nicols

@Kienda Onrush was a good, fairly unique game but was poorly promoted and was a somewhat odd gameplay proposition... it looked like a cross country racer but didn't play like one i.e. getting to the front of the pack was actually the worst place to be in some game modes... it was more sort of a team vehicular combat / capture the flag / competitive dodgems game. Once you got over that strange dissonance, I found it to be really fun.

It did pretty badly sales wise and turned up very early in sales and on the xbox game pass (i.e. a couple of months after launch) when every other game on there was either an MS exclusive, a small indie game or simply very old.

Well Nintendo Life... I hope your happy with yourself! By being so harsh in the review and giving it a 4/10, you've made an 8 year old millionaire social media star cry.....

@nintendolie In recent years, publishers have avoided big releases in December and used the Sept to Nov window to push their big AAA xmas blockbusters... the theory being that its close enough to xmas to be considered fresh in the minds of consumers for purchase as presents and a game released in Dec has a shorter window for xmas sales plus is up against all the other releases in that block. Plus there's this weird 'black friday sales' effect that's shifted a lot of consumer spending to the last week in November in recent years across the West.

Last year, the big December console releases were Super Smash Bros and... Just Cause 4. One of those games did well... the other was given away free on xbox Game pass a few months later . As another mentioned above, Nintendo may have been planning Animal Crossing (a game that they think will be a big seller anyway with a long sales life and could make good use of that quiet pre Xmas window for publicity / online buzz) to be a Dec release like Smash Bros but it got delayed... I assume they think the mid November release of Pokemon will fill that gap.

I picked this up on Xbox on deep sale and post the various patches and content updates. It was a bit of fun if you wanted some l4d style action on a modern console but never rose much above average (but was better than that early 3/10 review suggests). I was also disappointed at the lack of 4K support as it launched at a time that Xbox x enhancements were becoming ubiquitous on new titles.

World War Z came out later and was a far better take on the L4D sub genre, if somewhat TOO close to L4D in terms of themes and style.

@YANDMAN Not saying I like the fact that Hamster are porting a lot of vs cabinets, just rationalising WHY they are doing it, and yeah, whatever the merits of DK and Mario Bros as games by todays standards (or even compared to the best arcade cabinets at the time), it does make perfect business sense to release those on a Nintendo Platform.

My personal interest in these Arcade Archives series is mainly limited to games I actually played in the arcades (or experienced via home ports) - so mainly 1978-1985 or so. So far, a few favourites have trickled through (Bombjack, Elevator Action, Moon Cresta, Terra Cresta, Pooyan) but looking at their list of licencees so far, they have ported some early Taito and Konami games but the games that really push my nostalgia itch are either off doing their own thing (Namco, Sega) or currently absent from the retro release scene altogether (Williams, Universal, mid-80s Atari Games).

Remember it not just the fact that big name arcade IP is expensive, its also whether they are already tied up in deals with other companies or in some cases the rights can be disputed or difficult to track down as the vast majority of these companies have been bought out, sold on or folded

Earlier in the week I'd decided not to, at least not now, due to time commitments more than anything. I then gave in yesterday and pre-loaded

Glad I did - its actually a very slick and engaging. I'm only four hours in but so far its really grabbed me - more so than any game in the last 6 months or so... and I'm not a big fan of these sorts of Japanese combat adventure games.

Problem is those time commitments are still pressing

@YANDMAN I think we have to assume Hamster buys these licences in job lots. For the deal they cut with Nintendo for their arcade games, they've done quite well out of the handful of 'big name' games they've release (e.g. Donkey Kong, Punch Out and VS. Super Mario Bros).. but technically they've still paid for all the others on the list. Also, once they have the basics of the emulation for a certain cabinet / system in place, its trivial to create other apps based around it... now they have a load of vs titles that hey can release with minimal cost and effort to milk the licence.

Personally, I've found Hamster release a fairly big name or classic game that I have some nostalgic attachment to once every month or so and fill the weeks in between with the also ran titles they have collecting dust on the shelf.

I did stumble across a post on Reddit from a guy who works in a French game store that listed the general releases for September to November and Overwatch was on the list for Switch in October I think (now can't find the post so it may have been taken down).

