S.C.G

Now up on the front page... It might not have been the Persona 5 we were asking for but it's the one we're getting damnit and we'll like it! (apparently) I still think the base version of Persona 5 will make it onto Switch though for what it's worth. Thanks to @MindFreak for the heads-up on this one, I've put a credit at the bottom of the article.

Still a decent game it seems but it's hampered with technical issues and stuff related to character development in cutscenes being at odd with what's going on in-game. It has frame-rate issues even on the PS4 Pro model but I suppose it's not too surprising going by the ambition of what the developer was aiming for with the hordes. I just can't justify picking it up, not for full price so I'll likely just pick up The Last of US Part II when that comes out seeing as I'm already invested in the story. Here's hoping that anyone still picking it up gets enough out of the game to make it worthwhile though.

Ah yes, I remember hearing about this some time ago but completely forgot about it. I just checked the info on it, it looks like they've got a decent cast together and that they are hopefully being faithful to the books this time which is encouraging to hear. Anything has got to be better than the intial film adaptation titled The Golden Compass which was released way back in 2007... I look forward to this new adaptation, let's hope that it can live up to the reputation of the original books.

Have you ever read the His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman? If not then I can recommend those three books, also... there's a new trilogy being written by him at the moment called The Book of Dust of which the first volume is out now. It might be a bit of a wait for the other two books though, as it has already been two decades between the original trilogy and his latest work. This reminds me... I still have The Book of Dust - Volume One - La Belle Sauvage to read... it's been here on top of a pile of books since the end of 2017... I'm going to actually read a book for a change, I can't believe that I was so excited for this book to come out years ago, I finally get it and then don't read it, that's just odd. Although I was ready for the book to come out nearly half my life-time ago, so expectations have changed since then but I'm lucky to have the book to read so here we go! In any case, that's what I would recommend as there is plenty of political intrigue contained within Phillip Pullman's work in additon to other aspects as well. I really don't read that many books and even when I do it's not often enough but he made me want to read so that I can only be a good thing.

On my way... Switch Dock disconnected my ethernet adapter and then I needed to update my Switch.

That's the one! I'm going to see if I can find it, I'm sure I've still got it stored away somewhere.

in

I need this version of Virtua Racing it easily surpasses the performance of both the Sega Megadrive and 32X versions that I currently own. They've really done a good job on this release, this is as close to the original arcade version as we'll probably ever get on a home console.

