WackerJr

Here we go... *Please not Dixie Kong, please not Dixie Kong, please not Dixie Kong...* 😃

The crazy thing is they are appear to be realistic prospects too!

Yeah it’s very much just a basic freebie of a game. Our 3 year-old enjoys it though, although I don’t like that she always wants to do it in 2-player with me & likes going all the way up to 1000! 🙈

While he wouldn’t be my first choice, my money would be on Travis Touchdown. Grasshopper supposedly helped out with Smash Bros Brawl (credit to ‘Did You Know Gaming’) and surely having one of their characters in Smash would be a suitable thanks. I’m just not sure whether Nintendo would be happy with him in their family title. There are a few I’d love to see, but if not Travis then I expect it’ll be either Crash, a Monster Hunter character or Dixie Kong (now I’m just listing characters, hah!). Either way, I enjoy the anticipation of a new character reveal! 😃

I’m sorry to hear that and hope that taking a break does bring back some of your motivation & enthusiasm. I think the three of you do a great job continuing to have done the podcast on a weekly basis, and you do all work well together. The video game industry can be so hit-or-miss with weekly news & information (even more so during the pandemic) that it can’t be easy to fill that 1-2 hours of talk, yet you’ve all continually managed it. Take a break and hopefully you’ll be wanting to return to it soon.

Sad to say getting out due to the scandals is the first thing which sprang to mind, which is a shame because I should have been thinking what a great thing he’s doing in helping the world’s wildlife. I agree with @Ganepark32’s memories of him. That reannouncement of BG&E2 was touching, and I do have a fondness for many of those games he’s been involved with. There aren’t a huge number of people within the video game industry who get a lot of individual acclaim and he is one of them. I will miss his input into the industry I enjoy. Good luck to him!

The positive comments here are being echoed by the reviews I’ve read. I can’t really justify getting it right now with my backlog, but I’m incredibly tempted!

After the last one and the intention of Nintendo for these 3rd party mini-Directs I’m keeping expectation to a minimum in the hope that it will be a pleasant surprise. Besides new indie games I’m really not sure what to expect. I guess if any larger games are to be revealed I’d be looking at Doom and Monster Honster. Apart from that I’m expecting EA to show their FIFA 21 game (a game using the Fifa 20 engine, which itself was just FIFA 19...) and some more Harvest Moon footage. My wildcard guess is for some more No More Heroes footage, but with more tomfoolery from Suda51!

Great idea to get the community involved for your 50th episode, as surely listeners will have memories of Mario in some shape or form. Looking forward to listening once I return from holiday and will give the Mario memories some thought as it’ll be enjoyable to get involved.

Great topic and I agree with the suggestions made so far. Another one I’d like to raise is blind leaps of faith (especially in 2D games). I understand that with a limited viewing space, there will be times where you can’t see where to go next / the platform you next need to reach. In these instances you’re often given a choice to either drop carefully off the edge & hope there’s a lower platform, or to leap off as far as possible. When done right and you leap off and land can be exhilarating & feel like you’ve pulled off a great feat. All too often I’ve experienced games where the next platform requires a precise leap that’s some way in the distance but if you leapt as far as possible you’d overshoot (& often die). Games like the Mario platformers deal with this in clever ways, such as putting coins to indicate where to go. These indicators without explicitly telling the player is good & feels fair. Unfair is where there are no markers & you just have to memorise how far to jump following the inevitable loss of life. I haven’t found any good gifs to display my point, although if you’ve ever played the awful Tazmania games, or Sonic 2 in Game Gear you’ll no doubt have a lasting impression of how infuriating & unfair these can be.

What a cool surprise. I absolutely don’t need it & have played those games in handheld form on 3DS and GameBoy (unlike @Julius), but from a collectors standpoint it’s leaping out at me!

I love the concept and if it works correctly (like the video) then I’m sure there will be some hugely creative ideas by people. The fact that the Switch is portable surely gives the opportunity to make larger courses too as players can remain close enough to the cars? I’m just speculating though. I doubt it’ll work well on carpet so sadly I can’t see many areas of my house I could use it, but from a purely conceptual viewpoint it’s fantastic! Let’s just hope it works as advertised and that price point isn’t too outrageous....

