WackerJr

I think you guys that do the editing do a fantastic job. I haven’t noticed any audio issues. I tend to listen to it through the Podcasts app on iPhone, although usually through headphones and I adjust the volume at the beginning for anything I listen to regardless. Well done @S.C.G for stepping in last week. I thought you sounded more passionate as it went along, which I thought was good.

Thanks @Happenstance It definitely works better with the crowd, but the remote mini one they held near the beginning of the pandemic worked better than I thought it would. It really does rely on good commentators though.

Previously missed: Moving on to Day 19 - Melee Combat: Batman: Arkham City Everything was just so fluid and the combos so satisfying. You were put in many situations where you had to fend off a mass of thugs, and it didn’t get tiresome for me.

Wow I’m really behind. A quick catch-up:

I was pleased to hear the honesty in the views regarding the joy-con drift issues. I love Nintendo, but to continue to have this issue with a major component of their hardware is shameful. I’m fortunate enough that it hasn’t affected me... yet! Their console & controller builds are usually strong, but I was concerned when my 3DS has issues with the raised design around the bottom screen causes scratches on my top (3D) screen, which seemed a clear design fault that still wasn’t rectified when the ‘New 3DS’ was produced. The Switch issue is a big one and I’m with you that I cannot see how Nintendo are going to win the legal battle over it.

3D Platformer While I think the Super Mario Galaxy games are masterclasses in this category (& I expect to think the same of Odyssey once I play it!), my favourites in the genre are pretty much are of the Rare N64 platformers, who were on top of the game in that era. Special mention to Conker’s Bad Fur Day, but I’m choosing Banjo Kazooie. Like the best platformers, it was a joy to control. The characters memorable, humour I enjoyed, level design fantastic, music consistently excellent, the difficulty level perfect, with so many secrets to find & rewards for going above the basic requirements for beating the game. I was obsessed with finding out more about Stop N Swop and sad that they weren’t able to follow through with their idea. It’s hard to add more to what others have said about this fantastic game so I won’t.... it’s a brilliant 3D platformer!

Day 4 - Favourite Villain / Antagonist GLaDOS (Portal / Portal 2) Luring me into a false sense of security, pretending to help me through all those training areas. I should have guessed your true intentions by the messages scrawled on the wall. They were right, the cake WAS a lie! Forcing me to destroy my favourite companion cube then trying to lure me to the same firey fate, you never truly cared for me. I should hate you, but your hilarious dialogue made that so difficult, and even after supposedly condemning you to your own fate, hearing your voice singing how you were still alive brought a smile to my face. GLaDOS how I hate & love you! 😄

I’m not really going to add to this category, more reinforce the great games already mentioned. I’m so pleased Sensible Soccer was mentioned (thanks @londragon), but for me like many others it has to be an N64 title. I played many hours of Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Mario Kart 64, Smash Bros, F-Zero X and NHL ‘99 with friends. I was always the worst at F-Zero and NHL though so I won’t be choosing them! To be different I’m going to plump for Mario Party 2. This totally took me by surprise, and even more surprising was just enjoyable this was with friends and how often they made this their game of choice for some multiplayer action. Rather than the actual board games though, we usually went with just the minigames. Everyone had their own areas of expertise (button mashing was not one of mine!), and it made for some close contests & some entertaining sessions.

Great thread! Best Opening The first games that sprung to mind were, as previously mentioned, The Last Of Us, and one that will mentioned much in this thread, Goldeneye on the N64. The freedom you initially had, and then finding and using the Sniper Rifle within the first two minutes. The game felt new, felt special, felt like something I’d never played before. It absolutely hooked me in within mere seconds!

Yeh, I saw that and got excited for a fleeting minute when I saw some of those titles. I was quickly deflated as I gradually realised each & every one had already been snaffled!

I can completely empathise with Greg about sending time with your family & little one, and then only really being able to settle down to a game late at night when you’re absolutely exhausted! It certainly does make gaming tricky at times. Wow I thought my backlog was large, but I do feel a bit better knowing it’s nothing compared to the N-E Cafe team and many of the forum users! The digital vs physical discussion was interesting and I like hearing what others currently do. The proportion of digital games has certainly increased over the years. I still enjoy physical copies mind, especially the joy of peel the plastic Nintendo seal off a case! 😃 I do like to sell & buy older second hand games too, so I won’t be sticking to a digital-only solution yet given the choice.

That’s seriously impressive @Glen-i! I’m still attempting to get my first, ha! I’ve managed 9.8 on a couple (Pit & Incineroar spring to mind). Any tips or any character you’d recommend so I can get that challenge ticked off?

I agree. Although with their record profits last year (albeit for one game) I can’t see that happening anytime soon 🙁. I don’t believe Nintendo will be releasing a Switch Pro either anymore. Not with both Microsoft & Sony releasing their latest powerhouses shortly. They could get away with previous handheld revisions due to the lack of competition.