Phew... well a nominal amount of time later and I've managed to write up my thoughts about the GameCube... (or some of them anyway) I was lucky enough to experience the N64 relatively early on in its life-cycle, it was a family console purchased by my late grandparents on Boxing Day, it came with Goldeneye and I couldn't be any more excited at that time (or so I thought) as I'd read about the console, had played on one only very briefly before and I'd go on to buy such classic games within the same year as owning the machine which included The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Banjo-Kazooie and of course, Super Mario 64. That's pretty hard to top. When it came to the reveal of the GameCube years later, it was at a time where I was in the middle of going to college, the consoles I had bought inbetween would have been the Game Boy Advance which was amazing in its own right and the Sega Dreamcast just as it was sadly on the way out but this was the first time I'd had the chance to actually save up for a home console on my own in the hope that I could purchase it on launch day. That date was stuck in my mind... May 3rd 2002, ever since it was confirmed as I would have read about it during the N64-Europe Days (before Cube-Europe, Revo-Europe and N-Europe) and this was before I joined the forum as staff because I would mostly just passively read news, as for the reveal video though... I'm pretty sure I must have seen that first on a video tape which came with CUBE magazine. In any case, once I had seen the machine, I knew that I had to have it and I set about saving up the at least £250 which would have been required in order to purchase a GameCube, one extra controller, a memory card and two games which would end up being Wave Race: Blue Storm and Star Wars: Rogue Leader. But then, something unexpected happened as prior to the launch Nintendo actually slashed the RRP of the GameCube from £199.99 to a much more wallet-friendly £129.99! This only made me all the more determined, I can still remember having a cardcoard container with a window on it, plus a load of GC related images stuck onto it which I had gotten from leaflets obtained from Electronics Boutique/Game/Dixons which served as a place to save up all the physical cash required to purchase the console on launch day... I may well still have it somewhere, either that or the cardboard GC replica which I initially started using before I realised that wouldn't be able to hold the funds. Launch day finally arrived, I'd had my Nintendo GameCube console in Black pre-ordered at Game with the two games I'd planned to get plus the accessories ready to pick up, it was on a normal college day though so I had to wait until lunch break, at which point I promptly rushed down to the town centre, picked it up at the counter where it was all waiting for me in a big bag, paid for it in cash and then went back up to college where I was going to leave it in a safe place but instead I decided to empty my backpack out of stuff, put the GameCube in there instead and just put my other stuff in the Game bag for safe keeping; I then kept my bag very close to me during AVCE ICT class, only showing the console to one of my class mates who I trusted enough at the time as I really didn't want to risk getting mugged for my brand new console on the way home. Anyway I got home on that Friday afternoon, my brothers and I were excited to see this new Nintendo console in action, so with that a weekend of gaming commenced! I'll never forget setting up the console for the first time, seeing that start-up screen and then setting the time, date and aspect ratio in the menu before checking the empty memory card, putting the disc in and watching it all load up seamlessly. Of course the first game I had to try out was Wave Race: Blue Storm as I'd heard all about the realistic water effects, of course it didn't let me down, it did take me a while to get anywhere near good at the game but I still appreciated it plus it was fun playing it in multiplayer mode, also don't forget that this is only the early 2000's so I was still playing on my good old Minato 14" CRT TV (which still works) so it was a small screen size but it really didn't matter. Then later on it was time to play what everyone considered to be the main launch title, loading up Star Wars: Rogue Leader made by the supremely talanted Factor 5 who made the amazing Rogue Squadron on the N64 before it, was an unforgettable moment in gaming history. I'd never been that big on Star Wars but even I couldn't deny that getting to control an X-Wing on a mission where you could blow up the Death Star was something that was just too good to miss out on, so much was right about the game as well and I'd even go as far to say that it beats ANY other Star Wars game I've played to this day and of course I include any modern titles in that comparison as well which pale into insignificance for me personally. It shouldn't come as a surprise that anyone who owns a Switch these days would pay good money to own that HD trilogy of all the Rogue Squadron titles which never got released but really should as it would do as much for Nintendo's console now as the second title did for the GC back then but I digress. Over the years I got to experience not only some of the finest first-party Nintendo releases such as Pikmin, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Metroid Prime, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door and much more besides but it was also where I got to play Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes which was my first experience with the series plus the remake of Resident Evil... both of these titles in particular were of equal interest to my younger brother and myself. Indeed by that time we both had our own GameCube consoles thanks to the Mario Kart: Double Dash!! bundle which came with the Zelda: Collector's Edition disc, so when it came to those two disc games, we could both be playing the games at different points if say for instance I was on disc 2 of MGS and my brother wanted to start a file on disc 1, then I'd finish the game as quick as I could so that I'd be done with the game by the time it came to the disc-swapping part on his file. Indeed, we took this to the extreme when it came to the release of Resident Evil 4 as it almost became a race to see who could beat the game first, my brother was further along than me until one night I must have played for eight hours straight or more and I got to the save point right before the final boss before saving, leaving it there. He's always been a bigger Resident Evil fan than myself, so even though I really enjoyed Resi 4, I waited until he got to the same point so that he could finish the game and then I completed it soon after and it was a really fantastic shared experience. After that we would take turns playing the Mercenaries mode for hours on end in what are still some of my fondest gaming memories and on the subject of multiplayer titles, that's a whole other element to the GameCube as playing with both my brothers on TimeSplitters 2 in split-screen multiplayer brought back some of those great memories from playing Goldeneye on the N64, then there was Super Smash Bros. Melee which was endless amounts of fun plus the first time playing Soul Calibur II at my grandparents house, getting the game on release weekend and watching that intro on a very small TV was still really special at the time. The GC was easy to take with us as well because I found out that I could fit it all in a shoebox, so that's another plus for Nintendo's ingenious design. But out of all the games I ended up playing on the machine, the one I ended up playing the most was the game I had been obsessed with since picking up a Dreamcast barely a year or so before, that game of course was Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II which I will honestly never forget and still think of the good times had on what's easily my favourite online game in existence... even if the original servers are technically offline, it's still very much playable and I do still go back to it from time to time. Whether it was the arcade racing of Burnout 2: Point of Impact, the sheer adrenaline-fuelled madness that is Ikaruga or the epic quest of a life-time in Tales of Symphonia or even the equally legendary Skies of Arcadia: Legends... there are many games which really resonated with me when playing them on the Nintendo GameCube as the format offered so much for what was a relatively small price to pay. Of course I still had to save up for each game as I had yet to enter employment but, that just made me appreciate each title all the more and as the years would go by with my collection growing, I didn't feel the need to trade-in or sell many titles from my collection at all, which I why I have around eighty or more titles all of which have earned their place and are probably responsible for making me want to keep a decent collection of games in general from that point going forward. I have a lot to thank the GameCube for and I believe that I wouldn't be here writing this if it wasn't for Nintendo's wonderful, purple box of brilliance, so on behalf of the four boxed GC consoles, set of WaveBird controllers, DK Bongos, both GBA link cable titles, countless memory cards and even one lone import title in Cubivore; I will say Happy Birthday to the good old GameCube and wonder just what titles I might be playing (if at all) by the next time May 3rd comes around. Though I really hope that I'll get to spend many more hours with my GC collection yet and I hope that many others who appreciate the console as much as I do will as well, so spend some time with Nintendo's first disc-based console if and when you next get the chance because afterall... "Life's a Game" so why not play and enjoy it? - Sam C Gittins (N-Europe Reviewer/Staff Member) There's still about a week before May 3rd if anyone else wants to get their thoughts/contributions/memories down in this thread, also if you want to take pictures of your GameCube collections or anything GC related then please do, I'll do my best to make an article out of whatever I've got to work with.

