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I would love to start this post by saying you can count me in for this evening... But, unfortunately, I'm unable to do it for the foreseeable future. 😔 I'm now a 3 month old, and quite happy, dad; at this stage I don't have a fixed schedule at home and the freetime is spent doing house shores. I've only been able to put an hour or so into the switch in the last few months very late in the evenings where my own batteries are almost done for the day. I hope that soon enough, when Mario Kart 9 or 10 is out, my baby girl 👶 will be able to join for a few races. 😊

Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble and Blaster Master: Enemy Below have both been added to the GB NSO Library:

I don't think there's anyone out there that truly enjoys their job. If anyone says they do - I don't trust them.

Job satisfaction and job security... There's anxiety one way or the other, I'd take security on account of the mortgage, but be on the look-out for something I enjoy.

Thanks for the games. Here's a link to this week's stream... - - - - - N-Europe Saturday Smash! (03/06/2023) - - - - -

Great games, some very funny moments over VC and it seems that Piranha Plant is the real Sora after all.

I thought we were going Mario theme with the courses and then Tokyo snuck in there. Good theme would have been great with a set kart like the some street racer kart. Anyway fun night of races here are the highlights, and one very lowlight lol And the lowlight of the night.

Who needs a trailer when you have this?

Right, next week will be a theme night, so I'm getting the graphic out there now. Theme Night: Thursday 8th June You know, off roading sucks. We're sticking to tarmac, and with tarmac comes a great opportunity to go really fast.