Another enjoyable listen this week. I’m a little sad that the under-appreciated genres discussion sounds like it’s stopping as, especially the board games previously, allowed me to learn more about games I may not have considered. CrossCode is now on my radar following the praise you heaped on it. I didn’t know anything about it before. ”The water effects are not that bad” 😂 It doesn’t bode well when that’s the most positive comment about a game! I don’t think ‘Ships’ will be putting that quote on any of the advertising for it. Or maybe they will if @Londragon ends up being the only person to review it! Nice one on last week’s transition tunes. You ‘beat’ the wider audience and I certainly didn’t know it (as my wildly inaccurate guess showed!!)

• Mike • 38. • Currently live in Hampshire, UK. • Did a Maths degree followed by Sports Masters at Uni. Told I was the first person to do this combination at that Uni because, well, who would!? 😁 • My main hobbies are video games & sport. • Exeter City fan. We’ve been so close to getting out of League 2 in recent years! • I’ve been gaming since the 8-bit era. • Analyst by day, sports coach by night. Mainly coach Trampolining, and I’m fortunate enough to be coach to current English Champ.

Yeh, I agree it’s very much a case of ‘this is what the new console is capable of’. With the reputation of the Ratchett & Clank series I do feel more reassured that it’s more than merely a tech demo. For me so far it’s the only game that’s really justified the next gen for me.

Nice way of plugging that next podcast! 😎

I agree about the confusion. I’m excited by the premise, and the mystery surrounding the death(?) of Batman. I’m someone who knows next to nothing about the ‘Court of Owls’ @Julius mentioned, but it sounds as though the game will reveal more about them for people like me throughout the course of the game, judging by this interview.

No, I really don’t have any idea. Even though the podcast has probably been recorded I’ll take a random guess:

While a real surprise for Nintendo to drop the Mini Direct with no notice, it was probably a sensible idea to avoid any hype and frenzy. It’s tough as none of the games shown appeal to me, bar the SaGa collection (I’ve only played the first one). Had these been revealed as part of a main Direct then they would have gotten next to no attention from the wider audience I’d imagine, yet Nintendo want the indie support and this is one way to at least reward those smaller developers who have made games for the Switch (& indeed are saving us during these long waits between big releases). So for me, I think it’s a good idea that these partner Directs happen, it’s just a shame so few of these games grab my attention.

I think it’s a tough decision for Nintendo with the d-pad, since buttons are really the only option when removing the joy-cons to use them each as individual controllers. Instant 2-player without paying extra is a real selling point in my opinion. I tend to use my Pro Controller as much as possible since the diminutive size and closely placed buttons on the joy-cons are really not my favourite. There are almost too many things I’d like to see fixed if they upgraded the Switch. Already I’m frustrated that newer Switch users are benefitting from a better console than me (read: battery life) when we’re supposed to have the same console, and It will take a huge amount to convince me to pay to upgrade unless, for example, there are games that cannot be played on the original model, like the 3DS to New 3DS.

For those that aren’t aware, the majority of Legend of Zelda amiibo are available to pre-order again from the Nintendo Store.

Well since we are simply seeing all these other ports on Switch this would be pretty cool! Suddenly you’d have virtually the full Final Fantasy mainstream games on a Nintendo console! Then we could get Square to add local multiplayer to Crystal Chronicles too! 😃🤞

The development of Metroid Prime 4 sounds like such a struggle with so many difficulties to the general public. While I am a little concerned, I’m assuming the ‘duck’ approach where we’re getting an impression of the frantic unwieldy paddling going on under the surface, but when we finally see the game, it was be beautiful and graceful, ala the duck above water. 😄 This seems reminiscent of the first Metroid Prime and all the development difficulties that faced.

Ah that makes a lot of sense. Good to know they do at least have their priorities straight over with you in The Netherlands & you rightly didn’t have to pay. I’m still waiting, but with that reasoning I’m fully expecting to be charged the full postage then...! 🙁 (I’m not going to criticise our Royal Mail though, as to be fair I think they’ve done a good job throughout this whole pandemic & it’s not their fault that I, and many others, failed to read the fine fine print from those Kickstarter t&c’s).

Awesome, thanks for this. I’ll definitely be giving it a listen as I love Rare games & think they’ve had some fantastic arrangements (David Wise, Grant Kirkhope, Robin Beanland we’re brilliant!).