So... whilst I totally agree that Legacy Editions are pretty crappy, annual sports updates don't always significantly improve the gameplay etc and EA is not the best company out there (lootboxes etc)..... BUT....

There may well be a degree of contractual obligation involved in this edition i.e. even though EA have decided sales of FIFA on switch don't warrant a full rewrite of the game engine, they HAVE to support all modern platforms with active user base as part of the FIFA licence (i.e. the brand needs to be out there with the correct players and kit etc) every year. It's still scummy but would explain why they are even bothering with this... it also stops competitors swooping in and saying to FIFA 'hey, give us the licence for Switch if EA refuse to use it on that platform'.

@Sinton I think as an Arcade Cabinet it was rather than the core gameplay - it pushed the tech envelope and although it was expensive for the operator, it was one of those centre pieces that attracted crowds and brought people in to have a look and give it a try - it was I believe reasonably profitable... it was certainly pushed as a big deal in the UK game mags when Elite announced they were porting it to the home computers - it had name recognition even amongst people that hadn't really played it in the arcades.

@GrailUK I actually prefer Hang On and Enduro racer which used similar boards and tech to Space Harrier (including the motion effect / control the bike by leaning)...

Enduro Racer had some good home ports too (the Speccy one in particuar).

@GrailUK I remember the spectacle of games like this as they transitioned from single screens with black backgrounds to full colour, scrolling, 3D and unbelievable animation in Dragon's Lair etc... I would only visit the arcades a couple of times a year but each visit was like the technology had jumped forward years... nostalgia drives me to buy all these remakes of arcade games I'd played (or at least played ports of on the Speccy then C64).... yet its the ones based on actual well thought out game design that stand the test of time... Ms Pac-man, Galaga, Bomb Jack, Mr Do (OH FOR A SWITCH PORT of MR DO)... whereas I've bought 4 or 5 versions of Dragon's Lair over the years and the initial thrill as I see the intro and hear the music is swiftly followed by "oh wait, now I remember... its actually a crap game"

@shgamer I remember ZZapp magazine doing interviews at ELITE regarding their upcoming arcade ports for the c64. Chris Butler did the port and had just done a fantastic job on Ghost and Golbins. They asked him how it could be done on the 64 and he said he was 'quietly confident'. When it came out it had good sound, a great loading screen... and the actual game was a big sprite, some chunky character graphics in poor 3D and no moving floor effect. It was a bit pants.

@Sinton It had unbelievable, fast sprite scaling and a deluxe sit down tilting cabinet with an analogue flight stick controller.... it came out the same year as games like Commando by Capcom were demonstrating more detailed scrolling 2D gfx and suddenly SEGA promised detailed solid colourful 3D characters (albeit through sprite scaling rather than polygons) with big boss sprites and the illusion of 3D motion through the 3D checker board ground effect... but for all the spectacle, it is a fairly basic on rails shooter. Its place in arcade history is deserved (albeit Sega's biker racer Hang-On came out 6 months before it with similar tech and tilting bike gimmick) but take away the nostalgia and it's a fairly shallow game by today's standards imho.

@BlackenedHalo Didn't you know, Nintendo Life's fall back cliche when writing about devs that perform platform specific optimisations and graphical compromises to boost frame rate or playability is 'witchcraft'. Sometimes they use a thesaurus and replace it with 'sorcery', 'magic' or 'the dark arts'

@Silly_G Oh, I'm all for motion controls in many games, as long as they make sense - thinking about it, maybe giving the option to use motion controls to pan around the ball to check the angles might be a nice touch for example?

Annual updates - yeah, I can understand your scepticism. Most triple AAA sports games struggle with the annual update so a game like this (developed by a small team) would be a real stretch. Of course, sometimes its tied into the licence that they release a new version every year, for branding and marketing purposes. The ideal compromise would be a roster update as dlc with a new version every couple of years but I'm guessing that not popular with the accountants

@Silly_G I can see why you might feel that way but I love these sorts of games on consoles... whilst they can never replicate the physicality of holding a cue, the aiming judging angles / rebounds captures the spirit of the game quite well - makes it feel a bit like a physics based puzzle game and I find that a relaxing way to play. Not sure motion controls would add much to the aiming, I guess you could replicate the cue action via the too joycons but I suspect it wouldn't be that accurate

@KIRO delayed to sometime next year I'm afraid

@Tandoori I really wish they'd brought Mitchel and Webb in for the commentary... but then every other sports game I play gets an imaginary Alan Patridge commentary

@nicols Interesting obscure fact - a lot of its popularity in the 1970s was due to Sir David Attenborough, now famous for his nature documentaries. At the time, he was working at the BBC's new colour TV channel and commissioned a snooker show because he thought the coloured balls would show the advantage of colour over black and white coverage of sports... and he was right as the show was one of the most popular on BBC 2 in the early years.