Star Trek: Generations Original Release: 1997 Developer: MicroProse Publisher: MicroProse Platform: PC This game is definitely intriguing. It very loosely follows the story of Star Trek Generations, with Soren trying to destroy stars in order to change the path of the mysterious energy ribbon called the Nexus. In this game, Soren needs to destroy multiple starts to get what he wants, and you need to stop him – you can even prevent him from destroying the Amargosa star. Most of the game is played in a first person view. The controls definitely feel very dated, but are one of the things that makes the game interesting. The directional buttons move forward/backwards and turns while the mouse aims the cursor. On the bottom of the screen, you control your inventory, scanning and map. The big square in the middle will show you objects you can interact with when you get close to them, which is a really nice touch. On the top of the screen, your phaser will aim at that part of the screen. It’s very different to the first person controls we’re used to now. In these levels you’ll shoot through enemies and solve puzzles. Sometimes, you’ll even beam down in disguise and can do a lot before you have to resort to shooting. The graphics are extremely charming and are surprisingly nice to look at. When you get hurt a lot, you’ll be beamed up and the mission will have failed – however, you can fail a few missions before you lose the game. Between missions, you’ll use Stellar Cartography to scan planets and stars in order to work out where you next have to go. You’ll also sometimes encounter enemy ships and use a pretty poor interface to fight them with. All the good parts are in the missions. The missions are quite interesting. One has you infiltrate a Romulan base as Troi, one involves Crusher investigating a living planet and fighting giant antibodies (it reminds me a bit of the Voyager episode “Macrocosm” and the Chodak from Future’s Past/Final Unity even pop up. Eventually, you’ll reach Veridian III. As Geordi is never captured in this game, things play out differently. Picard ends up in the Nexus (which is just a flashing blank screen as he asks Kirk for help), then Kirk delays Soren and falls off a bridge. Soren then beams to the Enterprise and initiates a warp core overload. After separating the saucer, Picard beams to the stardrive section and stops Soren from destroying the saucer (although he does enough damage that it has to crash land) before finding an escape pod with a sleeping Spot and watching the stardrive section blow up in a very impressive cutscene that looks like it’s actually using the studio models. Although that’s not the only ending – you can actually fully defeat Soren. He brings a large fleet with him to Veridian III, but if you manage to disable his ship, he’ll self-destruct. The Enterprise D warps off unscathed and Kirk will still be in the Nexus. Star Trek: Captain’s Chair Original Release: 1997 Developer: Imergy Publisher: Simon & Schuster Platform: PC Another interactive CD-ROM, this time focusing on the bridges of the original Enterprise, Enterprise D, Defiant, Voyager and Enterprise E (plus a hidden Klingon Bird of Prey bridge). Each bridge has a lot of locations to view from (in 360 degrees) and you can zoom into every single panel on the bridge. Some of them have buttons you can press, and even a couple of simple games. Sulu, Worf, Sisko, Janeway and Riker all give tours of the bridges, talking about each station. Janeway’s tour is the most fascinating, as it’s written from the perspective of before the ship launched, so the only other character mentioned is Harry Kim (none of the other people officially assigned to Voyager are part of the main cast). It’s also referred to “The Voyager” a lot, which sounds odd. Kotra Original Release: Seen on-screen in 1997 Developer: Abayomi, Dean Jones Publisher: Self-Published Original Platform: Board Game A Cardassian board game seen in the DS9 episode “Empok Nor”, a game about “about bold strategy and decisive action” according to Garak. I manged to find some rules on DeviantArt and have made a few changes to them myself. When you attack an opponent piece, you have to attack it with a piece that is the same or higher rank, or else you’ll use yours. The key thing, however, is that you can’t see what ranks any of the pieces are as they’re printed on the bottom of each piece. You can check yours whenever you want, and both pieces are revealed when an attack happens – so you’ll know what the winner is, but you’ll have to keep track of it yourself. The aim of the game is to attack your opponents capital piece. One clue regarding this is that the capital piece can’t move, so you’ll be keeping an eye for pieces your opponent doesn’t touch – but also be wary as there are also mine pieces that also can’t move and will take out both themselves and any piece attacking them (except for the Garresh, a low ranking piece that can defuse mines). While taking the opponent’s capital ends the game, the winner is the player who got the most pieces based on points earned during the game and the pieces you have captured. The capital is worth a lot of points, but if you aren’t careful you can still lose. Star Trek: Voyager: Retribution Original Release: N/A (In development 1997) Developer: Looking Glass Publisher: Viacom Original Platform: PC Not played: No leaked prototypes. This was an adventure game based on Star Trek Voyager and likely would have played similar to Seep Space Nine: Harbinger. The plot involved an away team being captured by the Kazon and over the three chapters, you would encounter two new races. It was supposed to feature the full cast of the show, but ended up getting cancelled. Lots of the sets were faithfully recreated in 3D for the game, likely with the intention to be used for screenshots and converted into the backdrops for the game (the models are far too detailed for computers). It looks like a lot of Voyager was completed, along with an alien ship and planet. The artist, Mark Lizotte, had access to the set blueprints and spent two days on the sets measuring and checking colours against samples to get them spot on. In response to the game being cancelled, a few of the developers (including the game’s writer, Ken Levine) left the company and formed Irrational Games, making System Shock 2 and BioShock. Star Trek Pinball Original Release: 1998 Developer: Sales Curve Publisher: Interplay Platform: PC A very basic pinball game. It features three tables (one exclusive to two players), which are designed to be like real life tables (though not based on actual ones) rather than taking advantage of being a video game. The tables are fairly generic and don’t really make much use of the Star Trek license other than imagery. The two main tables both have the same problem – they have a ramp or button directly above the centre of t Star Trek: The Next Generation: Klingon Honor Guard Original Release: 1998 Developer: MicroProse Publisher: MicroProse Platform: PC This game is an interesting bit of gaming history: the first game ever released using the Unreal engine, coming out before Unreal itself. It uses a beta version of the engine, so is quite buggy, and the gameplay often feels exactly like Unreal, as it’s a first person shooter that uses a lot of the same code – the movement, some level elements (such at mine carts attached to rails above them) and enemy AI are straight from Unreal. You play as a new recruit for the Klingon Honor Guard when your training gets interrupted because the Klingon High Council has been bombed, with Gowron injured. Kurn (Worf’s brother, played by Tony Todd) and a Dahar Master send you on a quest to work out who is behind it. Naturally, this involves killing lots of enemies, which mainly consist of Klingons and Andorian pirates. The graphics are good for the time, although most of the game is dark and full of browns, a lot of the levels merge together. A lot of levels are confusing mazes where you spend most of your time hunting for hard to see keys or buttons to progress. A few standout ones are set on space stations and ships. Because the structure is confined by the outside shape, the layouts make a lot more sense. The game has a lot of levels, and most of them end up merging together. When not aimlessly walking around, the game is a lot of fun. Stabbing foes with a bat’leth is enjoyable, with lots of colourful blood spraying around (there are no humans in the game so it avoids having red blood). Most of the other weapons are fairly boring, with the exception of a disc weapon which launces a bouncing disc that destroys entire rooms of enemies. You can also find some gadgets to use, such as a deployable camera (never found a use for it) and mag boots, which are vital for going on spacewalks in some levels. Klingon Honour Guard is fun in parts, but often frustrating. I feel like it goes on a bit too long, with the most enjoyable levels being close to each other in the middle of the game. It also doesn’t really capture the feel of the Star Trek universe. You see Klingons and Andorians, but they don’t really act like them. The main character also repeatedly shouts “I will cut you up like gach” at your foes, which I found odd because Klingons eat them alive, so there’s no cutting up. Star Trek: The Game Show Original Release: 1998 Developer: Sound Source Publisher: Sound Source Platform: PC A trivia game with some good production values, as it’s hosted by Q and Q. Q is played by John de Lancie with another Q as his sidekick (played by Karen Cornwell, this is her only acting role). All the questions and answers are read out, so there’s plenty of voice acting from the two, including plenty of quips. There’s even an annoying audience member that blurts out the answer if you run out of time. The quiz is split into four sections: Alpha Quadrant, Beta Quadrant, Gamma Quadrant and Delta Quadrant. The show covers TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager and the movies. In the Alpha Quadrant, the questions are about the characters in Star Trek. A wheel will spin and land on a division and you’ll be asked a question about someone from it. There’s plenty of variety and some interesting questions. In Beta Quadrant, the game reveals five clues one at a time and you need to type in the answer, either an alien race or a character’s name. The clues are quite well worded and there are some very obscure characters. Gamma Quadrant focuses on command problems and how situations in the shows were solved. There’s also some interactivity as you can forfeit a question and send it to another player. Getting a question wrong will get you negative points in this round, so you don’t want to just guess. The final round, Delta Quadrant, has five different styles, one chosen at random in each game, each loosely based on each of the shows (with the fifth representing the films). While most of the questions are interesting and delve into a lot of deep Trek references, I did find one mistake: a question asks what Scotty used to construct the tank for carrying whales. Plexiglass wasn’t an option – instead the game wanted transparent aluminium (which Scotty traded the formula in order to get the Plexiglass). Overall, this is a very entertaining trivia game.

