Game in Hand

Here are some thoughts and sentiments after half a year with my switch 2. While I have at least enjoyed my time playing both new and old games, part of me wonders if we are seeing a bit of Nintendo slip-up in these 1st party titles developed through COVID. Whether it's dividings teams too thinly or following modern AAA garbage practices, I feel like Nintendo turned a new page on monetization. Before we received more out of the DLSS capable, VRR capable, handheld system.

What starts as just bunch of jerks becomes you and your lovable bunch of jerks. Just remember, your choices matter to a bunch of reject villains who are coming together as a team to take on the true evil of the world; unemployment and the rising cost of rent and food. Great looking game from start to finish and well worth the wait ever since playing the demo at nextfest in the spring/summer.

I kept my expectations realistic because like most pokemon games, the thrill is in recapturing the same 60 pokemon from the generation pool and evolving them until you've seen just enough pokemon to know it's not worth it to catch them all. At its fundamentals, the battle system was a good pivot from turn based combat. But the failure comes in polish and finish. It is quite unexcusable this is our intro to pokemon on the switch 2 and really I can only think we got a switch 1 game that was easily dialed up for a bump in vram, ram, and gpu performance. 30 FPS is quite suitable for how bad the animations are in this game and I can only wonder sometimes what they spend their development budgets on. I am not even entertaining the thought of the mystery dungeon DLC, and I think I am ready to move on from buying a pokemon game until a true 10/10 title shows up. Won't hold my breath though...

From over the moon feelings about Silksong, to realizing my half decade of having game pass is soon to end as I enter my final year of game pass ultimate. Soon this podcast is going to be called Dollars and (Common)Sense. The most insane thing to suggest is to continually buy switch 1 version of switch 2 games, using vouchers and discounted egift cards, until Nintendo 1st party titles start earning that MSRP. Can't really say I don't feel these games feel worth more than the 35% off price tag.

As an EA Insider who has played this game for what I can now confirm is over ~2 years now, I still think there is much to love about this game. Rooftop and current unpatched insane physics are going to make meme worthy videos but there isn't a lot inherently going for downtown island city for anyone looking for the keystones of original skate 1,2, or 3 in this game. For better or for worse, it's a free to play game, free to be notified of cosmetics every step of the way, free to have multiplayer first mechanics be melded into what was primarily a single player game. It's hard to be too pessimistic as Full Circle have a solid foundation and understanding of the mechanics, but I think they need to either grow in scope or give players the tools to instill old Skate into new Skate.

As someone who LOVES Donkey Kong, treated to a Mario Odyssey inspired Donkey Kong, how can I feel/be more positive?

To say Silksong's 2 week heads up followed by path of exile 2's 4th act announcement was schedule disrupting would be an understatement. Definitely a whole bunch of cool games announced and some mid to less cool game DLC and updates announced. Overall I don't think we'll hit a lull of games to play any time soon.

Enjoying a nice slow summer with only Donkey Kong Bananza on the go. The BF6 open beta was a nice surprise. Hopefully when it comes out in the fall it lives up to the beta expectations.

THPS3 was as good as I remember. THPS4 was an improvement. THPS4 was culled for being poorly written and voice acted Definitely my hot take, the original THPS4 was a turn in the wrong direction for the series. That said, I just wish some of those stages like Hawaii and London didn't feel like they amputated half the content.