Nicktendo

After playfully bashing it on the podcast, I stuck this on yesterday and thought it was great! It gives me a Super Off Road vibe for the top-down sections (never played micro machines), but it's very playable. I burst out laughing at the first opponent - the "California Dude". More of this please, Nintendo.

Too easy!!

Probably less buggy too

So I had another go at both levels again... And finished neither Sorry @Dcubed, that jump is just far too hard. I got fed up of starting over again and just gave up. @Sméagol, I got much further into your level. I like it a lot, but unfortunately, the punishment for death became too much in the end and I ended up just giving up again. I did do that bit @Glen-i posted first time though . Cool idea, but I was a much bigger fan of the Kebab Skewer level. Punishment was much less severe and I'm not much of a fan of vertical levels anyway.

2PM UK / 3PM CET.

@Hero-of-Time, I think there are still like-minded people out there who would find a place in this community and would want to put the effort in to take part in the discussion. I'm not even talking in the 10s of people, but single digits. @Julius is a prime example of a new member joining and breathing new life into some areas of the forum. Thanks for that, BTW. Your posts are always a pleasure to read. Even one person can make a big difference. Man @Dcubed, your post has put a lot of stuff in perspective for me. Gaming has changed so much, and much of it has passed me by without really noticing over the past 5-6 years. That kind of complete, tightly crafted game experience really is a dying breed, and there's so much online-integration that has really changed how games are made and played. Thinking about how many F2P games I've downloaded simply because they were "free", only to find them frustrating, a waste of time, or simply a time-sink where nothing is really achieved. Think I need to change my approach to gaming a little, and I certainly feel where @nekunando is coming from when he turns his Switch on and nothing really grabs his attention. I still love me long RPGs though, just wish there were more hours in the day and more tools to speed up the slow bits.

This is a great idea... @Hero-of-Time, it's your call. I'd love to do something like this is you're up for it.

Thanks for the honest feedback. All very valid points. We did consider doing a "best games we'd played in 2019" list, which maybe would have been better in hindsight. The problem for me was the fact that up until September I was working far too much and didn't have much time for gaming. When I did, I usually stuck on Rocket League as that's my go-to game to relax and kill time. The second problem is the inflated price of physical games where I am living. I only picked up Mario Maker 2 and Link's Awakening physical last year until I got home at Xmas and got a whole bunch of 2019 games. That's slightly less of a problem where I am now, but I'm still reluctant to pay full RRP (60 Euros) for physical games when I know that they are usually 15-25% cheaper in the UK. Unfortunately, the lack of competition and online stores means that's unlikely to change. Though delivery from the UK is much simpler and cheaper now. My backlog is intimidatingly large, which can also be a problem as I often don't know what to stick on. The case can be that I'll shuffle through a few games before finally settling on something. This year though, I want to finish 50 games and am on course to do so... it's just a case of sticking to it, while keeping some funds free to pick up new games (even if that means paying full price on the e-shop at launch or slightly over the odds for physical releases). Forums are already dead to be honest, the way I see it. Sure big ones like Reset survive, but that's because the big ones still have a place among some specific circles. I'm glad to be a part of this one and don't plan on leaving any time soon. The podcast (coupled with increased YT output) was intended to be a way of trying to bring new people into the fold, but that's a very slow process and growth takes a long time. It's also heavily dependent on quality and consistency, which is something we have to be aware of and keep working at, so any feedback, positive or negative is always welcome and we'll take it on board. I'm honestly surprised you didn't play Pass though. Definitely my sleeper hit of 2019. So good, in fact, that I had it on my GOTY list 7 times. Better than Fortnite, that's for sure.

Damn, posted in the OT. @Glen-i, a winner is you (from me)

I tried all of these levels and only managed to finish @Glen-i’s so he gets my vote I played another one of your levels @Sméagol, the one with the precision jumps and the boots. Absolutely loved it. Very challenging, but not impossible, kept me coming back for one more go. I might make a level next time... even though I haven’t made any on this game yet.

I’m sure Man City fan is terribly disappointed.

Two feet tall and seven feet wide Sacred Symbols is getting funnier by the week. There were so many hilarious moments on this episode, they have such a good chemistry together. It started off a bit shaky in the earlier episodes, but they've really found their stride now. The only podcast I listen to every week and I don't even own a Playstation.

After listening to this week's Sacred Symbols, it appears they don't. Looks like this Tencent investment and Wonderful 101 Kickstarter experiment is the beginning of them trying to go it alone (either self-publishing or not giving away IP to publishers). It'll be interesting if they attempt to buy back any of their IP. The "Platinum 4" has really got me wondering what's coming from them in the future.

Bit the bullet on Crash and Spyro trilogies. Would have preferred them physical but when I was back home in December I couldn’t find either of them for <£30. I was reluctant to pay that because the Xbox and PS4 versions were way cheaper. Anyway, both for £30 seems fair. I have fond memories of Spyro 1. Never really had much time with Crash. That’s me up to 120 games now. 20 rows of icons. I’ll be long dead before the backlog is complete. Edit: The camera is Spyro is offensively bad.