I’ve seen the list of games on the various Mega Drive mini-esque consoles & it wouldn’t surprise me if this was the method they used! The GameBoy segment was a really enjoyable listen, and the game element was a neat touch over just simply discussing great handheld games. I personally didn’t disagree with many of the games and forgot that there were so many worthy contenders. Great to see some love for some of the games I didn’t know if they’d be included (Pokemon TCG for instance). Here’s the obligatory ‘what about this game’ opinion... shame there was no love for Stranded Kids, one of my favourites, and one I managed to get a mini-review into N64 / NGamer magazine with 😃. Good choices from everyone & another enjoyable listen, thanks.

These days, knowing the gaming community, managing expectations is pretty important. But yeah, very funny how matter of factly it was stated lol I still expect, like myself, that many were wondering if they would still announce the next fighter at the same time, so I’m glad they’ve set expectations now. To be fair, it makes sense on their part not to dilute interest & draw attention away from the new Arms character(s) when it’s already fairly niche among the wider gaming audience.

Yes! I’m excited by this, even if one of my overriding thoughts is “it’s about time!” So it’s early in development and it’ll be interesting to see if they can flesh it out more than the original, which was fun but a fairly short experience.

Agreed. The fact that we had so many of those in common and for the same reasons too! ”And another tip is the ‘No Clipping’ code...” Whhhhaattt!!!! 😂😂😂 I can’t believe I didn’t realise this all those years ago! Invincibility, sure. But knowing that other code would have saved me so much nor time... well, now I feel even more of a tool! Haha!

Like so many Sega spin-offs, what appears to be such a neat concept is completely messed up in execution. Potentially too small, too expensive, choice of games could’ve been better, and while I’ve read other sites praising the improvement in battery life compared to the original it’s still pretty poor. All of these criticisms aside, the idea is so ridiculous and niche that I’m interested in knowing more! I used to own a Master System & I still enjoy the first Sonic game. I don’t know how well Gunstar Heroes translated to the smaller screen. Beyond these I don’t have much excitement for the rest of the line-up.

• 6744-3219-6987 • Mike • No • None at the mo, but stay tuned for the future!

A quite thrilling achievement. Reading up, the ability for private companies such as SpaceX to fund flights such as this provide more opportunity for NASA to fund other projects too. Hopefully the docking will go well too, and so relieved that everything else up to now has gone well.

So a couple of games I’ve completed recently, both on 3DS: Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate While I enjoyed the voice acting & the comic book-style cutscenes, I felt the controls were just not responsive enough. This real spoiled the combat, which borrowed heavily from the console games where it was one of the more enjoyable parts. Sadly not so here & ultimately this was just a forgettable Metroidvania game. Metroid II Better than I was lead to believe. Thank goodness for save states as the save points in the game are far apart. Very much a mini-Metroid & all the games in the series after this just did everything so much better. The lack of one reminded me just how much I value in-game maps! Glad I finally played it & beat it, but won’t be going back.

Only a couple of weeks. I’m impressed it wasn’t affected and delayed longer to be honest.

Another enjoyable listen this week. I really enjoyed the N64 quiz and the level of questions (I got around 75% right, mainly thanks to being a reader of N64 Magazine back in the day). Glad to hear someone else couldn’t get into Okami. Admittedly I haven’t tried the HD version, but I tried a couple of times with the Wii version thinking, as a Zelda fan, that I would love it, but after a couple of hours found I just wasn’t enjoying it as much as I thought so put it down. I don’t know the transition tune, but worth guessing anyway as it doesn’t appear to have guessed yet:

Gaming sins? Great question! I guess they could come in all guises so here’s a couple. Maybe not really juicy enough but hope they help anyway: Skipping lessons to get a copy of Ocarina of Time on launch day. I used to be a big fan of getting games on launch day, but to this day remains the only game where a friend & I both got the game & missed school lessons to get it from town before heading home to play it. What a game though, and that decision didn’t cost me an exam grade or a place at Uni, so was definitely an afternoon well spent! I owned an Action Replay (remember those!) for the N64. I much prefer working hard in a game to get the reward, but earning that Invincibility cheat in Goldeneye was just a bridge too far for me. I resorted to using the Action Replay to make myself invulnerable for the level (no the irony isn’t lost on me!). Even then I spent hours failing to complete the blasted level in under 2mins to earn the in-game cheat. Finally I managed to achieve what I feared may be impossible for me. While I had just a twinge of guilt from my actions, karma occurred when the full set of push-button codes were released making all those hours kind of pointless! I virtually completed Majora’s Mask before discovering that I could slow down time! I guess it made one boss battle especially exciting as time ticked down to the last couple of seconds, although the number of times I had to repeat activities because I just didn’t have the time to complete things before the 3 days reset...

Just awful news. I don’t know much about swimming in the ocean although it sounds as though they were a long way off shore. Listening to some of the current and former wrestlers talk about him and he really sounded like a good guy. Really tragic.