All Activity
This stream auto-updates
- Past hour
-
Grain of salt and all that fun stuff (or maybe not, if you're a slug), but Vandal are touting some potential knowledge they have if the Switch successor (source article): All of this sounds a bit on the safe side to me? • potential accessory manufacturers being able to touch the console but not actually see it in some Fear Factor-type of way is weird as hell. But this is Nintendo, so fairly believable. • early 2025 release has been touted for a few months now, nothing new here and seems to be the expectation at this point. • bigger than the Switch but smaller than the Steam Deck makes perfect sense. Would expect screen size to increase but Steam Deck has some thick ol' bezels and is just generally a big boi. Fairly believable. • Joy-Cons being magnetic rather than having a rails system makes total sense, I think I'd love that so long as the magnets were protected enough they they didn't wear over the time. Funnily enough the lack of any detail when talking about the Joy-Cons relating to the drift issue makes me think this is real purely because I maintain that Nintendo ain't going to say or show anything being different when it comes to this before launch. Remains to be seen if that would actually mean not making any changes, mind you. • current Pro Controller being forward compatible makes complete sense, it ain't cheap and other than an actual D-Pad (which I'd expected on the new Pro Controller) I don't think there'll be any major differences to it. • Joy-Cons potentially not being forward compatible is interesting, would be a shame but makes sense with a magnetic system vs rails. Still think they could make some money here with Joy-Con jackets that have the same magnet system as the new Joy-Cons reportedly will. Overall...magnets, amirite?
- Today
-
Anyone else subscribe to and get an invite to alpha test this? Most games I would shy away from that for fear of ruining the end experience but with this I'm kinda excited to be part of it!
-
Mission: Impossible JP release: 14th July 1998 NA release: 27th October 1998 PAL release: 6th November 1998 Developer: Nintendo Publisher: Nintendo N64 Magazine Score: 91% Being a movie tie-in to an action spy film gives Mission Impossible a lot to live up to, as it was always going to be compared to GoldenEye. Like GoldenEye, Mission Impossible had origins on the SNES before being made for the Nintendo 64 instead, as well as offering objective-based gameplay, this time from a third person perspective. The first mission impossible takes a lot of goes to get used to how the game works, form movement and the camera (in the first level, it’s a very high camera, but you can change it to behind Ethan Hunt, who is not based on Tom Cruise). You have to find a certain guard, knock him out and use the face maker to use his image as a disguise – it feels a lot like an early Hitman game. After the “cold open” levels, you the need to rescue some fellow agents and recover a list form an embassy. The stating level is great, although very much trial and error, as you are undercover and have to lure people to the correct places. It’s a very strong start to the game. There is only one correct way to do things, but it creates the Hitman film really well for its age. Then the game suddenly becomes a strange corridor-based shooter as you blow up crates and jump over pits of acid. It feels completely at odds with the previous levels and just comes across as padding. Thankfully the following level is much more like the Embassy level, and I was even able to mess things up and fix them without failing the mission, which is a nice touch. If there were more levels like this in the game, it would be great, but unfortunately, this is the last proper mission in this style. There’s a few small touches of stuff like this throughout, but unfortunately no levels that feel like living areas. Instead, the rest of the game is some linear corridors, a lot of shooting (with really terrible aiming) and some platforming sections with floating platforms. The friendly AI that follows you is also terrible and makes Natalya look like AI by comparison. On one level, Candice claimed she was fine, before walking right to a guard looking at her, saying “he snuck up on me” and getting shot. While the rest of the levels aren’t great, there is a surprising amount of variety as missions feel quite different. There’s one where you use spray pain to block cameras, one in and then on top of a train (which look quite impressive for the N64), a sniper mission, the famous laser scene from the film and navigating a tunnel by jumping on trucks. There are a lot of frustrating aspects. Sometimes you’ll try punching a guard, but they’ll automatically arrest you – but that only happens on some levels and even then it doesn’t happen all the time. The game is also very picky about what you do, so you’ll often try something only to fail the mission. After a very strong start, Mission Impossible loses its footing, although even then it’s still mostly a decent game from that point onwards. Remake or remaster? With some refined gameplay mechanics, a remastered version could be a lot of fun. Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get Mission Impossible
- Yesterday
-
