Dcubed

Finally @Julius gets to play the superior Spiderman 2

Thank God they’re doing both at once, or else the wait would be tortuous to carry on with the story. Will be interesting to see how they handle the save transfer feature. Because with how the link cable support is currently set up? There will be no way to actually make use of the save data transfer feature without having to resort to passwords…

Yeah, I'm very impressed with what I've seen from the demo. Level design looks real solid, movement tech is ridiculous, the enemy patterns are also very impressive with lots of variety and lots of unexpected environmental interactivity; and most importantly? It passes the Chris Seavor test! Looks to be a proper quality title

HOLY SHIT!!! IT FINALLY HAPPENED!! Fucking hell! I’ve been waiting since the bloody Wii Virtual Console to get my hands on the Rocket Knight games! What the hell made Konami suddenly see sense!? Whatever it is, I’m damn well grateful! Bring on the Sparkster!

Come on online Four Swords!

I miss Elimination Battle Mode so much. It’s just never been the same since they changed it over to Points scoring from MK Wii onwards (which also disastrously forced Team Battle only; which sucked green shells). MK64 probably has the best traditional battle mode in the series. Just four karts in an arena, infinitely bouncing green shells that never stop until they hit something, bomb buggies, and glorious screen watching. Bliss. I also really like the freeform physics in this game. I just love how the game allows you to jump over stuff and skip huge chunks of the track. Newer games became very restrictive in that regard, with even the slightest veering off of the track causing Lakitu to void you out back on the track as a huge over-correction from MK64. I get why they made this change, but I love being able to knock other players off the ramp in Wario Stadium and making my opponents have to repeat half the entire track again! Bring that back Nintendo!

Really I was thinking in terms of both the public zeitgeist (as you correctly hit on), and in terms of the creative process. The issue of “quality” or how well each medium tells the story is neither here nor there. If Season 3 does indeed end up coming out before TLOU 3 (as the current schedule seems to be veering towards happening), one has to wonder if the story will start being written with the idea of it being made for TV first and then a game secondary. TV is much quicker to make than a modern AAA video game, so if PlayStation/Naughty Dog intend on continuing TLOU as a series? They’re inevitably going to have to deal with what happens when the TV show overtakes the video game series. Will TLOU the TV series become the main product where the game is relegated to becoming supplementary material? Or will the TV series have to start veering away from pure adaptation into going down its own timeline? Or perhaps they’ll have to start looking at spinoff series or perhaps “filler” material? (Much like how anime adaptations of manga make up their own “filler” arcs while they wait for the manga to catch up). Personally? At some point, I think that the TV series will become the main product, and the video game series will just become the supplementary material; with extra story content that helps to fill in blanks left by the TV show. I also think that when Naughty Dog do end up working on a new IP? I think it’ll be a cross media series from the beginning; with the story being written for TV first, and the games being like “event movies” that the TV show leads up to. Seems to be the direction that Sony is heading towards in general, with them trying to create better synergy between their different divisions, and with PlayStation heavily leaning towards turning their various franchises into TV & Film. In fact, I’m surprised that they’ve never really done this before in earnest (Rachet & Clank notwithstanding; they didn’t put nearly enough effort & budget into that experiment). But now with the success of TLOU? (And to a lesser extent Twisted Metal, Uncharted and Gran Turismo). It seems inevitable that this is the road they’re going down next.

I would imagine that the two new worlds would be where they’ve put the e-reader stages though surely? New mechanics being included is interesting though

One for @Cube... https://www.timeextension.com/news/2024/01/a-sonic-mobile-card-game-from-the-2000s-has-just-been-preserved I told you before...

A surprisingly important part of Star Wars history. This was the first major original SW project since Return of the Jedi was released in theatres 13 years prior and it was originally considered canonical by Lucasfilm (in fact, the Outrider ship actually makes a brief appearence in the Special Edition version of A New Hope!). SOTE was directly responsible for convincing Lucasfilm to ruin revive the Star Wars movie franchise with the Special Edition re-releases of the original Star Wars movie trilogy (which itself lead into the Prequel Trilogy). So without SOTE, we may well have never seen Star Wars return to theatres (whether or not that's a good thing is up for debate though ).

I would think that a Switch 2 announcement would likely happen around start of April, at the beginning of the new financial year; and most likely we'll see the initial announcement come in the form of a generic PR email of sorts (will have only the most basic of details, like how it retains the hybrid form factor but has 4k support etc, but no photos of the device or its controllers yet). This is what Nintendo typically do with new console reveals. Full blowout reveal (including our first look at the physical console itself and its new controllers) won't happen until June, followed by a final showcase in September that shows off the launch titles proper. Release in November 2024. I would think that the next Direct in February will give us our last batch of Switch titles. Most likely just more HD remasters & remakes of GCN/Wii/3DS titles... plus one more original Kirby game (that's when you'll really know that we're coming to the end!)