Was watching the newest episode and right at the end this thread is discussed. We made it I guess!

This. As long as you answer to someone, it'll always be shitty, to a degree.

New Nintendo titles added to Nintendo Switch Online June 2023 Now up on the main page. - - - - - This marks the first worldwide release for Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble as it was never released in European gaming territories before. The tilt mechanism, was contained in a bespoke GBC cart, but now the same gameplay can be replicated on the Switch easily. For many, this will be the first time that they've had a chance to play this relatively obscure Kirby title.

Harvest Moon and Mystery Tower have been added to SNES and NES Online, respectively!

Nintendo eShop new releases (week 22) The twenty-second week of releases. A selection of new titles are now available on the Nintendo Switch eShop. Check the article for the full roundup. - - - - - Thanks to @Josh64 for the recently posted articles, which include... Dragon Quest Monsters in Development for Nintendo Switch Play NBA 2K23 For Free With NSO Nintendo Switch eShop Shuts Down in Russia Everybody 1-2-Switch! Launches Later This Month New Switch Joy-Con Colours Release This Month Zelda Tops UK Charts for 4th Week We Love Katamari REROLL+ Royal Reverie - Launch Trailer Things seem to be picking up again in the news department, with more news likely being that it's June, as E3 may be gone, but its spirit lives on.

No, it's actually quite tedious. Involves you chucking 4 things down a hole to make them land in the depths then you have to carry them to a statue.

Alright, I finally completed the main story. What an ending. Loved it.

Stock matches tonight at 8pm.

SGDQ is ongoing. Pokémon Colosseum race about to start once Metroid Prime Remastered is done. The Four Swords GBA run (first time at GDQ, that game) was fun, in that it is completely inaccurate to how the game is normally played. Trust me, if that comes to the NSO app, it won't be that cooperative.

I saw earlier Nintendo Japan tweeted about it and now Nintendo UK have.