Hi-Fi Rush (Series X|S/PC 25th Jan 2023, PS5 19th March 2024)
Glen-i replied to Julius's topic in Other Consoles
If you're still on the fence, I just finished it recently. Here's my Diary write-up. -
Hi-Fi Rush is a character action rhythm game that released last year on the XBox Series consoles and PC. It also recently got released on the PS5. It's developed by Tango Gameworks, who are better known for "The Evil Within". A bit of a tone shift here, that's for sure. I played the PC version. Specifically, I played it in stereoscopic 3D, so I'm afraid you're not seeing any of my screenshots here. You'll just have to imagine how jaw-droppingly amazing it looks. The game follows Chai, an absolute loser, who has aspirations to be a "rockstar". Can he play guitar? That's not important, but he signs up for "Project Armstrong", a test program run by Vandelay Technologies that offers people cybernetic limb replacement for his disabled arm. The epitome of cool, people! However, instead of the rockstar he wants to be, he's designated to be a rubbish collector, so his cybernetic arm is designed to pick rubbish up with a built in magnetic rod. Also however, something goes wrong, and Chai's MP3 player gets implanted into his heart. For some reason, this now musical heart somehow makes everything around Chai move to the beat of whatever song is playing. It also gets him branded a defect by Vandelay Industries, so they go about covering up the bad PR this would result in by "recalling" him. That's code for killing him. Luckily, Chai's magnetic rubbish collecting rod uses said rubbish to give Chai a makeshift guitar to club all the robots that are out for his blood. Which will likely help him escape... hopefully. The plot is hilarious! All the characters are great, and the cutscenes are an utter joy of tongue-in-cheek humour. Even the dialogue you hear as you play through the game is great! The game knows it's a ridiculous concept, and plays it up for all it's worth. Chai is an utter doofus who never thinks about the consequences of his actions, which naturally gets him into all sorts of problems. The villains are great too. They're completely over-the top and serve as a constant source of entertainment. The game has the same basic structure of games like Devil May Cry or Bayonetta. Chai has a diverse moveset that is mostly unlocked through in-game currency, and encourages the player to experiment and find effective ways to fight enemies in a stylish way. Each encounter with enemies is graded based on how many points you get through attacking, how quickly you defeat the enemies, and how precise your timing is. That last bit is weird for a game like this, but that's because Hi-Fi Rush's key defining feature is that everything happens to the beat of what song is playing. The timing the game is referring to is how well you can execute attacks to the beat of a song. Even the results screen managed to make me laugh! 30%? My timing wasn't anywhere close to that, I can assure you! When I said that Chai's musical heart makes everything move to the beat, I meant everything. Chai attacks to the beat, and so do enemies, so if you have a good sense of rhythm, you will be able to dodge or block anything an enemy throws at you. You don't need to actually time your presses, but Chai does more damage if you do, and he always attacks on the beat anyway, so it's in your best interest to perform to the beat. This resulted in me doing way better here then in any other game in this genre. I'm pretty mediocre at these kind of games, mostly because I can't block well. Ask me to do something like Counter in Smash Bros, and you'll see a guy who will disappoint you at every turn. Hi-Fi Rush has a parry, but because everything happens to the beat, I didn't have to purely react to enemy behaviour, because I knew that I just had to block on the beat. So instead of the constant lame ranks on the easiest difficulty I got in Bayonetta games, I was getting consistent "A" and "S" ranks on Normal difficulty. Amazing what adding rhythm game features can do for me! The boss battles are a real highlight, they always manage to introduce an unexpected wrinkle that keeps you on your toes, and they only get more ridiculous as you progress. I was looking forward to every single one after the first boss. The game looks gorgeous. A striking cel-shaded style combined with impeccable animation (Even the environment and HUD move to the beat), and comic book style effects really stand out. And it looks even better in stereoscopic 3D! You'll have to take my word on that, because I can't show that aspect of it here. The music is obviously very important in a rhythm game, and Hi-Fi Rush delivers on that front too. A cool aspect is that the game offers a "Streamer Mode" which replaces licensed songs with songs that are less likely to get streamers in trouble. The game is actually full of loads of little accessibility features like that, but that tends to be a thing Microsoft are quite good at anyway. Back in December, I said Hi-Fi Rush was the fifth best new game of 2023. I was wrong. Now that I've finished it, I'd say it's actually the third best game. It's a really special game, and I urge everyone to try it. Anyway, I'll end this post with the weirdest reference I saw.