I mean... a Nintendo Direct in February isn't really a difficult guess when they've consistently been having one every February for the past 6 years

Speaking of Indy... Xbox/Machine Games are in a pretty uncomfortable position with that game, considering that Dial of Destiny ended up being one of the biggest box office flops of all time. Can't imagine that they're feeling good about choosing that property to license at this juncture.

I wonder if Season 3 end up coming out before TLOU 3 at this rate... The TV show has been so successful that I can imagine that it'll end up supplanting the games themselves at some point (much like how GOT supplanted its original source material). An interesting dillema for Sony/Naughty Dog to be sure.

And there it is! https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2024/01/09/xbox-developer-direct-2024/ January 18th!

That’s nuts! And it makes a ton of sense since Clockwork Knight 2 is basically a glorified level pack for the first game (much like Sonic & Knuckles before it). Only SEGA would include an entire other game and hide it behind an obscure cheat code that they never bothered to tell anyone. Typical idiotic 90’s SEGA move

Xbox Direct incoming! If this scenario were ever to pass, that is exactly how I would expect Game Pass to be implemented on Switch 2.

I mentioned this in the Xbox Series thread, but the rumoured list of Xbox games coming to Nintendo seems to be piling up... I wonder if Nintendo/Microsoft might have gone ahead and made a backroom deal... would be an incredible way of kicking off Switch 2 with it being the new home for Xbox Game Studios' biggest hits! HiFi Rush, Sea of Thieves, Killer Instinct, Halo, Forza, Starfield? All available natively running on the console on day 1 when Switch 2 launches this November with Xbox Game Pass support? Wow! Could you even imagine how much the internet would just melt down!?

Rejigger is a nice word, shush! Anyway, the lineup is starting to look pretty stacked already... My brain is howling at the thought that Microsoft could be the biggest publisher at the launch of Switch 2 though Could you imagine Nintendo's next console launching later this year with the likes of Sea of Thieves, Killer Instinct, HiFi Rush, Halo MCC/Infinite, Forza and Starfield all available on day 1? Would be a hell of a launch lineup and a hell of a way of introducing Game Pass on Nintendo platforms!

Who likes a bit of doom & gloom? We all like a bit of doom & gloom! https://www.gamesindustry.biz/ea-sports-fc-24-and-ps5-delivered-december-growth-uk-monthly-charts Sales breakdown courtesy of the Install Base Forums... Christ, that's grim for Xbox... And that's with a massive holiday discount for the Series X to boot... When a £120 discount over the competition barely moves the needle in your second strongest market? You're proper fucked... ... guess we can see why they're looking to port HiFi Rush to Switch/Switch 2 now!

For the truly ancient among us... Out of nowhere comes The Monty Mole Collection! https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/The-Monty-Mole-Collection-2499315.html Thatcher be spinning in her grave!

Kind of ironic that you say that this is more of a home console fighting game than MKT; despite the fact that MKT never actually released in arcades, while KI Gold is actually a port/remake of KI2. The reviews from back in the day were super harsh on KI Gold, and while the game itself isn’t to blame, it does still kind of deserve it because of the marketing surrounding it. The original KI was always hyped up as being made on “Nintendo Ultra 64” hardware and that it was always due to get a perfect home conversion… which of course famously didn’t happen. So it’s not hard to see why people were left disappointed by KI Gold, since it’s a completely different beast compared it its KI2 counterpart. But considering that they were bringing a hard drive powered arcade game to a 12MB N64 cartridge? There was no way that the arcade visuals could be brought over as-is. The decision to recreate the pre-rendered backgrounds with 3D polygons was an inspired one though and really? They did a great job of capturing KI2’s look and feel, especially when running on original hardware on a CRT. But there’s just no getting around the fact that the flashy OTT presentation of KI2 and it’s FMV powered pre-rendered visuals just couldn’t be done justice on a cartridge, and KI Gold does feel rather cheap in comparison to KI2 as a result. Also, I believe this is the first ever fighting game to have a practice mode that shows your inputs and has a training mode that actually teaches you the various special moves available. That would’ve been a huge deal back in the day! I feel that Rare made the best of a bad situation really. But it is a bit annoying to think that if this game came out a little later, they could’ve used a larger cartridge to capture much more of KI2’s original presentation (maybe even being able to keep some of the FMVs intact), but then again, it probably would’ve come out too late to really capitalise on the arcade game’s popularity. Rock and a hard place really.

Oh wow! Had no idea there was an iPhone version! Would love to see an official English version at some point. Very unique game

Nice pickups there @Julius! If you want to legally own Silent Hill and not pay the insane prices on a physical PS1 copy on eBay though? The PSN release is your only option and I wouldn’t dawdle on that, because the old PSN store won’t be up for much longer…

I am indeed available next Friday And yes, this board is the one rare exception where I would prioritise buying Skeleton Keys and buying standard Mushrooms over Reverse Mushrooms. I mean… there are still places to abuse its brokenness (especially around Boo), but it isn’t gonna do you any good if you can’t actually get to the side of the board you want to be on in the first place… that being said… don’t forget that you can use ‘ol Reversie on other people though