@FiveDigitLP Its a different game to those two but yeah, similar - originated from British soldiers in India about 150 years ago. It was very popular in UK in the 70s and 80s (lots of tv coverage and prize money in international tournaments), fell out of favour a bit for a while but now very popular in China so there's a surge in popularity around the world. The phrase 'to snooker someone' comes from the game and means to put them in a difficult position that's hard to get out of' - safety play (leaving the ball in a position where its difficult for your opponent to play a non-foul ball) is a big part of the game.

@PBandSmelly Hmmm tricky one... I mean they're not really in the big leagues but Big Ben interactive churn out solid, unpatched crap fests on a regular basis. Then again, their last few racers have been passable on switch so maybe they've lost that magic touch... so I'll stick with the B's and go for Bethesda - they've been farming out their ports to a highly competent studio which sort of drags them up a bit but they still manage to 'accidentally' slip in unnecessary logins to Bethesda Net and slightly slowed down music into 25 year old pc game ports... plus I still rate them for the whole 'Fallout 76 nylon bag fiasco' from last year that was hilarious to watch...

I've got a Homespot BT adaptor for switch (which has APTX LL support (qualcomm's low latency BT codec for gaming etc) and LEDs that show what codec the dongle is currently using) and a selection of headphones / devices with and without APTX LL support. The lag I experience is very device dependent. The two cheap APTX-LL earbuds / headphones are effectively lag free to me, comparable to a wired pair of buds even in high frame rate games like Cuphead where the sound is tightly connected to the on screen action / button presses - they quote a sub-40ms delay for APTX LL but in reality most people won't notice any lag sub-100ms. Typical BT audio devices using the SBC codec sit around 170-200ms but vary a lot - my airpods connect in standard BT mode and whilst there is a slight delay, its bearable. I also connected a Sony BT speaker and it was terrible with the sound on videos completely out of sync.

@Old_Man_Nintendo the scene (from arriving at the funfair to the start of the credits) is approximately 18 minutes long out of a 124 film...

but you are right, a tie in shooter game to a film series with a significant degree of zombie deaths by shooting is crazy... a tetris clone would be a far better fit for the genre

@Old_Man_Nintendo Actually, All of the main characters shoot zombies in the final act... according to a body count breakdown of the final act at Funland (shootings only)..

Witchita shoots 10
Little Rock shoots 2
Columbus shoots 3
Tallahasse shoots 17 on screen, and 66 can be seen piled up outside his booth once he runs out of ammo (so possibly some overlap with his on screen shootings)

Zombie kills by shooting in other Scenes = 4

Zombie body count by shooting approx 102 (see caveat above)

Total body Count (Zombies plus humans) for the film is approx 155... so even taking out the 66 shot off screen, a lot of the deaths are shooting related

As to whether the GAME should focus on shootings... it probably should have other methods of killing zombies but gun play should be a significant part.

@Old_Man_Nintendo if you include the final act set in the fun fair, quite a lot.

@SwitchForce Whilst I agree, in fairness its (1) a huge (22GB) budget game meaning even the bulk of the game being on cartridge was unlikely to be viable price wise and (2) this code in a box scam was flagged up months ago on multiple sites including this one. Its simply a wasteful way of shops like Game and Argos stocking the game despite the fact its really digital only.

@electrolite77 I keep saying 'magic' because that's the cliche that reviewers and forum users use (or variants thereof - the above review refers to them as 'witchcraft practitioners') - as if they have access to some special coding skills or optimisation techniques that are not available to other devs. The switch should be able to perform at about the level of a well optimised 360 gen game, gfx wise... and I think the ports mentioned are comparable to that era of game.

