Dufniall

Meanwhile the first two Ash-hat Pikachu are available. P1KACHUGET for original cap 1CH00SEY0U for the partner cap https://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-news/get-ashs-pikachu-wearing-ashs-caps-in-pokemon-sword-or-pokemon-shield/

I’ve been neglecting this thread for 2 months now so I guess it’s time for an update. In my defense, I haven’t finished that many games, although I’ve been playing my fair share of titles like A Short Hike, Kotodama, Super Mario 3D All Stars, Resident Evil 6 and replaying Starcraft II. For now just some titles I have finished in the last months. The Legend Of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds (Nintendo 3DS) I never got around to playing this during the 3DS days, which is weird because A Link To The Past is still one of my favourite Zelda titles and I’ve always been curious about this sequel. Since it is part of the Nintendo Selects series and therefore is cheap I decided to finally pick it up (with the less appealing cover…) and return to ALTTP Hyrule. I had some trouble with going back to 3DS graphics when I played Metroid: Samus Returns earlier this year. But ALBW was spot-on from the beginning. Lovely aesthetics and great use of 3D here. The whole item rental system is interesting at first, but I never was short on rupees so I ended up renting everything and only once lost a couple of items. After being able to buy stuff instead of renting I just gathered a couple of items after every dungeon. I did like the upgrades though, it’s fun to find out just how an upgrade affects an item. The new mechanism that was impressive though was the wall merging. Damn, it’s brilliant! Always being on the lookout for possible 2D paths never got old during the game, and with the draining magic meter I had some tense moments if I was going to make a certain walk yes or no. Very clever. It is interesting to play a new Zelda game while you already roughly know the map, as you kind of know where to go and what to expect. On the other hand it is fun to find the differences. Storywise I wasn’t that impressed, although the term Lorule is clever and the. I also didn’t find the game hard, I kind of breezed through it. Even the Battle Tower on hardest difficulty was very doable with plenty of upgraded items and some potions. Haven’t finished it 100% but I did do a little sweep after completion and I’m going to leave it at that. Glad to have played it! Castlevania Anniversary Collection: Super Castlevania IV (Nintendo Switch) I got the Castlevania Anniversary Collection recently in a sale mostly for two reasons: Kid Dracula and Super Castlevania IV. The first I never played, and the latter I have played a long time ago but never finished it. It was an interesting experience playing this, and I’m not sure if I loved it or hated it. First of all: save states were used quite a bit. The vibe is great and the soundtrack as well. But it suffers from the early Castlevania nuisances such as enemies like the Medusa heads flying in, the disability to change direction in a jump and the weird way stairs work. Still, I love the character and the settings, but I think after Kid Dracula I will look into the GBA games as I loved the DS trilogy. Just out of wonder, are there any good 3D Castlevania games? Is Lords of Shadows worth checking out? Jotun: Valhalla Edition (Nintendo Switch) After reading American Gods and Norse Mythology my interest in the Scandinavian mythology rekindled. Jotun was on sale so I picked it up on a whim. The artstyle appealed to me as well as the theme, but I didn’t really know what to expect gameplay-wise. The story revolves around the fallen warrior Thora, but she drowned which isn’t considered a worthy death so no Valhalla for her. You get a chance to redeem yourself though by slaying the Jotun (mythological giants). The gameplay is simple enough. You wield a hammer, and that gives you a quick swing or a heavy hit which costs some time to perform. For evasion you can do a dodge roll. Later on you will pick up some special skills like healing, increasing speed or attack or throwing a spear. You then battle your way through a number of locations from the Norse mythology, like the tree Yggdrasil. Each level (accessed through a hub) consists of 2 areas and a battle with the Jotun. The levels themself are quite empty, as in there are almost no enemies in them (with a few exceptions). It is mostly about exploration, solving puzzles and finding the rune to unlock the next area and the skill and health upgrades. The level ends with a Jotun though, a screen-filling giant that usually can take you out in a couple of hits. Suddenly the game changes from an exploration game to a bossfight game, and you need to learn patterns in order to tackle the behemoths. This is a strange transition, coming from bare levels to an intense fight. These fights can become quite frustrating and sometimes feel unfair, but after finding out the patterns and a little bit of luck they are doable. The game looks gorgeous though with its hand-drawn graphics, and it isn’t overstaying its welcome with about 5 hours of playtime. For me it was worth the couple of euros just for that and for the setting. But it’s a tricky one to fully recommend. Bomb Chicken (Nintendo Switch) *Usually I start with my "I finished the game" tweet but Bomb Chicken somehow doesn’t allow captures. Another indie title that was on my wishlist for a while now was Bomb Chicken, and since it was on sale recently I finally went ahead and got it (and also because @markderoos kept praising it :grin:). In this 2D puzzle platformer you take on the roll of a mutated chicken who lays bombs instead of eggs. The whole mechanism revolves around this. You can lay a bomb and kick it to the side, or you can lay multiple eggs as a stack in order to reach higher places. Just get off it before they explode. This leads to quite some clever puzzles and mechanics, all set in a charming 2D pixel world. The game does get pretty brutal later on though, and I cursed quite a bit during it. Later levels are chaotic, and there are also a couple of bosses which are tricky. One hit means KO which especially in the boss levels is pretty hardcore. It is a pretty short game, you can go through it in just a couple of hours. I would recommend it though, as despite the shortness and the frustrating bits, it is a great little and charming title. I can see a lot of potential in the mechanism, so I’m hoping we’ll see a Bomb Chicken 2 which refines it a bit.