-
For Fun I was playing with some classic Karts tonight.
-
Thanks for the games. Here's a link to this week's stream... - - - - - N-Europe Get Together! 25/04/2024)
-
Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack: N64 & SEGA Mega Drive (& GBA!!)
Ashley replied to Julius's topic in Nintendo Gaming
In fairness I do have a copy of it, I just don't have an N64. Much like I have a few GameCube games here and the console itself is somewhere in my mom's shed. -
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door REMAKE (23rd May 2024)
Hero-of-Time replied to Julius's topic in Nintendo Gaming
English version is now up. -
I am only just finding this out, and I've played this game for multiple hours at a friend's house. I thought it was just a boost meter! No wonder I kept exploding so easily!
-
Player's Choice tonight at 8pm.
-
Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack: N64 & SEGA Mega Drive (& GBA!!)
Glen-i replied to Julius's topic in Nintendo Gaming
Unfortunately, EA own the rights to that, so I'll be absolutely floored if that gets on NSO. Shame too, I've always wanted to try it. -
I've got a few to work. 64DD games I'm already planning. Speaking of F-Zero... F-Zero X JP release: 14th July 1998 NA release: 27th October 1998 PAL release: 6th November 1998 Developer: Nintendo Publisher: Nintendo N64 Magazine Score: 91% I loved F-Zero GX on GameCube, but I’ve never played the N64 version before. It turns out I love this version, too, even though it feels a lot more brutal than I remember GX being. This is Nintendo’s take on the sci-fi racer genre, and it does a great job at it. F-Zero X features a whopping 30 racers at once (each with a unique ship) and – even with some obvious rubber banding – they all move like actual opponents, making mistakes and reacting to your presence. The game goes a great job at remaining smooth by adjusting the level of detail as the framerate is perfect throughout. The tracks twist and turn and it’s all incredibly fast. One key part of the game is the energy bar. On top of representing your health, it’s also your boost. There are places to recharge on the track (usually near the end of a lap) so a key part of the game is deciding how much you’re willing to risk in order to go faster. Blow up and you lose a life and have to start the race again. The tracks in F-Zero X start out quite gentle, but things take a sudden turn in the last track of the second cup (there are four cups in total, with 6 tracks each) and you’ll start getting thin portions of the track with no edges – fall off and you’re not placed back like other games, you lose a life and start again. Just surviving the tracks becomes the main challenge until you start learning them. Not every choice is made against the player, though. You have barge attacks and a spin attack at your disposal. Take someone else and they won’t score any points for that round. To make good use of this, the game even highlights you rival (the opponent with the highest score) so you can try to target specific opponents and pick them out of the crowd. On top of the leagues (which have four difficulties) and multiplayer, there’s a few extra modes. There’s an unlockable X cup that serves you up procedurally generated tracks and a “death race” mode where you race around a short track trying to take out every other racer (I personally would prefer if you could do this on other tracks as well). F-Zero X is a great game that is quite full of stuff to do. It’s still a ton of fun today. Remake or remaster? A remake of F-Zero GX with all the tracks and features of F-Zero X added in would be amazing – although it shouldn’t be based on this version of F-Zero X, but we’ll get into that when I play the Japanese-only expanded version of the game. Official ways to get the game. There is no way to buy a new copy of F-Zero X, the only official way to play is to rent it via the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pak. Re-releases 2004: iQue 2007: Wii Virtual Console 2016: Wii U Virtual Console 2022: Nintendo Switch Online (Subscription Only)
-
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door REMAKE (23rd May 2024)
Hero-of-Time replied to Julius's topic in Nintendo Gaming
Another Japanese overview trailer was dropped last night. I imagine the English version will be uploaded soon. - Last week
-
Worth noting that every Aleck 64 game has now been converted into standard N64 ROMs that can be played off a flash cart (and presumably emulators too). Same thing was done with the 64DD library too. You can now play them all on a flash cart without a 64DD needed (yes, even the games like F-Zero Expansion Kit that interfaces with a seperate cartridge).