Another day, another space-shooter-type-game comes to Switch. This time it's Hyperlight Ultimate which is an enhanced version of Hyperlight EX on the 3DS. I think this will do a lot better on the Switch hopefully and it looks like developer CatfishBlues Games is putting in the extra effort.

No game is worth people having to work unpaid overtime or working one hundred hour weeks until they get exhausted, stressed out and then fired because they dared to take a break. I think a game such as Fortnite is especially not worth it pesonally... Of course I can see that it's popular (although I fail to see why) but I think the only way that Epic will learn is if the game just suddenly fails and has to be taken offline. But that probably wouldn't change anything and then the overworked employees would almost certainly lose their jobs And even then. Epic won't learn though and will probably just move onto something else. There was a time when I thought it would be great to work in the games industry in some of the top development studios... ...these days though, I can see why Indie game development is so popular, at least there's probably some kind of work/life balance there. I know... it's not ALL of the big game companies and there are some great examples most likely where employees are treated with respect but they are few and far between it seems.

That feature is locked behind a "buy more software" paywall. Ah right, yeah I forgot that it doesn't show up unless you have a certain amount of games played or installed on the Switch.

Hmmm, I have version 8.0.0 installed, but have no grid on the right. On the main page? Scroll allll the way to the right and click on the "All Software" icon.

Yeah, that's my standing as well. Sonic Advance was a pretty good first attempt at a portable Sonic game on a Nintendo handheld. Sonic Advance 2 pretty much blew away all expectations and changed things up significantly. Sonic Advance 3 seemed to take a similar mechanic to Chaotix with the two character system and was pretty decent. Sonic Rush when it first came out felt like a modern day version of Sonic & Knuckles... in a way, with the two different playable characters. Sonic Rush Adventure expanded the formula, added in a lot of extra stuff but was generally pretty decent for its time. That's from how I'm remembering them anyway... in fact, I think I reviewed some of those titles, so I'll just have a look... Ha! yep... here's my enthusiastic and probably overzealous review of Sonic Rush plus the much more balanced review of Sonic Rush Adventure by @Cube (plus a second opinion from myself which reads like a hyperbolic micro-review, this was from the early days though so you can't fault the enthusiasm at least)

The Geek Critique has started covering the Sonic Advance series. I can remember playing these when they first came out, I'm pretty sure they got better with each entry mostly. Looking forward to seeing the video on Sonic Advance 2... I'm almost tempted to spend $1 on Patreon to see it now but I'll probably wait.

I was watching this video on recreated Super Smash Bros. stages and right near the start I saw the stage from the intro where you're fighting on the desk... ...weren't we fighting on that one on the Thursday the update launched? I was convinced that @RedShell or someone from here made it originally. Unless it was a stage which had been downloaded and saved, either way it's a cool stage and I can't wait to try out more and try my hand at making some.

Solid enough it seems, I'll pick it up at some point hopefully.

Zeroptian Invasion is coming to the Switch on 26/04/2019. And I've got to say, it looks more like my kind of space-based game. (pleasebegood!)

A pretty nice Top 10 video over on the Happy Console Gamer channel. I think that I much prefer having top 10's per console though, picking from all formats is way too stressful. But there are some good choices in this video I thought.

I couldn't agree more with Sega Lord X here. A really nicely put together video which Sega should really take notice of. They are headed in the right direction with the Sega Mega Drive mini and the Sega Ages titles on the Switch but there's so much more potential for the future.

Welcome to the forum Louise. I'm sure you'll be able to join the league, we're always happy to accept new members. @Glen-i will give you all the details, you'll need to send him a Private Message to let him know which team you want to be on. Hope this helps.

Agreed, at least to some degree anyway, there are some great. honest, good games you can get for good prices these days. I think it's great that we can get so much enjoyment out of certain titles which offer true value for money and investment of time. As for the games which shovel in loot boxes and microtransactions however, I have no time for those at all. The best £25 or so I spent recently though has to be on Dangerous Driving as it's worth it for the single player content alone.

Oh I agree, but I just meant that the whole situation within the AAA Games Industry has gotten way out of hand. I miss the days of buying a game and getting a game, with hours of gameplay and all of the extra content on the disc or cartridge. So much content is cut out of games these days or worse, not even thought of at the time and then sold to us later, it's beyond belief.

Another video about corporate greed and excess in the AAA Game Industry? Surely not... It is pretty obscene though.

Ha! That's another Konami title I happened to acquire recently but I hadn't gotten around to playing yet. I might have to play them both to see how they compare now.