WackerJr

I expect that have, but I do hope Nintendo have kept plenty of secrets about the game for people to discover at launch. The number of tracks is the biggest thing for me, as I hope they have more, including those classic tracks. That’s likely to be a hangover from the incredible volume of tracks in MK8. Missions returning is brilliant, as I loved this in the DS game, so hoping there are plenty of these to expand the single player experience. Smaller things they’ve improved upon are nice to see too, such as the accessibility options (auto-accelerate, etc) being easier to find. Like pretty much everyone has said though, there must surely be a way, either at launch or via an update, to make it easier to scroll and select your character & outfit. I’m cautiously excited and can’t wait to play it. It looks great, but as it’s Mario Kart you just want it to be as close to perfect as possible!

I’ve just seen the Zelda trailer on Nintendo’s X account. Did I miss the announcement of Achievements within the Direct? They seem to have added them to the Nintendo mobile app!

He’s finally back, to kick some hell tail! 😁

Wait. What. Silksong? Just like that!??

GameCube! 😁 Guess there’ll be no Wind Waker HD then.

Ok, let’s move on to new games now please…

Just one? So I can’t mention The Witcher 4 being announced as coming to Switch 2, or Microsoft allowing new Conker & Banjo games to come to a Nintendo console, or Mario smacking the snot out of Master Chief in a new Smash Bros game? A Chrono Trigger remake? Or even a collection of old point & click games (Toonstruck, Monkey Island, etc) to show off the mouse? 😃 Fine, a new 3D Zelda game, but showcasing a realistic Zelda as playable & with abilities similar to what we’ve come to expect from Link (so not just focused on magic) & hinting at a raft of recognisable villains from the series.

I’m so confused by the sandwich talk… 😂 Storyteller (Mobile) I found this to be a charming little puzzler that feels a good fit in mobile (the caveat being the need for a Netflix account), but sadly stops just as it starts finding its stride. If you don’t know it, you’re tasked with filling in pages of a storybook by creating short ‘story mountains’ to correctly represent the story given by the brief title of the page. Each page has between 3 and 8 blank panels. You’re given a selection of 2-3 different scenes (e.g., “Wedding”, “Death”, “Cliff”, “Kidnap”) that you can drag into the blank panels and add to them a few characters from a small selection. The order of scenes and characters dictates how they react, and most pages were about figuring out how to create the right motives. For instance, the “Kidnap” scene has a cage and lever, so adding one character by the lever and another in the cage naturally causes one to become the ‘villain’ and raise the cage trapping the other. To rescue them you’d add the same panel again, but include your ‘hero’, who will now lower the cage, causing both characters to also be angry at the ‘villain’. The story may end there if the title just wanted you to show a rescue, but if the page hinted that you needed a story focused on revenge then adding an “Execution” panel would give a darkly different ending! Of course you could skip the rescue and simply add the “Throne” scene to see the ‘villain’ smugly get the crown instead! The stories are mostly familiar tales, with scenarios based on the likes of Snow White, Shakespeare and Adam & Eve. This helped with identifying what I needed to do (the Evil Queen, or “Witch” in this case, was naturally intent on ridding herself of Snow White “Snowy”). It had plenty of chucklesome moments, often seeing characters react to situations even if they weren’t the right answer, and the game rewards you for doing this by having an achievement system for creating those moments, although there’s no other reward other than sniggering at the various predicaments you’ve created. The whole thing is very short, I finished the main game within a couple of hours. Sometimes the solutions weren’t obvious, but I found it easy enough to ‘trial & error’ my way through the limited number of possible combinations. There is some short post-game content, plus finding all the stamps/ achievements took another couple of hours, mainly because the game doesn’t tell you what levels the non-solution scenarios are found in. (Spoiler of an early-game solution) It was a little repetitive by its nature, but each puzzle being so short meant I could spend a few minutes here and there at a time, and I enjoyed the whole concept. It’s just a shame that there are only a few puzzles more than 6 panels long and it abruptly stops just as it gets more challenging. I hope that they expand on it in future, as I was rather charmed by it. Here’s my 70 seconds-long video review: https://youtu.be/3fnqBEKeC5Q?si=_uTFY-SHZy7EwKF2

This last Direct saw Nintendo announcing they were showing their final game, lots of people ogling the screen, fingers crossed for one of the Zelda HD remakes… and Nintendo in true trolling fashion: Here’s your Wind Waker… Thanks Nintendo. 🤨

It remember it being ok to play. The fairly zoomed in view did make it a little trickier to get an idea of the surrounding areas and less time to react to wherever enemies were. It used the GameBoy Rumble and was one level in particular, I think it was on a boat, where it would rumble every few seconds to indicate… something. It wasn’t until I turned off the rumble that I realised how it added and that I missed it! With those Rare console games appearing on NSO, I do hope we one day see Perfect Dark, Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge and Conker’s Pocket Tales?