Fun games, thanks for playing all! I can definitely see the appeal in it. It's easy to learn and there's not much skill needed to play it. I was surprised that there is stuff to do like the task minigames, which keeps it interesting when you are not arguing in the meetings. I can't see this being fun with random people though. Voice chat also feels like a must, as tone and hesitation and stuff like that is a big part of picking out potential impostors. I played it on mobile (spend the 2 euros for the no ads version), and it works surprisingly well. Touch controls are good, and great to see you can easily cross-play with PC. And shout-out to Discord, I was running the Discord voice chat on my phone as well and it worked perfect. I even had a little Discord bubble in the side of my screen while playing showing who was talking at the moment.

90% of 9gag is Among Us memes nowadays, so I might as well give it a go! You guys still playing tomorrow? What time (I'm in CEST myself)? I'm going in blind but I've played Mafia and Werewolves before so I think I should be able to manage.

I'm playing on Switch yeah, haven't really checked how the crossplay works! I think you can add friends based on account and you can then invite them into your lobby.

And another point I just thought of. This is of course a multi-platform title, so there are probably plenty of Xbox and PS players who never played (a game like) Breath of the Wild. So it will feel a lot more fresh for them anyway.

Yeah it's clearly Breath of the Wild inspired. But the icing on the cake is that the big black/purple knight looks exactly like a Phantom, not sure if that is intentional though! Still, looks like a joy to play and better a good rip-off than a bad original game. I probably won't play it at launch but the good thing about Ubisoft titles is you can just wait half a year and pick it up at half price.

I've played this a bit yesterday and it's pretty fun! Good to see a Battle Royale with some new ideas; magic instead of weapons. Runs solid and looks okay enough for a Battle Royale game. I've played about 4 games and I've won 2, so I was quite happy with that haha. The magic system is actually pretty fun to use. Basically you can have 2 gauntlets; the one on your right arm is fixed and you can choose which element it is before a match. Your left arm one you can pick up on the map from chests or people you've killed. There are a number of different elements: Fire, ice, earth, wind, lighting, poison; I think about 8 or so. Each element has 2 attacks, a rapid-fire and an area spell (like a firewall, or a whirlwind). The cool thing is that you can combine those. So for example say I cast a whirlwind and then shoot it with fire it's a fiery whirlwind. Not everything combines though. I can throw up a firewall but shooting it with ice nullifies it. Next to that you have a movement spell for the A button (short teleport, dash, jump, stuff like that). B is jumping and you can also hover a bit as well. For the rest it is your typical Battle Royale, with equipment to be picked up, health and armour potions, the works. Would be cool to get some squads going with this! For an impression, @Londragon made some Let's Play vids:

Apparently the embargo for reviews of the new NVIDIA series is September 14th, so I guess we'll be seeing a lot of news about them next week.