However, I think we are more or less agreeing here - they do good, optimised ports (playable but compromised) and are good at assessing what games will port well (based on the level of on screen action, the engine the game is written in etc) but now people think they (PB) can port ANY current gen to the switch with a similar level of success, gfx wise.

@electrolite77 I guess what I'm trying to say is that Panic Button are being elevated to some special level of coding expertise on the switch for doing a decent (not magical) level of optimisation because they are being compared to other ports that have clearly NOT been optimised properly.. that's a low bar to set for comparison purposes.

@electrolite77 RE Doom etc, yes, all good, playable ports... but 3 of the 4 still suffer from significant frame rate drops into the low 20s in areas where Panic button can't control the emergent gameplay / effects. Rocket League keeps an impressive framerate but the docked mode drops to sub 720p frequently - not magic, just a sensible comprimise for a fast paced sports game. Their continued support post release is good but again, a lot of devs do that.

RE the poor ports you mentioned, that says more about how poorly optimised those versions were, than any special expertise or coding tricks that Panic Button has - there are other devs that have put comparative levels of effort into current gen ports with similar levels of success e.g. Team Sonic Racing is a good recent example

Fair score - I'd rate it slightly higher but that's a taste thing - It actually reminds me a little of the Division 2 crossed with Wolfenstein and I actually like it quite a bit (around 10 hours in on switch version, taking my time with side missions etc).

However, I do feel this worship of Panic Button is getting a bit old. Yes, they are good at optimising ports for the Switch but there's no witchcraft involved... there's lots of res scaling to quite blurry levels, 30 fps cap with quite a few drops into the low 20's, fewer particle effects, pop in etc etc etc... they've done a good job but it is definitely compromised compare to other versions - no magic involved. Plus there are quite a few complaints about the Doom 3 port over on reddit, also by Bethesda / Panic Button and released at nearly the same time...

@Ludovsky Yep, the new chip was probably pushed by Nvida as much as Nintendo... the old chip was effectively a legacy product at this point with one (albeit large and successful) customer in Nintendo. Nvidia get to close down a 5 year old chip fab line in favour of new chip fabs using more efficient manufacturing process, plus both Nvidia and Nintendo wanted to close the security loop holes embedded into the old chip. The fringe benefit of better thermals due to lower voltages / better battery life is sort of a bonus for Nintendo's 'silent' update. Only real downside is its another model that devs will have to test their games on in case there are chip-set specific bugs but thats hardly a huge issue really.

So... is that trailer actually Switch footage? Did Nintendo Life actually reach out to BigBen for switch specific footage / info and make a point that the video is at least not confirmed as Switch footage? Or did they just cut and paste a general press release for a quick click bait article. Maybe in a week or so they can do another click bait article on how terrible it is some sites just cut and paste press releases without pointing out its not Switch specific footage thus encouraging publishers to continue this misleading practice...

@Zuljaras See, this is the one thing I'm not seeing so far... input lag / frame rate issues, long transitions between certain rooms etc yep, but 15 hours in and no crashes so far, not even looking in bookcases (which some say is a trigger for a crash). I wonder if there's a pattern e.g. cartridge vs download, Internal memory vs sd card etc etc

I found the Switch analysis on this one by DF a little.. lacking. He estimates the inpout lag but didn't say if it was measured or guess work and many of stated that the biggest problems show up later in the game (but are vague as to when it really gets bad) and DF didn't get that far in on the Switch (because getting that far in is time consuming to do that on all consoles - which I agree) - but they are the one of the few with the special hacked Switch that allows them to do these direct videos off the handheld version that could have really highlighted the issues.

I've not got that far in game yet, just to the clockwork tower - this is the first area I felt the input / controls were actually hampering my progress a little as opposed me dying / misjudging jumps due to my own fault and have enjoyed it so far but feel like these game breaking frame rate drops are looming over me, waiting to appear and halt my progress at any moment... adds to the dark foreboding atmosphere I guess

@cheesedude re removing cut scenes, they wanted a tv style presentation and used them to hide loading times but the stutter actually DRAWS attention to the loading so I agree, the'd be better off with static shots or a slideshow

@JayJ Its developed by Big Ant in Australia.. you can switch between english and australian themes in the settings

@cheesedude yes, you can see the loading icon in the corner as the engine tries to do a tv style pan of the grounds but turns into a stuttering slideshow. In other cut scenes where the icon is absent, its reasonably smooth with similar levels of detail in the scene.