Similar situation for me me too. I’ve been finally selling off my old games and systems over the past few years as while I’d love the time to play them again, I’d been saying that for years and realistically it’s never going to happen on their original format. Plus now with modern TVs not having the SCART ports I’m loathe to put in the extra effort to buy additional adapters just so I can maybe one day play them. I’m now up to my N64 games to part with, which probably hold the most nostalgia for me, being the first system I bought myself. With so many modern games to get through though know I need to sell these…

Having managed to get my physical copy, I’m playing through it with my wife, as we loved It Takes Two. At a guess we’re over halfway through and for us Hazelight have hit another home run! As the reviews suggest, it’s excellent! The concept of being able to create scenarios based on fictional stories that the characters have come up with really gives the developers flexibility in creating a mixture of gameplay styles, and they’ve really done that. They’ve managed to create a lot of situations where you need to work together and where you’re each having to perform something different, it’s been very clever and full of ideas. So far the gameplay’s been more varied than It Takes Two, but our opinions have each differed on whether we prefer the story and setting of this or the previous game (so far). I’m hoping we’ve got a long way to go still though, as it’s great!

Thanks, I hadn’t realised that! I may have to track that down! 😁

Yep, we’ve followed up Uncharted 1-3 with Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. Gameplay-wise this follows the blueprint of the the previous games (“if it ain’t broke….”) so there was a lot of 3rd person shootouts, more ‘ninja warrior’ style climbing acrobatics, more perilous situations for Nathan Drake to find himself in, and more adrenaline pumping set pieces. The whole game looks fantastic, whether it be crumbling ruins, expensive villas or Arabic market towns. Even if it’s just to essentially to create a pathway to another area looks impressive and in turn makes locations feel more immersive. Naughty Dog put a lot of effort into the detail of each area. Nathan’s brother is a new character, voiced by Troy Baker (Joel from The Last of Us for those unaware), and the banter between the two is strong throughout. The story brings a lot of focus to Drake’s family and his relationships and for me it was a natural fit to the stories established in previous titles and answered some of the previously outstanding questions. There was a little more focus on hand-to-hand combat (more so with your NPC friends alongside you) and the new grappling hook was just an extra option for traversing the terrain. These were the only noticeable new additions for me, along with some driving sections which felt comfortable to control. To be honest I was happy they hadn’t really changed much, and the set pieces were again fantastic! My wife and I both thoroughly enjoyed another Nathan Drake outing, and it stands to how well the gameplay, dialogue and set pieces were, that we played 4 games back-to-back with a similar gameplay loop and didn’t get bored once. It’s a shame Naughty Dog have suggested that they’ve no plans for any more Uncharted games as I expect there’s still a thriving market for them, or at least there is in our household!

Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection (PS4, played on PS5) Finally, the first game off my pledge list! 😁 I’d never played any of the Uncharted games before this so I can’t compare any to their original releases, but ultimately I had a great time with all three games. I’d heard great things about Uncharted 2: Among Thieves over the years, although was slightly concerned over how well it’d hold up. I needn’t have worried, I thought it was tremendous! Each game essentially breaks itself up into action sequences, traversing the linear path usually via climbing and acrobatic leaps, and the occasional puzzle. This fairly simplistic gameplay loop doesn’t change dramatically across the three games, although certainly becomes more refined. However, the narrative, the story, the action sequences and the set pieces certainly do! The majority of action sequences in the first game were combat-based where you’d hide behind walls and take on enemies in shoot-outs, occasionally finding ways to stealthily take down enemies instead. Uncharted 2 ramps this up, so the action sequences were much more thrilling, varied and cinematic. There were still plenty of combat sequences, although this time the areas you fought in were more diverse and gave more tactical options, such as finding higher ground to get a better viewpoint to take on the increased number of enemies. The biggest improvement for me were the volume of memorable set pieces, from the first moment and then plenty of varied ones throughout taking place (on most methods of transport!). They were astounding in their execution and thoroughly entertaining! Uncharted 3 is similar, although with such a high bar to follow, I enjoyed it but didn’t find it quite as memorable as Among Thieves. Graphically it all looked impressive, as Naughty Dog games generally do. I also thought your AI companion was excellent and genuinely helpful in gun battles, especially in Uncharted 3. They tended to be invulnerable, which I was thankful for with some of my errant shooting (especially when grenades were involved!), but they would take out enemies and move to sensible positions and I never noticed them getting stuck or going anywhere they shouldn’t. I played all three games with my wife, taking it in turns, and we both had a blast. The dialogue was funny and I grew to like the characters and their relationships with each other. I only a had a few minor gripes. There were hidden treasures throughout, but unlike games like the newer Tomb Raiders which indicate how many are in each area and offer rewards for finding them, there was no such assistance here, and the rewards didn’t affect gameplay anyway, so I wasn’t fussed about them. There were a few difficulty spikes along the way too, which made me grateful for the quick loading checkpoints. Ultimately though, I thoroughly enjoyed this, and we’re going through Uncharted 4 now as a result (and as I also got it free via the PSPlus monthly games!).