sticks) but everything else feels really good on this controller

@kobashi100 The game cube adaptor has specific support built into the switch so the analogue trigger is functional (if a game is also written to specifically support the controls). Games that support it include GRID Asutosport, Trials Rising... possibly fast RMX (i've just read that last one). For the 8Bitdo to work, either Nintendo would have to support it (unlikely, I don't think they are official Nintendo peripheral partners) or they'd have to emulate the game cube adaptor (feasible via update I guess).

@kobashi100 I know the SN30 Pro + has analogue triggers but I didn't think the switch actually recognises them as such and just treats them as digital? I know when I use it in PC mode they work. Or do you mean using the software to remap the right stick to the triggers to fool the switch into giving an analogue response.

Whilst it's mentioned in the PR, I think its worth emphasising that HB Studios have a decent track record with golf games on other consoles and PC - this is their 5th golf game (if you include the VR version) and 2nd PGA Tour licenced game. They normally included pretty solid course editors (with user uploads and a degree of cross platform / backwards compatibility) and a rather unusual control method where the movement of the club is tied to the motion of the joystick / mouse. It's typically not your standard 3 click / power meter approach that goes back to NES GOLF / C64 Leaderboard in the 80s (although that might be different this time). I actually liked the last one Golf Club 2019 PGA Tour quite a bit.

@JohnCorrigan I didn't like the stick control in the first couple of Golf Club games but the last one Golf Club 2019 PGA tour (which was released under somewhat mysterious circumstances with 2K taking over as publisher days before launch) felt like a real refinement that worked well (on an Xbox controller at least)... but not sure how well it would translate to joycons (pro con should be fine).

Whilst I do understand some of the resistance to Epic's exclusivity deals, I do use the epic store - I've bought a grand total of 1 exclusive (tertris effect) but have received over 60 free games over the last year... mainly indies but also a few AA / older AAA titles... including, ironically World War Z about a month ago.

@EVIL-C EA, well yes, hard to argue against that one after Fifa 20...

Activision did do an OK job on the Diablo / Crash / Spyro ports - definitely could do more and better on switch but what they did do was OK.

However, Ubisoft were an early supporter and collaborator with Nintendo on Switch, lots of decent 2D platformer ports and some popular casual games, the recent AC Black Flag collection was a pretty decent optimised port of a good classic game (plus Rebel), Starlink had the Star Fox content and more post launch support on Switch than the other consoles and Mario + Rabbids is a multi-million selling game (admittedly due to the constant sales) with a decent art design and decent review scores - they are a far from perfect company but to say they haven't even tried seems harsh.

@bigboss313 When people say they want more FPS games like COD, they probably just mean FPS shooters with a contemporary (or near future) semi realistic setting which is a mouthful.... COD is shorthand because, like it or not, its the biggest selling contemporary setting franchise. I too would like a contemporary setting Battlefield game but I'd be happier with something like SWAT4, Rainbow 6 or Ghost Recon (OK, technically TPS rather than FPS).

So, I paid £15 for my first year then got the second one free from Twitch... that's good value for Tetris and a couple of the better retro games.... cloud saves are good but should be free to everyone... yet the actual online service bit is pretty poor in many games as it lacks of dedicated servers.

Like a lot of things in Nintendo land, its an odd proposition... a bad online service that's really good value for money

I seriously whether Nintendo would be better off renaming the service something like Switch Deluxe... with the online part being offered as a freebie bonus to members and the free games, cloud saves etc being the core offering (with more tetris like exclusives and demos being part of the draw).

@Wargoose I'm mainly digital but will buy certain games on physical.

Obviously, size of install / size of cart is a factor (big thumbs up for physical Witcher 3 for example where all the game, 30ish gb, bar the patch is on the cart, big thumbs down for NBA 2k20 where they had a large game of nearly 40gb but the data on the card is only 4gb or there abouts. And its not about being too cheap to upgrade my sd card - currently have 2 512gb cards and they're now getting full! Roll on a sensibly priced 1tb card...