-
Well, I was stupid/crazy enough to go for it. Took another 3 playthroughs of the game. It honestly wasn't that bad. Each time I finished it I got better/faster at completing it, until I eventually got my final run down to just over 8 hours. Nuts how fast you can get through it once you get a good handle on the SP system and which skills to utilise. The secret super boss in the game was pretty rough though. The fight is pretty cheap and very RNG based. Your level doesn't really matter and it's pretty much down to luck whether or not the boss will use killer moves or not. If all goes to plan, you can finish the fight in about 10 seconds but it it doesn't then you'll be dead in the same amount of time. I also tackled the super post game dungeon. I really had to grind to get through this. The max level in the game is not 100 but rather 255. I tried the dungeon at around the level 120 mark and just could not get through it and so I done some extreme XP farming. Was a cake walk once I tried it when I was level 180. Playing through the game multiple times let me see the characters stories play out in different ways. It was cool how certain blanks were filled in if you chose a different team. There was also a new ending and a secret anime cutscene that I unlocked by going to an optional dungeon with certain characters. Fantastic JRPG and one that I certainly got my monies worth from.
-
Well, that's our season over with. Ridiculous the drop in form we've had over the past few weeks. I swear, when we had all of those injuries, the youth team that Klopp fielded were better than what's been on the pitch lately.
-
Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack: N64 & SEGA Mega Drive (& GBA!!)
Ashley replied to Julius's topic in Nintendo Gaming
Where's Beetle Adventure Racing? 😠 -
First trailer for Jim Henson Idea Man: That song gets me every time
-
Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack: N64 & SEGA Mega Drive (& GBA!!)
Hero-of-Time replied to Julius's topic in Nintendo Gaming
Indeed. I think they gave it a score in the high 80s. EDIT: Yup. https://www.nintendomags.com/magazines/n64-magazine/issue9/ -
Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack: N64 & SEGA Mega Drive (& GBA!!)
Helmsly replied to Julius's topic in Nintendo Gaming
If i remember correctly, N64 magazine used to talk about Extreme-G quite a bit and seemed to really like it. I always wanted to try it out but never got a chance until today and it's pretty good and seems to hold up really well. -
Interesting, I had no idea about that arcade unit, I may test out how they emulate (looks like the ones that use odd controllers have a patched ROM to accept a regular controller) and sneak them somewhere into my playthrough, something interesting to look at.
-
Pikmin keyrings! https://www.n-europe.com/news/pikmin-4-rubber-cutout-keyring-added-to-my-nintendo-rewards/
-
Yeah, I've heard about it. I haven't heard of Nintendo actually banning anyone who has used a physical cart whose contents have been copied yet though... so maybe there's a way they can tell who's using it? Dunno.
-
So it seems there could potentially be issues with playing second-hand Switch games online now, if the information in this video is correct: Pretty messed up if true. Anyone heard about this before?
.png)
.png)
.png)