And don't forget Lady Link:

The bundle we've all been waiting for, I mean who needs a Super Mario 35 Switch when you can have this? BATTLE ANYTIME, ANYWHERE WITH THE NINTENDO SWITCH FORTNITE SPECIAL EDITION CONSOLE BUNDLE, HITTING EUROPE ON 30TH OCTOBER Limited bundle includes exclusive blue and yellow Joy-Con controllers, special console and Nintendo Switch dock designs, and more 10th September, 2020 – It’s time to board the Battle Bus and dive into a 100-player Battle Royale anytime, anywhere, with the Nintendo Switch Fortnite Special Edition bundle, launching in Europe on 30th October. This special bundle includes: Nintendo Switch console with a unique Fortnite design on the back Exclusive yellow Joy-Con (L) and blue Joy-Con (R) Nintendo Switch dock with a unique Fortnite design Fortnite pre-installed Wildcat Bundle download code, giving access to the Wildcat Outfit and two additional styles, a Sleek Strike Back Bling and two additional styles, and 2000 V-Bucks Since its launch on Nintendo Switch in June 2018, Fortnite has become the most downloaded game* ever launched on Nintendo hardware in Europe, with millions of players battling it out on the TV or in handheld mode every week. The Nintendo Switch Fortnite Special Edition bundle, with a unique Fortnite design and exclusive yellow and blue Joy-Con, hits Europe on 30th October.

COVID-19 has also pushed NMH3 back to 2021:

1. What games are people playing on their Switch at the moment Currently playing Bomb Chicken, Horizon Chase Turbo and I recently finished Super Castlevania IV in the Castlevania Collection. 2. What’s the next game release you’re looking forward to? 3D All Stars will be fun to play in between. I've still got The Wonderful 101 and Final Fantasy X and X-II remaster unplayed and I want to start these as well. But the one I'm looking forward to the most is Hyrule Warriors! 3. How many people are actually picking up Super Mario 3D All-Stars on day one? How many people? Probably a couple of million if those pre-order stats from Amazon are anything to go by. I'm one of them. 4. Which game are you looking forward to playing first? I'm looking forward to playing both Sunshine and Galaxy again, but I'll just start with 64.

Yeah the game looks good, I got the press kit so I uploaded all the screenshots from it on the main site as well: https://www.n-europe.com/games/hyrule-warriors-age-of-calamity/screenshots

I'm guessing they'll do a storyline with the 6 main characters, and put in a free-for-all or highscore mode where you can unlock some more silly ones. I'm really curious to see if they go for anything outside of BOTW, or just characters from that game. I never played the first one but I did enjoy Fire Emblem Warriors, so this is bound to be good.

This... looks pretty interesting! Story-driven, based on the BOTW engine and I think a lot closer to a real Zelda title than any other spin-off. I guess it'll miss the quirkiness from Hyrule Warriors but I'm excited. Probably means that BOTW2 isn't happening soon though.

I'm not sure when, but we will probably see reviews pop up quite soon. I usually use a Dutch website who posted the line up of the brands without pricing: https://tweakers.net/nieuws/171676/fabrikanten-kondigen-nvidia-geforce-rtx-3000-videokaarten-aan.html I think this English site usually is also quite up to date with news, might be worth checking that from time to time: https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3090-rtx-3080-and-rtx-3070-custom-model-pricing-in-uk

Basically what happens is Nvidia brings out the reference card, and says alright this is the new graphics card. Usually it is not the best performing/most quiet model. Other brands then get the PCB/chip and make their own versions. Some choose to put on quiet fans, others go for higher clock speed, or put out mini versions or water cooled versions of the card. I personally would never get the Nvidia reference model but go for a 3rd party one from for example Asus or MSI, as they are usually clocked faster and cooled better.

The more I think about this one the weirder I find it. I mean, it's Mario's anniversary, but why choose the Game & Watch as a form factor for this game? Why only throw in SMB and the Lost Levels, but not SMB2 or SMB3? Why not make a mini Game Boy with the Mario titles? Why make the juggle game black and white while the original Mario the Juggler was in colour? And what about other G&W games Mario starred in? Are they one of the 35 surprises? And the clock mixing 8 bit Mario with 16 bit Yoshi also feels wrong. So many questions.