@Yosher No, I accept it was a very important game - I initially struggled to see this but someone pointed out that the over shoulder viewpoint and some of the mechanics like shooting specific body parts altering the AI's actions were, if not totally original, certainly rare and had never been combined in this way before but were heavily used in many games soon after (and I have fonder memories of those games than this, the one the preceded them, but that's not to take away the ideas and creativity of the original design) - I guess its to the games credit that those aspects are still recognisable as a modern style 3rd person shooter / adventure today.

I think my nostalgia argument comes from the fact that there were aspects of RE4 that were already 'RE' tropes (e.g. picking up 'herbs' (pot plants) for health, the inventory system, the B movie dialogue and voice acting) that I didn't like back then and like even less now, yet those same aspects are often cited by fans as all part and parcel of what makes a game a RE game. As you say, not every game is for everyone.

@sandman89 I've enjoyed Sniper eleite and was surprised how well it worked as a portable game... perhaps not a classic game but a decent effort by rebellion

@Yosher I've never been a huge RE fan but I did play RE4 on the wii - it was good but not the greatest game I had ever played at the time. As such, I don't have the same nolstalgia that fans of the series do - I can see it has its place in history but when I see the switch footage and reviews, all I see is an expensive, half baked / average port of an important but old game that hasn't aged well in terms of textures, controls or storyline.. later games copied aspects of it and improved on the formula / technology. Without the nostalgia, I find it difficult to reconcile the actual port at its current price point with the high ratings it's received on switch.

Hmmm.. Broken Sword 5 has been out on Switch for ages in both digital and physical... I guess there was a delay on the release for US and other markets?

So, I'm curious about the ACTUAL physical sales numbers in the chart*... there are a lot of older, pre-Christmas games in that list including relatively ancient games like GTA V at number 11. So, despite the fact that GTA has already sold millions, the consumer preference moving to digital and widespread availability of S/H copies etc etc, is GTA V still shifting 1000s of new discs every week? Or, as a I suspect, did it shift a few 100, which wouldn't bode well for the newer releases below it like Yoshi..

*Usual caveats about comparing / extrapolating physical vs digital sales figures etc etc.

I find it a little surprising that this review doesn't touch upon the lack of analogue triggers issue (which many comments above)... even if the game's alternatives are sufficient (e.g. right stick accelerator, feathering the digital shoulder buttons etc), I would have thought it should have at least been mentioned? I tried the beta and found it played OK in portable mode but then tried the xbox beta and found the subtlety of the controls there were more noticeable in the game play than the graphics (although the 60fps definitely helped as well).

@dystome when you start, you are paired up with a different player - as you get tetris's, you start pushing their blocks upwards closer to disaster. As they die you target someone else and as the game progresses and the players thin out, you can end up being targeted by multiple players (you have some control over who you are targeting buy flicking the stick)its why you get to see all 99 players boards simultaneously - you can start strategically targeting players close to death to knock them out of the game.

Now up for preorder on Argos UK website so must be due soon (Q2 2019)

@Agramonte That's slightly different though - its a conversion of a popular existing mobile port by Feral Interactive so its already optimised for handheld, lower power consoles / tablets - whereas DIRT 2.0's in house development is targeting high end consoles / PCs. On the plus side, Feral did do a great job of it apparently on phones so it bodes well for the Switch version.

If you compare MESX2 to other consoles it is just an average to above average racer in a sea of racing games... but on Switch its an above average port of an above average racer when there is a real lack of decent (realistic) racers available for handheld players.

@Beatley82 not necessarily - maybe a difference between downloaded to sd card vs cartridge or perhaps 'minutes' refers to the cumulative minutes (loading game, loading a track, cut scenes etc etc) over the course of a play session. The load times are there but didn't feel THAT bad compared to other similar big games

@Agramonte whilst I have no doubts DR 2 will be a great game... its not been announced for switch?

@gcunit the images look legit, albeit docked the HUD is sharp and the in game is probably around 900p-720p docked, less than 720p when handheld so theres a definite resolution hit... but it looks fine at speed