Spider-man was fucking packed, holy shit. I've only seen the first trailer, so was unaware of most what was coming, I didn't even know who the villain would be. It takes it time to set up an actual story, unlike most super hero films. There's some actual good drama between all the action, and the facial expressions and voice acting are terrific. I'm in love with his mom haha. Then there's plenty of comedy, with a lot of it parodies of general comic and spider-man stuff. Sometimes it even feels like a satire.. They and get away with it.. Things get absurd at times, in a good way! It's also packed with fan-service, plenty of cameos. The visuals are fantastic. Every single screen is a colour explosion. Often there's so much happening you don't even know what to look at.. I think I've seen only a quarter of the film. The villain (of the week) is great. He starts of as a (funny) joke, but then becomes a proper threat. Their first fight is a great example of their quality animation too, where you don't know where t look (Portal fans will appreciate this scene). Then there are some cool twists at the end. My only gripe with the film is that it's a 2-parter, and it ends with a cliffhanger, another thing I was totally unaware of.. But if this is the warm-up, we're in for a treat with the finale. Hats off to the writers for combining the absurd with the serious in such an excellent way. This is the best Super Hero film of 2023.

Huh... It's actually coming out then? Didn't see that coming. EDIT: Apparently, you can use smart devices instead of Joy-Cons, going by the PR? Ninty, I like you and your weirdness, but you're stepping up to Jackbox Games here, and I don't think that's a fight you can win. DOUBLE EDIT AFTER JULIUS'S EDIT: Oh, so the article does mention Jackbox as the inspiration. That's brave.

Thanks for the games. Some great track choices this week. (you're welcome) Also worth mentioning, we had some communication errors near the end of the "first" GP... but we still for three full sets of races in. (Just skip forward once the stream gets to the 12 minute mark, about five or six minutes to get back to the races) Here's a link to this week's stream... - - - - - N-Europe Get Together! (01/06/2023)

Watched Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse yesterday. It was totally awesome. It had less superhero action than expected but had a way more heavy and interesting story than the first. Can really recommend it, even though it's very long. I need to re-watch the first, though, it's been a while.

Watch them ditch Smart Steering now... Congrats, dude. Hope your sleeping isn't too horrendous. Player's Choice tonight, because I spaced on it being the first week of the month. 8pm. Theme night next week.

I really hope The Switch Effect kicks this into high gear. It really deserves it. Either way, I've not played it since the first time I played it on the DS, so I'm defo donating to the "Ghost Trick needs sales" charity.

Quit yo jibber jabber. Build a simple flying device with a giant bright seed on it, then get back to me. You'll never go through the depths any other way after trying it.

So, uh, yeah, I guess it's Dragon Quest Day, so for the 25th anniversary of the series this video was put out – ending with the reveal that a new entry in the series is in development for the Nintendo Switch! That music is charming as all heck, as is what I've seen and heard about the Monsters games. Definitely going to be keeping an ear to the ground on this one!

I won't get it at launch, but it does look good. Remasters are better than remakes, aren't they? I hope to get it when it's half price - in the meantime I'm happy to offer any advice.

A mate bought the digital deluxe edition and I paid a bit for it since we game share (I only paid 30 bucks, 'cause I won't have access to all the extra shit - not complaining, though, as 30€ for a new game is not bad ). Looks like I'll be able to play the game early since I'm preloading already Sadly I'll be out of town for the entire weekend so I can only play a bit from 1am on Friday Still...can't wait to give it a proper go when I'm back next Monday Thoroughly enjoyed the beta and I need more.

Man, that thread takes me back. I remember the times were "leakers" would go around faking interviews about what to expect of the next Zelda. Rereading that one in particular, it's so obvious that "Aonuma" is acting so overly passionate about Zelda continuity! There's another fake interview that I remember making its way to the N-E main page, but it's not this one. It's one that had the exchange: Interviewer: "Wind Waker's opening cutscene was the best part of that whole game" Aonuma: "Yes, I thought so too" So brazen The levels that the OoT/WW rivalry reached EDIT: Wait, it really is this one! Haha!

It is a fantastic game. The animation is worth that price alone.

The key features from a fact sheet doing the rounds for the upcoming HD remaster. It'll be out on the 30th of June but £24.98 seems a bit steep, imo, so hopefully it'll get a good sale before too long. However, reading back through the enthusiasm in this thread makes it sound worth the asking price and then some.

OK, these are nice. These are the regional reversible covers, but you can grab them as "downloadable" posters.