Correct! Thanks to @S.C.G for choosing the music this week! As far as I know, this is true. He was a big fan of it back in the day, and I'm guessing that's why Ninty published it in Europe and why it received a bit of a marketing push through official channels. This is true, I was interested in both Unravel 2 and A Way Out (don't own a next-gen console). I don't understand why they don't push these games and market them very well. It's almost as if they don't care. Unravel 2 has been fairly cheap on the e-shop, but I still haven't bothered picking it up. I'm not against EA Originals in principle. In fact, it would be good if they helped fund indie games. Something still feels lacklustre about it though, almost like they do it through gritted teeth. As I mentioned in the cast, AC on the GC was amazing. I loved every second of it. I had the US version imported (pretty sure it came out a year before the EU version). I'd been interested since seeing Animal Forest on the N64 and was gutted when that didn't make it out back then, so I snapped this up as soon as I could. Again, as I said, the DS and Wii versions didn't really do enough new for me (including removing some stuff I liked about the GC game), but they won me back over in a massive way with New Leaf. It's by far the best in the series and it's my most played 3DS game by a long way, spanning about 3-4 years of regular play. I love how much of a slow burn it is - to still be unlocking stuff after a couple of years and hundreds of hours is really appealing to me in this game. I like the fact that I can ignore it for a couple of months, come back for an event and pick up where I left off. There's no pressure to constantly play. My mum did I barely played the DS. I do have a soft-modded Wii though, but that is mainly for the SNES / GBA games I'd sold over the years and for running Wii / GC games off a HDD instead of a disk. Yeah, I've said enough about this now, but I find it baffling, and the point about upgrading / buying a new Switch is one that particularly sticks out. They were good times! Simpler times, for sure If I do end up getting the game down the line, I would give the online chat stuff a go... once. I'm not expecting much though. Well, I did try to make the clues obscure, but you have some nice ideas there - particularly about Super Robot Wars. One of the tunes I included does appear, pretty clearly, in the video, but I guess it's one of those things you had to have it as a child to really get the reference. Well IF a direct is announced next Tuesday, I'm sure we'll have a section dedicated to predictions, and with AC likely to heavily feature, I can give me two pennies on the "best" characters. Not sure that'll be a question for Greg though

*If your Switch is lost or stolen

Potentially having a 100+ hour save file lost and having items locked behind a paywall is concerning. The trailers have done little for me so far, though I’ll happily admit the game looks gorgeous. I’m not wasting my time with a game that doesn’t seem to respect it. If that doesn’t bother you, great.

Considering I’ve had all four mainline Animal Crossing games and consider it one of my favourite franchises, the fact Nintendo have done more to convince me not to buy this game than have to make me want it day one should say it all. The messaging has been a disaster. Sure, I may be in the 5%, the 1% or the 0.1%. I don’t care. They have put me off this game completely. Will it matter to them, no. So congratulations, I guess. Like I said, enjoy the game, and I’ll focus on the words I choose to describe something. If you don’t like it, by all means be sarcastic and arrogant.

You take every word only at its literal meaning. Cool.

Not enough to convince me. So (presumably) I won’t buy it. In-app purchasing is another misunderstanding. Cloud saves. Back-ups. Transferring data. Whether NSO is required for back-ups or transferring. Countless. Where did I say I expected a deep dive? Where has anyone said that? Using your loose “gamers” term to misprepresent the people of this forum is really just so classy. Magazines had previews, reviews and all that jazz. Now imagine people hadn’t been told whether they needed an Expansion Pak before Perfect Dark launched. We knew about it then because magazines told us way in advance. Enjoy the game.

Read again, Ronnie. I said I don’t want / need a 30-minute presentation. I said I wanted an explanation of a mess (which it is) caused by Nintendo’s bad messaging. I’m not losing sleep over it, I’m not buying this game because Nintendo have done nothing to convince me to part with my money. I think raising these points is valid, considering how much Nintendo are needlessly getting wrong with the Switch, a view many people on this forum share Sorry, but a gaming forum is just one place where people discuss expectations and hype. I said above I don’t care about the content of the game. Why join in and purposefully ignore points I’ve made if you have nothing to contribute other than essentially “shut up gamers”? Seems a weird position to take on a gaming forum 🤷🏼‍♂️

This is a completely disingenuous point. Magazines and websites existed in the 90s and 00s, you know. Information has always been out there, and it definitely wasn’t as tightly controlled as it is now by Nintendo. No one is asking to know everything in an E3 blowout years before the game releases, but preventing misunderstanding like the countless ones AC has had is something that all potential customers should be able to expect. Even a general direct which had a two minute explanation on how saving in AC works would have done it. A CLEAR statement on Nintendo’s website would even be better that what they’ve said so far, which, as always, is bugger all. This is particularly annoying when, so close to launch, official box art appears online which seems to suggest something and Nintendo has no official explanation to either confirm or deny either way. Made worse by the fact that this information is changing. A month from launch and we have more questions than answers. Now if that was about the game’s CONTENT, I wouldn’t see that as a problem at all, but this is not about content. It’s about what we’re actually going to be able to do with a piece of software that costs £50, and how much “ownership” and “control”, I guess, we’ll actually have over it. This also includes whether some features will be locked behind additional purchases. Don’t confuse content with technical features / specifications. I don’t care if we see more of the game itself, I do, however, want to know what arbitrary restrictions Nintendo is going to place on me.

Looks like the reference to "in-game purchases" has been removed? Link here There goes the final 10 minutes of our AC discussion on the podcast Still, yet another confusing message from Nintendo. A direct would have sorted all of this mess out, but Nintendo gonna Nintendo.