Resale is also a factor if I'm unsure a game is for me or not... occasionaly, even after extensive review surfing, a game just turns out to not be for me so If I'm unsure, I'll go the cartridge route to hedge my bets.

Finally, whilst I'm a constant sale watcher on the eshop, sometimes I'll see a deal on amazon / second hand that makes the physical a cheaper option...

I own a Switch (primarily as a portable), Xbox X (4K TV) and a gaming PC (ultra-wide monitor) plus assorted peripherals (steering wheels etc). Juggling which platform to buy a multi-platform game on has become something of a headache. Love the switch for portability (away from home) but some games simply aren't suited to the small screen (strategy games with mouse controls, lots of tiny text boxes, multiplayer games requiring constant, fast internet connection) - in that case its Xbox or PC. Other games like racing games often require the sheer spectacle / tactile feel / high frame rate that I better achieved with a console or PC..... but there's a whole bunch of games that sit in that gray area where you have to weigh up portability against performance and price. I've made a number of mistakes where I've regretted the platform I initially purchased on only to wish I'd gone the other way. Sometimes even the room I play in affects how I enjoy the game... some games require my full upright attention sat at a desk, others feel much better slouched in an armchair and others are great for a 15 minutes blast whilst travelling or sat in a coffee house.

Second patch now out and brings game to v1.3.0. Most notable changes are the blurry string textures on the nets etc have been fixed, less stutter in cut scenes. Actual game play stutters in handheld mode may also have been slightly improved?? (although as per my previous comment, I found this to be very variable between courts etc so might just be the courts I tried). The really annoying end of match infinite appluause sound loop is still there - makes watching match highlights unbearable to me as its like a drill going through my head and 30 seconds.

@Silly_G When Tennis World Tour launched badly a couple of years ago, a BigBen director gave an interview to a french games trade magazine. He said they knew it was nowhere near ready to launch and that lots of people were demanding refunds from eshops for false advertising (the whole online was delayed and removed days before release) but reassured them that the game would still be profitable because the physical discs were not sale or return! That summed up the company for me...

@eRaz0r the launch has been botched by Bigben (not the first time they've done this)... I was watching the game's UK release date before Xmas and not only did it look like a months gap between digital and physical (eshop vs Amazon), every other website / shop / region seemed different, ranging from 9 jan to end of february! I reached out to BigBen for clarification a couple of times and got zero response.

RE the player roster and lack of licensed players, its my understanding that licensing IP (players, venues etc) for video games in sports like tennis has become something of a minefield - every court, tournament, player etc has to be dealt with separately (c.f. something like fifa, where the costs are extreme but EA is primarily dealing with one major body that covers huge chunks of the football licencing business).. even if individual licence costs for low ranking players / courts is low, the legal costs of dealing with SO many different entities mounts up. Throw in the fact that even the world's best tennis game is unlikely to sell the same number of copies as a Fifa or Madden in the main markets, and companies have to cherry pick a few big names and venues / tournaments. I think AO's comprehensive creator system to pad out the roster is a good one.

As a fan of the original on Xbox, I picked this up on both PC and Switch. The switch port is definitely rougher in terms of frame rate and resolution but perfectly playable... HOWEVER, í do think there is a possible memory leak issue that may be exacerbated by specific courts (the court complexity varies a lot between different locations, particularly when user made courts are loaded up). I've played whole matches and mini tournaments with few if any stutters during game play handheld (cut scenes always stutter a little)... then the next tournament (with a different court) starts to stutter and gets worse as the match continues... at one point trying to save caused it to crash to the dashboard... reloading up the game and trying to delete the save caused the same problem, repeatedly. Finally, I rebooted the switch and the game loaded fine and was absolutely stutter free again for a while. This is all with the day one patch installed.

@RupeeClock I think the review in general lacks specifics, given that this is both free to Trove owners and a paid standalone game. I think the lack of online multiplayer should be explicitly stated rather than inferred for example - as a freebie it doesn't bother me too much but if I paid for it as a standalone multiplayer fighter, that's quite a big negative (for me).