Someone get @Grazza Etrian Odyssey's back!

I've been a bit burnt out with gaming this month. I finished 3 games early on in the month and then just couldn't bring myself to play anything else. I managed to snap out of that mood over the weekend and decided to carry on with my adventure on Dragon Quest III. It took a while to get into it again after taking a break for a couple of years. I didn't have a clue where I was at but I didn't want to start it again as I had already put in 10 hours. Anyway, the credits rolled this evening and the adventure of Adam, Ike, Grazza and Jonnas is finally over. I'll start off by saying that this is my least favourite Dragon Quest game that i've played. There was a certain charm and simplicity to the first two games but I think it's lost here. The game doesn't really give you that many clues as to where you need to go and as such I found myself having to consult walkthroughs a lot of the time. This wasn't great either due to the some of the name changes made to the different versions. I'm usually not a fan of JRPGs that allow you to customise your party with different jobs and that was still the case here. I kept reading about how you should switch classes in order to maximise your stats but I honestly couldn't be faffed with it all and instead done my own tried and tested method of grinding the hell out of the game. This meant that no job switching was needed and everyone just stayed the same class throughout the whole game. In classic JRPG fashion, the last castle was a nightmare to get through. You have to make your way through huge areas and tackle multiple bosses before you get to the final fight. Thankfully, this version of the game has a save anywhere function. However, that still didn't help me during the final battle as I had used too much MP on my way to the fight. I had to evac out of there, heal up and then make my way through the castle again, except this time I ran from all the battles and made regular saves in case things went pear shaped. I still found the game to decent, it just doesn't match the greatness of the other DQ games that i've played. I'm hoping that when the 2D-HD version arrives that there are some QoL features that helps players navigate the world without needing to look up where to go. Another DQ down and that just leaves me with DQVII and DQVIII to complete and then i've finished them all. I'm in no hurry to play them though, especially VII.

Every day you become more and more like Frasier

Games like Cuphead and Persona 5 do look like valid candidates for this, but I didn't spend enough time with these titles to fairly judge them. For example, King of Fighters XIII godly spritework looked super good at first, but its limitations became apparent after spending some time with that game. I'm also not a fan of the character design for that game, something I only fairly judged after getting over the technical prowess. All I'm saying is that, today, I'm picking what I know best. I have broken the Hard Mode rule for Wind Waker once, and I'll do it again: Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker Plenty of days I am undecided between two worthy entries, but in this case I would be lying to myself if I picked anything other than Wind Waker. The waves, the water, the foam, the greek-style explosions... It's all unbelievable, and so wonderful. Animations look great and so charming too, like Link's expressions, or that Tower of the Gods cutscene (still one of the greatest ever). The individual NPCs, the Rito and Koroks, the Men-fish, , the expressive enemies (you know Grazza loves those moblins, and it's easy to see why)... The fact that you can see islands in the distance, the free camera, the seamless special effects... I could be here listing good stuff about this game all night (ooh, do you remember the shading inside the Dragon Roost dungeon, with all the lava? That looked so oppressive, and atmospheric!) And it's no coincidence that I picked a Gamecube screenshot. This game still looks so good after 17 years, a testament to its value.

Well, I'll confess, this certainly wasn't on my bingo card. In case you missed the story on it published by Fanbyte last summer, which sheds some light on why the game is probably turning up and putting out so suddenly: More at the link and I think it's well worth a read, which is why I won't quote it all here, but yeah... ...what were they thinking? We are well and truly in the twilight of the Switch with this having somehow got through to see the light of day

Vanpool have shut down. Thanks to @markderoos for providing the link. Unlike Alphadream, this one is quite surprising, as they helped HAL with Kirby and the Forgotten Land, as well as Returns to Dream Land Deluxe. They also worked on Paper Mario: Origami King. Those games didn't exactly flop, so I'm baffled as to what happened. It really bums me out in particular though, because they made Dillon's Rolling Western, which means they single handedly gave us the best Nintendo character designs in the past decade. (Don't argue, it's true, I defy anyone to prove me wrong) I hope HAL or Nintendo absorb some of the staff, it'd be a shame to let them go to waste. And Dillon needs a Switch game still. Dead Heat Breakers was getting the series to hit it's stride. It can't end there.